fresco

This is part of a series of 27 frescoes lining the fifteenth-century Cappella Vecchia (Old Chapel) of the Tor de'Specchi (Tower of Mirrors) convent that depict the life, miracles and visions of Santa Francesca Romana. Nicknamed Ceccolella, Santa Francesca Romana (Francesca Bussa de' Ponziani, 1384-1440) founded this Benedictine Order of oblates while a wife and mother of six children. She was the daughter of Paul and Jacobella Bussa and married Roman nobleman Lorenzo de Ponziani at the age of thirteen. She established the convent in 1425 in an old house called the Tor de'Specchi at the foot of the Capitol. The Order was formally founded in 1433 under the guidance of the Olivetan monks of Santa Maria Nova (later called Santa Francesca Romana). Santa Francesca Romana entered the house herself in 1436 after her husband died and lived there until she died in 1440. She was canonized in 1608.

The Tor de' Specchi is in the ruins of the Temple of Amor and Roma, between the Basilica of Maxentius and the Arch of Titus in the Forum Romanum, Rome, Italy.