CELLE, GIOVANNI delle. - Ascetical writer and translator into the vernacular. A Florentine, son of Gano, a nobleman of Catignano, b. c. 1310 and d. c. 1396. First a Vallombrosan monk in the convent of S. Trinita in Florence and abbot after 1346, he was imprisoned for a year because of a serious transgression; he subsequently obtained leave to retire to the hermitage of Celle in Vallombrosa, from which he took his name, and there spent the rest of his life in penance.
He wrote sermons and letters in Latin and in the vernacular (31 are known), partly published by Fr. B. Sorio: Lettere del b. G. dalle C. (Rome, 1843). Concerned for rectitude and orthodoxy, he became involved in the question of the heretical Fraticelli; he was intimate with s. Caterina da Siena and stated that he had been miraculously healed by her. His letters in the vernacular and the translation attributed to him of Bart. da S. Concordio’s Summa de casibus conscientiae are linguistic texts. Other works have been lost. Translations from Cicero and Seneca are wrongly attributed to him.