San Francesco a Ripa

Built on the site where Saint Francis of Assisi himself stayed during his 1209 visit to Rome. The cell where he supposedly slept is preserved and can be visited by request. The artistic highlight is Bernini's Blessed Ludovica Albertoni (1671-74) — one of his last and most ecstatic sculptures, depicting the dying Roman noblewoman in a rapture of mystical death, with light streaming dramatically over her face from a hidden window. A more theological and disturbing companion piece to his earlier Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.