St Francis is said to have stayed here in the 13th century, and you can still see the rock that he used as a pillow and his crucifix in his cell. Rebuilt several times, the church's current incarnation dates from the 1680s. It contains one of Bernini’s most daring works, the Beata Ludovica Albertoni (Blessed Ludovica Albertoni; 1674), a work of highly charged sexual ambiguity.
It shows Ludovica, a Franciscan nun, in a state of rapture as she reclines, eyes shut, mouth open, one hand touching her breast. The 17th-century church also contains the impressive 18th-century Rospigliosi and Pallavici sculptural monuments.
