GIOVANNI delle CELLE. — Ascetic writer and translator. A Florentine, son of Gano, a nobleman of Castignano, born c. 1310 and died c. 1396. Initially a Vallombrosan monk in the convent of S. Trinita in Florence and abbot after 1346, he spent a year in prison for a serious misdeed; he then obtained permission to retire to the hermitage of the Celle in Vallombrosa, from which he took his name, spending the rest of his life in penance.
He wrote sermons and letters in Latin and the vernacular (31 are known), partly published by Fr. B. Sorio: *Lettere del b. G. delle C.* (Rome 1843). Zealous for rectitude and orthodoxy, he became involved in the question of the heretical Fraticelli, was a close associate of St. Catherine of Siena, and claimed to have been miraculously healed by her. His vernacular letters and the translation attributed to him of Bart. da S. Concordio’s *Summa de casibus conscientiae* are texts of linguistic significance. Other works are lost. Attributions to him of vernacular translations of Cicero and Seneca are unfounded.