St. Frances of Rome was a mystic and benefactor of the sick and poor, who enjoyed the privilege of companionship of an angel in the last decades of her life.

She was born in 1384 in Trastevere in Rome, the daughter of nobles Paul Bosco and Jacobella dei Roffredeschi. In 1396, she married Lorenzo de Ponziani, and this marriage lasted forty years.

With her sister-in-law Vannozza, Frances aided the poor of Rome, and apostolate spurred by her vision of St. Alexis during an illness. She had three children: John Baptist, Evangelist, and Agnes. When the forces of Ladislaus of Naples took Rome in 1408 and 1410, Lorenzo was forced to flee the city. Frances remained and saw her family’s castle and lands looted and burned. In 1401, she lost her son Evangelist in a plague, and two years later her daughter, Agnes, died.

By 1414, Frances had to nurse Lorenzo, whose health was broken. She also founded the Oblates of Mary, a society of women affiliated with the Olivetan Benedictines. Lorenzo died in 1436, and Frances entered the society, becoming the superior.

A gifted mystic, Frances worked many miracles and foretold the end of the Great Schism in 1417. For the last twenty-three years of her life she had an angel as a companion, visible only to her. John Matteotti, her confessor, recorded her visions and prophecies. Frances died in Rome on March 9.