Cardona, Caterina di

CARDONA, CATERINA di. - Mystic of noble Catalan lineage, related to the royal family of Aragon, natural daughter of don Ramón de Cardona, b. in Barcelona (not in Naples, as authors commonly say) in 1519, d. 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 whom she had married, she withdrew once more into the convent of the Capuchin nuns, living very austerely. With the princess of Salerno she came (1557) to the court of King Philip II at Valladolid, where the education of the princes don Carlos and don Juan of Austria was entrusted to her. She was greatly esteemed for the nobility of her birth, but more for her virtues. She fled, disguised as a hermit, from the royal court in 1562, and withdrew into the solitude of La Roda (province of Albacete), where she fed on wild herbs and raw roots, leading a most austere life, wholly given to prayer and contemplation. After a convent of Discalced Carmelites had been founded, at her urging, near her cave (1572), she continued to live as a solitary, dressed as a Carmelite friar and directed by the Carmelites in the spiritual life. There she died in the odour of sanctity, greatly esteemed also by St. Teresa, who was in epistolary correspondence with her.

Ambrogio di Santa Teresa