Near the Arch of Titus and overlooking the Forum is the Church of St Francesca Romana, or as it is more frequently called, the Basilica di Sta Maria Nuova. In the confession is a statue of a woman with an attendant angel, and in the crypt, in a glass case, are the remains of that woman dressed w a. religious habit. Every hundred years the casket is taken to an obscure convent under the Capitol Hill in the Tor di Specchi, which is the house of the order of Oblates founded in 1433. Here the sisters remove the old habit, rotten with age, and dress the skeleton of their revered and beloved founder in a new habit, and the body is then returned to its tomb in the church.

Frances was born in one of the palaces on the outskirts of Rome, in the square now named Piazza Navona and not far from the church of St Agnes, in 1384. Her parents were of noble birth and the child was brought up in a pious and prosperous household in the midst of considerable luxury. At a very early age she announced her wish to enter a convent, but her parents insisted that she should marry, in 1396 and at the age of twelve, a rich nobleman, Lorenzo Ponziani.