According to the Vatican document published on the occasion of Venerini's canonization in 2006, "Wherever a new school sprang up, in a short time a moral improvement could be noted in the youth".

At the age of 20, in the fall of 1676, on the advice of her father and after the death of her fiancé, she entered the Dominican Monastery of St. Catherine, where her aunt, Anna Cecilia, was also a nun and where she learned meditation and silent prayer.

She learned that "the woman of the common people was a slave of cultural, moral and spiritual poverty",[1] and began to see that her calling was the Christian formation and education of young women.

[2] On August 30, 1685, with the guidance of her spiritual director and approval of her bishop, and with the assistance of her friends Gerolama Coluzzelli and Porzia Bacci, Venerini left her father's home and founded her first school in Viterbo for poor girls and young women, the first public school for girls in Italy.

[6] Eventually, the clergy recognized that Venerini's school had a positive impact on the community and her fame spread outside of Viterbo.

[1][2][5] According to the Vatican document published on the occasion of Venerini's canonization, "Wherever a new school sprang up, in a short time a moral improvement could be noted in the youth".

Pope Clement XI, accompanied by eight cardinals, visited the Roman school and observed their classes and instruction, on October 24, 1716, and approved their work.

As the Vatican states, "She knew that the proclamation of the Good News could be received if people were first liberated from the darkness of ignorance and error.

Moreover, she intuited that professional training could give woman a human promotion and affirmation in society...Rosa, without pretense and well before its time in history, offered to the Church the model of the Apostolic Religious Community".