CARDONA, CATERINA DI

CARDONA, Caterina di. - A Catalan noblewoman of mystical bent, related to the royal house of Aragon, natural daughter of Don Ramón de Cardona, born in Barcelona (not in Naples, as is commonly stated by authors) in 1519, died at La Roda on 11 May 1577. Still very young, she went with her father to Naples, where she was educated by the Capuchin nuns. After the death of the knight she had married, she returned to the Capuchin convent, living in great austerity. With the Princess of Salerno she went (1557) to the court of King Philip II at Valladolid, where she was entrusted with the education of the princes Don Carlos and Don Juan d'Austria. She was highly esteemed for her noble birth, but even more for her virtues. In 1562 she fled from the royal court, disguised as a hermit, and retired to the solitude of La Roda (province of Albacete), where she lived on wild herbs and raw roots, leading an extremely austere life entirely devoted to prayer and contemplation. Later, at her own request, a convent of Discalced Carmelites was founded near her grotto (1572), and she continued to live as a solitary, dressed as a Carmelite friar, guided in her spiritual life by the Carmelites. She died there in a reputation for holiness, much esteemed even by St Teresa, with whom she corresponded by letter.