MACONI, STEFANO. - Carthusian, b. in Siena around 1350, d. in the convent of S. Maria delle Grazie in Pavia on 7 September (9 August) 1424. In 1376 he entered the "comitiva" of St. Catherine of Siena, of which he became one of the habitual secretaries: he accompanied her on her travels and was her ambassador to Florence (1377). In obedience to the will of the Saint he shut himself up in the charterhouse of Pontignano (1381), of which he was prior (1382-89). From then on he devoted himself to carrying out the reform of the Order, in accordance with St. Catherine's wish. At the express request of Gian Galeazzo Visconti he was prior general (1389-1410), for which reason he had to move to Seitz (Austria). He was again prior at Pontignano (1410), and then at S. Maria delle Grazie in Pavia. He is blessed for his Order.

In 1411 he sent to Fra Tommaso Caffarini (v.) his deposition for the canonization of St. Catherine (ed. Brescia 1496; Acta SS. Aprilis, III, Antwerp 1675, pp. 968-973, and various others, among which the most recent is in Il processo Castellano, edited by M.-H. Laurent (Fontes vitae s. Catharinae Senensis, 9), Milan 1942, pp. 257-74). In April 1419 he translated into Latin the Dialogo della Divina Provvidenza which the Saint had dictated to him in the vernacular shortly before her death, a translation that for a long time was attributed to Raimondo da Capua (ed. Brescia 1496; Cologne 1553, 1596, 1601; Ingolstadt 1583; cf. I. Taurisano, Dialogo della Divina Provvidenza, Rome 1947, pp. xxiv-xxix). Modern criticism has moreover definitively attributed to M. the vernacular translation of the Leggenda minore di s. Caterina da Siena written by Tommaso Caffarini, and made by him between 1417-21 (ed. F. Grottanelli, Leggenda minore di s. Caterina e lettere dei suoi discepoli (Collezione di opere inedite o rare, 26), Bologna 1686). Various letters of M. have also been published (cf. F. Grottanelli, op. cit., see index).

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: The oldest life of M. is that of Bartolomeo da Siena, De vita et moribus b. S. M., Milan 1626; C. Le Couteux, Annales Ord. Cartusiensis, VII, Münster 1890, pp. 519-27 and passim (cf. vol. V. Indices, ibid. 1893, pp. 17 and 142); L. Le Vasseur, Ephemerides Ord. Cart., III, ibid. 1891, pp. 27-42; L. Ferretti, Nel quinto centenario della morte del b. S. M., in Studi domenicani, 2 (1924-25), pp. 23-24. For the criticism of the works see the prefaces of the works cited above.

Renata Orazi Ausenda

@incollection{ec7_maconi_stefano, author = {Orazi, Ausenda Renata}, title = {Maconi, stefano}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {1781}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/maconi-stefano} }

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Maconi, Stefano

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