Ecstasy of Blessed Ludovica Albertoni

Ludovica Albertoni, a Franciscan tertiary who lived in Rome from 1474 to 1533, was beatified in 1671, and the Altieri family decided to dedicate an altar to her in their chapel in San Francesco a Ripa that same year. The blessed also lived her religious life on the experiences of mystical visions, a dimension of transcendence that was being revalued and encouraged by the Roman church in the 17th century. Bernini depicts the blessed at the moment of death, transforming this dramatic moment as also a moment of ecstasy, that is, of mystical conjunction with the divine.