On any given day in late fifteenth-century Rome, pairs of devoted women wearing prickly black dresses and crisp white veils crossed the threshold of their shared monastery on the Capitoline Hill and ventured into the squalid streets of the city. They set out to bring relief to poor, hungry and sick neighbors throughout their parish and took regular turns assisting at local hospitals. When they returned from their charitable work at sunset, they came home to a shared dwelling decorated with vibrant frescoes that reverberated with stories from the life of a Roman noblewoman, Francesca Bussa de’Ponziani (1384–1440). The design, appearance, purpose and context for these frescoes form the core of this book, as they tell us as much about daily life and making art in Renaissance Rome as they do about women's patronage, devotional practices and pious work during this period.

Pious women in Renaissance Italy relied on images to nourish their faith. Whether recalling a beatific vision to mind or contemplating a gilded altarpiece in church, women looked at pictures as an essential component of religious devotion. In Rome, larger-than-life mosaics depicting scenes from the lives of venerable saints sparkled on the walls and in the apses of early Christian basilicas, and illuminated the edifying ritual of the Eucharist performed during Mass. Numerous chapels, columns and niches in parish churches across the city were covered with paintings and votive images, evidence of robust forms of popular piety and affirmations of local miracles. In their homes, women regularly contemplated, and in many cases read, colorfully illuminated prayer books and devotional prints that offered ideals of feminine virtue as models for their own behavior. Many of these images were designed to demonstrate control over one's body and to encourage mastery of one's senses in the quest for eternal salvation. They also cautioned the viewer about the gruesome punishments awaiting those who failed to heed their warning and therefore succumbed to corporeal temptation.

This book examines diverse depictions of divine, demonic and all-too-human bodies made in Rome during a period of rapid expansion and renewal for the Church and city (1440–1500).