St. Frances of Rome

A Roman noblewoman who served the poor of plague-stricken Rome alongside her sister-in-law, turning her family's palace into a hospital. After her husband's death she founded the Oblates of Mary, a community of laywomen living in the world but bound to the gospel counsels. She is honored as one of the great women of late-medieval Rome.

Born in 1384 to a noble family in the Trastevere quarter, Frances longed for religious life but was married at thirteen to Lorenzo de' Ponziani. She found an unexpected ally in her sister-in-law Vannozza, and together they nursed the sick, distributed food, and sold their jewels to feed the hungry during the devastating plague and famine that swept Rome in the early fifteenth century.

For years Frances reported the constant visible presence of a guardian angel at her side — a detail that led to her patronage of automobile drivers, since the angel was said to light her way through dark Roman streets. She died in 1440, shortly after finally joining the community she had founded. She was canonized in 1608, and her body rests in the church of Santa Francesca Romana at the edge of the Roman Forum.