CATERINA, queen of BOSNIA. - Daughter of Stefano Vukčić, duke of S. Saba (Herzegovina), b. in 1424, d. in Rome on 25 Oct. 1478. In 1445 she married Stefano Tomas, penultimate king of Bosnia. When the kingdom fell into the hands of the Turks (1463), as a result of which her two children, Sigismondo and Caterina, were deported to Constantinople and converted to Islam, she went into exile in Rome, where, under the protection of the pontiffs and the spiri-
tual direction of the Friars Minor, she lived a holy life as a Franciscan tertiary. In the Franciscan Order she is venerated as blessed, and her feast is celebrated on 25 Oct.
BIBL.: Wadding, Annales, ad a. 1451, n. 62; a. 1458, n. 35; a. 1478, n. 50; Acta SS. Oct., XI, Parigi 1870, p. 390; Pietro Antonio di Venezia, Giardino serafico istorico, I, Venezia 1710, p. 739; V. Batinić, Djelovanje franjevaca u Bosni i Hercegovini, I, Zagabria 1881, p. 146; S. Brilić, Monografia storica sulle crudeltà musulmane in Bosnia-Erzegovina, Roma 1898, pp. 35-37; Martyr. franciscanum, Vicenza 1939, p. 414.