Although the past two decades have witnessed a substantial rise in the study of religious women as patrons of art, no comprehensive, in depth study has ever been devoted to Rome and Latium. Yet evidence of female patronage in the city and region during the late medieval period is conspicuous, their neglect possibly a consequence of the perceived dominance of both the papacy and the noble families in this scenario. While single case studies on Roman convents do exist, there has been no attempt to investigate female religious patronage in a broader artistic, political and social context. This doctoral research will examine female religious patronage in Rome and Latium during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. For the first time convents will be contextualised within a political, social, and historical framework. The survival of documentary and artistic testimonies including epigraphy, sculpture, architecture and funerary monuments testifies both to an uninterrupted artistic production in Rome throughout the Avignon period, and to the role of nuns as key players in the promotion of these commissions.