4 Rome’s Churches Dedicated to Female Saints

WOMEN OF STEADFAST CONVICTION, who struggled, suffered, and triumphed in Rome, were elevated to sainthood and are remembered in churches all over the Eternal City.

Some are honored in tombs, such as Saint Monica, Patron of Mothers, who spent most of her life worrying about her ne’er-do-well son, Augustine. She lived to see him change his ways and is enshrined in the church named after him, Sant’ Agostino.

A quiet Trastevere via opens to a large landscaped courtyard, which fronts this Basilica that was built over the home where Cecilia lived and died. Now the courtyard is a lovely neighborhood playground—where you’re bound to see mammas circling strollers around the central Roman urn and nuns chatting away after mass.

In third-century Rome, Cecilia was known as the girl who heard angelic harmonies—she could play any instrument or sing any song. She secretly swore to be a chaste Christian, but went through with a marriage her parents arranged anyway. On the wedding night, she broke the news to her husband Valerian, telling him the only way he could touch her was to become a Christian, so he ran off to get baptized. When he returned, he found their bridal chamber transformed—full of flowers and his wife Cecilia wearing a crown of lilies and roses. This miracle swept Valerian into the faith. He made it his mission to help the poor and bury Christian martyrs and was beheaded for his belief.

Soon after, Cecilia was also tortured for her faith, forced into a tub of boiling water in her own bath tub. She sang all through the trial and miraculously survived, so a soldier was sent in to behead her. The three slashes of his sword didn’t kill her immediately, but three days later, still singing, Cecilia died.

A marble sculpture of Cecilia in her death pose, with those three slashes on her neck, is set at the church’s central altar. It was sculpted by Stefano Maderno, when her tomb was opened in 1595 and her body discovered in her death pose, miraculously not decomposed after 1,200 years.

Have a seat to admire the ninth-century mosaics above the altar, where Cecilia and husband Valerian are featured on the right of Christ, in regal Byzantine style. Downstairs there’s an excavation, where you can see what’s believed to have been Cecilia’s home, and if you’re lucky, you may get into the nineteenth century glittering Neo-Byzantine mosaic crypt, where Saint Agatha and Saint Agnes are honored along with Cecilia—otherwise take the chance to peek at it through the grating.

The most impressive attraction here is a thirteenth-century fresco of The Universal Judgement by Pietro Cavallini. It’s behind the nun’s choir loft, and the process of seeing it is a mini-adventure. From the outside of the church, you ring a buzzer to the left of the main entrance and are admitted into the Benedictine nun’s convent. When I visited, I was met by the elderly, stooped Sister Cecilia, (she of the wire-rimmed glasses and white hairs sprouting from her chin), who shuffled ahead of me into an elevator, escorted me to the loft, and then sat murmuring Ave Marias over her plastic rosary beads, as I had the joy of experiencing the fresco all to myself.

Cavallini’s masterpiece had been covered by paneling and was rediscovered in the early 1900s. It’s a glorious example of Roman naturalism that broke stiff Middle Ages form, beautifully expressing the profound emotions of Christ and the apostles, flanked by angels, elaborately winged, in shades of gold, rose, and sage. Art historians believe this was a major influence on Giotto, who went on to fresco the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua.

Santa Cecilia in Trastevere: Piazza Santa Cecilia, open daily 9:15-12:45, 4-6, Vespers daily at 7:15

TIP: The Cavallini fresco in Saint Cecilia’s can be viewed weekday mornings, 10-12:30, for 2.50 euro. There’s a gift shop in the convent, where you can buy nun-made fruit jams and lavender sachets.

Don’t let the word “Agone” make you think of “Agony” and keep you away from this glorious Borromini-designed structure that graces the Piazza Navona with its splendid curves and towers. “Agone” comes from the Latin “Campus Agonis,” meaning “the site of competitions,” which is what Piazza Navona was in the Middle Ages, when it was filled with water for boat races.

Soft Baroque music pipes through the ornate, dripping-with-gold church sanctuary. To the right of the altar is a statue of Saint Agnes, set against a pale blue background, with her arms outstretched and flames lapping at her feet. It was sculpted by a pupil of Bernini, and features Agnes in a breathtaking, transcendent moment. 04 st agnes.jpg

Back in A.D. 304, men all over Rome were hot for beautiful thirteen-year-old Agnes, but she turned them away with her sweet smile, saying she was engaged to Jesus. “Let’s strip her naked and have her walk to a whorehouse, that’ll show her!” was the governor’s idea to solve the problem. But miraculously, right where this church was built, Agnes’ golden hair grew down to her knees to cover her up, Lady Godiva style. Totally flummoxed by the cheerful virgin, the governor had her head cut off. A chapel to the left of the altar holds Agnes’s shrunken head, in an ornate silver case.

The church is the perfect place to escape the Piazza Navona hubbub and one of the few left in Rome where you can light real candles.

Saint Agnes in Agone: Piazza Navona, open Monday-Friday 9:30-12:30, 3:30-7, Sunday and Holidays 9-1, 4-8 (www.santagneseinagone.org)

If you get to this jewel-box between four and five in the afternoon, you’ll hear nuns singing vespers in sweet harmonies. They’re Brigittines, the best-dressed sisters in Rome, with long gray habits and tight headpieces accented by a white band and shining red studs. They belong to an order founded in the fourteenth century by Saint Bridget of Sweden, aka The Mystic of the North.

Bridget’s famous visions started coming to her when she was just a girl. She married when she was fourteen and had eight children. When her husband died, Bridget was forty-two, and she decided to follow her childhood visions by founding an order of nuns. The monastery she built became a Swedish literary center (thus her scholarly patron side) because she allowed her holy assistants to have as many books as they wanted.

Bridget came to Rome in 1349 for two reasons. One, she wanted the Pope to approve her order, and two, she’d had a vision that he’d die soon, so she thought she should tell him. She met the Pope, he approved the Brigittines and then (true to Bridget’s prophecy), he died four months later. Bridget stayed in Rome, living near what is now her church, and died there at the age of seventy-one.

Bridget’s convent, around the corner from her church, is now the Casa di Santa Brigida guesthouse, run by her nuns. The downstairs rooms where the saint lived are furnished with dark antiques and elegant draperies, and the rooftop terrace has amazing views.

The roof of Saint Bridget’s church is graced with baroque statues of Bridget and her daughter, Saint Catherine. Inside it’s prettily done up in rust-colored marble and gold moldings, with frescos telling Bridget’s life story. It’s located right on the Michelangelo-designed Piazza Farnese, which features fountains made from tubs taken from the Baths of Caracalla, the harmonious façade of the Palazzo Farnese, and handsome priests passing by on their way to Vatican City.

Golden Day: Get to Saint Bridget’s between 4 and 5 P.M. to hear vespers. Have a caffè or aperitivo at the Caffè Farnese, and a traditional budget Roman dinner at Ai Balestrari (Via dei Balestrari 41, closed Monday), or for something pricier, but always delicious, reserve a table at Roscioli which is also a wine shop, bakery, and deli. (Via dei Giubbonari 21/22, 06 687 5287, closed Sunday, www.salumeriaroscioli.com)

TIP: Casa di Santa Brigida guesthouse is one of the best bargain accommodations in the historic center. Location is tops, rooms are simple but comfy. Reservations must be made far in advance: www.brigidine.org.