060608

The church is dedicated to St Francesca Romana, a Benedictine nun, the patron saint of motorists (whose feast day is 9 March) who was sanctified in 1608 because she was dedicated to helping the poor and the sick. The building incorporated the Oratory of Saints Peter and Paul, which Pope Paul I had carved out of the portico of the Temple of Venus in the 8th century.

The church was rebuilt in the 13th century at the behest of Pope Honorius II and was frequently remodelled. The façade, by Carlo Lombardi (1615), is entirely of white travertine and rises in the middle part, with a tympanum crowned by statues, with an order of two pairs of pilasters. It includes a balcony at the top and is connected to the portico that extends below. The tall Romanesque bell tower is adorned with double lancet windows. The interior has a single nave with side chapels and a rich coffered ceiling. In the apse are 12th-century mosaics depicting the Madonna and Child and Saints. In the church is a stone slab with the footprints, it is said, of the knees of St Peter and St Paul. Among the works present are the sculptural group of the ‘Confession’, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, located at the end of the nave, and the painting The Nativity by Carlo Maratta, in the first chapel on the left.

Since 1352, the church has been officiated by the Benedictines of Monteoliveto.
The sacristy, accessed from the left transept, houses the Madonna Glycophilusa (also known as the Madonna of Comfort), a precious 5th-century Marian icon from S. Maria Antiqua found under the one on the high altar during the 1949 restoration.