The story behind the Mother Cabrini statue unveiled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a ceremony in Battery Park on Oct. 12 is one of perseverance and artistic vision. The sculptors, Giancarlo Biagi and his adopted daughter Jill Burkee-Biagi, gave The Tablet an inside view of their process from concept to completion.

The bronze statue, depicting a young Mother Cabrini in a small boat with two children, stands in a cove in Battery Park across New York Harbor from the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Mother Cabrini (1850-1917), who hailed from Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, Italy, and came to the U.S. in 1889. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1946 and four years later she was named the Patron Saint of Immigrants.