![]() ![]() The white marble form of the young saint defies the laws of physics as she floats upon a marble cloud, her eyes closed and head thrown back in the throes of spiritual ecstasy. Is this the finest sculpture ever carved? Such a question can never have an answer, but Gianlorenzo Bernini’s truly incredible Ecstasy of Saint Teresa surely makes the shortlist. What was more, Bernini had already shown himself able to transform the mystery of religious ecstasy into material form in a way that has perhaps never been matched by an artist before or since. Over the past several decades, Gianlorenzo Bernini had established himself as the pre-eminent artist of the age, doing much to shape the extravagant form of Baroque art as we know it today. The centrepiece of the renovated chapel was to be a larger-than-life-sized sculpture of the saint herself, caught in the throes of one of the religious ecstasies for which she had become famous.Ĭasting about for an artist with the expressive capabilities to do justice to the memory of a figure whose life was characterised by frequent mystic communion with God, there was really only one choice. Peter’s basilica in 1671, and Paluzzo set about embellishing the humble chapel that housed Ludovica’s earthly remains. ![]() Ludovica was beatified in an extravagant ceremony at St. Naturally the thoughts of Paluzzo (who had taken to calling himself Cardinal Altieri in recognition of his newfound status) quickly turned towards burnishing the family reputation, and he had little trouble convincing his adoptive uncle to elevate his pious ancestor. A nephew of her descendent Cardinal Paluzzo Paluzzi degli Albertoni had the great good fortune to marry Pope Clement X Altieri’s niece, and in return the newly elected Pope adopted Paluzzo as his own nephew - transforming him at a stroke into one of Rome’s most powerful men. The church of San Francesco a Ripa, site of Ludovica Albertoni's burialĪs so often with these things, it was a shift in the political winds that led to Ludovica’s beatification. The cult of her devotion would have to wait 140 years for official recognition, however. Little wonder, then, that after her death from fever and burial in in San Francesco a Ripa in 1533 she was immediately venerated as a saint in her local Trastevere. ![]() During the brutal 1527 Sack of Rome and its horrifying aftermath she provided succour to the city’s wounded and displaced masses, earning her the nickname ‘the mother of the poor’ by concealing gold coins in the bread she distributed to the desperate denizens of Trastevere.Īdding further lustre to her status as an exceptionally holy woman, Ludovica was also reputed to levitate during ecstasies of prayer, and engaged in mystical communions with the divine power. Joining the Franciscan community at the church of San Francesco a Ripa in Trastevere, Ludovica quickly gained a reputation as a tireless advocate of the city’s disadvantaged and destitute. Born into an aristocratic family in 1473, the young noblewoman was widowed in her early 30s and decided to devote herself to a life of Christian charity and good works. Ludovica Albertoni’s story is a classic tale of female piety in Renaissance Italy. After a lifetime of caring for the poor and sick of the Eternal City, Ludovica was poised to reap her heavenly award. Hand clutching at her failing heart, lips parted in a sigh that will take her to the great unknown of the afterlife, the blessed Ludovica Albertoni is is propped up upon a cushion whose plump creases belie the material reality of its unyielding marble. She lies on the cusp between two worlds, forever stilled in the eternalised moment of her final breath.
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