San Cosimato
Title
Description
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 San Cosimato. It began as a Benedictine house for men in the 10th century. In 1234, it came into the possession of the Franciscans when Pope Gregory IV ordered the Benedictine monks to hand the complex over to the Clares, an order of Franciscan nuns. San Cosimato became the first of three female Franciscan convents in Rome, and remained an integral part of the growing network of Franciscans in and around Rome for centuries. The existing sources about the convent’s history come from chronicles and records written and kept by the nuns; the most complete chronicle was written by Suor Orsola Formici in the sixteenth century. It is necessary to note that while women carved both religious and intellectual spaces for themselves at Cosimato, male Franciscans still held the power to make decisions on behalf of the women- female subservience was expected.
Cosimato experienced a busy 15th and 16th century. In 1451, a shuffling around of convents of the Clares took place, and Cosimato was re-staffed with nuns from central Italy. In 1439, and again in 1456, papal bulls brought Clarison convents under the auspices of the papacy, which resulted in the Pope and the Franciscan order sharing authority over the Clares. This led to a closer relationship between the convent, and Franciscans as a whole, with the papacy, and demonstrated the growing popularity and power of the Franciscan movement.
A peak of this close relationship with the papacy occurred in 1471, with the patronage of the first Franciscan pope, Pope Sixtus IV. Pope Sixtus invested heavily in San Cosimato, supposedly funding a second cloister and a campanile and financing repairs around 1475. Sixtus’s building projects and the original medieval façade can still be seen today, in the hospice care unit of Nuova Regina Margharita hospital. As a result of the Sixtus’s patronage and the continued popularity of Franciscanism, San Cosimato experienced a population increase from 12 in 1451 to 70 in 1521. Considered models of good behavior, the nuns of Cosimato were often sent to other convents to reform them.
Notably, San Cosimato was broken into and robbed during the 1527 sack of Rome. Though the nuns sought refuge at San Silvestro in Capite, invaluable records were destroyed during the robbery, significantly affecting the number of primary sources now available on the convent’s history.
We can still learn about the church’s medieval history through what is visible today, like the portico. The church façade is from the twelfth century, and can be identified as medieval by its incorporation of multiple arches and the use of long and thin bricks. The columns that support the arch are spoils from Roman antiquity, which was common in medieval structures. Since the 900s the complex has been continuously used and built upon (and around). The former monastery was converted in the 19th century to the Hospital Nuova Regina Margherita.
Creator
Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Source
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. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40311030.
Date
Identifier
Spatial Coverage
Description
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 San Cosimato. It began as a Benedictine house for men in the 10th century. In 1234, it came into the possession of the Franciscans when Pope Gregory IV ordered the Benedictine monks to hand the complex over to the Clares, an order of Franciscan nuns. San Cosimato became the first of three female Franciscan convents in Rome, and remained an integral part of the growing network of Franciscans in and around Rome for centuries. The existing sources about the convent’s history come from chronicles and records written and kept by the nuns; the most complete chronicle was written by Suor Orsola Formici in the sixteenth century. It is necessary to note that while women carved both religious and intellectual spaces for themselves at Cosimato, male Franciscans still held the power to make decisions on behalf of the women- female subservience was expected.
Cosimato experienced a busy 15th and 16th century. In 1451, a shuffling around of convents of the Clares took place, and Cosimato was re-staffed with nuns from central Italy. In 1439, and again in 1456, papal bulls brought Clarison convents under the auspices of the papacy, which resulted in the Pope and the Franciscan order sharing authority over the Clares. This led to a closer relationship between the convent, and Franciscans as a whole, with the papacy, and demonstrated the growing popularity and power of the Franciscan movement.
A peak of this close relationship with the papacy occurred in 1471, with the patronage of the first Franciscan pope, Pope Sixtus IV. Pope Sixtus invested heavily in San Cosimato, supposedly funding a second cloister and a campanile and financing repairs around 1475. Sixtus’s building projects and the original medieval façade can still be seen today, in the hospice care unit of Nuova Regina Margharita hospital. As a result of the Sixtus’s patronage and the continued popularity of Franciscanism, San Cosimato experienced a population increase from 12 in 1451 to 70 in 1521. Considered models of good behavior, the nuns of Cosimato were often sent to other convents to reform them.
Notably, San Cosimato was broken into and robbed during the 1527 sack of Rome. Though the nuns sought refuge at San Silvestro in Capite, invaluable records were destroyed during the robbery, significantly affecting the number of primary sources now available on the convent’s history.
We can still learn about the church’s medieval history through what is visible today, like the portico. The church façade is from the twelfth century, and can be identified as medieval by its incorporation of multiple arches and the use of long and thin bricks. The columns that support the arch are spoils from Roman antiquity, which was common in medieval structures. Since the 900s the complex has been continuously used and built upon (and around). The former monastery was converted in the 19th century to the Hospital Nuova Regina Margherita.
Creator
Rebecca Margolis (2021), Shaylin Nguyen (2016)Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Date
1234Coverage
900sSource
Brentano, Robert. Rome before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth-century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.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. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40311030.