The Medieval San Cosimato Portico

The Medieval San Cosimato Portico

Neighborhoods

Near the Piazza S. Cosimato, a medieval portico juts out from the sides of a nondescript building. The portico leads to the outdoor atrium of the Chiesa di Cosimato, a part of the former Monastery of S. Cosimato. San Cosimato began as a Benedictine house for males in the tenth century, and then in the early thirteenth century Pope Gregory IX--a good friend of Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order--gave the complex to the Clares, an order of Franciscan nuns. In Rome there were only three sections of female Franciscan convents, and San Cosimato was the most important of the three.

The façade is from the twelfth century, and can be identified as medieval by its incorporation of multiple arches and its use of long and thin bricks. The columns that support the arch are spoils from Roman antiquity, which is commonly used in medieval structures. Since the 900s the complex has been continuously used and built upon (and around). The former monastery was converted into a hospital in the 19th century and it is now where the Ospedale Nuova Regina Margherita resides.

Shaylin Nguyen (2016)

Lowe, Kate. “Franciscan and Papal Patronage at the Clarissan Convent of San Cosimato in Trastevere 1440-1560,” Papers of the British School at Rome, no 68. (2000): 220

sancosimatoportico_2015

1100s

Viale di Trastevere, 00153 Roma RM, Italy

Near the Piazza S. Cosimato, there is a medieval portico that unlike its modern surroundings juts out from the sides of an almost nondescript building. The portico leads to the outdoor atrium of the Chiesa di Cosimato, a part of the former Monastery of S. Cosimato. San Cosimato began as a Benedictine house for males in the tenth century, and then in the early thirteenth century Pope Gregory IX gave the complex to The Clares, an order of Franciscan nuns. In Rome there were only three sections of female Franciscan convents, San Cosimato was the most important of the three.