ALBERTONI, LUDOVICA DEGLI, BEATA

ALBERTONI, Ludovica degli, Blessed. — Born in Rome in 1473 to the patrician family of the Albertoni, she died on 31 January 1533. She lost her father, Stefano, at the age of two. After her mother, Lucrezia Tebaldi, remarried, her education was entrusted to her paternal aunts and her maternal grandmother. At the age of twenty, she married Giacomo della Cetera, by whom she had three daughters. After her husband’s death in 1566, she was subjected to harassment by relatives over inheritance matters. She witnessed the Sack of Rome and heroically devoted herself to assisting the poor and outcasts of society. Her tomb in the Franciscan church of S. Francesco a Ripa belongs to the final period of Bernini’s activity. The cult paid to her immediately after her death was ratified by Clement X in 1671. — See Pl. LVII.