The congregation of The Missionary Franciscan Nuns of the Order of the Sacred Heart  was founded in Gemona del Friuli by the Parisian Duchess Laura Leroux de Bauffremont, her religious name being Madre M. Giuseppa di Gesù (1832-1917), and by the religious Lesser Franciscan Padre Gregorio Fioravanti (1822-1894) from Grotte di Castro (Viterbo).

The route of the Gemona museum of the Missionary Franciscan Nuns of the Order of the Sacred Heart stretches across sections that underline not only the fundamental stages of the story of the Congregation, but also the daily life of the religious women engaged in bringing the Franciscan message to every part of the world.

The element that characterises the exhibition is the image of the Convent as it was before the earthquake of 1976. It underlines how the dramatic event managed to knock down the building, but not the faith that animates the Nuns, their wish to help fellow human beings, and to make themselves an instrument for peace.

The first hall holds part of the original wooden furnishing that made beautiful many rooms of the old Convent. In the second hall, attention shifts to the first nuns that operated in the Convent. The third hall remembers the successive stages of the apostolic activity: from the experience in Gemona of the Boarding School and School, to that of the American Mission, and the oriental Mission.