Description

According to legend, San Lorenzo in Panisperna is located on the spot where the martyr St. Lawrence of Rome was grilled to death. It was likely constructed at the beginning of the fourth century Constantine’s reign, although records of the church are scanty. The presence of San Lorenzo’s relics made the church a successful pilgrimage destination. At the end of the tenth century, a Benedictine monastery was apparently built alongside the church, in order to protect nearby Santa Maria Maggiore from the encroaching disabitato. The peasants and dependents of a monastery could help populate the area.

In the late 13th century, Cardinal Giacamo Colonna renovated the monastery and ceded it to the Poor Clares. Some scholars argue that San Lorenzo was intended to be a family church like San Silvestro in Capite, a place where Colonna family wealth could be displayed while looking pious rather than greedy. Others argue, however, that this interpretation minimizes some of the unique circumstances of the convent’s founding.

Giacomo Colonna handpicked all of the nuns for the convent and gave them a degree of freedom from the papacy with carefully timed gifts of land. That, coupled with Giancomo’s links to so-called “deviant” Franciscan groups who were slightly outside the religious norm, indicates that San Lorenzo in Panisperna may have been a sort of haven for female Franciscans who may have experienced conflict with religious authority rather than a family church.  His sister, the Colonna Saint Margherita who had died several years prior, is an example of one of these women. Further strengthening this interpretation is the conflict that Giancomo experienced with Pope Boniface the VIII, indicating a potential wariness towards the papacy and a desire to create spaces outside of its direct control. The church was also a comfortable “society convent”-- a home for unmarried, well-to-do Roman women. Saint Bridget of Sweden, who is strongly associated with the church, exemplifies its residents in many ways, as does Margherita Colonna. Born to a wealthy noble family, Saint Bridget joined the Third Order of the Franciscans and made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1250 to combat what she viewed as the Church’s moral decay. She was motivated to do so by what she believed to be divine revelations. Her efforts to end corruption won her the admiration of Romans, and she continued to live at San Lorenzo for the remaining 23 years of her life.

The church retained significance within the urban space due to its proximity to Santa Maria Maggiore and the city center. In fact, during the sack of Rome in 1527, the Clares at San Cosimato in Trastevere crossed the Tiber to take shelter in the more centrally located church.

Much of the medieval art and architecture of the church has been covered up by a Baroque restoration in 1589, and the sprawling Ministero del Interno complex was built on the monastery grounds following Italian unification. The dwelling along Via Cesare Balbo, however, dates to the medieval period.

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Coverage

Source

Graham, Emily E. “Memorializing Identity: The Foundation and Reform of San Lorenzo in Panisperna.” Franciscan Studies 75 (2017): 467-495. https://muse.jhu.edu/

Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Hart, Vaughan and Peter Hicks. Palladio’s Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Lowe, Kate. "Franciscan and Papal Patronage at the Clarissan Convent of San Cosimato in Trastevere, 1440–1560." Papers of the British School at Rome 68 (2000): 217-39.

Majanlahti, Anthony. The Families Who Made Rome. New York: Pimlico, 2006.

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