Monastero di San Paolo delle Abbadesse

(ca. 1340)

This female Benedictine community was formed in ca. 1180 near Bastia.  The monastery became very rich, and received a series of papal privileges, most notably from Pope Innocent III in 1201.  St Francis took St Clare there after he had taken her vow of poverty at the Portiuncula in ca. 1211.  The nuns defended her from her family, although they found it prudent to ask her to leave after a few days. 

In 1340, the nuns moved this site near the city walls, and having resolved an argument over the boundary between their land and that of the adjoining Monastero di Sant’ Apollinare, they built the present church. 

The community attracted a good deal of scandal in the 15th century.  As a result, their Abbess Emilia was deposed in 1442 and the rest of the community and its property were absorbed by Sant’ Apollinare.

The fresco of St Paul (16th century) in the lunette over the portal is somewhat tenuously attributed to Dono Doni.

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