Albertoni, Ludovica degli, Blessed

ALBERTONI, LUDOVICA degli, blessed. — Born in Rome into the patrician Albertoni family in 1473, 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 maternal grandmother. Married at the age of 20 to Giacomo della Cetera, by whom she had three daughters, she found herself, after her husband’s death (1506), exposed to harassment by relatives over inheritance matters. She witnessed the sack of Rome and devoted herself heroically 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 rendered to her immediately after her death was ratified by Clement X in 1671. — Vedi Tav. LVII.