As part of the ambitious papal expansion and decoration of the Vatican complex during the fifteenth century, Pope Nicholas V (Tommaso Parentucelli, r. 1447–1455) commissioned the beatific monk-painter known as Fra Angelico to decorate his private chapel, the Cappella Niccolina, with a series of vibrant frescoes extolling the virtue of Christian charity. Praised by contemporaries for its extraordinary beauty, the Niccoline cycle is masterwork of pictorial hagiography made up of scenes from the lives of the early Christian martyrs Stephen and Lawrence. In one of the most renowned panels of the series, the Roman Saint Lawrence is depicted at the threshold of the massive portal of St. Peter's Basilica handing gold coins to lame, blind, and hungry supplicants in a demonstration of holy munificence (Plate 1). To reinforce the immediacy of the moment, a contemporary Roman matron known locally as Santa Francesca Romana (Francesca Bussa de’Ponziani, 1384–1440) appears at Lawrence's right side and shares the space of the basilica doorway with him. According to Giorgio Vasari, Fra Angelico painted the figure of Saint Lawrence distributing alms in the guise of his patron, Pope Nicholas, thus conflating the two figures for posterity and giving the Ligurian pope a Roman identity. In her role as a pious witness and contemporary ally of the saint/pope in the recreation of this most charitable act, the pious Francesca gently holds the wrist of a small child and gazes tenderly at her neighbors, who in turn beseech her intervention as they beg for alms.

Francesca Romana's currency as both an exemplar of female sanctity and as a model of caritas for fifteenth-century Romans is intrinsically linked to Fra Angelico's celebrated frescoes. The appearance of Francesca Ponziani alongside her strongly Roman-identified predecessor (and the current pope) in the cycle gave Nicholas V the opportunity to proclaim his authority at a popular level. At the time the Niccoline cycle was painted, an ecclesiastical tribunal was already in the process of gathering testimony for Francesca's canonization, and the citizens of Rome celebrated her as their homegrown saint.