FRANCES OF ROME, Saint. - Born in Rome in 1384 to the noble Paolo Bussa de' Buxis de' Leoni and to Iacobella de' Roffredeschi, Ceccolella (Franceschella) was baptized and confirmed in the church of St. Agnes at the stadium of Domitian (Circus Agonalis). Very young, she was given in marriage to Lorenzo dei Ponziani, in the Trastevere district. She spent her adolescence in the house of the Bussa, in Patione, in the company of her father, her mother, a sister, Perna, and a brother, Simeoccio. The neighborhood, once the intellectual center of Rome, flourished through the art of the manuscript, a profitable industry, because in Rome the medieval fame of an inexhaustible mine of codices still lived on. In Ceccolella there remained alive the memory and affection for small manuscripts of the canonical hours, or with hagiographic content, with the legends of the desert anchorites, or for small-format codices of Dante's Comedy. The reflection of these readings is perceived in the songs that blossomed on her lips when she was rapt in ecstasy. As a wife and mother, in the rich house of the Ponziani, she was soon known throughout the whole district of Trastevere, for the noble dwelling was located near the church of St. Cecilia; but then from Trastevere the fame of her charity spread also to the neighboring districts. The circumstances of the Ponziani family were among the most flourishing. The husband's assets were valued at over ten thousand ducats; extensive and distinguished was the kindred: the Astalli, the Santacroce, the Orsini, the Altieri, the Clarelli. Thus wealthy ladies formed part of the customary life of F., who, among them all, preferred for spiritual affinity her sister-in-law Vannozza Santacroce. F. always dressed modestly, reserving for the poor the expenses of her clothing. She had three children by her husband: Evangelista, Agnese, Battista. The first two having died in tender age, only Battista remained, who was married to the noble Mabilia dei Papasurri.
The civil upheavals, the social and moral evils that made the last times of the great Western schism harsher, overwhelmed also the rich family of the Ponziani. Lorenzo, who took part with Paolo Orsini in the defense of John XXIII against Ladislaus of Naples, was riddled with wounds and remained disabled as long as he lived. His brother Palazzo was exiled; his son Battista was held as a hostage on the Capitoline, then returned by the count of Troia, Peretto de' Andreis, lieutenant of Ladislaus; the house was sacked in reprisal and the property confiscated. In the city famine and plague raged. The trials that the ecclesiastical authority promoted immediately after the death of F., in order to gather reliable testimonies about her life, published by the late p. Placido Lugano, throw a noonday light on the customs and moral conditions of the Roman people in this unfortunate period of its history. During the cruelest famine, F. had distributed to the poor all the grain of her granaries and all the wine of the rich cellar of the Ponziani family. To the sick she was generous with care, in the hospices and hospitals of St. Cecilia, of St. Spiritus in Sassia, of the Camposanto near St. Peter's, and, above all, of the hospital next to the house of the Ponziani, called St. Mary in Cappella. It had arisen through the liberality of the Ponziani family, with the recognition of Boniface IX. The Ponziani endowed the hospital with beds and with whatever is needed for such institutions; the Pope united to it the church of St. Mary in Cappella, then incorporated church and hospice into the other of St. Mary de Ponte, granting the right of patronage over it to the members of the Ponziani family. This was the training ground of the charitable activity of F., who for thirty-five years here exercised works of assistance to poor old people, the sick or the homeless, supplying everything necessary, even preparing the food, and maintaining a priest for their spiritual assistance. In addition to this she had summoned to the hospital four of the most famous physicians of the city. F., without presuming in matters of medicine, treated them herself, applying ointments and poultices. In her hands the simplest remedies and the sign of the Cross sometimes restored health and soothed every spasm. For these charitable works the name of F. ran praised and blessed in all the cities of Italy, so much so that learned religious of the time extolled and magnified her life, such as St. Bernardine, St. John of Capistrano, and fra' Modesto of the hermits of St. Augustine. On 15 Aug. 1425 F. R. had instituted in St. Mary Nuova a company of continent women, as oblates of the monastery of Monte Oliveto. The institution had been aggregated to the Order of the monks of the same name of abbot Girolamo da Perugia, who had entrusted to the Roman monk Ippolito di Paolo di Nuccio the task of receiving the act of oblation on the part of F. and of her first ten companions. They lived in their own families, exercising works of mercy on behalf of the people. After March 1433 they formed a community, gathering in the tower of the Specchi, of the parish of St. Andrew of the Funari, Campitelli district. F. too was with them after the death of her husband (1426), but on 9 March 1440 she passed from this life in her house of the Ponziani in Trastevere. The Roman diarists remember her as venerable and most blessed. Her corpse remained for three days - super terram in ecclesia S. Marie Nove, et numquam fetuit, immo vedoluit;
et quia sanctissime vite fuit, tota civitas honoravit anum
fums.
The continuity of the fame of her holy life, begun during her earthly sojourn, never ceased thereafter. The miracles that occurred through her intercession, before and after death, reached a remarkable number, so much so that in the trials for the cause of canonization the witnesses said that upon hearing the announcement of her death an immense crowd came to render spontaneous and reverent homage to the body, and to venerate its tomb. And that cry of admiration, raised around her body, is not yet extinguished in the mindful and devout memory of the Roman people. She was canonized by Paul V on 29 May 1608. Feast on 9 March. - See plate Cl.