CATHERINE, Queen of Bosnia. — Daughter of Stephen Vukčić, Duke of St. Sava (Herzegovina), born in 1424, died in Rome on 25 October 1478. In 1445 she married Stephen Tomaš, penultimate King of Bosnia. When the kingdom fell into the hands of the Turks (1463), and her two sons, Sigismund and Catherine, were deported to Constantinople and forced to convert to Islam, she went into exile in Rome, where, under the protection of the popes and the spiritual guidance of the Friars Minor, she lived a holy life as a Franciscan tertiary. In the Franciscan Order she is venerated as a blessed, and her feast is celebrated on 25 October.
Bibl.: Wadding, Annales, ad a. 1451, n. 62; ad a. 1458, n. 35; ad a. 1478, n. 30; Acta SS. Ord. Fr., XI, Paris 1870, p. 390; Pietro Antonio da Venezia, Giardino serafico istorico, I, Venice 1710, p. 739; V. Batinić, Djelovanje franjevaca u Bosni i Hercegovini, I, Zagreb 1881, p. 146; S. Brchć, Monografia storica sulle crudeltà musulmane in Bosnia-Erzegovina, Rome 1898, pp. 35-37; Martyr. Franciscanum, Vicenza 1939, p. 414.