Frances of Rome

Who they were

Francesca Bussa de' Ponziani, a noblewoman married to Lorenzo Ponziani, lived in the ruined, poverty-stricken Rome of the early fifteenth century. Mocked by the nobility as a traitor to her rank, she turned her palace in Trastevere into a relief centre where the poorest could always find bread, wine, clothing and a little money, and even begged at church doors on behalf of those too ashamed to ask.

She ran her household faithfully while living a life of prayer and penance; attacks of the devil against her, and many healings and signs, are documented. Widowed in 1436, she withdrew to the house of the Oblates of the Most Holy Virgin she had founded at Tor de' Specchi, and died on 9 March 1440; for three days the people of Rome queued to honour 'the saint of Rome'.

The miracles

Over sixty cases of healing were attested in her canonisation proceedings. One story in the Vatican News account tells that when her father-in-law emptied the family granary to stop her giving to beggars, it was found full of grain again days later.

Why that counted as sanctity

Frances showed that a wife and mother of the nobility could be a saint in her own home: faithful to her family, lavish to the poor, and rooted in prayer.