She obtained a divorce from him according to Roman law and, contrary to the ordinances of the Christian Church, she entered upon a second union before the death of her first husband.

[2] On the day before Easter, following the death of her second consort, she appeared before the gates of the Lateran basilica, dressed in penitential garb, and did public penance for her sin, which made a great impression upon the Christian population of Rome.

She erected a fine hospital at Rome,[3] and waited on the inmates herself, and treated citizens rejected from society due to their "loathsome diseases".

An incursion of the Huns into the eastern provinces of the empire and the quarrel which broke out between Jerome and John II, Bishop of Jerusalem respecting the teachings of Origen made residence in Bethlehem unpleasant for her and she returned to Rome.

Jean-Jacques Henner painted his portrait of Fabiola (in a classical Roman profile) in 1885; the original of this idealized portrayal of the saint was lost in 1912 but the image was copied by artists around the globe in the following century.

The exhibition first ran at the Hispanic Society of America in New York City, then the LACMA in Los Angeles, going on to the National Portrait Gallery in London from May to September 2009.