CATHERINE of Siena, Saint. — A Dominican tertiary, born in Siena in 1347 (March 25 according to tradition), died in Rome on April 29, 1380. Her father, Jacopo Benincasa, a tanner in the Fontebranda district, had twenty-five children by his wife Lapa Piagenti, with Catherine being the penultimate. Among her brothers are recorded: Benincasa (the eldest), Bartolo (who married Lisa Colombini), and Stefano. Her sisters included Nicoluccia, Bonaventura, Lisa, Nera, Giovanna (Catherine’s twin), and Vanna. The deeply religious family environment influenced the young Euphrosyne (as she was called in the neighborhood), who was precociously drawn to the spiritual life. At age six she had her first vision, and at seven she took a vow of virginity, imitating the anchorites and aspiring to be a missionary like the friars of San Domenico of Camporeggio. At twelve, her family already considered arranging a marriage for her; she resisted, insisting on a life of exceptional penance and asceticism. To overcome her family’s resistance, she cut her hair on the advice of the Dominican Tommaso della Fonti, provoking a persecution that her father Jacopo eventually stopped.
In 1363, after much insistence, she entered the Mantellate of San Domenico, a community devoted to piety and works of mercy. Until 1370, Catherine’s life was marked by continuous asceticism and the purification of her soul as she ascended toward the perfection of charity.
Her self-mortifications, penitential works, and prolonged fasts, while making her a master of her own inner life, provoked a violent campaign of slander and opposition in the religious circles of Siena. In response, she redoubled her efforts in caring for the sick at the Ospedale della Scala, the leper hospital of San Lazzaro, and in nursing her ailing sisters, who often repaid her with atrocious calumnies.
What influence did the return of Urban V have on Catherine?
(18 Oct. 1367). The biographers tell us nothing, intent as they were on collecting prayers and miracles. They also ignore the return of Urban to Avignon (5 Sept. 1370), amid the desolation of the Italians who saw Italy once more sink into political anarchy; they ignore C.’s sufferings at so great a calamity.
While Urban V was leaving Italy, C. at Fontebranda had an exceptional vision in which she received the mandate to abandon contemplation and devote herself to the apostolate. First, she gathered a spiritual family, chosen from ecclesiastics, men of government, letters, or art, both men and women. She not only poured her intense spiritual experience into her disciples but also absorbed from them the theological and mystical thought of the schools to which they belonged: Benedictines, Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuates.
The fame of C.’s holiness made Fontebranda a center of irradiation and attraction.
The epistolary corpus arose thus from necessity, duty, and charity toward the many who came seeking counsel, a word of good. She, unlettered, dictated letters for the learned, the great, and the literati.
In the Middle Ages, politics and religion were so fused and interpenetrated that they could not be dissociated, and C. engaged in politics—but not in the modern sense. The Avignonese Curia, which kept watch over the separatist movements of the Fraticelli, grew alarmed, as did the Dominican Order; thus, in Pentecost 1374, C. was summoned to Florence before the General Chapter of her Order to undergo a true trial. She triumphed. To shield her from further attacks, the Order guaranteed her orthodoxy by assigning her as director the friar Raimondo delle Vigne of Capua, a descendant of Peter, chancellor to Frederick II. Gregory XI, Urban’s successor, prepared a crusade and entrusted its propaganda to C., who went to Pisa, a maritime center, and made it her headquarters (1375). While she wrote to kings and condottieri, organizing and exhorting, on 1 April she received the stigmata in the church of S. Cristina on the Lungarno.
At that moment, Florence, for manifold reasons, pursued an anti-papal policy, placing itself at the head of all the malcontents of the Patrimony of St. Peter, with the ambitious dream of attacking and destroying the temporal power. It sought, therefore, to unite the Tuscan republics, which, willingly or unwillingly, fell into the snare. C. restrained the Gambacorti of Pisa and at Lucca begged the Elders not to adhere; she pressed her case in Siena, but achieved little. In June 1375, she attended the execution of Niccolò di Toldo, dictating afterward the celebrated letter.
Florentine events pressed forward; war with the Pope seemed inevitable despite the efforts of the Guelph faction and the Italian republics to avert the scandal. While the Otto della Guerra—mockingly called the Otto Santi—pushed for rupture, they sought to calm the Avignonese fears of excommunication and interdict. When, in March 1376, excommunication with interdict was launched against Florence, C. was sent as ambassador of the Florentines to Avignon. She was received favorably, disposed Gregory XI to clemency, but meanwhile the war party in Florence gained the upper hand, and the ambassadors sent to Avignon no longer recognized C. In a letter to Bonaccorso di Lapo, she harshly reproached the governors’ bad faith. Her presence in Avignon at the crucial moment of the papacy’s return to Rome was decisive, revealing to the Pope the vow he had made on the day of his election.
The documentation is complete, but significant are the disciples’ reticences in attesting to the fact. The Western Schism, which followed the return, gave occasion for accusations against the Saint as the cause of so great a calamity, compromising her canonization; the disciples therefore sought to diminish the importance of her work.
Gregory XI, after years of temporizing, finally departed on 16 Sept. 1376. C. left with him the next day and consoled the Pope, who at Genoa, once more pressed by the cardinals, reconsidered returning to Avignon. Returning to Siena, she made a journey into the Val d’Orcia to pacify the Salimbeni and catechize the people there. But her heart remained in Florence, embroiled with the Pope, who ordered her to return to the turbulent city to work for peace. A difficult mission amid the ferment of passions and factional strife, which in 1378 culminated in the tumult of the “ammoniti,” endangering C.’s life, and later in the graver revolt of the Ciompi. Meanwhile, in March 1378, Gregory XI died, and peace negotiations with the congress of Sarzana to resolve that matter of European import collapsed. The new pope, Urban VI, hastened to settle the issue, and at last, on 18 July, the olive branch of peace was hung from the Palazzo Vecchio amid the city’s rejoicing. C. returned to Siena while the horizon darkened, to continue her colloquy with the Eternal, dictating the wondrous *Dialogue of Divine Providence*, the fruit of her ongoing teaching through letters and all her mystical experiences; the *Dialogue* is C.’s true “book.”
Meanwhile, the new pope, Urban VI—Italian after seven French popes—with his harsh character had so offended the sensibilities of the cardinals and the Curia, almost entirely French, that opposition flared into open revolt, culminating in the election of a new pope: Clement VII, elected at Fondi on 20 Sept. 1378. Thus opened the schism that tore the Church for forty years, extinguishing every hope of crusade or internal reform. As early as 1375, C. had foreseen the coming schism, yet she worked for the Pope’s return to Rome, because Rome is the see of the papacy and of its bishop, not Avignon. In November 1378, she came to Rome at Urban VI’s summons and spoke in Consistory, reviving the Sacred College; she organized a veritable new crusade, summoning the most spiritual men to Rome, formed her chancery to dispatch messages and letters to rulers and Italian republics to rally them to the true Pope. C. intervened to calm the Pope’s violence, labored for the surrender of Castel S. Angelo, still held by the French (1379), and urged the condottiero Alberico da Barbiano to drive out the foreigner, defeated at Marino on 30 April 1379. In a riot organized by French agents, she used her authority to bring peace between the people and the Pope (Feb. 1380), never ceasing to press Giovanna of Naples, an adherent of Avignon, to recognize Urban VI—all in vain.
Weighed down by her immense, enthusiastically endured labor, she died on 29 April 1380 in a house near the Minerva (now Piazza S. Chiara). She received three solemn funerals, or rather three triumphs: one decreed by the Pope, another by the Senator Giovanni Cenci, and the third by the Dominican Order. Miracles flourished at her tomb, giving rise to a cult that grew in intensity in Rome and the Church, which canonized her in 1461 under the pontificate of Pius II Piccolomini. Pius IX declared her patroness of Rome, and Pius XII named her principal patroness of Italy alongside St. Francis of Assisi (1939). Art, poetry, and literature have made her the subject of their expressions. Her feast is on 30 April.
She is buried in Rome in the Church of the Minerva beneath the high altar. The sarcophagus is attributed to Isaia of Pisa (1430). The Saint’s head, however, is in Siena in S. Domenico, in the chapel frescoed by Sodoma.
**Critical Problem.** — The principal hagiographical source is the biography written by her confessor, Bl. Raimondo da Capua, in 1393, edited by the Bollandists, though no critical edition yet exists. It was called the *Legenda maior* to distinguish it from the shorter or abbreviated versions by Fra Tommaso Caffarini, Fra Massimino da Salerno, and others. Caffarini also composed a *Supplementum*, gathering material omitted by Fra Raimondo, especially the *Miracula*, which were notebooks where the Saint’s first confessors, Fra Tommaso della Fonte and Fra Bartolomeo Dominici, recorded miracles, visions, and prayers. Other disciples, such as Fra Guglielmo d’Inghilterra, an Augustinian, Giovanni delle Celle (v.) Vallombrosan, published discourses in her praise. Thus a full account is provided.
of his death, due to Barduccio Canigiani; and an important document exists from an anonymous Florentine, the *Miracoli*, written in 1374 during his stay in Florence. Other disciples, such as Pagliaresi, Iacopo del Pecora, and Anastasio da Montalcino, left behind chapters in verse in her honor, published in the appendix to the *Dialogo*. All this material is partly edited in the *Fonti cateriniane*, published under the care of the University of Siena, and partly in older editions.
Some good critical essays on her life and writings had been published by Lazzareschi, Motzo, and others, but a complete critical work on the hagiographical sources concerning Catherine was undertaken by Roberto Fawtier of the French School of Rome, who in 1921 published Vol. I, examining all the hagiographical material and reaching completely negative conclusions. Except in a few minor writings, he stated, the principal biographers, Fra Raimondo da Capua and Fra Tommaso Caffarini, had consciously distorted the true Catherine. This verdict, so radical, provoked scandal among scholars of Catherinian studies, but in the end it spurred many foreign and Italian scholars to re-examine the sources, arriving at less radical, more just, and objective conclusions.
Fawtier published in 1930 Vol. II on Catherine’s works, where he corrected many statements contained in Vol. I, proceeding with greater maturity and deliberation.
The new studies by Jordan, Mandonnet, Dupré Theseider, and Fr. Laurent, but especially those by Valli and Conti, have resulted in the conclusion that the Catherine seen and described by her disciples is the same as that found in the *Epistolario*, the *Dialogo*, and the *Preghiere*: there is neither deformation nor substantial alteration. In his final volume, published in 1948 (*La double expérience*), Fawtier is less radical than in 1921, more diplomatic, but still prejudiced against the Saint’s disciples, insisting on the complete failure of “the human experience of St. Catherine.”
Caterina da Siena, saint – Fainting of St. Catherine. Detail of the fresco by Sodoma (1826) – Siena, church of S. Domenico.
It was necessary, however, to make the rich Catherinian material available to scholars through critical editions, and this has been largely accomplished by the University of Siena for the hagiographical sources, and for the letters by the Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages.
The first edition of the *Lettere*, numbering 37, is the Bolognese edition of 1492; it is followed by the princeps edition of 1500 by Aldo Manuzio, containing 350 letters, reprinted many times during the 1500s. Girolamo Gigli produced a more complete and corrected edition, enriched with erudite notes by the Jesuit Burlamacchi, later reprinted many times in the 1500s and 1800s, until Niccolò Tommaseo in 1860 produced a new edition with chronological and philological criteria, reprinted by Misciattelli in 1913–20 and later by Perretti with good notes and the addition of newly discovered letters, as well as those of the disciples already published by Grattacelli in 1868. Fedele entrusted E. Dupré Theseider with preparing for the Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages a critical edition of the epistolary corpus; in 1940 Vol. I appeared, containing 98 datable letters, preceded by a thorough critical introduction. Dupré Theseider had the rare fortune of discovering the autograph of Pagliaresi, secretary of the Saint, in the Palatine Library in Vienna, a codex that resolved many problems previously thought insoluble.
For the *Preghiere* (numbering 26), see the recent critical edition by Fr. Taurisano (2nd ed., Rome 1932).
Iconography. – The Catherinian iconography is abundant; this is mainly due to the fact that the city which gave birth to the Saint and which, in every century, paid her filial devotion was, as is well known, a very fervent center of art: almost exclusively Sienese is indeed the Catherinian iconography up to the end of the 15th century.
The most ancient “portrait” of the Saint (14th century) is the fresco by Andrea Vanni in the church of S. Domenico in Siena; removed from its original location along with the backing wall, it was later placed on the altar of the adjacent Cappella delle Vòtte. Since Vanni was personally acquainted with the Saint (three of her letters to the painter are preserved), the importance of this small fresco is heightened by the likelihood that it—despite the morphological elaboration typical of Vanni’s style—reproduces the actual features of Catherine. The work, though in not good condition and in some parts repainted, is of high quality, full of intimacy and delicacy: perhaps it is Vanni’s masterpiece. Another expressive “portrait” is the bust-reliquary of the Sacred Head, in embossed copper, executed by an unknown goldsmith in the early 15th century and now preserved in the municipal library of Siena: here the Saint appears youthful; remarkable is the contrast between the firmness of the lines, the very smooth volumes, and the extraordinary energy emanating from her eyes. With greater freedom and variety in the features, but always with deep religiosity and felicitous artistic results, Lorenzo di Pietro, known as Il Vecchietto, depicted the Saint many times, both
Caterina da Siena, Saint — Sarcophagus of St. C., work by Isaia da Pisa (1430) — Rome, church of S. Maria sopra Minerva.
Already in the sacristy of the hospital of S. Maria della Scala (1445; now in the Pinacoteca of Siena, no. 204), the triptych of the Duomo of Pienza (1461), and also in isolation, as in the fine fresco (1461) in the Sala del Mappamondo of the Palazzo Pubblico: to Vecchietta has also recently been attributed an original terracotta statue in which St. C. is depicted sleeping; this statue is located in a small room belonging to the Confraternity of St. Caterina under the Volte dell’Ospedale, where tradition holds that the Saint used to take brief repose while tending the sick. The best-known statue of the Saint is the polychromed wooden one, attributed to Neroccio di Bartolomeo (second half of the 15th century), which is venerated on the high altar of the church of S. Caterina in Fontebranda in the Contrada dell’Oca.
There are various pictorial cycles that have sought to illustrate the principal events of the life of the Benincasa in a systematic way. The oldest and most important of these was a series of small panels surrounding the large altarpiece with the Presentation in the Temple, commissioned in 1447 from Giovanni di Paolo by the University of Pizzicaioli of Siena for the church of S. Maria della Scala: the large central panel is now in the Pinacoteca of Siena (no. 211), while of the little scenes of St. Catherine’s life, which began with the Donation of the Mantle to a Beggar and ended with the Funeral of the Saint, one is lost and the others have been dispersed among the Stoclet Collection in Brussels, the Lehman Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and the Institute of Arts in Minneapolis. Though these constitute the most valuable visual commentary on the life of the Saint, they are far less well known than the frescoes by Sodoma (1526) and Francesco Vanni (1593) painted on the walls of the Cappella di S. Caterina in the Basilica of S. Domenico in Siena; in particular, the two scenes of the Ecstasy and the Swoon, for their dramatic and emotional character, have achieved wide popularity. Other cycles adorn the various oratories of the Caterinian sanctuary; in the so-called “Oratorio della Cucina,” the narrative unfolds in thirteen panels, plus the altarpiece with the Stigmata by Bernardino Fungai, executed by various painters between the late 16th and early 17th centuries: A. Salimbeni, P. Sorri, C. Roncalli (known as il Pomarancio), L. Bonastri, A. Casolani, F. Vanni, and R. Manetti. In the church below, S. Caterina, or the “Oratorio della Contrada,” some Miracles of the Saint are illustrated with frescoes by G. del Pacchia and V. Salimbeni. Finally, another, mediocre cycle of seven frescoed scenes by Alessandro Franchi (1896) is found in the so-called “Oratorio della Camera.” One may also consider an organic cycle the ensemble of the panel and predella (the latter unfortunately mutilated) in which Domenico Beccafumi illustrated the Supernatural Events (Stigmata, Mystic Marriage, Mystic Communion, and Miraculous Clothing) of the Saint’s life: this work (datable to around 1515), from the destroyed monastery of Monteoliveto at Porta Tufi, is now preserved in the Pinacoteca of Siena (nos. 417, 418, 419, and 420). It is one of the highest iconographic interpretations of St. Catherine and stands among the masterpieces of the great Sienese cinquecento painter.
A subject that from 1500 onward lent itself to free and imaginative interpretations is the Mystic Marriage (v. Salimbeni). Compared to the great success of these subjects, in which the mystical and supernatural element clearly predominates, the illustration of the historical events in which the Saint played a part appears rather scarce; the Sienese in particular recalled the Canonization of the Saint, often represented by Pinturicchio in the Piccolomini Library, by F. Vanni, and by Mattia Preti in a large canvas in the Cappella delle Volte. Finally, it should be noted that, on the occasion of a national competition for a painting on a Caterinian subject held in the sixth centenary of the Saint’s birth, the sensibility of modern artists, unlike that of the ancients, turned decisively toward strongly dynamic or dramatic subjects, such as the Torture of Niccolò di Tuldo, the Burial of the Leprous Woman, the Healing of the Innkeeper, and the Care of the Mantellata Andrea. — See Pl. LXIV.