The historian Kate Lowe explains that the convent at San Cosimato has a unique history of artistic patronage during the 15th and 16th centuries. During this period, the sisters at the convent seemed to behave less like active buyers and commissioners…

In the 1230’s, just 25 years after the foundation of the Franciscan orders, the convent of San Cosimato was formed when Pope Gregory IX gave a male Benedictine house to the Clares. The convent was one of three female Franciscan convents in Rome. The…

Santa Maria in Aracoeli, or “Saint Mary in the Altar of the Sky,” is an incredibly important church that remains a major cultural, civic, and religious monument to this day. Situated on the Campidoglio, the governmental center of 13th and 14th…

San Silvestro in Capite is a church with a rich legacy in Rome before it became the home of the Franciscans and the object of Colona patronage. A Dominican convent in the 13th century, it served as the base for rent collection for the church’s…

According to legend, San Lorenzo in Panisperna is located on the spot at which the martyr St. Lawrence of Rome was grilled to death and after became a moderately successful pilgrimage church due to the presence of his relics. Much of the medieval art…

San Francesco a Ripa, consecrated in 1601, succeeded San Biagio, which although no longer visible, is important to early Franciscan history in Rome. Founded in the 10th century by the Benedictines, Biagio functioned as a hospital and hospice for the…

Founded in the 10th century as a Benedictine monastery, the convent of San Cosimato came into the possession of the Franciscans in 1234, when Pope Gregory IV ordered the Benedictines to give the space to the Clares, an order of Franciscan nuns. San…

According to legend, San Lorenzo in Panisperna is located on the spot at which martyr St. Lawrence of Rome was grilled to death. It was constructed (by one account) at the beginning of the fourth century during the reign of Constantine. San Lorenzo’s…

Much of the land contained within the Roman city walls remained uninhabited with little activity beyond farming for hundreds of years. Because of the dense concentration of people near the Tiber during the Middle Ages, new religious centers were…

Near the Piazza S. Cosimato, a medieval portico juts out from the sides of a nondescript building. The portico leads to the outdoor atrium of the church of San Cosimato, a part of the former Monastery of S. Cosimato. San Cosimato began as a…