Chiesa di Santa Caterina dei Funari

The church is attested in a bull of Celestine III of 1192 as Sancta Maria dominae Rosae and as Sancta Maria in castro aureo, the second name from the ruins of the theatre of Balbus, which the Middle Ages called the castrum aureum. It is now named for the rope-makers of the quarter, who still give the street its name. In 1536 Paul III gave the church to Ignatius of Loyola, who founded a house for poor girls in the monastery. In 1560 Loyola suggested to Cardinal Federico Cesi, who paid for it, that the church be rebuilt and rededicated to Catherine of Alexandria; Guidetto Guidetti, a pupil of Michelangelo, took charge and the work was finished in 1564.