Frances of Rome

Born at Rome in 1384 into the nobility, she wanted to enter a convent; at thirteen she was married to Lorenzo Ponziani, with whom she would live forty years. Rome was then ravaged by plague, famine and the wars of the Great Schism: she opened her house, sold her jewels, turned a wing of the palace into a hospital, and lost two of her three children. Her sister-in-law Vannozza shared the work with her. In 1425 she gathered women who wished to serve the poor without taking vows or leaving the world: the Oblates of Mary, who would settle at Tor de’ Specchi in 1433. She joined them herself only in 1436, as a widow. She died in 1440. Pius XI gave her in 1925 as patron to motorists, because tradition holds that an angel lit her way on her journeys at night.