Santa Maria del Popolo religious order Augustinians
The Augustinians
In the middle of the 13th century the church was given to the Order of Saint Augustine which has maintained it ever since. The Augustinians were a new mendicant order established under the guidance of Cardinal Riccardo Annibaldi, probably the most influential member of the Roman Curia at the time. Annibaldi was appointed corrector and provisor of the Tuscan hermits by Pope Innocent IV in December 1243. The cardinal convened a meeting to Santa Maria del Popolo for the delegates of the hermitic communities where they declared their union and the foundation of the new order that the Pope confirmed with the bull Pia desideria on 31 March 1244.A few years later a community of friars was established by the church and the Franciscans were compensated for their loss with the monastery of Ara Coeli. This probably happened in 1250 or 1251. The so-called Grand Union that integrated various other hermitic communities with the Tuscans by the order of Pope Alexander IV was also established on the general chapter held in Santa Maria del Popolo under the supervision of Cardinal Annibaldi in March 1256. The strong connection between the Annibaldi family and the church was attested on an inscription that mentioned two noble ladies of the family, Caritia and Gulitia who set up some kind of marble monument in the basilica in 1263. The Catalogue of Turin (c. 1320) stated that the monastery had 12 friars from the order of the hermits at the time.
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