https://cgmr.carleton.edu/files/original/f35972b7da60876296818443c3e9181a.JPG dfdb284c17ec0338209a1ac78f1e42d5 Place A location with a street address or larger region. Examples include building, statue, piazza, fountain, port, neighborhood, paintings, sculptures, frescoes, floors. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saint Francis and the Church of San Francesco a Ripa Description An account of the resource The Church of San Francesco a Ripa (or Ripa Grande) represents the oldest and perhaps the most significant Franciscan site in Rome. After Pope Gregory IX handed control of the old San Biagio Hospice over to the Franciscan order, they immediately restructured and expanded the small church. By the mid-medieval period, Trastevere had been experiencing generally increasing population sizes, and because of its location near the Tiber River port, Biagio/a Ripa became a popular place for the nobility to seek burial. This connection to a variety of noble families helped bring additional prestige to the church and further cemented it as a hub of Franciscan activity in Rome. The Franciscan brothers renamed the church San Francesco a Ripa, and the hospice became a convent. While the Franciscan tradition claims that Francis’s close friend Fra Jacopa funded the renovation, recent studies indicate that the benefactor might have been the Anguillara family. This church used to be decorated with frescos depicting Saint Francis’s life by Pietro Cavallini (who also did the Last Judgement in Santa Cecilia, and Mary’s cycle in Santa Maria in Trastevere). This cycle probably served as a prototype for the frescos in the Upper Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi. Additionally, the church is home to the statue of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), which resides in a left side chapel. The current church was built in the 17th century. Many of the medieval elements are no longer visible, but the room where Saint Francis slept still exists, and so does the stone on which he lay his head. Against the wall where Francis’s bed used to be, there is a Baroque machine in which a number of Francis’s later relics revolve, with a 13th-century portrait of Saint Francis attributed to Margaritone d’Arezzo in the center. The room can be visited by request. Visitors go into the sacristy and enter a narrow corridor to their right. Before taking the stairs up to reach the room, visitors can see two relics of Saint Francis displayed in the glass window on their right-hand side. The presence of Saint Francis in Rome into the 13th century could be maintained because San Francesco a Ripa was considered geographically marginal. In the 1250s, the Franciscan brothers settled in the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria Aracoeli on Campidoglio and made it the most important Roman seat of Franciscanism. Faced with the central and prestigious position of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, the modest complex of San Francesco a Ripa and its surrounding premises gradually lost attention. No influential patrons believed that a peripheral church located in an area lacking urban planning and one that was in poor condition deserved any investment. It is precisely because of this geographical marginalization of San Francesco a Ripa that it preserves the Franciscan integrity. Saint Francis and his lifestyle also bear ideological significance when compared to the 13th-century Roman society. The juxtaposition between the begging Franciscans and the cardinals at their luxurious dinners offered a kind of social phenomenon. Robert Brentano argues that Saint Francis’s way of life “both met a taste and threatened the security of his own time; in both these ways it heightened and extended and symbolized existing or already potential tastes and fears and tensions.” In this way, Saint Francis both answered the needs and threatened the fears of 13th-century Rome. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Russell Li (2019), Rebecca Margolis (2021), Shaylin Nguyen (2016) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Brentano, Robert. “The Spiritual Family.” in Rome Before Avignon, a Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. 211 – 260. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1991. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Mondadori, Francesco. “San Francesco a Ripa.” in Trastevere, Guida ai Luoghi Dove Inizio il Cristianesimo a Roma. 57 – 68. Rome: Sant’Egidio, 2015. Robbins, Deborah King. “A Case Study of Medieval Urban Process: Rome’s Trastevere (1250-1450).” Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1989. San Francesco a Ripa Grande: Shrine, Convent and Parish. “Saint Francis and Rome,” “The Monastery of San Francesco a Ripa,” and “Room of St. Francis.” Accessed May 22nd, 2017. http://en.sanfrancescoaripa.com. Udina, Cristina. "Dallo xenodocio benedittino al convento francescano,” pp. 21-88 in La fabbrica del convento. Memorie storiche, trasformazioni erecupero del complesso di San Francesco a Ripa in Trastevere, ed. P. Degni and P. L. Porzio (Rome: Donzelli, 2011). Trans. Victoria Morse, 2, June 2019. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stfrancisripa_2017 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Piazza di S. Francesco d'Assisi, 88, 00153 Roma RM Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1200s Trastevere