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THE HISTORY OF
ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA
AND HER COMPANIONS.

BALLANTVNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

VERA EFFIGIES .

ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA.
From ihe Engrazung by Francesco Vanni.

THE HISTORY

ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA

AND HER COMPANIONS

AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE
AUTHOR OF
" CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARS," ETC.

Comptleo from ffirtgmal Sources.

LONDON: BURNS AND OATES
1880
[ The right of translation is reseived\

i38o

TO THE DAUGHTERS OF ST. DOMINIC AND ST. CATHERINE,
WHO, SCATTERED OVER MANY LANDS,
ARE YET BOUND TOGETHER BY A COMMON TIE IN
THE ORDER OF PENANCE,
THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED :
AS A TOKEN OF LOVING HOMAGE
TO THE MEMORY
OF OUR GLORIOUS AND SERAPHIC MOTHER
ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA,
ON THJS FIFTH CENTENARY
OF HER PASSAGE TO ETERNAL BLISS.
April 29TH, 1880.

PREFACE.

THERE already exist in various languages more than sixty
Lives of St. Catherine of Siena. In presence of such a-
fact, an apology seems called for on the part of any one who should
propose to add to their number. It will, however, be borne in
mind that most of these Lives are little more than translations or
abridgments of the original Legend written by Raymund of Capua,
the Saint's Confessor; they furnish us with no new facts, and do
not even attempt to restore that chronological order of events which
was entirely neglected by St. Catherine's first biographer. There
are two notable exceptions indeed, to which this remark does not
apply : the Storia di Santa Caterina da Siena, e del Papato del suo
tempo, by Mgr. Alfonso Capelcelatro ; and the Histoire de Ste.
Catherine de Sienne, by M. Emile Chavan de Malan. Of the first-
named work it is impossible to speak too highly. The author has
brought the public life of St. Catherine and her relations with the
Papacy within the compass of a single volume, full of historical
research, and has made excellent use of some of the Saint's letters.
But, as may be gathered from the title of the book, he deals almost
exclusively with her public career, and cannot therefore be said >to
have given us her complete biography. M. Chavan de Malan has
attempted a restoration' of the chronology of St. Catherine's life,
and has consulted many valuable authorities. He has also included
in his volumes illustrations from Italian history which throw more
or less light on the state of society in the fourteenth century. His
interesting work, however, is open to one objection; he has not
been able to refrain from filling up the historic outline of his
narrative with materials purely imaginary; so that fact and fiction
are often mingled in his pages, which thus, in some parts, assume
the colouring of a romance. Neither of these works has found an

x Preface.
English translator, and we, as yet, possess but two (Catholic1)
Lives of St. Catherine in the English language. The first is a
translation of the Legend, published at Philadelphia in the year
i860. It has the disadvantage of being the translation of a
translation ; being made, not from the Latin original, nor even from
the Italian version of that original, but from M. Cartier's French
translation of that version. Hence it is not surprising that the
result has been unsatisfactory, and that in many places even the
sense of the author has not been conveyed. The second work above
alluded to is a reprint from the old English translation of F.
Ambrogio Caterino Politi's abridgment of the Legend. This
translation was made in 1609 by Father John Fen, Confessor to the
English nuns at Louvain. It was re-edited in 1867 by the Very
Rev. Father James Dominic Aylward, English Provincial of the
Order of Preachers, and is now but of print. The translator has
contrived to give to his version all the charm of an original work.
Nothing can surpass the pathos and animation of some of the
narratives, as related in the fine old English of the bet secolo of our
language. Several such passages, the unction of which could never
be equalled by a modern pen, have been freely embodied in the
following pages.
Nevertheless, the superior merit of this little book is entirely one
of style. Father Politi's chronology is quite as confused as that of
the Legend which he abridges ; and neither from one nor the other
can we gather any clear notion of the consecutive order of the events
narrated.2 1 A Protestant Life of St. Catherine appeared in 1878, from the pen of Mrs.
Josephine Butler, entitled, " Catherine of Siena : a Biography " (Dyer Brothers,
21, Paternoster Row). It possesses considerable literary merit, and is written in
a genuine and generous tone of admiration. But the writer has been led into
some inaccuracies, and the point of view from which she regards the character of
St. Catherine is necessarily unsatisfactory to the Catholic reader. Against her
appreciation of the Saint's doctrine, it has been thought necessary to enter some
protests in the following pages.
J To be strictly accurate, we must add to the above the LyfofSt. Katherin of
Senis, printed by Caxton, a copy of which bibliographical rarity is in the Chats-
worth Library, having been purchased by the Duke of Devonshire for the sum of
£231. Another copy is preserved in the Grenville Library in the British
Museum. Caxton's Life of the Saint was reprinted by Wynkyn de Worde. A
summary of her doctrine, containing extracts from her Dialogue, was also printed
in 1519 by Wynkyn de Worde, entitled, " Booke of Dyvyne Doctrine," by Richard
Sutton, London.

Preface. xi
A complete history of St. Catherine is, therefore, a want still un-
supplied to the English reader.' It was generally supposed that the late
Father John Bernard Dalgairns, of the London Oratory, had been
engaged on such a work, as he was known to have devoted some
years to the serious study of the subject. Had he lived to have
given to the public the fruit of his labours, the result would, no
doubt, have been the contribution to our Catholic literature of a
comprehensive History of St. Catherine and her Times. But not
only was the projected work never published, but it does not appear
to have been even partially begun ; for we are assured by his literary
executors that no fragments either of it, or of materials collected for
its composition, were to be found among his papers.1,
The present volume has been designed on a much humbler scale.
Its object is to give the facts of St. Catherine's Life as recorded by
other biographers, restoring their chronological order, and at the
same time supplementing them with additional matter drawn from
original sources hitherto either partially or entirely neglected. Very
ample use has been made of St. Catherine's own letters, those wonderful
compositions of which we as yet possess no English translation, but
a knowledge of which is essential to our forming any real acquaint
ance with the saintly writer. Yet the letters themselves cannot be
understood without some explanation of the history and circum
stances of those to whom they were addressed ; and this naturally
introduces the reader to the members of that spiritual " family " of
which she was the Mother and Head.
The position occupied by St. Catherine was altogether an ex
ceptional one. She was never the member of a religious community,
yet neither was she a secular, nor a recluse. She appears before us .
surrounded by a group of disciples bound to her by no other ties
than those of personal affection, and numbering among them men
and women of every variety of age, station, and character. Blessed
Raymund himself, and her other confessors ; her three secretaries
Neri, Stephen, and Barduccio ; Master Matthew whom she cured of
the plague, and the English hermit, William Flete ; her sister-in-law
Lisa, and Alexia her chosen friend; with all these we make
acquaintance in a passing way in the pages of the Legend ; and the
wish must have occurred to many readers that we could know them
1 A report having been in circulation that the present work has been compiled
from materials collected by F. Dalgairns for his proposed work, and made over
to the writer, it may be as well here distinctly to contradict this statement.

xii Preface.
better, and interrogate them concerning their intercourse with her
to whose daily life it was their privilege to be thus associated. To
respond in some measure to this wish the writer has endeavoured to
include in the history of St. Catherine such notices of her com
panions as can be gathered from authentic letters and records still
preserved ; and at the same time to gather up in their own words the
testimony which they have borne to the sanctity of which they were
so long the eyewitnesses.
It remains to enumerate the chief authorities from which the
following narrative has been compiled, giving at the end of each
notice the abridged word by which reference is made to the works in
question. i. Vita della Serafica Sposa di Gesii Chris to, Sta. Caterina da Siena.
This is the Italian version of the original life, commonly called the
Legend. It was written in Latin by Raymund of Capua, the Saint's
confessor, and was first translated into Italian by her secretary, Neri
di Landoccio dei Paglieresi, and another anonymous writer. When
in 1707 Girolamo Gigli, Professor of Belles Lettres in the University
of Siena, undertook the publication of St. Catherine's Life and com
plete Works, he caused a new translation of the Legend to be made by
the Canonico Bernardino Pecci ; and this now forms the first volume
of the Opere di Santa Caterina ; the second and third volumes con
taining her Letters, and the fourth, her Dialogue. It was Gigli's
intention to have published besides these a considerable number of
other precious manuscripts preserved at Siena ; but the troubles in
which he became involved with the Academy della Crusca, and the
Tuscan government, which ended in his banishment, prevented the
. completion of his design. In the learned Prologues, however, which
he has prefixed to his published volumes, he has done much to
facilitate the study of what we may call the literature of St.
Catherine ; and has left stamped on his writings the marks of that
tender devotion to the Saint which moved him, whilst engaged in
these labours, daily to visit her relics, and there to implore with tears
that she would obtain for him, by her intercession, the salvation of
his soul. {Leg.)
2. La Leggenda Minore. This is an abridgment of Raymund's
work, written in Latin by F. Tommaso d' Antonio Nacci Caffarini,
and translated into Italian by Stephen Maconi. It contains several
additions that are not to be found in the original Legend. Caffarini
was well acquainted with St. Catherine many years before she

Preface. xiii
became known to Raymund ; and the events of her earlier life, which
Raymund gathered from the lips of others, had fallen under his own
personal observation. The Leggenda Minore finds a place in the very
rare Santuario of Mombrizio (Milan, 1479), whence the Bollandists
extracted the additional matter, and printed it as an Appendix to
the Latin Legend, under the title of Analeda de S. Catharina, ex vita
Fr, Thomace collecta: In the year 1868 Stephen Maconi's Italian
translation of the work was edited by Signor F. Grottanelli, the
learned librarian of Siena, who enriched it with a number of valuable
notes. It forms one of the volumes of that " Collection of Rare and
inedited Works," which has been published by the Royal Commissione
pe' Testi di Lingua. {Leg. Min.)
3. Supplimento alia Leggenda di Santa Caterina. The Supplement
to Raymund's Legend was written in Latin by Caffarini, and con
tains much additional and interesting information. In 1754 an
Italian translation of the work was published at Lucca by F. Ambrogio
Ansano Tantucci. This translation has now become extremely rare,
and M. Cartier, who has made a French translation from it, calls it
presque introuvable. Valuable as it is, Tantucci's translation is far
from being a perfect or exact version of Caffarini's work. He has
entirely omitted some treatises, and abridged others. Considerable
use has been made of the work in the following narrative, but in
some places references will be found given to the Latin Supplement,
when the passages referred to have been omitted or altered in the
Italian translation. Caffarini's original work is preserved in the
Communal Library of Siena, whence authentic copies of some of the
missing portions have been obtained for the present work. (Sup. or
Lot. Sup.)
4. Lettere di Santa Caterina. Several editions of the Saint's Letters
have at various times been published ; the first being the Aldine
Edition, printed at Venice in 1500 ; which was followed by another
in 1548 by Toresano, and another in 1579 by Farri; both likewise
published at Venice. • In the present work the edition of Girolamo
Gigli has generally been quoted, enriched as it is by the explanatory
notes of F. Federigo Burlamacchi, S. J., whose researches into
contemporary history may be said to have exhausted the subject.
They form in fact the chief and best authority for reconstructing the
History of St. Catherine. A later edition of the Letters was pub
lished at Florence in i860, by F. Tommaseo, which contains
nothing of additional value. A good French translation has been

xiv Preface.
made by M. Cartier, who has prefixed to his volumes an admirable
sketch of the Saint's public career. He has also attempted a restora
tion of the chronology, for the satisfactory completion of which,
however, he lacked the necessary materials. In all references to
the letters the numbers given are those of Gigli's edition.1
* 5. Note originali d'illustrazione alia Leggenda compendiata dal
Caffarini. These notes to the Leggenda Minore are from the pen of
Burlamacchi, and are of great value. They have never been printed,
and exist in MS. only in the Library of Siena. They do not even
seem to have been prepared for publication, for the authority for
each separate statement is not precisely given ; though the materials
are all gathered from the Supplimento and the Process of Venice.
(Notes to Leg. Min.)
6. Processus contestationum super Sanditate et doctrina B. Catherines
de Senis. (Martene et Durand, Ampliss. Coll. Vet. Script. Tom. vi.)
This is the famous Process of Venice, containing the depositions of cer
tain persons who were cited to appear before Francis Bembo, Bishop
of Venice, in 141 1, to answer the charges brought against them of
rendering public honours to Catherine of Siena before she had yet
been canonised by the Church. The result of the investigation was
a declaration that in all that they had done to honour Catherine's
memory, the Friars of her Order had incurred no blame; and the
depositions of the witnesses were afterwards used in the Process of
her Canonisation. The document, as it appears in the pages of
Martene and Durand, is exceedingly imperfect, containing the
depositions of seven witnesses only, whereas the original Process,
of which a copy is preserved at Siena, contains twenty-four. The
seven depositions abovenamed are however some of the most
important, and they have been largely drawn from in the compilation
of the following narrative. Three of the missing depositions have
been printed by Baluze, in the fourth volume of his Miscellanea.
(Process.) 7. Deposition bf Don Francesco Malevolti. This very important
memoir, which forms part of the original Process, has never been
printed, and strange to say, it has rarely even been quoted. Refer
ences to it will often be found in Gigli's Prologues ; but these give
a most imperfect idea of the contents or value of the original. A
1 The authorities marked (*) are all inedited MSS. preserved in the Communal
Library of Siena, whence authentic copies have been procured for the use of the
wiiter, through the generous kindness of Signor Bernardo Fabbricotti, of Leghorn.

Preface. xv
perfect copy of it is preserved in the Biblioteca Casanatense at Rome ;
from which, through the kindness of the late Most Rev. Pere A. V.
Jandel, Master General of the Order of Preachers, an authentic copy
was made for the Library of St. Dominic's Convent, Stone. This
document will be found frequently quoted, and at considerable
length ; nor will the reader fail to appreciate Malevolti's merit both
as a witness and a writer.
* 8. Sommario del Processo di Santa Caterina, fatto dal Padre
Angiolo Maria Carapelli.
* 9. Sommario di cose appartenente a Santa Caterina.
* 10. Sommario di Notizie della Vita di S. Caterina. These three
manuscripts contain the sum of the Depositions, including those
which remain unpublished, and have proved of very great value.
They are all of them copies of manuscripts preserved at Siena.
* 11. Cor so Cronotastico della Vita di Santa Caterina da Siena.
Dal R. P. Fra -Angiolo Maria Carapelli, O. P. This invaluable
work, together with many others from the pen of the same learned
writer, who devoted himself with such ardour to the study and
illustration of St. Catherine's life, exists only in manuscript, in the
library of Siena. In compiling his chronology the writer has con
sulted every authority within his reach, and has thrown great light
on many difficult points, though his conclusions sometimes appear
open to question. When, however, we have found ourselves obliged
to differ from an authority so deserving of respect, the reasons for
such difference have been carefully assigned in a footnote. (Corso
Cron.) * 12. Sermo in reverentiam Beatce Katerinoi de Senis, 1382.
* 13. Epistola ad Magm Raimundum da Capua. These two
curious documents are of great interest to the English reader, as being
from the pen of F. William Flete, the English Augustinian hermit,
who was one of St. Catherine's confessors and chosen friends. They
have never hitherto been quoted at any length, though many refer
ences to F. William will be found in Gigli's Prefaces, and in Burla-
macchi's Notes to the letters. Independent of the interest which
attaches to the author from his connection with St. Catherine, he
was in his own time a notable English worthy, whose words had no
little weight with his countrymen, and whose authority was respect
fully appealed to by the Parliament of the realm.
* 14. Notate relative ad alcune Visioni avute da Santa Caterina
nella terra di Voragine.

xvi Preface.
* 15. Relazione del passagio di S. Cath. in Voragine. These two
MSS. restore to us a lost page in St. Catherine's history, the nar
rative, namely, of that visit to Voragine which finds no record in
the Legend, though it is alluded to in the Process.
16. Sommario della disputa a difesa delle sacre Stimate di Santa
Caterina da Siena: dal R. P. Fra Gregorio Lombardelli, 0. P.
This is a summary of the great work of Lombardelli on the Stigmas
of St. Catherine, which is preserved in MS. in the Vatican Library.
The Sommario alone was printed at Siena in 1601, but has now-
become so rare as to be, practically speaking, unattainable. Through
the courteous kindness, however, of the Rev. P. F. Thomas Bonnet,
Librarian of the Biblioteca Casanatense, at Rome, a transcription has
been made from the copy preserved in that library for the present work.
17. Breve Relazione del modo come fu portata da Roma a Siena
la sacra testa di Santa Caterina. (Siena, 1683.) The history of the
removal of St. Catherine's head from Rome to Siena is accurately
given in this little narrative, published anonymously, but written, as
we learn from F. Angiolo Carapelli, by F. Tommaso Angiolini, O. P.
18. Alcuni Miracoli di Santa Caterina da Siena, secondo che sono
narrati da un anonimo, suo contemporaneo. This little memoir was
well known both to Gigli and F. Burlamacchi, who frequently
quote from it. It was among the manuscripts which Gigli promised
to publish, but it remained inedited until the year 1862, when it was
printed from the MS. at Siena by Signor Grottanelli, only 250
copies, however, being struck off. The narrative is of great interest,
though the statements of the writer betray just that kind of inaccuracy
which is incident to those who attempt to write of contemporaneous
events. 19. Memorie di Ser Christofano di Galgano Guidini, da Siena.
This very curious autobiography of one of the most devoted of
St. Catherine's disciples has been frequently quoted, both by Gigli,
and other writers. It remained unpublished however until 1842^
when it was printed in the 4th volume of the Archivio Storico
Ltaliano, to which valuable collection we are likewise indebted
for the Chronica Antiqua Conventus S. Catharince in Pisis, which
appears in the 6 th volume.
20. Lettere dei discepoli di Santa Caterina da Siena. This collec
tion of letters long preserved in manuscript in the library of Siena
was printed for the first time by Signor Grottarielli in 1868, at the
end of the Leggenda Minore. The letters furnish us with most

Preface. xvii
valuable and interesting information, and admit us into the private
circle of the Saint's spiritual family.
21. Lettere di Santi e Beati Fiorentini. (Florence, 1736.) In this
collection are to be found two letters from Don John of the Cells
referring to St. Catherine, and one from the Blessed John Dominic.
22. De Vita et Moribus Beati Stephani Maconi Senensis, Auctore
D. Bartholomeo Senensi. Siena, 1626. (Vit. Steph. Mac.)
23. Divce Catherine Senensis Vita, per Joannem Pinum, Galium
Tolosanum. John Pino's " Life of St. Catherine " was published at
Bologna in 1505. It contains some additional details concerning
the Saint's visit to Avignon ; and Gigli, who notices the book in the
Prologue to the Legend, thinks it possible that the author derived his
information from authentic sources, collected on the spot. Barohius
speaks of him as "an exact writer." (Pino.)
24. Vita da S. Caterina da Siena, da P. Paolo Frigerio. (Roma,
1656). This life by P. Frigerio, of the Oratory, is noteworthy as one
of the very few in which any attempt has been made to add to the
materials collected by Raymund. It includes extracts from the life
of Stephen Maconi, and from some manuscripts furnished to the
writer by Pope Alexander VII., by whose command the work was
undertaken. 25. Capitolo in terza rimain laudedi Santa Caterina da Siena, per
Anastagio da Monte Altino, vivendo ancora lei nella presente vita.
26. Uno Capitolo in rima fatto per Jacobo di Monte Pulciano in
reverentia di Santa Caterina.
27. Uno Capitolo in rima fatio per Raniero de' Paglieresi, da Siena.
These poetical compositions, made by three of St. Catherine's
attached disciples, are of great interest and value. Ambrogio writes
of her as one still living, and depicts her as she appeared at the
moment before his bodily eyes. They are printed (complete) at the
end of the Venice Editions of her letters.
28. Storia di Santa Caterina da Siena, e del Papato del suo tempo,
per Alfonso Capelcelatro. (Florence, 1863.) This excellent work has
been already named, and to the researches of the author all sub
sequent biographers of St. Catherine must express their obligation.
The value of the book is much increased by the full and accurate
Elenca, or catalogue of all works, whether printed or in MS., relating
to the Saint, which is given as ap appendix in the third and fourth
editions. It is from the pen of Signor Grottanelli, and an attentive
study of it places at our command all the treasures of the Roman

xviii Preface.
and Sienese Libraries which contribute any additional materials to
our stock of knowledge in what concerns the history of St. Catherine.
( Capelcelatro!) 29. Annates Ecdesiastid ; continuatio Oderici Raynaldi. These
volumes contain the continuation of the Church Annals of Cardinal
Baronius by Oderico Rinaldi, and have been the chief authority
consulted for the historical notice of the Great Schism. (Rinaldi.)
30. VitcB Paparum Avenonensium : Steph. Baluzii. (Paris, 1693.)
31. Muratori : Italicarum Rerum Scriptores. The 15th volume
of this collection contains the Sienese chronicles of Andrea Dei,
continued by Angelo Tura ; and those by Neri Donate
32. The Chronicles of St. Antoninus of Florence. In his third
volume St Antoninus gives a life of St. Catherine abridged from the
Legend, but interspersed with some valuable remarks of his own.
33. Diario Sanese. (Diar. San.)
34. Vocabolario Cateriniano ( Vocab. Cat.) These two works are
by Girolamo Gigli. In the first he has collected every information '
regarding the churches, monuments, festivals, and customs of Siena
which can be of interest to the historian or the antiquary. In the
second he gives a vocabulary of such words in St. Catherine's works
as differ from the Tuscan approved by the Academies of Florence,
and belong rather to the Sienese dialect. His preference of the latter,
and his witty sarcasms on the Florentines gave offence at the court
of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and were the cause of his disgrace
and exile. By a decree of the Grand Duke, every copy of his book
was ordered to be given up and publicly burnt. A sufficient number
were actually destroyed to render the work a choice rarity ; but many
persons who possessed the prohibited volume relished its contents so
much that they concealed their copies, and only gave up sham
imitations to the flames ; while the book was eagerly sought for by
collectors, especially those of the English nation.
35. // Dialogo della Serafica Santa Caterina da Siena. (Dial.) This
forms the fourth volume of Gigli's edition of St. Catherine's works
which contains likewise her Treatise on Consummate Perfection and
her Prayers, together with a few other fragments and documents.
The Dialogue has more than once been translated into French, the
latest edition being that of M. Cartier; but no English version as yet
exists. May we live to see the day when the English reader shall
possess a complete edition of St. Catherine's works, from which alone
can be obtained any just conception of her illuminated wisdom !
In the above list are not included the more generally known

Preface. xix
Italian historians — references to whose works will be found in the
foot-notes, and who have been quoted only so far as was strictly
necessary to elucidate the course of the narrative. For the object
aimed at in these pages has been less to present the reader with
a complete history of the age of St. Catherine than to make
him better acquainted with the Saint herself. It is her character as
a woman that most requires to be made known, for it has hitherto
been partially concealed by the very splendour of her historical
reputation. Stupendous as is the story of her life, it has, neverthe
less, a side which brings her within the reach of ordinary sympathies.
Catherine, the Seraphic Bride of Christ, espoused to Him at Siena ;
stigmatised at Pisa ; supported on the Bread of Life ; the Pacificator
of Florence ; the Ambassadress of Gregory ; the Councillor of Urban ;
the Martyr for the unity of the Holy See ; — this is indeed a character
that overwhelms us with its very greatness. But Catherine, the
Lover of God and man, who gave away her will with her heart to
her Divine Spouse; the tender mother of a spiritual family; the
friend of the poor ; the healer of feuds, the lover of her country ; —
Catherine, with all her natural gifts of prudence and womanly tact ;
with her warm affections, and her love of the beautiful ; with her
raregenius refined, spiritualised, and perfected by Divine illumination ;
surrounded by men and women like ourselves, with whose infirmities
she bore, and whom she loved as heartily as they loved her in return ;
Catherine, with her wise and graceful words, her " gracious smile,"
and her sweet attractive presence, — this is indeed a being to be
loved and imitated ; we open our very hearts to receive her within
them, and to enshrine her there, not as a Saint only, but as a mother
and a friend.
In conclusion, it need only be remarked that in the attempt so
to represent our glorious Saint, the rule has been strictly adhered
to of excluding all imaginary details, and introducing nothing for
which there do not exist unimpeachable authorities. Where such
authorities have failed to fill up the gaps in our Biography, they have
been left unfilled.
The Frontispiece to the present volume is a fac simile of that
prefixed to the pictured Life of St. Catherine by Francesco Vanni,
originally printed in 1597, and reprinted at Antwerp in 1603.
A. T. D.
St. Dominic's Convent, Stone,
February 26th, 1880.

CONTENTS.

$att I.
ST. CATHERINE AT SIENA.
CHAP. i. catherine's family and childhood, 1347-1359,
ii. her domestic persecution, i359-i363,
iii. catherine enters the order of penance, i363
iv. catherine in solitude, i364-i366,
v. her temptation, delivery and espousals, i366.
vi. catherine in her family, 1367,
vii. Catherine's charity to her neighbour, 1367
VIII. the fall of the twelve, 1368, .
ix. heavenly favours, 1370, ....
x. beginning of Catherine's public like, 1370,
XI. CATHERINE'S SPIRITUAL FAMILY, .
XII. THE HERMITS OF LECCETO,
XIII. CATHERINE'S. PORTRAIT, ....
XIV. THE STRIFE OF TONGUES, 1 372,
XV. THE PLAGUE, 1 374, ....
XVI. CATHERINE AT MONTEPULCIANO, 1374,
XVII. BEATI PACIFICI, ... . .

1364. I367>
368,

PAGE 3
19
27 34
47 55
66 8193
no128
146
159171187
203215

Part H.
ST. CATHERINE'S EMBASSIES.
I. THE CHURCH AND ITALY, I372-I374,  237
II. CATHERINE AT PISA, 1375,  2$I
III. CALCI AND GORGONA, 1375,  272
IV. CATHERINE AT LUCCA, 1375, . . .... 282
V. STEPHEN MACONI, 1 376,  . 29I

XX11

Contents.

CHAP. riuiK
VI. CATHERINE'S FIRST EMBASSY TO FLORENCE, I376, . . - 297
VII. THE COURT OF AVIGNON, I376  3°9
VIII. THE DEPARTURE FROM AVIGNON, I376,  321
IX. THE RETURN TO SIENA, OCTOBER I376, TO JANUARY I377, . . 335
X. BELCARO, 1377,  353
XI. THE BREAD OF LIFE, .  3°2
XII. ROCCA D'ORCIA, AUGUST TO DECEMBER 1377  377
XIII. CATHERINE'S SECOND EMBASSY TO FLORENCE, JANUARY TO AUGUST
1378  4°4
XIV. THE MONKS OF VALLOMBROSA AND MONTE OLIVETO, . . . 423
XV. THE DIALOGUE AND THE LETTERS,  434

Part ML
THE GREAT SCHISM
I. URBAN VI., 1378, ....
II. CATHERINE IN ROME, NOVEMBER I378,
III. PROGRESS OF THE SCHISM, I379,
IV. ENGLAND AND THE SCHISM, 1378, I379,
V. FAMILY LETTERS, I379, .
VI. CATHERINE'S LAST VICTORY, I380, .
VII. THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I380,
VIII. THE TRANSITO, I380,
IX. MIGRAVIT AD SPONSUM ! I380,
X. DEVOTIONS OF ST. CATHERINE,
XI. A LAST GLANCE AT THE FAMILY,
XII. CANONISATION OF ST. CATHERINE, .
BULL OF CANONISATION,
APPENDIX A 
APPENDIX B 
INDEX, ... . .

454464480497 5'2
535553 564
569 59i
608629635.645648 651

MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

portrait OF ST. Catherine (from the print by Francesco
Vanni), .....
MAP OF SIENA, .....
CHURCH OF SAN DOMENICO, AND FONTEBRANDA,
PALAZZO PUBBLICO, SIENA,
HEAD OF ST. CATHERINE (from the painting by Andrea
PAPAL PALACE, AVIGNON,
MAP OF TUSCANY,
THE ISLAND OF GORGONA,
THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO,
TOMB OF ST. CATHERINE,

Frontispiece.

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ST. CATHERINE AT SIENA.

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CHURCH OF S. DOMENICO, SIENA.

CHAPTER I.

CATHERINE'S FAMILY AND CHILDHOOD, 1347-1359.
THE plains which occupy the centre of Tuscany, lying between
the sources of the Arno, the Tiber, and the Ombrone, present
few of those distinctive features of heauty which we are wont to
associate with an Italian landscape. The wide and desolate levels
are broken only by insignificant sandhills which scarcely interrupt
our view of the vast horizon. As we approach the southern
boundary of this district, however, the country becomes more hilly
and diversified ; villages and cultivated farms everywhere appear ;
and these, together with the frequent recurrence of the familiar
foliage of the oak, may possibly carry back the thoughts of an
English traveller to scenes nearer home. It needs but a second
glance, however, to remind him that he is treading the soil of Italy,
as his eye catches the glitter of the silvery olive on the hillsides,
or, in lieu of the tapering spire of an English village church, rests
on the tall and graceful campanile. Above all, he will recognise

4 Aspect of Siena.
in the heavens which shine over these Tuscan plains a beauty
such as our northern latitudes can never boast ; for the sky is as
full of light as that of Attica, and its brilliancy is reflected in the
gay and lively character of the people over whom it smiles.
It is then in this part of Tuscany, as it approaches nearer to the
mountains, on an eminence 1300 feet above the level of the sea,
that stands Siena, " the city of the Virgin," lifting her quaint towers
into that luminous atmosphere, and seeming by her very position
to command the surrounding plains. So her poets have loved to
describe her, " towering from the hills, basking in the light of those
serene and glowing heavens; full of all that is gay and graceful
in manners ; all her sons brave and courteous, and all her daughters
beautiful." 1
There is probably no city in Italy which retains so exclusively
medieval an aspect. When the storm of the classical Renaissance
swept over the land, it spared the red brick towers of Siena, and left
her churches and palaces standing almost as they stood in the four
teenth century. Her walls are still unlevelled, and her gates retain
not only their ancient names, but the very pictures of the Blessed
Virgin placed there centuries ago by the magistrates of the republic
in thanksgiving for her signal protection of the city. The view from
those walls has its resemblances and its contrasts with that which
would have met the eye five hundred years ago. Within their
enclosure lies the ancient city, covering the space of three hills,
each of which is crowned by some dome or tapering campanile,
while from the very centre of the group rises the lofty tower of
the Palazzo Pubblico. At the time to which our story belongs
there would have been seen a fair display of other towers, which
gave to Siena an appearance of splendour and command which
is now considerably diminished. Permission was granted to the
great families to attach such appendages to their palaces, in reward
of any distinguished service, and no more ignominious sentence
could be decreed against an offender, were he of noble blood,
than the destruction of his tower. But in the sixteenth century,
when Siena had long lost her freedom, they were all ruthlessly
1 " Siena, dal colle ove torregia e siede." — Alfieri.
" Di leggiadria, di bei costumi e piena,
Di vaghe donne e d'uomini cortesi,
L'aere e dolce, lucida e serena." — Fazio degli Vberti.

The Duomo. 5
levelled by Diego di Mendoza, the Spanish lieutenant of the
Emperor Charles V, and the materials used in the construction
of a fortress.
If the interior aspect of the city is thus shorn somewhat of its
ancient dignity, 'the suburbs and surrounding country have pro-
portionably gained. We look now over plains covered with
cultivation, where the white walls of convents and villas gleam
through olive woods and vineyards, or the darker foliage of the
cypress or the stone pine. And hidden away in their recesses
we know of many a pleasant garden, for the Sienese are now, as
ever, great lovers of flowers. In the fourteenth century the country
presented a far more desolate appearance, continually ravaged as
it was by hostile armies or bands of freebooters. But the main
features are nevertheless the same : there is the torrent of the
Tressa still flowing fast below the walls ; to the north there is that
immense horizon which has its transparent vastness for its solitary
beauty ; to the south we behold rising in the distance the rugged
heights of Radicofani, and Monte Amiata.
Of the three hills on which Siena is built, one is surmounted by the
Duomo, or cathedral, an unfinished fragment consisting of what, were
the work completed, would form only the transept of the edifice.
Yet even thus it claims to be the master-piece of Italian Gothic, and
on it, century after century, the artists and sculptors of Siena have
lavished the best efforts of their genius. There may be seen the
curious pavement inlaid with stories from the Old Testament, which
is thought by some to have suggested to Dante a famous passage in
the Purgatorio j1 there in the frieze on either side of the nave are the
long rows of tiara'd heads, the portraits of the Popes from St. Peter to
Alexander III., so wonderful in their expression of majesty; there,
fixed against the pilasters which support the dome, are the poles of the
Florentine Carroccio, or Car of the Standard, captured by the Sienese
in 1260, at their great victory of Monte Aperto; and there is the
pulpit, the most magnificent work of Nicolo da Pisa, from which the
great patriarch St. Dominic preached when first he visited this city,
when, according to the ancient legend, the Blessed Virgin was seen
standing by his side and inspiring his discourse.
On the hill to the north of that occupied by the Duomo, standing
apart from other buildings on a kind of cliff with gardens and under-
1 Purgatorio, Canto xii. 9-33, 56-67.

6 San Domenico.
wood creeping up its sides, there rises another church which, if
possessing less architectural beauty, nevertheless fails not to rivet the
eye by its commanding position. It is the Church of San Domenico,
occupying the site called the Campo Reggio, from the circumstance
that Henry, king of the Romans, encamped his army here when he
came to besiege Siena in 1186. It was then outside the city walls,
and was the property of the Malevolti, a family devoted to the Im
perial cause, one of whom, Malevolti the Strong Arm, as he was called,
bestowed it in 1220 on the founder of the Friars Preachers. It
is, alas ! no longer in the possession of the Order to which it is
linked by a thousand associations, having passed in 1784 into the
hands of the Benedictines of Monte Cassino. But for the moment
we will only remind ourselves that it was the third foundation of
our Holy Father St. Dominic, that within its walls he gave the
habit to Tancred Tancredi, that beneath its altars repose the ashes
of Blessed Ambrose Sansedoni, and that for thirty years its pave
ment was almost daily trodden by the footsteps of St. Catherine of
Siena. Its dimensions have been added to since her time, the transepts
not having been opened until 1465. But the lower church or crypt
where the friars used to assemble for the office of the dead, and
where was the burial place of her family, is now abandoned, and in
Gigli's days was used to contain the straw and other stores of the
neighbouring fortress. Formerly it boasted of a tower of extraordin
ary beauty, built by the Tancredi family, who were great benefactors
to the Order. Next to the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico it was
reckoned the most beautiful in Tuscany. Above the topmost
cornice rose a lofty pinnacle, with other smaller pinnacles at
the corners; but these were so frequently struck and injured by
lightning that at length the friars pulled them down, to the intense
indignation of the citizens, who denounced them as unworthy of
possessing so exquisite an edifice if they cared not to keep it in
repair.1 The depression between the two hills of which we have spoken is
known as the Valle Piatta, at the bottom of which appears the
famous fountain of Fontebranda, first erected in 108 1 by the family
of Branda, and enlarged in 1198, which supplies all this part of the
1 In Vanni's pictured Life of St. Catherine, the tower is represented with its
lofty pinnacles still untouched.

State of Italy. 7
city with water, and has found a notice in the pages of Dante.1
Turning to the right hand you enter the Strada dell' Oca leading up
a steep ascent, on the left-hand side of which stands a house com
monly known as the " Fullonica." Over the door of this house you
may read in golden letters the words, "Sponsce Christi Katherina
Domus." Five hundred years ago it was the residence of Giacomo
Benincasa, the dyer, and the father of St. Catherine ; it is now one
of the holy places of Siena, and the devotion of the citizens has pre
served with scrupulous care every apartment once consecrated by the
presence of their glorious countrywoman. Enter, and you will see
her father's workshop, the stairs she so often ascended on her knees,
the kitchen where she discharged her humble household duties, the
chamber she was permitted to use as a chapel, and the little cell
which for so many years was the scene of her prayers, her penances,
and the marvels of her daily intercourse with God. This is "the
house of Catherine, the spouse of Christ," the least footprints of whose
life have been thus jealously preserved and religiously venerated.
It was a life cast in the midst of days most sorrowful for her
country and for Christendom. The latter half of the fourteenth
century was rife with those signs of decay which mark the interval
between the extinction of an old form of civilisation and the
establishment of its successor. The age of chivalry, properly so
called, was over, and together with the glories of the holy wars we
miss those grand Pontificates, under which the brute force of semi-
barbarous nations was subdued to the dominion of the faith. The
triumph achieved by Philip le Bel over Boniface VIII. had resulted
in the removal of the Popes to Avignon, an event equally disastrous
to the interests of the Holy See and the welfare of Italy. Rome,
abandoned by her legitimate rulers, was left the prey of contending
factions ; her population dwindled into insignificance; her palaces
and sacred temples were crumbling to ruins. The very year which
witnessed the birth of St. Catherine was rendered" memorable by the
seven months' tribuneship of Nicolas Rienzi ; but his brief assump
tion of power was succeeded by fresh revolts, which extended to
every part of the Papal dominions, and considerably weakened the
authority of the Roman Pontiffs.
Nor was the condition of the Italian republics at this time much
more prosperous. It was in great measure through the protection
1 Inferno, xxx. This fountain gives its name to the district in which it stands.
Hence St. Catherine is sometimes called "the Virgin of Fontebranda. "

8 State of Italy.
afforded them by the Holy See that so many of the cities of Northern
Italy had, at an earlier period, obtained their municipal freedom.
Even those which continued to acknowledge the authority of the
German Emperors, succeeded in securing for themselves privileges
so considerable as to place them in a position of virtual independ-
ance, though, by the time of which we are speaking, many of these
Ghibeline States had resigned their liberties into the hands of
certain families such as the Visconti, who, as lords of Milan, ruled
over the greater part of Lombacdy. The Guelph cities, on the
other hand, retained their republican institutions, though often at a
bloody cost. The freedom of Florence and Siena was purchased
at the price of revolutions, so numerous and so fruitful in social
misery that Dante compares his native city to a sick man tossing on
his couch and vainly seeking for ease by a change of posture. The
triumph of one faction was followed by the proscription of its rival,
and hence arose those deadly family feuds which gave a yet more
acrimonious character to party strife.
It was not merely the old contest between Guelph and Ghibeline,
kept alive and embittered as the exiles from one city took refuge in
a neighbouring state, and were ever ready to avenge their wrongs by
turning their swords against their fellow-citizens. A new source of
civil contention arose in the thirteenth century, when the people,
growing jealous of the power of the nobles, began to league together
to exclude them from all share in the government, until at length
this jealousy of their rulers, whether noble or plebeian, became so
preposterous that in most of the Tuscan republics no man was allowed
to exercise the higher offices of state for more than two months a at
time. This was the case in Siena, where at the period of St.
Catherine's birth the government was in the hands of the popolani, or
middle-class tradesmen.
Their supremacy had not been established without a fierce struggle.
In the twelfth century Siena adopted the consular form of govern
ment, and the head of the republic enjoyed the title and authority of
Podesta. This office was generally held by one of noble birth, but
in 1267 the rivalries of Guelph and Ghibeline brought about a
revolution, which resulted in the establishment of a new constitution
and the exclusion of the nobles (who mostly belonged to the Ghibe
line faction) from all offices of state. The popular party, who
represented the Guelphs, now prevailed ; nine magistrates were
annually chosen from the plebeian class to form the Signoria, but the

Government of Siena. 9
number of electors was extremely limited, and the government of the
Nine, as it was called, came soon to be regarded as an odious oli
garchy. In 1355 the arrival in Siena of the Emperor Charles IV.
brought about a counter-revolution. The nobles made common
cause with the discontented citizens, and encouraged by the Emperor,
succeeded in overthrowing the Nine, some of whom were put to
death in the heat of popular commotion. In their place were chosen
twelve magistrates, two of whom governed conjointly for the space of
two months, when they were succeeded by other two. Charles,
dissatisfied with this arrangement, made a strenuous effort to obtain
the appointment of his natural brother, the Patriarch of Aqueleia, as
virtual Chief of the republic ; but the appointment, though made,
lasted only a few weeks ; the jealousy of the citizens saw in it a
design upon their independence, and in May 1355 the Patriarch
was forced to offer his resignation, and the government of the Twelve
was re-established. This state of things lasted until 1368, when, as we
shall see, Siena became the scene of a fresh revolution. These
various changes increased the bitterness of existing feuds ; the nobles
struggled hard to regain some share of political power, and were
often in arms against the people ; and if to these sources of social
disorder we add the frequent plagues which then ravaged Italy,1
and the lawless bands of the Free Companies, who roamed from
state to state, levying contributions on the unwarlike inhabitants, or
making them victims to their ferocious violence, we may gather some
notion of the wounds of that society to which St. Catherine was sent
as an angel of peace.
The family of Benincasa, of which she was a member, belonged
to the class of popolani, just alluded to, as at that time holding the
chief rule in Siena.2 Giacomo Benincasa himself at one time filled
the office of chief magistrate, and the name of his brother Ambrogio,
a goldsmith by trade, occurs as one of the "Defenders" of the
republic in the months of September and October 13 71. It is
affirmed by some writers that the families of Benincasa and
Borghese had a common origin; but though the fact seems
1 The very year following the birth of St. Catherine was marked by the great
plague, which Bocaccio has rendered celebrated, in which 80,000 persons are said
to have died in Siena and its neighbourhood.
a Raymund of Capua, in the Legend, only says that they held a respectable posi
tion among their fellow-citizens ; but Caffarini, in the Leggenda Minore, particularly
notices that " they belonged to the class which then ruled and governed the city
of Siena."

10 The Benincasa Family.
sufficiently authentic, it is certain that the Benincasa made no claim
to nobility. They were in the position of substantial tradesmen,
enjoying a fair share of worldly prosperity, and owning a little
country estate near Santa Maria a Pili, which came into the posses
sion of Lisa, St. Catherine's sister-in-law, after the death of her
husband, Bartolo Benincasa Giacomo was married to Lapa di
Puccio di Piagenti, whose father, Mucio Piagenti, is said to have
been a poet of some little reputation. J Giacomo had a sister,
Agnes, married to Chele di Duccio. After she became a widow,
she entered among the Sisters of Penance of St. Dominic, and
her portrait is painted in the dormitory of the Convent of San
Domenico, inscribed with the words, Beata Agnese Benincasa. Lapa
also had a family connection with the order of Preachers, for a
document is preserved signed and sealed by F. Erveo, Master-
General of the Order, granting to Mucio Piagenti and his wife,
Cecca, a participation in all the prayers and good works of the
brethren in return for their great devotion to the Order.
The pious, simple, and charitable character of Giacomo made
him beloved and respected by all his neighbours. He was so mild
and guarded in his words that, no matter how much he was provoked,
he never gave way to anger : and if he saw any member of his family
vexed or disturbed, he would try and calm them, saying ; " Now
do not be angry, that God may bless you." Once when a fellow-
citizen had greatly wronged and calumniated him, Lapa was giving
free vent to her indignation, but her husband would not hear his
enemy ill-spoken of. " Let him alone, wife, and God will bless us,"
he said, "it is God who will show him his error, and be our defence."
Another virtue in which he excelled was a singular modesty of speech,
so that no freedom of language was ever tolerated in his family. His
daughter, Bonaventura, having married Niccolo Tegliacci, a citizen
of Siena, was often required to entertain her husband's young friends,
whose conversation was far from being blameless. Her health broke
down, and Niccolo observing that she was pining away from some
secret grief, inquired the cause. " In my father's house," she replied,
" I was never used to hear such words as those I now daily listen
to ; be sure that if this goes on you will soon see me dead." Struck
with wonder and respect, Niccolo lost no time in making his com
panions understand that nothing must be said in his wife's presence
that could wound her sense of modesty, and ere long the good
1 Ugurgieri, Pompe Sanesi, tit. 28.

The Benincasa Family. 1 1
customs of Giacomo's household were established also in that of his
son-in-law. Lapa Benincasa was an honest and industrious woman, though
possessed of very ordinary mind. She bore her husband twenty-
five children, the names of thirteen appearing on the family tree.
Catherine and her twin sister, Jane, were born on the 25th of March,
1347. Four of her brothers lived to man's estate, Benincasa,
Bartolo, Stephen, and Sandro. Of the last named we know no
more than that at the close of the fifteenth century his grandson
was still living in Siena. The names of the other three often recur
in St. Catherine's life and letters. Benincasa was old enough in
1346 to take a shop and business of his own;1 he married, and
had several children and grandchildren. Bartolo, the second son,
was married to Lisa di Golio di Piccio, first cousin to St. John
Colombini : Stephen appears to have remained single, and died in
Catherine's lifetime. Of the daughters, Nicoluccia was married to
Palmiero della Fonte, to which family belonged Father Thomas della
Fonte, the Saint's first confessor, who was brought up in her father's
house. Magdalen married Bartolo di Vannini ; of Bonaventura we
have already spoken, and direct descendants from the two last-
named sisters were living at Siena in Gigli's time; a fourth sister,
Lisa, remained unmarried, and died of the plague in 1374.
The sons, after their marriage, continued according to the custom
of the age to live with their parents ; and up to the time of Gia
como's death in 1368, the large family remained undivided, occupy
ing the house of which we have already spoken as " the Fullonica."
Catherine, as the youngest,2 was the special object of her mother's
tenderness. Nor was she the favourite of her own parents alone.
As soon as she could walk, her winning ways attracted the notice of
the neighbours, who were so charmed with her childish talk that they
were always trying to entice her to their houses, so that Lapa found
it no easy matter to keep her at home. They gave her the pet name
of Euphrosyne, which in Greek signifies joy ; for, says F. Raymund,
" as soon as any one conversed with her, sadness was dispelled from
his heart." As she grew in years she grew also in grace and intelli-
1 See the documents printed by Grottanelli, Note 49 to Leggenda Minore.
2 She is so called by F. Raymund, but on the family tree appears the name of
"Nanna, ultima nata," who died April 18, 1363. The probability however
is that this date is incorrect, and that Nanna was identical with Catherine's
twin sister Giovanna, who died immediately after their birth.

12 Catherine 's first Vision.
gence, and when no more than five years old, having learnt the Hail
Mary she would recite it on each step of the stairs as she went up
and down, kneeling on her knees with great reverence. " Whilst yet
a mere baby," says a contemporary writer,1 " the child delighted in
going to churches and places of devotion." One day, when she was
about six years old, her mother sent her, in company with her brother
Stephen who was a little older, to the house of their married sister
Bonaventura. Having discharged their errand they returned home
wards, and crossing the Valle Piatta were about to turn into the street
now known as the Cortone which leads down to Fontebranda, when
raising her head and looking towards the Church of San Domenico
on the opposite hill, Catherine saw in the heavens a majestic throne
set, as it were, upon the gable-end of the church, on which throne
appeared our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ crowned with a tiara
and wearing pontifical robes, while beside him stood St. Peter, St.
Paul, and St. John the Evangelist, and several men in white gar
ments.2 As she gazed in wonder at the heavenly vision she beheld
how our Lord stretched out His right hand towards her, and made
over her the sign of the cross, as when a Bishop gives his blessing, at
the same time bestowing on her a look full of majesty and tenderness.
Rapt into a kind of ecstasy, she continued to stand and gaze, wholly
absorbed, and as it were united spiritually with that most glorious
Lord whom she there beheld, so that she forgot not only whither she
was going, but her own self also, and remained there motionless,
giving no heed either to men or beasts that passed that way; and so
she would have remained even longer had no one called her away. But
at length her brother, Stephen, who had gone on his way and imagined
her to be following, turned back, and seeing her thus standing still
in the midst of the road and gazing into the air, he called her aloud
by her name, but she gave him no answer, and seemed not so much
as to hear him. Then he drew nearer, still calling to her ; until at
last coming up to the spot where she stood he took her by the hand,
saying, " What are you doing, why are you staying here ? " At which
words, roused as it were out of a deep sleep as she felt him pulling
her by the hand, she cast down her eyes, and looking at him for a
moment, " Oh, did you but see the sight I saw,"ttshe said, " never
would you have disturbed me." Then she once more raised her
eyes, thinking again to have seen the lovely vision ; but all had
1 Miracoli, p. 7. 2 Pavecchi uomini bianchi. Ibid., p. 3.

Catherine's first Vision. 13
vanished; and full of grief she began to weep bitterly, supposing
that she had through her own fault, by turning away her looks,
deserved to lose that precious favour. "Having reached home,"
says the author of the Miracoli, " she said nothing to father or
mother of what she had seen ; but from that day there grew up in
her a certain carefulness of soul, a fear and remorse of conscience,
and dread of committing sin as far as was possible to one at her age.
And ever as she grew in years there increased in her this anxiety,
and she bethought her what means she might take to offend God
less, and was always seeking to be alone, and to steal away some
where out of her parents' sight that she might be able to say her
prayers in secret." x This was the event which, young as she was, for
ever drew her heart to the Supreme Beauty ; to Him, whom once
beheld, she never forgot, and in comparison of whom all earthly
things from that hour became as nothingness.2 From that day she
seemed no longer a child ; for " the heavenly fire of God's love had
wrought such an attraction in her heart, such a light in her under
standing, such a fervour in her will, such a pliantness in all her powers
both of body and soul to follow the instinct of His Holy Spirit, that
to those who saw her behaviour and took good heed to her words and
deeds it seemed that she was made wholly conformed to Jesus Christ
her sweet Spouse and Saviour."3
1 Miracoli, 8, 9. The exact spot where this vision took place was marked by
Gigli by a painting and an inscription in the street j called the Cortone, which
leads down to Fontebranda. A few years since the painting having faded, it was
restored at the public expense. It is now no longer to be seen, but the inscription
remains, and runs as follows : —
SANCT./E CATHARINE BENINCASI^ ADHUC SEXENNI
HINC CUM FRATRE PUERO DOMUM REVERTENTI
CHRISTUS IN SPECIEM MAJESTATEMQUE SUMMI PONTIFICIS
IPSI BENEDICENTIS
EX OPPOSITO DOMINICANI TEMPLI CULMINE
SS. APOSTOLIS PETRO, PAULO, ET JOHANNE, ASTANTIBUS APPARUIT.
s This is well expressed by her disciple B. Giacomo del Pecora of Montepul-
ciano, in one of the poems in which he celebrates the life of his holy Mistress :—
In Valle piatta la prima vivanda
Gust6 di Crista, essendo appena adulta,
A cui apparse in vista veneranda.
Nel cor virgineo allora ne risulta
Un infiammato amor, alto disio
Che sol Cristo seguir seco consulta.
3 Fen., p. 6.

14 Her Childhood.
In speaking of this time afterwards to her confessor, F. Raymund,
she acknowledged that it was not by reading, or by any human
teaching, that the desire arose in her of following a manner of life
similar to that of which we read in the lives of the Fathers of the
desert, and other Saints. It was God Himself who inspired it,
until she could think of nothing but how she might best bring it to pass.
She began, therefore, to plan for herself a new way of life, giving up
all childish sports, diminishing her food, and practising other kinds
of penance. She also sought out for herself a retired part of the
house, where she would scourge herself with a little discipline which
she had fashioned out of some cords. Nor did she rest content
until she had persuaded some of the neighbours' children to follow
her example, so that gathering themselves together with her, they
would do the same, saying, meanwhile, a certain number of Paters
and Aves, as many as she prescribed ; and persevering in these
exercises of piety, the more she shunned the company of men the
more did she grow in favour with God, so that often when she set
herself to go up and down the stairs in her father's house, after the
manner that has been already described, she was seen by many
persons to be carried in the air without so much as touching any
of the steps with her feet, and that with so great rapidity that
her mother, who more than once beheld her so borne to the top,
trembled lest she should fall.
But the great desire which at this time took possession of her
heart was to seek out some solitary place in the wilderness where
she might serve God after the manner of the ancient hermits ; and
following this dream of a childish imagination she determined to
leave her father's house, and to sat forth in search of the desert.
One morning, therefore, prudently providing herself with a loaf of
bread, she directed her steps towards the residence of her married
sister, which was near the Gate of St. Ansano.1 Passing through this
gate, she found herself for the first time in her life outside the city
walls, and going on she came at last to where she saw the houses
standing one here and another there, and not together as she was wont
1 Frigerio, and after him the Bollandists and P. Capelcelatro identify this as
the present Gale of St. Mark. But Signor Grottanelli has corrected this error.
The Gate of St. Ansano (which was so called from being close to the spot where
according to tradition, the martyr St. Ansano was thrown into a vessel of boiling
pitch) no longer exists ; and its site is now occupied by the Church of St. Sebastian,
near the Fosso di St. Ansano.

She seeks a Wilderness. 1 5
to see them in the city, for which reason she was glad, hoping that
now she must be near to the wilderness. However, she held on her
way a little further, and came at last to a place where she found a
sort of cave under a shelving rock, which she entered with great
joy, believing that she had found at last her much desired solitude.
Without more delay, then, she fell on her knees and began to pray,
and gave thanks to God, who was pleased to give her a sensible token
that He accepted her good intention, although it was not His purpose
to call her to that manner of life. For as she prayed with great
fervour she was lifted up above the ground as far as the height of
the cave would suffer her to rise ; and so she continued until the
hour of None. But at that same hour when our Lord was taken
down from the Cross, she began by little and little to descend,
and understanding at the same time by a secret inspiration that it
was not the wish of her Divine Master that she should serve Him
after this manner, she thought within herself how she should return
home. But coming out of the cave, and finding herself all alone,
and a long way from the city gate, she began to fear lest she should
not be able to get so far, and considered also the trouble which her
father and mother would feel, believing her to be lost. She there
fore again had recourse to prayer, and as she herself afterwards
acknowledged to her sister-in-law, Lisa, God failed not to supply her
weakness, for He sent a little cloud which lifted her from the ground
and carrying her in the air set her down very shortly at the gate of
the city, whence she made her way home with all speed and found
that her parents were in no anxiety about her, supposing her to have
been spending the day with her sister Bonaventura.1
The failure of this attempt in no way abated Catherine's ardour ;
and understanding that she was not called to follow the life of the
ancient hermits, she resolved at least to imitate those holy virgins of
whom she had heard that they dedicated themselves to God by
a vow of virginity in their earliest years. Knowing nothing of the
world and its pleasures, she yet longed to renounce them for the love
of Him, the vision of Whom " had utterly extinguished in her," says
F. Raymund, "the love of this life." One day, therefore, when she
was about seven years old, after praying much that our Blessed Lady,
the Queen of virgins, would intercede for her with her Divine Son,
1 Fen., p. n. The exact spot where this took place is not to be identified, but
all round Siena, and especially towards the lower part of the plain, are many small
caves in the soft sandstone, such as that which figures in the story.

1 6 Her Vow of Chastity.
that she might be shown the way in which she might best please
Him, she retired to a secret place where she felt sure of being neither
seen nor heard, and kneeling down she spoke aloud to the Blessed
Virgin in the following words : " O most Blessed Lady, and Sacred
Mother of God ! who before all other women didst by vow consecrate
thy virginity to God, I beseech thee to obtain for me such grace and
favour with thy Son that, from this day forward, I may take Him to
be the Spouse of my soul. And I here give my faith and promise
to Him and to thee, that I will never take other spouse but Him, and
so far as in me lies will keep myself pure and unspotted for Him
alone to the end of my days."
This done, she set herself to consider what steps she might best
take to secure her own fidelity to that which she had promised.
She regarded herself as henceforth bound to a life of perfection.
" She often assured her confessors," says Caffarini,1 " that from the
time she thus consecrated herself to God (which she did when little
more than six years old), if she entertained so much as an idle
thought, or fell into any fault which, however trifling, seemed enor
mous in her eyes, she lost no time in humbling herself and doing
penance." Moreover, by a secret instinct of grace, she understood
that she had now entered on a warfare with nature which demanded
the mortification of every sense. She resolved, therefore, to add
fasting and watching to her other penances, and in particular to
abstain entirely from meat ; so that when any was placed before her,
she either gave it to her brother Stephen who sat beside her, or
threw it under the table to the cats, in such a manner as to avoid
notice. She began also to feel a great zeal, not only for her own
sanctification, but also for that of other souls whom she longed to
gain to God. On this account she cherished a singular devotion to
wards those saints who had laboured most for the salvation of souls.
And learning that the great patriarch, St. Dominic, had founded his
Order expressly for this end, she conceived a special love for him,
and was accustomed to hold the brethren of that Order in such
reverence that when she saw any of them passing her father's house,
she would go after them and humbly kiss the very steps where they
had set their feet. In her childish imagination she even longed to
embrace their rule, and disguising herself as a man to be received
among them in some distant cloister where she, too, in the livery of
St. Dominic, might spend her days in winning souls to God ¦ a
1 Sup., Part I, Trat. 2, § i.

Her Prudence. 1 7
thought which had perhaps been first suggested by the history of St
Euphrosyne, by whose name, as has been said, she was commonly
called, and with whose legend on that account she was probably
familiar. Yet with the lively imagination of a child there mingled, even at
this early age, in the character of Catherine, a sense and maturity far
beyond her years. Her parents and their neighbours often had
occasion to admire the gravity and discretion of her words, which
inspired them with a feeling of respect. One instance of this was
often related by Lapa, and has been preserved by all her biographers.
She was not yet ten years old when one day her mother called her,
and bade her go to their parish church x and ask the priest to say a
mass in honour of St. Antony, at the same time giving her some
money and candles which were to be offered at the altar. Catherine
gladly obeyed, and having discharged her commission, she stayed
for her own devotion till the end of the mass. But her mother
thought that she would have returned home after making her oblation
to the priest ; and on her reappearance addressed her in angry words,
" Cursed be the tongues ! " she exclaimed, " that said my daughter
should come no more;2 she has come at length, though she has
tarried long on the way." The child hearing these words held her
self still for a while and returned no answer. But after a little space,
when she had, as it were, taken counsel with herself, she drew her
mother aside, and said with great gravity and respect, " My honoured
mother,3 when you see me transgress any of your commands, beat
me with a rod if you think well, that I may be more wary another
time, for it is only right that you should do so. But one thing I
pray, that for my faults you curse no man or woman in this world, for
it is unseemly for you to do so, and a great grief for me to hear."
Her mother wondered as she listened to the wise words of the child ;
but not wishing to show what she felt, she asked her why she had
stayed so long away. "I only stayed," she replied, "to hear the

1 Of St. Antonio in Fontebranda, Diario San., 2. 71.
2 Raymund explains this as a sort of idiom in use among the vulgar when ex
postulating with any one who delays : " Cosi suol dirsi da alcuni del volgo a
coloro che troppo indugiano." Leg., Part I, cap. 3.
3 Leg. , Part I, cap. 3. Madonna Madre ; an expression of unusual respect,
which Catherine used because she was about to say what implied a reproof of her
mother ; and she desired therefore to express it in the most humble and deferen
tial language. B

1 8 Her Prudence.
mass which you bid me ask for, and that done, I came straight home
again, and went nowhere else." Lapa was greatly edified at this
reply ; and as soon as her husband came home she told him all that
had passed, and both gave thanks to God for the singular tokens of
grace and prudence which became daily more apparent in their little
daughter.

( 19 )

CHAPTER II.
HER DOMESTIC PERSECUTION, 1339-1363.
WHEN Catherine was about twelve years old, her father and
mother began to think how they might bestow her in mar
riage, and according to the custom of the country with young maidens
of that age she was kept more strictly at home, while at the same time
her mother began to urge her to give more time and attention to her
dress and the adornment of her hair and person. These exhorta
tions were very unwelcome to Catherine, who was far indeed from
desiring to make herself more attractive to the eyes of men. On the
contrary, she avoided them with a kind of horror, and as her confessor
informs us, if she chanced, at this time, to meet any of her father's
apprentices who lived in the house, she fled from them as if they
had been serpents. Neither would she even approach the door or
window to gaze at passers-by, her whole anxiety being to keep her
self hidden from all notice. It may well be supposed, therefore, that
she showed small willingness to comply with her mother's wishes ; so
that after many fruitless contentions, Lapa was forced to call in
the aid of her married daughter Bonaventura, whom she begged to
use her influence with her sister and persuade her to adopt the dress
and ornaments suitable to her age. She well knew the special affec
tion which Catherine bore towards her elder sister, and trusted that
Bonaventura might succeed where she had failed. Nor were her
hopes disappointed. The example and persuasive words of Bona
ventura won so far upon her sister, that she was induced to give
more time to her toilette, and particularly to the care of her hair,
which was of great beauty. John Pino, in his Life of the Saint,
describes it as being of a golden brown,1 an expression confirmed by
F. Bartholomew Dominici in his deposition. Hair of this particular
hue has always been held in singular esteem by the natives of Italy,
1 Flavum ilium capillum et aureum, jubet abicere. Pino, Vita, p. 8. Capillos
flavos quos habebat, abscidit. Process, 1314.

20 Her Fault.
and Lapa might therefore have been well content with the personal
advantages which nature had bestowed on her daughter. But there
existed at that time the ridiculous fashion of using certain unguents
for the purpose of altering the natural colour of the hair, and Lapa
could not be satisfied until Catherine's beautiful tresses had been
subjected to this ill-advised treatment.1
Her triumph, however, was of short duration. If, in compliance
with her sister's persuasion Catherine had yielded somewhat to the
besetting folly of her sex, she no sooner had time for reflection than
she conceived an intense remorse for her weakness, believing herself
to have been thereby guilty of a grievous offence against God. And
in this light she ever continued to regard it ; weeping over her fault,
and again and again seeking to wash away the stain which she thought
she had contracted by humble self- accusation. She used often
to make a general confession of her whole life, and whenever she
came to this point, says F. Raymund, "she could make no end
of weeping and lamenting." As she appeared to consider this fault
as one deserving of eternal punishment, he once took occasion to
question her whether at that time she had any purpose of acting
contrary to her vow. To which she replied that such a thought had
never once entered her heart. Then he inquired if she had desired
to be liked or admired by men ; and she answered by saying that
there was nothing that grieved her more than when by any necessity
she was seen by them. " Why, then," said he, " do you take your
offence to be so grievous in the sight of God?" " Because," said
she, sobbing and sighing from the bottom of her heart, " I think
that at that time I preferred the love of my sister before the love of
God ; and while I was afraid of offending a silly creature, I offended
the Divine Majesty of the everlasting Creator and the sweet Spouse
of my soul, Jesus Christ." Then her confessor, desiring to comfort
her, said to her, " Although there was some excess, yet considering
that it was but little and done for no evil intent, but only for a vain
pleasure at that time, I take it, it was not against the commandment
of God." When she heard her confessor say so, she lifted up her
eyes to heaven, and cried with a loud voice : " O my Lord God,
1 We gather this from the expression used by Caffarini in the Leggenda Minore,
"Era sollecita, che Caterina facci e' capegli biondi." Signor Grottanelli has
drawn attention to this circumstance, hitherto overlooked, but which throws con
siderable light on the whole story, and he quotes a recipe for the preparation of
this singular cosmetic, which is preserved in the Siena Library.

Her Repentance. 2 1
what a ghostly father is this, that excuses my sins ? " Then turning
to her confessor again, she said : " Father, think you that a vile
creature who has received so many graces and gifts of her Creator,
of His mere goodness, without any merit on her part, could without
sin withdraw any time from the service of such a loving and bountiful
Lord, and bestow it upon this miserable carcase ? " 1 When he heard
these words and saw that they proceeded from a heart inflamed with
the love of God, he said no more. Nevertheless, examining into the
whole state of her conscience, he takes occasion from this passage of
her life to notice how great must have been the purity of that soul
which could charge itself with no more heinous offence than the one
in question.
Light, however, as her fault might appear in the judgment of
the world, it brought with it a certain relaxation of fervour, so that
Catherine perceived in herself that she was slacker and colder in her
prayers than she had been before. But her Beloved, who would not
suffer that His chosen Spouse should, in ever so small a degree,
become estranged from His Heart, was pleased to remove out of the
way that too natural affection which seemed the only obstacle that
could endanger the closeness of her union with Himself. Bona
ventura died in the flower of her age, in the August of 1362, 2 and
Catherine, more than ever impressed by her sister's death, with the
vanity of all earthly ties, devoted herself with renewed fervour to the
service of God. Prostrating in the presence of God and uniting
herself in spirit with the great penitent St. Mary Magdalen, she wept
anew over her infidelity with bitter regret, until, at length, she
deserved to hear those comfortable words spoken by our Lord in her
heart, " Thy sins are forgiven thee." And from that day forward she
began to bear a special love towards St. Mary Magdalen, and to take
her as an example of penance.
The death of Bonaventura was made by her parents the occasion
for busying themselves yet more seriously how to bestow Catherine
in marriage. But as she opposed a resolute resistance to all such
plans, they addressed themselves to Father Thomas della Fonte, a
1 Fen., p. 20.
2 The date of this event, which fixes the chronology of this part of St.
Catherine's life, is thus stated in the Necrology of St. Dominic's Convent : 1362,
Domina Bonaventura filia Jacobi tintoris de Fontebranda, uxor Nicolai Tegghacci,
sepulta est die decima Augusti." This would make Catherine fifteen years of age
at the time of her sister's death.

22 She cuts off her Hair.
Friar Preacher, and a connection of the family, and besought him to
procure her consent. Father Thomas was well known to Catherine.
He had, as we have said, been brought up in her father's house, and
to him she had confided the history of her first vision. When he
found how firm was her will and purpose to devote herself to God,
he was far from seeking to oppose her resolution, and instead
of arguing with her, offered his advice as to the most prudent
manner of acting. " My daughter," he said, " since you are fully
resolved to serve God in the holy state of virginity, being called
thereto by God Himself, I have no more to say : you have chosen
the better part, and may our Lord give you grace to follow it. And
now if you think well to follow my counsel, I would advise you to
cut off your hair, which will prove to your parents that they must
give up all hopes of your marriage, and will also save you the time
that must needs be spent upon its care and adornment." Catherine
was not slow in following this advice, and that the more willingly as
she regarded her beautiful hair with a certain displeasure as having
been the occasion to her of the fault she so profoundly regretted.
Taking a pair of scissors, therefore, she cut it all away, and to con
ceal what she had done, she covered her head with a coif, contrary
to the custom of young maidens of her tender age. When Lapa
perceived this, she inquired the reason of her going thus with her
head covered ; but Catherine, who dared neither to utter a false
hood nor to avow the truth, gave but a faltering and indistinct
answer. Then Lapa hastily seized the coif, and as she removed it,
beheld her daughter's head bare, and shorn of its golden tresses.
On this she raised a cry of anger, which quickly summoned to the
spot the rest of the family. They were all much offended with her,
and gave her plainly to understand that in spite of her opposition
their plans regarding her would not in any wise be abandoned.
Catherine appealed to her brothers,1 assuring them that she cared
not how they might deal with her : she desired to be no sort of
charge to the family, and would be content to live on bread and
water, so that they would consent to leave her in peace ; but their
pride would not suffer them to yield the point in dispute. It was
agreed that her spirit must be conquered, and to effect this, they
insisted on a thorough change in her manner of life. Henceforward,
it was agreed that she should no longer have any private chamber
1 Miracoli, p. 1 1 .

Persecution from her Family. 23
of her own to which she might resort, but that she should be con
tinually occupied about the household service, so as to have no time
left for prayer and meditation. To show how little account they made
of her, the kitchen-maid was dismissed, and Catherine was appointed
in her place to do all the menial drudgery. Nor was she even left
at peace whilst so occupied, but as she went about her work, they
constantly reproached her in severe and cutting language, seeking
thus to weary out her constancy and force her to yield to their
wishes. They even selected a suitable person whom they designed
for her husband, and left no means untried to win Catherine's
compliance. " But," says her biographer, " her heart was so
thoroughly possessed with the love of Christ, her chosen Spouse,
that she would not hear of any other. And whereas they had
debarred her of a secret place to which she might withdraw herself
for prayer and meditation, our merciful Lord taught her, by the
inward instinct of His Holy Spirit, how she should build a secret
chamber or oratory in her own heart, where she might dwell
delightfully with her sweet Spouse so long as she desired, and
never be plucked out, whatever befell. And whereas, before, she
was forced sometimes to go out of her chamber, and so to be dis
tracted with outward affairs, now, contrariwise, she shut up herself
so closely in this cell, and took such passing delight in the presence
of her love and joy, Jesus Christ, whose delight it is to dwell in pure
hearts, that howsoever they cried and called about her, reproaching
her in words or deeds, she passed with all such things so quietly, as
if they had never been spoken or done to her.
" And as for their abasing her to the vile services of the house, that
turned but little to the advantage of the enemy. For when she saw
that her father and mother had appointed her to do all the works of
drudgery in the kitchen and other places of the house, she never
repined at it, but turned it all to her greater merit by this holy
imagination. She had this conceit with herself that her father
represented in the house our Saviour Christ; her mother, our
Blessed Lady ; her brethren, sisters, and others of the family, the
apostles and disciples of Christ. The kitchen she imagined to be
the innermost tabernacle of the temple, called sanda sanctorum,
where the principal sacrifices were offered up to God. And with
this holy imagination she went up and down the house like a
diligent Martha, and in her father, mother, and brethren, served

24 Her Father sees a Dove.
Christ with His blessed Mother and Saints so cheerfully, and with
such a glad heart, that the whole house had great wonder of it." 1
However, as she could not be without some chamber in which to
rest, and she was denied any to her own use, she chose to be in
her brother Stephen's room, where, when he was away, she might
sometimes retire by day, and where also she might pray in the
night-time when he was asleep. The sweetness and constancy
with which she bore herself under these hard trials began mean
while to open the eyes of her parents, and they humbly confessed
it to one another, saying, " She has conquered us." Her father in
particular, having more spiritual discernment than his wife, began to
see that his daughter's conduct had been inspired by something
higher than mere stubbornness. This impression was confirmed
by an accidental circumstance that happened about this time.
One day when Catherine was in her brother's chamber at prayer,
leaving the door open (for her father and mother had given her
charge that she should be nowhere with the door shut upon her),
her father entering into the chamber by chance and seeking some
thing there of his son's that he had need of at that time, found her
in a corner kneeling devoutly on her knees ; and, casting up his eyes,
saw a little white dove sitting over her head, which dove, so soon as
he was entered, to his seeming, flew out at the chamber window, at
which being somewhat amazed, he asked her what dove that was.
"Sir," said she, " I never saw dove nor other bird in the chamber that
I know of." When he heard this, he was very much astonished, but
kept the matter secretly to himself. Nevertheless, reflecting on what
he had seen, and comparing it with the constancy and patience ex
hibited by his daughter, he was led to conclude that she was truly
following the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
At the same time Catherine was permitted more clearly to
understand the state of life to which God was pleased to call her.
From her very childhood, as we have seen, she had entertained
a special love towards the great patriarch, St. Dominic, and a desire
to be enrolled among his children. One night as she slept, it seemed
to her that she beheld all the founders of the different religious rules,
and among them St. Dominic, whom she recognised by his habit
and by the lily which he carried in his hand. They appeared to
invite her to choose one of their rules in which to serve God for
the remainder of her life. Casting her eyes on St. Dominic, that
1 Fen., 30-32.

She reveals her Vow. 25
loving father drew near to her, holding in his hand the habit of his
Third Order of Penance,1 and addressed her with these consoling
words : " Daughter, be of good cheer, fear no obstacle, you shall one
day wear this habit."
The comfort she received from this assurance was so great, that
the next day she assembled her parents and brothers, and addressed
them with no less grace than courage in the following terms : — " It is
now a long time since you began to treat with me that I should
marry with some mortal man, which talk however much I abhorred,
I never declared plainly but concealed it in part, for the reverence
that I bear you. But now I may no longer hold my peace ; and,
therefore, I must open my heart and purpose to you in plain words.
I have made a full resolution and promise to my Lord and Saviour,
and to His most glorious Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, that I
will serve them all the days of my life in the pure and holy state of
virginity, and I give you to understand that this is no new thing, or
lately come upon me, but a thing that I have desired even from my
infancy, being moved thereto not by any childish lightness, but after
careful thought and not without evident tokens of the will of God ;
therefore I have vowed that I will never incline my heart to accept
any other husband, but only Him. Now, then, being come, by His
gracious goodness, to the years of discretion, I thought it my duty to
tell you in express terms, that thus much I have, by the will of God,
faithfully promised, and thus much I will, by the grace of God, truly
observe. This purpose is so deeply imprinted in my soul, that it will
be more easy to make a hard flint soft than to take this resolution
out of my heart. Wherefore, I humbly beseech you, lose no more
time in treating with me about marriage, for in this matter I may not
condescend to your request, because I have plighted my faith and
truth to Jesus Christ alone, whose love I must prefer before all
1 The Third Order founded by St. Dominic, and called by him the " Militia of
Jesus Christ," became known after his death as the " Order of Penance of St.
Dominic." It included members of both sexes, and B. Andrea Gallerani, the
founder of the Casa della Misericordia, is called by some the first Dominican
Tertiary. The Sisters were not cloistered nuns bound by the three vows of
religion, though in process of time regular communities were formed among
them. As originally founded they lived in their own houses, one of their own
members who bore the title of Prioress governing them according to their rule,
under the direction of the Friars. The Dominican Sisters of Penance were at
this time very numerous in Siena ; and in 1352, a hundred of them voluntarily
bound themselves to wear the habit even until death.

26 Her Family yield to her.
earthly creatures. If it shall please you to keep me in your house,
with this condition, as your common servant, I will serve you will
ingly and obediently to the uttermost of my power. If you think, by
putting me out of your house, to force me to yield to your command
for lack of necessary provision, assure yourselves no such fear can
alter my mind in this matter. For I have chosen Him for my Spouse
who giveth food to all living creatures, and who will not suffer them
that repose themselves with confidence in His goodness to be des
titute of necessary things."
These words were said with such grace and modesty that those
who heard her were struck to the heart and so overcome with tears,
that for a good space they were unable to give her one word for
answer. At last Giacomo, who was a good man and full of the fear
of God, and who moreover called to mind the dove which only a 'day
or two before he had seen over her head, and the other tokens of
heavenly favour which he had observed in her behaviour, mastered
his emotion so far as to be able to reply : " Dearest daughter," he
said, " God forbid that we should desire anything contrary to the will
of God, from whom this determination of yours proceeds. Your
patience and constancy sufficiently declare to us that this your choice
comes from no caprice, but from a fervent love of God. In His name,
therefore, follow freely what you have vowed ; from this day forth
none in this house shall hinder you. Only pray for us to your
heavenly Spouse that we may be found worthy of the eternal life
which He has promised." Then turning to his wife and his other
children, he continued, " From this day forward let none be so bold
as to molest my daughter's freedom ; for in truth the alliance she
has chosen is more honourable for us than that which we sought to
accomplish. We have no cause to complain of what she has done,
she has made a fair exchange. She has refused to be matched with a
mortal man, and has chosen to be espoused to the immortal God and
man, Christ Jesus.'' When he had finished speaking, Lapa still wept,
for she loved her daughter sensibly ; and it seemed to her that it was
hard to renounce the worldly hopes regarding her on which she had
set her heart ; but Catherine rejoiced with unspeakable gladness, and
from that hour had no other care in her heart than how she might
best make profit of the liberty that had been granted to her.

( 27 )

CHAPTER III.
CATHERINE ENTERS THE ORDER OF PENANCE, 1363, 1364.
AFTER having obtained from her parents the freedom of serving
God according to her desire, Catherine set herself to order
her life after an entirely new manner ; and first she begged to have
some room to herself, no matter how mean or inconvenient it might
be. The chamber assigned her, and of which she joyfully took pos
session, was a little cell under her father's house, no more than
five metres long and three in width. It was lighted by one small
window to which a few brick steps led up, the remains of which may
still be seen, and on which it is said she often rested her head when
sleeping. Here she retired as into the solitude of a desert, giving
herself up to rigorous penance and uninterrupted prayer. Up to
this time, as Lapa would often testify, Catherine was possessed of
unusual physical strength, so that she had no difficulty in taking a
horse load on her shoulders and running with it up two flights of
stairs to the attics. But this robust temperament soon gave way
under the austerities to which she now subjected herself. From
this time she entirely abstained from flesh-meat, as well as from all
kinds of sweet or savoury things, so that in process of time it became
impossible for her to swallow them without extreme suffering. Wine
also she renounced, drinking nothing but pure water. And she went
on daily retrenching some new article of food till she came at last
to take only a little bread and some raw herbs, and even these she
swallowed with difficulty. A few planks composed her bed, with a
log of wood for her pillow. She wore a rough haircloth which from
a motive of cleanliness, she afterwards exchanged for an iron chain ; 1
1 Portions of her hair-shirt are preserved in the chapel of the Fullonica, and
elsewhere. The iron chain is kept in the sacristy of San Domenico. It originally
possessed twenty-four links, but several have been given away to various Dominican
convents. Three were sent in 1714 to the Church of St. Catherine at Leg
horn. The discipline, also made of iron chains armed with points, is kept in the
Sacristy of San Domenico.

28 Her Austerities.
she also gradually prolonged her night-watches till she so entirely
overcame the disposition to sleep, as to allow herself no more than
half an hour of repose, and that only every other day; but as
she afterwards acknowledged to F. Raymund, no victory over
nature had cost her so dearly as this.
When her mother became aware of these practices, she was greatly
concerned ; and set herself to do what she could to soften the rigour
of Catherine's austerities. In particular she entreated her for a time to
give up her hard bed and to come and sleep with her. Catherine
would not vex her mother by a refusal, and accompanied her therefore
to her chamber, but with no intention of giving herself any extra indul
gence. When her mother was laid in one side of the bed, she went
and laid herself down in the other side, where she continued watch
ing in prayer and meditation, until at length perceiving her mother
to be fast asleep, she rose up softly, without making any noise, and
applied herself to her wonted exercises. But Lapa, whose mother's
heart was ever wakeful, soon discovered her daughter's stratagems
and took them in very ill part. Whereupon Catherine who had
always a great care to do nothing that might grieve her mother, hit
on a new device, by which she thought she might both satisfy
her mother's mind and exercise in some degree her accustomed
discipline. She took two pieces of wood and put them secretly
into the bed, under the sheet, on the side where she should lie, and
laid herself down upon the same. But it was not so privately done
but that the mother, who had a great jealousy of all her doings,
within a short time found it out. So when she saw that however
diligent and careful she was to qualify the rigour of her daughter's
life, she would, on the other side, be as inventive to find means of
continuing the same ; as one overcome, she gave it up, and said to
her : " Daughter, I see well it boots not to strive with you any
longer, I do but lose my labour. Wherefore, in God's name, go
your way and take your rest in your own chamber at what time
and in what manner you may think best"1 And she resolved to
make no further attempt to control her. But from this resolution
she was soon moved by a fresh discovery. Catherine had a great
desire to imitate her holy father, St Dominic, in his triple discip
lines, and following his example she was wont to chastise her body
three times every day with a discipline made of iron chains garnished
with sharp points, offering this penance the first time for her own
1 Fen., p. 44.

Her Visit to the Baths-. 29
sins ; the second time for the souls of others, and the third for the
dead. These disciplines lasted for an hour and a half at a time,
and were so severe, that the blood flowed abundantly. One day
when Lapa chanced to be near the chamber she heard the sound of
blows, and entering suddenly, beheld the piteous sight ; on which,
losing all command over herself, she raised such a cry that the
neighbours came running in to see what ailed her, and so were
witnesses with her of the rigorous penances of her daughter.
All this time Catherine had not forgotten the promise given her
in her dream, that she should one day receive the habit of Penance
of the Blessed Dominic. Day and night she prayed that the happy
day might soon appear which should bring the accomplishment of
her wishes. And fearing that until she had taken this step she
should never be quite safe from molestation on the part of her
family, she herself begged her mother to intercede for her with the
Mantellate (as the Sisters of the Third Order were then commonly
called), that they would admit her to their number. This petition
was very unwelcome to Lapa, and to divert her thoughts into another
channel, she proposed that Catherine should accompany her to
some hot baths in the neighbourhood of Siena, hoping that by
forcing her thus to take some recreation she might win her over to
give up her present severe manner of life, as well as her plans for
the future. Catherine made no difficulty in agreeing to her mother's
request, and they set out for the baths, which are supposed to have
been those of Vignone, on the right bank of the Orcia.1 But she
had no thought of giving herself any bodily indulgence. On the
contrary, she took occasion of this visit to the baths to practise a
new kind of penance. She begged her mother that they might
enter the bath alone, and Lapa willingly consenting, having no sus
picion of her daughter's intention, she went and placed herself
under the spout where the sulphureous water came scalding hot into
the bath, and there suffered patiently greater pains from the heat of
the water, than she was wont to do at home when she beat herself
with the iron chain. When her mother perceived this, and saw
that whatever she devised for the comfort of her daughter was, by
her contrivance, turned to a contrary end, she determined to
1 There was a chapel here in St. Catherine's time, dedicated to St. Catherine
the Martyr, as we learn from a survey of Siena made in 1334 by Simon da
Fondi. This chapel was rebuilt in 1660, and dedicated to St. Catherine of
Siena.

30 She applies to the Sisters of Penance.
return home, but failed not on the road to make Catherine under
stand how much she was displeased with these excessive penances.
Catherine never argued the point with her mother ; she listened to
all she had to say with modesty and in silence, but it did not still
the voice of God which sounded in her heart, and drew her by a
powerful attraction to a life of heroic sacrifice, of which Lapa little
understood the secret. Caffarini tells us that as they returned from
the baths, it was observed that she walked with her eyes shut, her
mind abstracted from the bodily senses and wholly absorbed in God.
"As I, who write," he continues, "have many times seen her walk,
and if I had not seen it, I never could have believed it."1
The suffering which Catherine had endured at the baths proved
the immediate occasion of her long-cherished desire being granted.
On her return home she pressed her mother to undertake her suit
with the Sisters of Penance, and overcome with her importunity,
poor Lapa at last complied ; and going to the Sisters, presented her
daughter's request. It met at first with no success. They answered
that it was not their custom to receive young maidens among them,
but only widows of mature years, who might be expected to behave
with becoming gravity ; because, not living in community or keeping
enclosure, it was necessary to exercise great prudence in the admis
sion of members. Lapa returned with this answer to her daughter,
who was not discouraged, but entreated her mother to try again,
which she did, but with no better result than before. Meanwhile
Catherine fell sick, her malady being partly caused, as it would
seem, by her adventure at the baths. Lapa who tenderly loved her
child was overcome with sorrow, and watched by her sick-bed with
unremitting care. Catherine profited of the occasion to win from
her mother the promise that she would make a third appeal to the
Sisters of Penance. " If you wish me to recover health," she said,
" obtain for me this favour ; otherwise, be well assured that God and
St. Dominic will take me from you altogether."
At such a moment Lapa could refuse her nothing, and once more
returning to the Sisters she pressed her request with such impor
tunity, that they were in a manner forced to yield consent. " If your
daughter," said they, " be not over fair we are content to receive
her. If she be, the malice of the world is such that you would
hazard the good name, both of your daughter and all of us and
therefore, we could in no wise receive her." On which the mother
1 Caff., Leg. Min., cap. 7.

They consent to receive her. 3 1
answered, saying, " Come, yourselves, and judge whether she be fair
or no." They sent therefore two discreet matrons, chosen from
among themselves, to examine both her personal appearance and
her dispositions of mind. On coming to the house they found
Catherine lying on her bed, and so altered by sickness that they
were satisfied her beauty was at any rate not excessive. By her
words, however, they judged that she had a most fervent desire to
serve God, and were greatly astonished at the wisdom which ap
peared in one of such tender years. And so, taking their leave,
they went home to the rest of their company, and declared to them
what they had heard and seen. Upon this report, the Sisters
communicated the matter to the Brethren of the Order, and that
done, resolved with full consent to receive her to the habit, sending
word to Lapa, that so soon as her daughter was recovered, she
should bring her to them without longer delay.1 At these tidings
Catherine wept for very joy, and gave thanks to God and St.
Dominic ; praying that her recovery might be hastened, so that she
might speedily be fit to receive the holy habit. In fact, the joy of
her heart seemed to give back health to her body, so that the
malady from which she had been suffering rapidly disappeared.
But the enemy was allowed to assail her constancy by one more
trial, which is thus related by Caffarini in his Supplement :— " One
day towards the close of evening, not long before the holy virgin
obtained the habit of St. Dominic, as she was shut up in the
chamber which her father had given her, praying after her custom
before the crucifix, the evil spirit appeared to her in a form rather
pleasing than terrifying, bringing with him a quantity of rich
dresses and stuff of the finest silk which he displayed before her,
whilst he tried with flattering words to induce her to accept them.
Catherine repulsed him with scorn and drove him away ; but as he
disappeared she felt herself for the first time assaulted by a strange
temptation. There arose within her a violent desire to go forth and
show herself abroad,, dressed not only in the gay attire commonly
worn by girls at her age, but in the more luxurious costume which
at that time was adopted by newly married women. Tormented by
the presence of so odious a temptation, she turned to the crucifix,
saying, " My sweetest Lord, you know I have never desired a mortal
spouse ; help me in this trial, I ask not to be delivered from it, but
to have strength to overcome." As she prayed, there appeared to
1 Fen., p. 54-

32 She receives the Habit of Penance.
her our Blessed Lady, who showed her a garment of dazzling
richness, which she had drawn out of that casket of all treasures,
the wounded side of her Divine Son. And as she clothed Catherine
with this, inestimable robe, she said to her, " My daughter, know
this, that the garments drawn from the side of my Son surpass in
beauty all that can be fashioned by the hand of man." 1
Her reception of the holy habit of St. Dominic took place on a
Sunday, in the chapel assigned to the use of the Sisters in the Church
of St. Dominic, commonly called Delle Volte. The date of this event
is not given by Raymund, and we have no means by which to fix it
precisely, but it was probably about the year 1364.2 He merely tells
us that the ceremony took place according to the accustomed form,
in the presence of the Brethren and the Sisters. Catherine's name
is twice inscribed in their register, once as " Katerina Jacobi Benin
casa," and a second time as " Catherina di Lapa." From that day,
according to the custom of the Sisters, she constantly wore the white
veil and habit and the black mantle of the order, from which they
received the vulgar name of the " Mantellate." This " black mantle
of humility " was specially dear to Catherine. Her secretary, Neri
di Landoccio, writing to Caffarini, told him that she always regarded
the mantle in which she was first dedicated to her Spouse as a most
precious thing, and was accustomed to say : " It shall never be taken
from me." If it was ever torn, she would patch and mend it with
1 Sup., Part i,Trat. 1, § 4.
2 P. Capelcelatro, who is followed by M. Cartier, supposes her to have received
the habit of Penance so early as 1362. But this is manifestly impossible, as
Bonaventura's death did not take place until the August of that year, so that
under this supposition all the subsequent events narrated above would have
occupied no more than four months. On the other hand, P. Carapelli, in his
" Corso Cronotastico," assigns the date 1366, basing his decision on the evidence
of F. Thomas Caffarini, who says in the Process : "I confess and declare that it
is now forty-five years or more since I first became acquainted with the holy
virgin and her family, as I think, after she had received the habit of Penance."
(Process. Martene and Durand, 1258). His evidence was given in 1411, forty-five
years from which date brings us, it is true, to 1366. But he does not say that she
entered the Third Order in that year ; on the contrary, he distinctly implies that
she had done so earlier. On the other hand, we know for certain that for three
years after her clothing she observed a strict retreat, which (supposing the date of
her clothing to have been 1366) would bring her first appearance in public down
to 1369. But Giacomo, her father, died in 1368, and she had for some time pre
vious to his death been engaged in active charitable works, assisted by his liberality ;
a fact sufficient to prove the impossibility of her entrance into the Third Order
being dated only two years before his death.

Her Mantle. 33
her own hands, for she would say, " I wish it to last after I am gone."
Yet dearly as she loved her mantle, she once parted with it at the
call of charity. " One day," says Stephen Maconi in his letter to
Caffarini, which is inserted in the Process, " as she was setting out
with her companions she met a poor person who begged an alms
with much importunity. She said to him : ' I assure you, my dear
brother, that I have no money.' 'But,' said he, 'you could give
me that mantle.' 'That is true,' said Catherine, giving it to him.
Those who accompanied her had much difficulty in redeeming the
mantle, because the poor man made them pay very dear for it ; and
when they asked her how she could resolve to walk out without the
mantle of her Order, she replied in these noble words : ' / would
rather be without my mantle than without charity.' "
On her deathbed, the saint left this mantle as a legacy to her first
Confessor, F. Thomas Delia Fonte, from whose hands she had prob
ably received it. He left it when dying to his niece, Catherine
Cothi, also one of the Mantellate, and she gave it as a sacred relic
to F. Thomas Caffarini. By him it was carried to Venice in 1398,
where many persons out of devotion chose to be invested with it
when received into the Third Order. It was kept by the Sisters of
Penance of that city in a chest of gilt wood, and was the means
of working many cures both corporal and spiritual. Possibly this
precious relic may even yet be in existence.

( 34 )

CHAPTER IV.
CATHERINE IN SOLITUDE, 1364-1366.
" /^\N the same day that Catherine received the holy habit of
V_y Penance," says Caffarini, 1 " she entered her little chamber
and began to meditate on the strange and sorrowful problem how men
could love and follow after the perishable things of this world, whilst
the voice of God was ever inviting them to taste of His consolations.
As she so pondered, there appeared before the eyes of her soul a
magnificent Tree loaded with the richest fruit, but hedged about
with prickly thorns that made it difficult to approach. Not far from
the tree was a fair hill covered with ears of golden corn, but the ears
though beautiful to look upon, were black and foul within, and
withered at the touch. Some persons came and gazed at the tree,
admiring its beauty, but when they saw the hedge of sharp thorns
they feared to approach, and turned aside to satisfy themselves with
the empty ears of corn that poisoned those who ate them. Others
more courageous pierced the hedge and reached the foot of the tree,
but perceiving how high its branches were from the ground, they too
lost courage, and made choice of the withered eats. Only a few
were found who feared neither the sharp thorns nor the fatigue of
climbing, and these, mounting the lofty branches, ate the delicious
fruit, which after once tasting they lost all relish for earthly food."
Catherine understood the vision well, and long ago she had made
her choice. The blasted ears of worldly pleasure with all their gilded
show had no charms for her, neither did the sharp thorns of penance
or the labour of perseverance present any terrors to her heroic soul.
For one brief moment in her early childhood Heaven had been open
to her gaze, and her election had been irrevocably made. Now,
therefore, that she found herself clothed with the holy garb of religion,
her only thought was, how most completely to die to the world and
give herself to God. Though it was not the custom for Tertiaries to
1 Sup. Part I, Trat I, §. 5.

Her Manner of L ife. 3 5
bind themselves by the three vows of religion, yet she fully purposed
in her heart to live thenceforward according to their spirit. Her
vow of perpetual chastity had long since been pronounced; and so
precise was her observance of the obedience due to her superiors,
that when she came to die she was able to say that she had never
knowingly transgressed it ; as to poverty, she neither possessed nor
desired to possess anything superfluous. The prosperity enjoyed by
her father and brothers, whose affairs were at this time in a flourish
ing condition, was far from pleasing to her. " Thou knowest, Lord,"
she would say, " that these are not the goods I desire for my family."
She even besought Almighty God that if it were for their greater
spiritual profit, this abundance of earthly things might be taken
from them ; and it seemed that her prayer was granted, for in the
end, through no fault of theirs, they were reduced to great penury.
Although not bound then by the obligation of religious vows,
Catherine practised with the greatest exactitude the virtues which
they prescribe ; whilst the rule of life which she now embraced
probably surpassed in strictness that of the most austere cloister.
She began by imposing on herself a rigorous law of silence. F.
Thomas della Fonte left it written in his notes of her life, that for
three years after her entrance into the Third Order she never spoke
save in confession, and never left the house except to go to the
church. Probably this rule admitted of certain relaxations, for it
was during this period of retirement that she made the acquaintance
of F. Thomas Caffarini and F. Bartholomew of St. Dominic, who
visited her from time to time in the company of her Confessor,
" without whose leave, however," says F. Bartholomew, " she never
spoke to any man except her father and her brothers." 1 And thus,
in the words of her old biographer, " she contrived to find out a
wilderness in the midst of the city, and to make for herself a solitary
place where there was great resort of people." Her prayer was all
but continual, and she loved to unite it in spirit with the choral
offices of the Order to which she belonged. The Church of St.
Dominic was close to the Fullonica, and Catherine from her chamber
could catch the sound of its bell calling the brethren to choir at the
appointed hours. She so arranged her time as to watch while the
friars were sleeping ; and when she heard the second toll for mid-
1 Process, fol. 139, 140. The seeming contradiction is clearly enough explained
by Raymund when he says that our Lord "gradually introduced Catherine to
the active life." Leg., Part 2, cap. 1.

36 Our Lord dhtcts Her.
night matins she would address her Divine Spouse, saying, " Lord,
until now my brethren have slept and I have watched for them in
Thy presence, praying Thee to guard them from the wiles of the
enemy ; now that they are rising to offer Thee their praises, suffer
me to take a little repose." And then she would lie down to her
scanty rest.
Her Divine Spouse was not willing to leave her without necessary
direction in the arduous course she had embraced ; but He chose
neither man nor angel for the purpose : He deigned Himself to be
her teacher ; so that from this time began that wonderful intercourse
between Catherine and her Beloved, the closeness of which, says F.
Raymund, can be compared to nothing but the familiar intimacy of
two friends. She herself so described it : " Father," she said, "take
this for a certain truth, that I was never taught the rule of spiritual
life by any man or woman, but only by my Lord and Master Jesus
Christ, who made it known to me either by secret inspiration or else
appearing openly to me and speaking to me as I now speak to you."
She declared also, that in the beginning, her visions were for the
most part only wrought in the imagination, but they were afterwards
sensible, so that she saw with her eyes the Form that appeared to her,
and heard with her ears the sound of the Voice that spoke. At first
she feared, doubting the illusions of the enemy, but our Lord, whilst
commending her prudence, gave her certain notes and tokens by
which she might always discern between the true visions of God and
the deceits of Satan. "Daughter," He said, " it were an easy matter for
Me to inform thy soul inwardly with the secret instinct of My Spirit,
so that thou shouldest at all times discern perfectly and without
error between true visions and counterfeit illusions ; but because My
will is to profit others as well as thee, therefore I will teach thee a
general rule and lesson, which is this : My vision beginneth evermore
with fear and dread, but in process of time setteth a soul in great
joy, quietness, and security. It beginneth with some kind of bitter
ness, but in continuance it waxeth more delightful and sweet. The
visions of the enemy are contrary, for in the beginning they show a
kind of security and gladness, but in process they turn to fear and
bitterness, which increase afterwards and wax greater and greater.
And it standeth with good reason, because My ways and the ways of
the enemy have this special difference : My ways are the keeping of
the commandments in perfection of a virtuous and godly life. These
seem at the beginning to be full of difficulty; but in time they

Her Union with God. $7
become easy and pleasant. But the ways of the enemy are the trans
gressing of My commandments in the liberty of the flesh and licen
tiousness of life, which seem at the beginning to be delightful and
pleasant; but in continuance of time they prove, in very deed,
dangerous and. painful. Take this also for a most certain and
infallible rule to discern between true and false visions ; because I
am Truth, it cannot be otherwise than that the soul of man must
needs, by My visions, receive a greater knowledge of truth ; by which
he cometh to understand both his own baseness and the worthiness
of God, and so consequently to do due honour and reverence to God,
and to make little account of himself, which is the proper condition
of humility. The contrary happeneth in the visions of the enemy ;
for he, being the father of lies and king over all the children of
pride, can give none other thing but only what he hath ; and there
fore in his visions there must needs ensue in a soul ignorance and
error, whereby it conceiveth a false esteem of itself, which is the
proper condition of pride. Therefore by this thou mayest know if
thy visions be from Me or from the enemy ; of Truth or of falsehood :
if they come of Truth they will make thy soul humble, if they
come of falsehood they will make thee proud." 1
Dating then from this period, Catherine's union with her Divine
Spouse became uninterrupted ; never was she separated from His pre
sence ; but whether she prayed or read, whether she watched or slept,
He was ever with her. There was not a part of the church which
she frequented which was not marked by some gracious manifesta
tion of His watchful tenderness ; her little chamber and the garden 2
attached to her father's house were all filled with memories of this
unspeakable intercourse. Truly it might be said of her that " she
walked with God." "On her lips and in her heart," says Caffarini,
" she had nothing but Jesus : in the streets she walked with Jesus ;
her eyes were set to look on Jesus only ; never were they open out
of curiosity to behold any other objects unless they were such as
might lead her to Jesus, and thus it was that she was so often rapt in
wonderful ecstacies and abstractions of mind."3
Nor was this union weakened or obscured in after years by her
converse with the world; but when outwardly speaking with men, her
1 Fen., Part I, cap. 17.
2 This garden now forms the site of the Church of the Confraternity of Sta. Cat
erina in Fontebranda.
3 Sup., Part 1, Trat. 2, § 11.

38 Divine Maxims.
heart was always inwardly engaged with God, and in this lay the
secret of that marvellous power which she exercised over all who
approached her. Flesh and blood, however, could not long sustain
such closeness with Divine things without a suspension of the faculties
and a wasting of bodily strength, and these supernatural graces were
the origin of that state of bodily suffering and incapacity for food
which made the remainder of her life a daily martyrdom.
Among the precious lessons which she received at this time there
was one which must be regarded as the foundation-stone of her whole
spiritual edifice, and which is thus narrated and expanded by her
biographer. One day as she was praying, our Lord appeared to her
and said : " Daughter, knowest thou what thou art, and what I am ?
If thou perfectly know this truth thou art blessed. Give heed then
to My words, that thou mayest be able to understand it. Thou art
she that is not, and I am He who am. Art thou not she that was
made out of nothing ? forasmuch as every creature is made out of
nothing, and has no being save in My Almighty power, and evermore
of itself tends to nothing. Now if a man were thoroughly persuaded
of this, that in truth he were nothing, how could he be proud, or
how could he glory in himself or in any of his works, if he knew that
he had nothing of his own but defects and sin ? But because if he
considered this truth alone he would fall away into despair, therefore
is it needful also that he know that I am He that am. God only is,
of Himself. He alone is unchangeable and incorruptible. The
creature, therefore, that sees this, and knows that he can have no
being in himself, or find any good or blessedness in himself or any
other creature, turns himself to God and beholds Him, the Creator
and Preserver of all things, Who maintains all things in their being
and blessedness, the everlasting spring and fountain of all goodness
Who alone is able to slake the thirst of his natural desires and longings.
And so beholding Him, the creature begins to sigh towards Him and
to be inflamed with the love of Him. And he conceives a certain
holy fear, which is the guardian of the soul, so that he will not suffer
the least motion in his heart which could offend so sweet and bountiful
a Master. And he rests so firmly on the provident goodness of God
that no adversity disturbs him, because he knows that Almighty God
permits it for his salvation ; and he understands that there is no labour
or sorrow in this world, however grievous, that can be compared to
the glorious reward which he looks for from the hands of God."
This steadfast trust in the providence of God was also taught her

Divine Maxims. 39
by another of these Divine words. " Think of Me," He said, " and
I will think of thee ! " which words she understood as though He
had said : " Have no thought or care of thyself either for soul or
body, because I who know better what is good for thee will think
and provide for all thy necessities. Be careful only to think on Me, for
in that is thy perfection and beatitude." It cannot be expressed with
what joy and confidence Catherine henceforth dwelt on those words,
" I will think of thee." She never wearied of speaking of them, and
they formed the text and chief subject-matter of the treatise which
she afterwards composed on Divine Providence. If at any time she
saw any of her companions troubled or preoccupied by some vexation,
" Leave all to God," she would say ; " what have you to do of your
selves ? For you to bestow care about these things is to take from
God His care and providence, as though He could not or would not
provide." She would often speak with her Confessor on the state of a soul
that is united to God in perfect charity. " A soul that loves God
perfectly," she would say, " ends by forgetting herself and all other
creatures. Such a soul, seeing that of herself she is nothing, and
that all her being depends on God, in Whom alone, and in no
creature, she finds by experience that her happiness must rest, for
sakes both herself and all things to plunge herself as it were into
the love of Him, directing to Him all her works, and thoughts, and
powers. Without Him she cares not to be, because in Him she finds
all that can delight the heart, all beauty, all sweetness, all quietness,
and all peace. And so, the bond of love between her and God
drawing closer, she comes as it were to be wholly transformed in
Him. And at length it comes to pass that she can love, delight, think,
and remember no other thing than Him only. All other creatures
she loves and considers in Him, even as a man who dives and swims
under the water sees and feels nothing which is not either the water
or what is contained in the water ; and even if he sees anything that
is out of the water, he sees it not properly as it is in itself, but as the
likeness of it appears in the water. A soul thus plunged in the love
of God hates herself as much as she loves Him. She sees that her
own sensuality is the root and origin of all sin, and the cause of her
separation from God, her Supreme End. Therefore on that account
she conceives a certain holy hatred of her own inclinations and a
desire to kill the root of them, which is self-love. And because the
root of this self-love lies so deep that it cannot utterly be removed,

40 Her Teaching on Self- Love.
but something will still remain which from time to time will -molest
her, therefore there daily grows in her this holy hatred and contempt
of self, which increases her desire to advance nearer to God ; and
for His love she is ready to endure the sharpest discipline that may
subdue that proneness to sin which keeps her back from her desired
joy." All her disciples notice how frequently she dwelt on this lesson
of "holy hatred," and how often she would quote the saying of St.
Bernard, " Destroy self-love, and there will be no more hell." It
was a lesson that lay at the root of her whole interior life, and will
be found embodied in that abridgment of her Spiritual Doctrine
which was taken down from her lips at a later period by her English
Confessor, F. William Flete.1
As in her words, so also in her writings, the same truth returns
again and again. She saw in the disorder of self-love the great
antagonist of the love of God, "the root of all vices, which has
poisoned the entire world and stricken the mystical Body of Christ
as with a pestilence."2 And she understood that it was the business
of a loving soul to make war on this great rebel and deliver it to
death by the relentless practice of mortification. She would not
tolerate the idea that there is any state of the soul, however exalted,
in which the warfare with our own passions can ever be relaxed, and
regarded it as a deadly delusion to suppose that this is only a practice
for beginners. Hence in her Dialogue, after describing various sublime
stages of the spiritual life, she concludes with the emphatic warning,
that " there is no condition of the soul in which it ceases to be
necessary for a man to put his own self-love to death." 3
Following the course of our history we shall presently have to
relate some of those wonderful favours granted to Catherine in her
solitary cell, which have been recorded by Raymund and her other
confessors. But lest any should gather from such narratives the
notion that St. Catherine's ecstatic life rested on a different basis,
and was subject to wholly different conditions from the spiritual
life, as we understand the term, it will be profitable, in addition to
what has been said above, to gather from the writings of those who
knew her longest and best a few most significant facts as to her
ordinary manner of prayer. First, then, we learn from the evidence
of F. Thomas Caffarini, whose acquaintance with her began as early
as the year 1366, that it was her habitual practice to meditate on the
1 For a translation of this precious document see Appendix A.
2 Dialogo, cap. 7. s md^ cap_ ^

Mental and Vocal Prayer. 4 1
life of our Lord. " I witnessed," he says, " how she prolonged her
vigils till matins, meditating, according to her custom, principally
on the life of Christ and the truths of the Gospel."1 And in his
Supplement he relates, how " going one day into the church of the
Friars Preachers to meditate there at her leisure on the mysteries of
our Lords Incarnation, she was suddenly illuminated by a Divine
revelation."2 And again, "she was sweetly and powerfully drawn
to an affectionate love and compassion for the sufferings of Christ,
meditating on which she found comfort and refreshment for her
soul whenever it was afflicted. This was the real secret of her
victories over the enemy, and she was never weary of recommend
ing to others the practice of continual prayer. In truth, her own
prayer may be said to have been continual, for there never was a
moment that she was not thinking of God." These meditations
were fed by spiritual reading ; her most constant study, after she
learnt to read, being the Holy Gospels; on which she composed a
devout treatise, now unhappily lost.3
Next, it may be observed, that much as she valued meditation,
she did not despise vocal prayer. Besides her recital of the Divine
Office, of which we shall speak hereafter, she was accustomed to the
frequent use of ejaculations, one of those most familiar to her being
the words, "Peccavi, Domine, miserere mei." These words, says
Caffarini, "she always used at the end of her prayers, folding her
hands and bowing her head," and the habit of a lifetime showed
itself upon her deathbed, when we are told she used this same
ejaculation "more than sixty times." "She did not care," says
F. Bartholomew of St. Dominic, " to pray much at a time, but
in praying or reading she would, as it were, ruminate each word,
dwelling upon it, and finding in it something to feed her soul with
spiritual savour ; and in this manner she came at last to be unable
to say one Our Father without being rapt in ecstacy." 4
Moreover, her prayer, if sublime, was also simple and practical.
"Catherine never ceased to pray for the virtues," says Caffarini,5
"and specially for true and perfect charity." At one time, before
a season of temptation, we find her inspired by God to pray for
fortitude, and at another for purity of heart. During her whole
1 Process, fol. 18. 2 Sup., Part i, Trat. I, § 9.
3 Quoted by Gigli from the deposition of F. Thomas Caffarini. I have been
unable, however, to verify the passage in the Process.
i Process, 140. 6 Sup., Part I, Trat. I, § 12.

42 Her Spiritual Life Progressive.
life she constantly made use of the prayer of petition, asking par
ticular graces for herself, or for others, and persevering in her
requests a long time together. She would address our Lord
with sighs and tears, saying with filial confidence, " Lord, I will
not stir from your feet till your goodness has granted me what I
desire." But she often said that she dared not so pray, unless
she knew by manifest tokens that what she asked was in conformity
with the will of God." 1
The third point to be noticed, as full of encouragement, is that
St. Catherine's growth in prayer and in the spiritual life was gradual
and progressive. Prevented by grace, as she manifestly was, even
from her infancy, she was yet, not all at once and without labour,
raised to the heights of contemplation. " In her heart she disposed
to ascend by steps ; " and she passed " from virtue to virtue." 2 This
is apparent from many expressions of Raymund, as well as from the
spiritual instruction she dictated to F. William Flete. But it may
suffice to quote here a passage from the Supplement of Caffarini, as
being less generally known :
" On a certain feast of the Holy Cross, as she was meditating on
the immense love of Jesus Christ displayed in His Passion, she felt
herself washed from head to foot in that Precious Blood shed by
Him for our redemption. Then our Lord appeared to her carrying
a cross of gold, and said to her, ' Daughter, take this Cross and follow
Me.' She obeyed promptly, but when she had taken a few steps. she
met another cross, higher and larger, on which our Lord mounted,
saying, ' Approach thy lips to the wound of My side.' And when she
had done so with ineffable consolation, He took her by the hand
and drew her higher, till her face rested upon the Face of her Beloved.
Then He gave her to understand that by these three steps were
signified three states of the soul, concluding with these words :
' When thou shalt have reached the third, or last degree, thou shalt
enjoy My Divine embrace with quiet and tranquillity, for so I render
My chosen ones blessed even before I call them to My kingdom.'
And Catherine having been guided, while yet a young girl, through
the first and second degrees, found herself at last at the third, or
supreme degree of union with God which is described in Holy Writ
under the figure of an embrace, or ' the Kiss of His Mouth.' Thence
she obtained the grace, even whilst living in this world, of an unalter
able peace and tranquillity ; never feeling her heart disturbed, though
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 3, § 14. 2 Ps. lxxxiii. 6,7.

Her Doctrine Infused. 43
struck down by many sicknesses, attacked by cruel calumnies, and
worn out with fatigues and responsibilities far beyond her age and
sex. She desired nothing save to be released from the bondage of
the flesh that she might be united to her Spouse. But He, design
ing to employ her in affairs of importance for the service of
Holy Church, deferred for a time the fulfilment of her desires. She
mitigated the sadness which from time to time made itself felt, by
resignation to the Divine decrees, knowing that one day, at any rate,
she should die and pass to His presence : and therefore it was that
she so willingly employed herself in burying the dead, showing great
signs of joy whenever she learnt the happy departure out of this world
of some soul who had lived a holy life." 1
But when all has been said that can be said to exhibit this great
Saint as using the same methods of prayer and exercises of perfection
as are common to the faithful, and as raised to her exalted sanctity
only by progressive steps, there yet remains the fact, declared in the
Bull of her Canonisation, that her doctrine was " not acquired but in
fused." Caffarini says she had attained that highest degree of con
templation, of which St. Thomas affirms that its fruits are " light in
the intellect and love in the heart." When she came out of her
ecstacies, he says, she spoke with so wonderful an intelligence of
Divine things that she seemed to know more than the wisest doctors ;
but all her illumination was from God.
Of this sublime light she has written admirably in her Dialogue,
describing it as a ray proceeding from the fire of charity. " Proud
ignorance remains blind to this light because its eye is clouded by
self-love. Such souls can never penetrate beyond the letter of the
Scriptures : they may read much and turn over many books, but the
pith and marrow they never taste. They wonder to see the simple
and illiterate possessed of a clearer knowledge than they of spiritual
things, but there is nothing to wonder at in it, because these humble
souls are illuminated by grace, which is the true source of know
ledge." 2 " What Catherine taught," says Raymund, " she had learnt
by experience, like the disciple of whom St. Denys, the Areopagite,
speaks." He is referring to a passage in the works of St. Denys,
which runs as follows : — " Hierotheus learned these things, instructed
by some special inspiration, having not only learned, but also ex
perienced, Divine things, and being fashioned by such teaching of the
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 2, § 3. ? Dialogo, cap. 85.

44 Her Raptures.
heart (if I may so express it) to that faith and mystic union which
can never be acquired by any human lessons." 1
Let us now take a glance at that little cell where Catherine, alone
with her Divine Spouse, was "being fashioned by this teaching of
the heart ; " and to do so we shall but gather up the words of those
who shared her confidence, and who themselves were witnesses of
the marvels .they described. It was a life of mingled penance and
ecstacy. "Every evening, for many years, when it began to grow
dusk," says Caffarini, " she felt herself drawn by an irresistible force
to God, passing into a rapture which generally lasted six hours,
during which time she conversed with the Eternal Wisdom, her
bodily senses remaining suspended." 2 Another time, we read, how
standing one night at the window and gazing up into heaven, she
thought of the Divine Beauty which she saw reflected in the heavenly
orbs ; when suddenly from the blue vault above her there came a
sound of exquisite melody, such as mortal ear had never heard,
which rapt her in ecstacy, filling her with the joys of Paradise.3
Once as she prayed for the virtue of charity, and understood that her
prayer was granted, she was so overwhelmed with the sweetness of
the Divine Presence that for ten days she could neither eat nor
drink, nor engage in her ordinary occupations.* Another time, when
in like manner she had continued praying a long time for purity of
heart, an angel appeared bearing a garland of spotless lilies which
he placed as a crown upon her head. The beauty and fragrance of
these lilies was so unearthly that she declared the mere thought of
that precious garland sufficed to cause her a kind of rapture. Occa
sionally we catch sight of that same love of the office of the Church
which was so remarkable in St. Gertrude. On the first Vespers of a
certain feast of St. Lucy she seemed to see all Paradise preparing to
celebrate the festival, and, full of joy, she ran to the church, desiring
to have the bells rung that the Church on earth might take part
with the Church in Heaven. Our Lord was pleased that her wish
should be accomplished without causing the people any astonish
ment, for suddenly the sky clouded over and announced the approach
of a tempest, and, according to the custom of the times, the church
bells were rung to exorcise the powers of the air. When they ceased,
Catherine seemed to hear solemn vespers sung in heaven by a choir
1 De Div. Nom., cap. 2. The exact sense of the original is, that " Divine
things came upon him without his action."
2 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 3, § 8. 3 Ibid.; Part ,_ Trat 2> g 6
4 Ibid., Yart 1, Trat. 2, § 12.

The Music of Heaven. 45
of virgins, led by one of surpassing beauty, to whom all paid homage.
The privilege of listening to the chants of Paradise was often granted
to her.1 On the 1 ith of January one year she was permitted to hear
the heavenly canticles of the Saints and Angels, and speaking of this
to her Confessor, she told him that these blessed spirits did not all
sing in unison, but those sang in the highest key and the most
sonorous voices who on earth had most ardently loved the Supreme
Goodness. She specially distinguished the voices of St. John the
Evangelist and St. Mary Magdalen, though she confessed herself
unable to understand the meaning of what she heard. As she was
still speaking, she stopped to listen ; " Father," she said, " do you
not hear with what a high sweet voice the blessed Magdalen sings in
the choir of the Saints ? " And she remained listening intently as
if she heard the heavenly music even with her bodily ears.2
The memory of this favour was probably in her mind when she
wrote the following passage in her Dialogue : " All the affections
and powers unite in perfect souls to produce one harmonious sound,
like the chords of a musical instrument. The powers of the soul
are the great chords, the senses and sentiments of the body the
smaller ones. And when all these are used to the praise of God
and in the service of our neighbour, they produce one sound like
that of a harmonious organ. All the Saints have touched this
organ and drawn forth musical tones. The first who sourtded it
was the sweet and loving Word, whose Humanity united to His
Divinity made sweet music on the wood of the cross. And all His
servants have learnt of Him as of their Master to give forth the same
music, some in one way and some in another, Divine Providence
giving all the instruments on which to play."3
Very often she received from God whilst in her ecstacies the
understanding of different passages in Holy Scripture, as for example
the 99th Psalm (Jubilate Domino), which she explained, showing the
connection between serving God with joy and coming before Him
with confidence; or, again, the history of the young man in the
Gospels whom our Lord desired to sell all and follow Him. Her
Divine Master gave her to understand that this did not refer merely
to temporal goods, but implied a yet larger sacrifice, even that of the
thoughts and affections of the heart, which if they are given to God,
so that a man no longer belongs to himself, he will receive the
1 Sup., Part 1, Trat. 2, § 20. 2 Ibid., Part 1, Trat. 2, § 19.
3 Dialogo, cap. 147.

46 Her Devotion to the Precious Blood.
hundredfold in the abundance of grace which will be poured out
upon him.1
Not once, but as it would seem many times, Catherine received
the favour of being mystically washed in the Precious Blood of our
redemption. The first time was soon after she had taken the habit
of Penance, and often from that time when she beheld the colour
of red, it reminded her so powerfully of the Blood of our Lord that
she could not refrain from tears.2 In fact, it cannot be rash to say
that Catherine's devotion of predilection was undoubtedly that which
she bore to the inestimable Price of our Redemption. Hence many
of the favours she received had reference to this great gift. In her
supernatural sicknesses, which were caused by nothing else than the
excess of divine love, she was sometimes bathed in a sweat of blood.
Often when in ecstacy she was seen to change colour, appearing now
white as snow, now red as fire. Those who beheld her thus were
filled with wonder and devotion, and her Confessor on one occasion
questioned her as to the cause of these changes in her aspect. She
endeavoured to answer him, but the power failing her, she could only
weep, and he perceived that the very tears she shed were not of the
ordinary kind, but tinged with blood?
Never did it seem as if the memory of this priceless Treasure were
absent from her mind. She could not begin a letter without naming
it ; " I, Catherine, the servant and slave of the servants of Jesus
Christ, write to you in His Precious Blood." It would be impossible
to refer to, far less to quote, the passages in her writings in which
she gives free course to this devotion. Perhaps, however, there is
none more touching than that which occurs almost at the beginning
of her Dialogue, where she bewails the misery of man who by the
misuse of his free-will has hardened his heart like adamant. " If
the Blood will not break it," she exclaims, " nothing can ! And not
withstanding its hardness if he will but ask for the Blood of my Son,
and lay it on his heart with the hand of free-will, the hardest heart
will surely break in pieces, and so he will receive the fruit of the
Blood, every drop of which was shed for him ! " 4 Very often as she
prayed in her ecstacies, no other words escaped her lips than these,
" O Fire ! O Blood ! " And those who heard her knew that she
was contemplating that burning fire of Divine love which is kindled
by the Blood of Christ.
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 5, § 13. 2 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 2, § 4.
3 Ibid., Part 2, Trat. 3, § 16. * Dialogo, cap. 5.

( 47 )

CHAPTER V.
HER TEMPTATION, DELIVERY, AND ESPOUSALS, 7366, 1367.
" \ T 7" HEN thou comest to the service of God," says the wise
VV man, "prepare thy soul for temptation. Take all that
shall be brought upon thee, and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy
humiliation keep patience. For gold and silver are tried in the fire,
but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliatioa M1 These inspired
words are for all times and for all souls ; and the more exalted the
height to which any soul attains, so much the more profoundly must
it make experience of their truth. Catherine was not to be exempted
from this universal law, but He who designed to perfect her under
trial, was pleased to prepare her for it, by inspiring her to pray in a
special manner for the gift of fortitude. She persevered in this
prayer for many days, at the end of which time our Lord, to recom
pense her prayer, gave her the following instruction : " Daughter, if
thou wilt have the virtue of fortitude, thou must follow Me. True
it is that I was able to overcome the power of the enemy in many
ways. But, for your example, I chose rather to vanquish him by
dying upon the Cross, that you that are only men might learn, if you
have a mind to encounter with the enemy, to take the Cross as I
did, and so, by the virtue of the same, to overcome all his wiles and
strength. And be well assured that this Cross shall be a refreshment
to you in your temptations, if you think of the pains that I suffered
on it for your sake. If you suffer with Me for My love, you shall also
be rewarded with Me. And the more like you are to Me in this life
by persecutions and pains, the more like shall you be to Me in the
life to come in joy and rest. Therefore, my dear daughter, embrace
the Cross ; regard for My sake all sweet things as bitter and all bitter
things as sweet, and so be certain that you will always be strong.
Accept all adversities with a willing and cheerful heart, and dread no
power, neither of man nor of the devil. For in whatever manner
1 Ecclesias. ii. I.

48 Her Temptations.
they shall assault you, by this means you will easily- withstand and
drive them back." 1
When our Lord had thus armed and prepared her for the combat,
He permitted the evil spirits to assail her with their most cruel
temptations. Waking or sleeping she was beset by frightful and
humiliating phantoms which sought to defile her eyes and ears, and
to torment her in a thousand ways. These attacks Catherine met
courageously, chastising her flesh with her iron chain, and prolonging
her vigils so as almost to deprive herself of sleep. But her enemies
would not retire ; they whispered in her ear words of pity and coun
sel ; " Alas, poor little one," they said, " why thus torture thyself in
vain ? Thinkest thou to be able to endure thus to the end ? What
gain shall it be to thee to kill thyself by excessive penance ? Thou
wilt suffer all thy life in this world only to suffer afterwards in hell.
Far better to pause ere life be utterly spent, whilst youth is left and
the pleasures of the world may yet be tasted and enjoyed." But while
these words resounded in the ears of her soul, Catherine admitted
them not into her heart, nor did she enter into any argument with the
tempter, save only that in reply to his suggestions of despair, she
answered humbly ; " I trust in my Lord Jesus Christ, and not in
myself." Then Satan laying aside his arguments returned to his
former method of attack, so that she was pursued everywhere, in her
cell, and even in the church, with horrible spectres ; and to complete
her affliction, her Divine Spouse who had been wont to visit and
console her with His presence, seemed now to forsake her, and thus
her soul was plunged in a profound sadness. But not on that ac
count did she interrupt her prayers or her penances. " O miserable
creature ! " she exclaimed, turning her indignation against herself,
and exciting within her heart a sentiment of holy self-hatred ; " who
art thou to look for comfort from God's hands ? Thinkest thou that
it is comfort that thy sins have deserved ? It is much for thee that '
thou art not now in hell, and if thou escape those endless pains, cannot
thy Spouse and Creator give thee joy and consolation in an endless
eternity ? Arise, then, and be of good heart, now is the time to
fight manfully ; for thee be labours and sufferings, and to His holy
Name alone be honour and glory."
One day on her return from the church these terrific assaults
were renewed with such violence, that casting herself on her face
upon the ground, she remained there for a long space in prayer
1 Fen., Part 1, cap. 20. Legend, Part 1, cap. 10.

Her Deliverance. 49
beseeching God of His mercy to come to her assistance. Then
there came to her mind a remembrance of the lesson which she had
learned but a short time before, when she had been praying for forti
tude ; and understanding that all which she now endured proceeded
only from the malice of the enemy, she took courage, and resolved
from that day to endure all temptations gladly for the love of her
Divine Spouse. It was not long before the foul fiends again pre
sented themselves, and sought to drive her to despair, saying,
" Miserable wretch, think not to resist us ; never will we give thee
an hour's peace till thou yield to our will, but during thy whole life
we will pain and vex thee continually." But Catherine, full <# con
fidence in God, gave them this heroic answer : " I have chosen pain
to be my comfort, and therefore it will not be difficult, but rather
pleasant and delightful for me to endure these and all other afflic
tions for the love of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and as long
as it shall please His Majesty."
Immediately all the company of unclean spirits fled away in con
fusion, and a marvellous and beautiful light shone from heaven,
illuminating her room with its brightness, in the midst of which
appeared our Saviour Christ in the same form as He bore when He
hung upon the Cross and there shed His most precious blood for
the redemption of the world ; Who called her unto Him, and said
these words : " Mine own daughter, Catherine, seest thou not what I
have suffered for thy sake? Think it. not much, therefore, to suffer
for Me." After that He approached nearer to her in another form, to
comfort her, speaking to her many sweet and loving words. Then
she said, using the words of St. Anthony, "O Lord, where wert
Thou when my heart was so vexed with foul and horrible tempta
tions ? " " Daughter," said He, " I was in thine heart." Then said
she again : " O Lord, saving always Thy truth and my dutiful
reverence to Thy Divine Majesty, how is it possible that Thou
shouldst dwell in a heart filled with so many shameful thoughts ? "
" Tell Me, daughter," He replied, " did those thoughts cause in thy
heart grief or delight?" "Surely," said she, "they caused very
great grief and sorrow." " Who, then," said our Lord, " was He
that caused that grief and horror in thine heart ? Who was it, but-
only I, who abode secretly in the centre of thy soul ? Assure thy
self of this : if I had not been there present, those foul thoughts that
stood round thine heart vainly seeking means to enter, had without
all doubt prevailed, and made their entry into thy soul with full

jo Her Deliverance.
consent of thy will ; but it was My presence that caused in thee that
horror, and moved thy heart to resist those temptations as much as
it was able ; and -because it could not do so much as it would, it
conceived a great displeasure both against them and also against
itself. It was My gracious presence that wrought all these effects in
thine heart ; wherein I took great delight to see My love, My holy
fear, and the zeal of My faith planted in thy soul, My dear daughter
and spouse. And so when I saw My time (which was when thou
hadst, through My grace and assistance, thoroughly vanquished the
pride and insolence of thine enemy), I sent out certain external
beams of My light that put these dark fiends to flight. For, by
course of nature, darkness may not abide where light is. Last of
all, by My light I gave thee to understand that those pains were thy
great merit and increase of the virtue of fortitude. And because
thou offeredst thyself willingly to suffer for My love, taking such
pains with a cheerful heart, and esteeming them as welcome,
according as I had taught thee ; therefore, My will and pleasure was
that they should endure no longer. And so I showed myself, where
upon they vanished quite away. My daughter, I delight not in the
pains of My servants, but in their good-will and readiness to suffer
patiently and gladly for My sake. And because such patience and
willingness is shown in pains and adversity, therefore do I suffer
them to endure the same. In this time of battle I was in thy heart,
fortifying thee with My grace against the enemy, but secretly, to _
exercise thy patience and increase thy merit. Now, that by My help
thou hast manfully fought out thy battle, know that I am, and will
be ever in thy heart more openly, and that I will visit thee yet oftener
and more lovingly than before." The vision disappeared, and
Catherine was left full of overabundance of joy and sweetness, sucK
as no words may express. And specially she took comfort in dwell-'
ing on those words by which our Lord had addressed her, saying,
" Mine own daughter, Catherine." And she entreated her confessor
to use the same words when he spoke to her, and to call her " My
daughter, Catherine," that by hearing them repeated, the sweetness
of that happy moment might often be renewed.1
From that time our Lord was pleased to bestow on her a greater
abundance of favours than she had ever before enjoyed ; He visited
her, says her biographer, " even as one friend is wont to visit anbther,"
sometimes alone and sometimes in company with his Blessed Mother
1 Fen., Part I, chap. xxi.

She learns to read.

5i

and other Saints. More often, however, He came alone, and con
versed with her "as a friend with a friend."
It was at this time that Catherine, by the Divine help, acquired the
art of reading. She had never learned to read in childhood ; but
she very early felt a great desire to recite the office of the Church.
She therefore begged one of her sisters to get her an alphabet and
teach her the letters, which being done, she spent many weeks in the
fruitless endeavour to learn ; but at length, finding her efforts of no
avail, she resolved to give up the attempt, and rather to seek what
she desired from God. One day, therefore, she prostrated upon the
ground in prayer, and thus made her petition : — " Lord, if it be
agreeable to Thee that I may know how to read, in order that I may
recite the Divine office and sing Thy praises, vouchsafe to teach me
what I cannot learn of myself. If not, I am well content to remain
in ignorance, or spend my time in such simple meditation as it shall
please Thee to grant." God heard her prayer, and gave her the
faculty she asked for, and that so perfectly that she was able to read
any kind of writing as quickly and easily as the most experienced
person. She at once procured the necessary books, and began to
say her office daily with great devotion. She specially delighted in
the versicle with which the hours begin : "Deus in adjutorium meum
intende I " which she translated and used as an habitual ejaculation.
Another of her favourite verses was the following : " Illumina oculos
meos ne unquam obdormiam in morte," and these words she wrote on
a little tablet and hung at the head of her bed.
St. Catherine's recitation of the Divine office is inseparably con
nected with the memory of one favour which she received at this
time. Very often when her heavenly Spouse deigned to visit her
with His sensible presence, He would walk with her in her room and
recite the Psalms with her " as though they had been two religious
saying their office together." And coming to the Gloria at the con
clusion of a Psalm, it was her wont to change the words, and instead
of " Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sando," to say, " Gloria Patri
et Tibi et Spiritui Sancto," thus addressing Him Who condescended
to bear her company.1
As soon as St. Catherine had learnt to read, she began to give
considerable time to this occupation. It is evident that she did not
1 The memory of this favour is preserved by an inscription in the chapel Delle
Volte, where it had been often granted to her. It also forms the subject of a
painting by Gamberelli, which adorns the same chapel.

52 Her Love of Flowers.
merely recite the words of the office, but pondered their sense in her
heart. Caffarini remarks in his Supplement, that whenever her first
confessor, F. Thomas della Fonte, went to see her, he always found
her praying or reading, sometimes bathed in tears, sometimes recreat
ing herself with singing, but never idle. She soon acquired a wonder
ful knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, especially of the New Testa
ment ; and took such a passing delight in speaking and meditating
on the life of Jesus Christ as set forth in the Holy Gospels, that if
she could find any one to converse with her on that subject she
would forget the necessity of food or sleep. But if in her hours of
solitude she knew how to nourish her soul with study and medita
tion, no less was she sensible of the charms of other pursuits which
bear witness to her possession of a graceful and artistic taste. She
had a singular love of flowers. " Often, before her appearance in
public," says Caffarini, " divine love would cause her to fall into a
holy languor, at which time she solaced herself by singing hymns,
surrounded by earthly flowers, which reminded her of those of her
heavenly Spouse. She twined them into garlands, or arranged them
with admirable skill into the form of crosses ; and these she after
wards distributed, in order to excite other souls to the love of God."
The same is testified by other witnesses, who speak of her great love
for roses, lilies, and violets, and tell us how after she had finished
her accustomed penances, she would arrange them into exquisite
bouquets, singing over her work.1
But the time was fast approaching, when this life of silence and
retirement was to be exchanged for one of active labour ; not,
indeed, all at once, but gradually and, as it would seem, in
obedience to two distinct notifications of the divine will, each pre
ceded by a special increase of heavenly grace, and accompanied
by mysterious, sensible signs, as their outward pledge and assur
ance. It was a change, which, on the part of Catherine, entailed
a costly sacrifice. God, Who would prepare her for it, and Who
designed to make her the pliant instrument, of His all holy purposes,
inspired her at this time to seek by means of earnest and continual
1 F. Raymund says in the Legend (Part 2, chap, xi.), that " God was pleased to
work many miracles by His spouse on inanimate things, and specially on flowers,
in which the holy virgin greatly delighted. " Of these miracles, however, he gives
no examples. In consequence of Catherine's singular love of flowers the custom
arose of celebrating her feast (even before her canonisation) by extraordinary
floral decorations.

Her Espousals. 53
prayer, no less a gift than the perfedion of faith, so that henceforth
nothing might separate her from Him. In answer to this prayer, in
which she persevered for a long time, He caused her to hear in her
heart these words, " I will espouse thee to Me in faith." And still
as she renewed her request with ever - increasing earnestness, the
same answer was repeated, and in the same words. At length as
Lent drew near, on the last day of the Carnival, when, according to
custom, the city was given up to the riotous festivities usual at that
season, Catherine shut herself up in her cell, and sought by prayer
and fasting to make reparation for the offences committed by the
thoughtless crowds who passed her door. And she besought our
Lord that He would vouchsafe at this time to perform His promise,
and bestow on her that perfection of faith she had so long desired.
Then He appeared to her, and answered her in these words : "Because
thou hast forsaken all the vanities of the world, and set thy love upon
Me, and because thou hast, for My sake, rather chosen to afflict thy
body with fasting than to eat flesh with others, especially at this time,
when all others that dwell round about thee, yea, and those also that
dwell in the same house with thee, are banqueting and making good
cheer, therefore I am determined, this day, to keep a solemn feast
with thee, and with great joy and pomp to espouse thy soul to Me
in faith." As He was yet speaking, there appeared in the same
place the most glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the beloved
disciple St. John the Evangelist, St. Paul the Apostle, and the great
patriarch and founder of her order, St. Dominic; and after these
came the kingly prophet and poet David, with a musical psalter in
his hand, on which he played a heavenly song of inestimable sweet
ness. Then our Blessed Lady came to her and took her by the
hand, which she held towards her Divine Son, and besought Him -
that He would vouchsafe to espouse her to Him in faith. To
which He consented with a very sweet and lovely countenance, and
taking out a ring that was set about with four precious pearls and
had in the other part a marvellous rich diamond, He put the same
on the finger of her right hand, saying thus : " Behold, I here
espouse thee to Me, thy Maker and Saviour, in faith, which shall
continue in thee from this time forward, evermore unchanged, until
the time shall come of a blissful consummation in the joys of heaven.
Now then, act courageously : thou art armed with faith, and shalt
triumph over all thine enemies." : The vision disappeared, but the
1 Fen., Part I, ch. xxiii. Caffarini in the Leggenda Minore specifies the last

54 Her mystic Ring.
ring, invisible indeed to other eyes than Catherine's, remained upon
her finger ; mysterious token of a favour no less mysterious, yet one
the signification of which is not obscure to the student of Holy Scrip
ture. If every faithful soul is knit to its Creator by the tie of a
spiritual espousal,1 what must not have been the closeness of that
union which Catherine contracted when she received as her dowry
" the perfection of faith " ? That precious ring was to her the token
of her Divine Vocation ; the pledge of an indissoluble union with
her Beloved. " She was destined," says Raymund, " to save innu
merable souls from the stormy ocean of this world, without dreading
for herself shipwreck or tempest." God therefore prepared her as a
fit instrument for the Divine work He was about to entrust to her,
and when the instrument was perfected, the word was spoken which
called her to a new manner of life.
day of the Carnival as that on which this favour was granted. This, in Siena, was
the Tuesday before Quinquagesima. Following the more general custom, however,
the movable feast, formerly kept as the Espousals of St. Catherine (now merged in
that of her Translation), is kept on the Thursday before Quinquagesima Sunday.
In 1705 the High Consistory of Siena published a decree to be observed for ever
in the Contrada di Fontebranda, forbidding masks, dances, and other Carnival
festivities to be held " on the last day of the Carnival, dedicated to the sacred
Espousals of their seraphic fellow-citizen, Catherine Benincasa." It is somewhat
remarkable that Catherine appears from this time to have worn a real material
ring. One such is preserved at Citta di Castello, said to have been hers.
1 "I have espoused you as a chaste virgin to Jesus Christ." — 2 Cor. xi. 2.

( 55 )

CHAPTER VI.
CATHERINE IN HER FAMILY, 1367.
THE cell in which Catherine had now spent three years hidden
from the world had become to her the gate of heaven, and
had she followed her own attraction she would never more have
quitted it. But God had other designs over her, and after the cele
bration of her mystic Espousals, He began little by little to call on her
to return once more to her place in the family, and to hold converse
with men. Not that He withdrew from her any of His former
favours, or ceased those heavenly visitations which she had hitherto
enjoyed ; but from time to time He would make known to her His
will, saying, " Behold the hour of dinner is at hand, go up 1 therefore
and take thy place at table with thy family, and then return to Me."
When first this intimation of the Divine will was given to her,
Catherine was overwhelmed with sorrow, and entreated with many
tears that she might not be required to forego her solitude, or to
return to such intercourse with the world as would separate her
from the blessed presence of her Spouse. " O my good Lord ! " she
said, " wherefore wilt Thou have me to go and eat with them ? Doth
man live by bread only, and not by every word that cometh from
Thy mouth ? Hast Thou not caused me to forsake the conversation
of men that I might the better converse with Thee ; and now that I
have found Thee must I again lose so precious a treasure, and
return to the world which shall dim the purity and clearness of my
faith?" But in reply our Lord opened to her gaze the sublime
path in treading which she was "to fulfil all justice." Souls that
would do this must be profitable not only to themselves but also to
others. Nor need, they on that account be separated from God, but
rather united to Him more firmly. For the perfection which He
1 In the Legend it stands, " Go quickly ; " in the English version, " Go down ; "
Caffarini in the Leggenda Minore has it, more correctly, " Go up" i.e.., from her
cell under her father's house.

56 She quits her Retirement.
requires of them is the love of God and of their neighbour, in which
twofold love stand all the law and the prophets. That zeal which
made itself felt in the heart of Catherine whilst yet a child, and which
had first moved her to enrol herself as a daughter of St. Dominic, was
now to find its proper scope, and wearing the habit of an apostolic
Order she was to be called to the apostolic life. In vain did she
in her humility and simplicity represent her unworthiness for such a
function, whether by the weakness of her sex or other infirmities.
" How can I, a poor and miserable woman, be able to do any good
in Thy Church ? " she would say ; " how shall I instruct wise and
learned men, or how will it be even seemly for me to live and converse
with them ? " But He made her to understand that in the counsels of
His wisdom He had chosen her, a weak woman, to confound the
pride of the strong. Her mission was to exhibit to a world " lying
in wickedness " the power of the Divine Word, made known to them
by the feeblest of human instruments. " Daughter," He said, " I
will impart to thee My secret in this matter. Know thou, that now
adays pride so abounds in the world, and specially among those
who hold themselves for wise and learned, that My justice may no
longer bear it. Now the proper punishment as well as the sovereign
medicine for pride is to be confounded and put to shame. There
fore I have determined that those men who are wise in their own
conceits should be made ashamed by seeing weak and frail women,
whom they account as things vile and abject, to understand the
mysteries of God, not by human study, but only by infused grace ;
confirming such doctrine by many marvellous signs above the course
of nature. I will do now as I did when I was conversing in this
world, and sent simple and unlearned men, and poor fishermen
replenished with the strength of My Spirit to confound the wisdom
of the world. So will I now, in like manner, send thee and other
ignorant persons, both men and women, to humble the pride of those
who are wise in their own eyes. If they will embrace My doctrine
spread throughout the world by such weak vessels, I will regard
.them with mercy, but if they refuse to do so they shall be brought to
shame. Wherefore, daughter, set thyself in readiness to go forth
into the world ; for I will be with thee at all times, and in all places,
and will direct thee in all things that I shall send thee to do."
When once the will of her Divine Spouse had thus been mani
fested, Catherine had no thought save to bow her head and to obey.
Yet she owned to her confessor that each time our Lord ordered her

Her Life in her Family. 57
to quit her cell and mix with the world outside, it cost her so lively a
sorrow, that it seemed to her as if her heart must break. From that
time her love and desire for Holy Communion greatly increased,
because by the more frequent reception of the Body of her Divine
Spouse, she trusted to persevere, and as it were to rivet the closeness
of those bonds which she feared a renewed intercourse with the
world might sever. It is quite certain that Catherine did not
interpret the command she had received as requiring her at once
to undertake extraordinary work for souls of her own choosing. On
the contrary, she waited until it should be made manifest what our
Lord demanded of her, and the rule she had made for herself was
still enforced, according to which she spoke to no man beyond the
limits of her family without the permission of her confessor. As
regarded the injunction to mix with the household, however, she
set herself to accomplish it with all possible fervour, and made her
return to the family circle the occasion for taking on herself fresh
practices of penance and humility. She chose to perform every
menial office in the house, such as sweeping, washing the dishes, and
serving in the kitchen. Not content with this she would rise at night
when the others were asleep, and wash all the dirty clothes which
she found ; and when the servant fell sick, she not only supplied her
place, but nursed and attended to her wants during her sickness.
Yet none of these e'xterior actions disturbed the interior recollection
of her soul, or withdrew her in the least degree from the Divine
presence, and her ecstacies became even more frequent.
Such was her manner of life when in 1366 Father Thomas Antonio
Caffarini first made her acquaintance. He belonged to the convent
of St. Dominic, and was still very young when he was admitted into
the family on terms of intimate friendship. His recollections of
Catherine in those early days are touching from their very simplicity.
He often sat with her at her father's table, and saw that she ate next
to nothing, but during the meal she would talk to them of God, and
was always to be seen with a gay and smiling countenance.1 Wonder
fully circumspect in her words, never idle or in any way reprehen
sible, never disturbed save when God was offended, she was always
affable, kind, and full of joy, specially in time of sickness or affliction.
The robust frame which she possessed as a young girl was fast wast-
1 The same was observed by all those who were familiar with her. It is one of
the features which Anastagio di Monte Altino introduces in his poetical portraiture
of her : "Ella i sempremai lieta e ridente."

58 Her family Circle.
ing under the fire of Divine love, joined to her continual austerities.
Eating was a daily torture to her, for her digestion had become so
weak that she was incapable of retaining any solid food. Neverthe
less, to please and satisfy her parents, she would force herself to swallow
something, and would call the summons to the family meal, " going
to execution," so terrible was the suffering it cost her. " Neverthe
less," he continues, " I always saw her cheerful. I remember once
when she was covered with wounds she called them her flowers,
saying, ' These are my flowers and roses.' Only in time of worldly
prosperity was she ever sad, for she would say, ' I desire not such
gifts for my family, but rather the eternal joys of heaven.' " She often
bestowed on him some of the nosegays she was in the habit of making
and distributing to her friends ; and her confessor, F. Thomas della
Fonte, more than once gave him some bread which she had made
with her own hands ; " Nor did I think it a little thing to have eaten
it," he observes. "And whatever she did, whether she made the
bread, or busied herself in any other household work, she was always
on fire with the love of God." The same Father Thomas della Fonte
showed him one of her disciplines, composed of cords with iron
points, " which looked as if it had been steeped for a long time in a
vessel of blood and then dried." He was an eyewitness of her vigils
and her ecstacies ; and on one occasion when she was rapt in God he
listened to the burning words, which fell from her lips, and was con
scious of an exquisite perfume which seemed to escape from her, and
which caused him for many days afterwards a sense of unspeakable
consolation. The same fact was testified by other witnesses, who
affirmed that this heavenly fragrance was perceptible on merely
approaching her cell, and had been the means of inspiring many with
sentiments of profound compunction.
The home circle in which Catherine now resumed her place deserves
a few words of notice. Giacomo was still living, a prosperous trades
man, beholding with honest pride the numerous children and grand
children who gathered round his hearth, and assisted him in his
business. From the street that rises above the Fullonica we can still
look down on the meadows where he and his workmen were accus
tomed to wash their wool and lay it out for bleaching. Within the
house all things were well regulated by Lapa, the most industrious of
housewives, unchanged in all respects from the old Lapa with whom
we have already made acquaintance, and who was ever oscillating
between an indulgent tenderness towards her favourite daughter and

Her family Circle. 59
the despair excited by her practices of charity or penance. Of the
brothers we know but little ; besides those whose names have been
already given, there was one, a wild and heedless youth, who, growing
weary of trade, resolved to try his fortune as a soldier, and to the
sorrow of his parents set out for the wars. In the first encounter he
was severely wounded and left for dead on the field of battle. At
the moment when he fell, Catherine was supernaturally warned of
what had happened, and shed bitter tears, fearing lest her brother's
soul might be in no less grievous danger than his body. With
characteristic prudence, however, she said nothing of the matter to
her mother, but had recourse to prayer. The wounded youth found
means of returning home, where the tender care of his mother and
sister restored him to health, and becoming a wiser man by his ex
perience he made no further trial of the military career. Perhaps it
was this same brother of whom we read that having cause to be
uneasy regarding the state of his soul, Catherine being one day in the
church set herself to pray for his conversion, and addressing our Lord
with her accustomed confidence, she said, " O Lord, I will not rise
from my knees until Thou grant me this favour." Then feeling in
her heart a certain assurance that her prayer had been heard, she
returned home, and found her brother in his room, weeping over his
sins. She sweetly consoled him, and found no difficulty in inducing
him at once to go to confession. But there was one member of the
family who was bound to Catherine by even closer ties than those of
blood. It was her sister-in-law Lisa, the confidante of her childhood,
the friend and companion of her maturer years. Her numerous
children were the objects of Catherine's tenderest affection : she had
a singular love for children, and had she followed her inclination
would have had them always with her. " Were it becoming," she
would say, " I should never weary of caressing them." 1 The greater
number of these little ones were taken away in early youth, for Lisa
was destined to be drawn closer to God by the stroke of domestic
affliction. Two of her daughters, however, lived to take the religious
habit in the convent of St. Agnes of Montepulciano, and a letter is
preserved addressed by St. Catherine to one of them, named Eugenia.
The strong mutual affection existing between Catherine and Lisa is
1 Sup., Part 1, Trat. 2, § 12. Lisa was often in danger of death when giving
birth to her children, and on two occasions both mother and child owed their
safety to the prayers of the Saint. This seems to have been the origin of the very
special love she bore to these little ones— the children of her prayers.

60 Her Sister-in-law, Lisa.
apparent from many passages both in the Legend and in the letters
of the Saint In one of the last she addresses her friend as " Mia
cognata secondo la came, mia sorella secondo Cristo." In fact, after
the death of her husband, Lisa put on the habit of Penance, and
became Catherine's inseparable companion even until her death.
Their close intimacy gave her opportunities of becoming acquainted
with many circumstances of Catherine's life, which were unknown to
others, and from her F. Raymund collected some of- the most in
teresting facts which he has introduced into the Legend. She had
personal experience within their own family of that wonderful know
ledge of hearts which God had communicated to the holy virgin, a
supernatural gift which often brought anguish to its possessor. It
was not easy- to escape the glance of her gentle but penetrating eye.
One day having opened her breviary to say Vespers, Catherine was
rapt in ecstacy, and remained in that state for four hours. Coming
to herself she was conscious of an insupportable odour which often
indicated to her the presence of a soul stained by mortal sin. At the
same moment it was made known to her that one of her brothers had
grievously offended God. Pierced with sorrow, she interceded for
the unfortunate youth ; then hearing his footstep at the door, she rose
to meet him. As he listened to her words of sad reproof, he stood
abashed and conscience-stricken, and found to his surprise that before
those grave and weeping eyes the secrets of his heart lay open.1
Another of these domestic incidents was of a less sorrowful character.
Lisa had determined on making a general confession, but wishing to
keep the matter private, she said nothing to any of the family, and
chose the remote corner of an unfrequented church where, having made
her confession to one who was not her ordinary confessor, she returned
home, as she imagined, unperceived. But Catherine met her, and
embracing her tenderly exclaimed a little archly, " Oh ! now you are
really my good little sister!" Lisa inquired the meaning of her
unusual salutation, and was somewhat disconcerted on finding that
her whole proceedings were perfectly known. Seeing her confusion,
Catherine sweetly consoled her, saying, " I shall always love you the
better, my Lisa, for this morning's work."2
Mention has been made of F. Thomas Caffarini as at this time a
frequent visitor at the Fullonica ; and a little later another of the
Friars was introduced to Catherine by his old friend and fellow
novice, F. Thomas della Fonte. This was F. Bartholomew Dominic,
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 5, § 7. 2 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 5, § 8.

F. Bartholomew. 61
who seems first to have made her acquaintance early in 1368, and
who for the remaining twelve years of her life continued to enjoy her
most intimate friendship. When first he was admitted into the
little chamber to which she retired when her presence with the rest
of the family was no longer required, it bore the same aspect of
austerity and recollection which has been already described. The
door and window were always kept closed, and a lamp burnt day
and night before the crucifix and the image of the Blessed Virgin
and other Saints. There was the bed of boards which in the day
time she used as a bench on which to sit ; there were the brick steps
which may still be seen, and which often served as her only pillow ;
and above all there was the wasted form of one whose very beauty
was so unlike the beauty of earth that it told its own tale of a nature
purified and sublimated by penance. " When first I began to visit
her," he says, "she was young, and her countenance was always
serene and joyful. I was also young ; yet far from experiencing in
her presence the embarrassment which I might have felt in the com
pany of other women of her age, the longer I conversed with her, the
more utterly were all earthly passions extinguished in my breast. I
have known many — both laymen and religious — who experienced the
same thing ; there was a something in her whole appearance so
redolent of purity as to be far more angelic than human." x
Besides these friends and the members of her own immediate family,
Catherine admitted into her privacy some of the other Mantellate,
and with them Bartholomew often found her, after the labours of the
day were over, singing hymns and making garlands. Then she
would converse with them on the things of God, but would break off,
saying with a sigh, " It were better to be silent than to speak of such
things in such a way. It is like dipping pearls in mud to attempt to
relate them with a tongue of flesh." " As to my repetition of her
words," he adds, "it is as insipid as a dish of meat without salt."
Gradually others of the Friars came to visit her, and listened with
wonder to her words. " How often," says Caffarini, " have I heard
her exhort them to be true sons of their Holy Father, to abide in the
cell of self-knowledge, to feed on souls and to weep over sinners !
Sometimes she would exclaim, ' Let us live in our cell ! ' or again,
' Let us weep, let us weep over all these dead souls ! ' And I
know by experience that by her prayers and exhortations, and her
own holy example, devotion and penance revived in our convent at
1 Process, 1 3 14.

62 Her Ecstacies.
Siena ; the use of fasts, disciplines, and haircloths increased among
us, and primitive observance began to be restored."
The unbroken union with God which Catherine enjoyed, and which
was never interrupted by her active employments, often caused her
to be rapt in ecstacy even when engaged in the homeliest household
duties. It could not be otherwise, says Raymund, " for her heart ever
tended heavenward, and drew the body with it. At such times her
limbs became stiff, her eyes closed, and her body, raised in the air,
often diffused a perfume of exquisite sweetness." He declares in
the Legend that she had been thus seen by him and his brethren a
thousand times, and her other disciples all speak to the same effect.
In consequence she was exposed to exactly the same kind of annoy
ance on the part whether of the curious or the devout which in all
times falls to the lot of an Ecstatica. People were always trying to
see her, asking her confessor to admit them to her chamber when
the Saint was in ecstacy, or plotting with her companions to bring her
to some place on a mission of charity, where they might have a
chance of beholding the prodigy. And the embarrassment was the
greater, from the impossibility she was under of restraining that
suspension of her bodily faculties which the very thought of God
would suffice to occasion. If this took place in the presence of
others it caused her the utmost confusion. " You see, father," she
would say, addressing her confessor, " I am not fit to converse with
others, I entreat you let me go elsewhere." 1 But if he refused her
the permission to do so, she never disobeyed, but bowing her head,
submitted meekly to the hard command.2 One instance of these
unwelcome visits of pious intruders may suffice as a sample. Fra
Niccolo of Cascina had come to Siena from Pisa, as he said, upon
business, but says Caffarini, more probably out of nothing else than
his desire to behold the Ecstatica of whom he had heard through
his brethren, for he too was a Friar Preacher. Persuading F. Thomas
to take him to her father's house, they entered her chamber, and
found her in abstraction, unable to hear or speak with them. " She
appeared like a statue which retains nothing but the human form." 3
Suddenly they beheld her raised gently into the air, and sustained
there as by some invisible hand; after which there began to fall
from her lips the following broken exclamations : " O inestimable •
Charity ! O eternal Truth ! when shall I have the happiness of suffer-
1 Sup., Part I, Trat. 2, § 14. 2 Ibid., Part 2, Trat. 3, § 4.
3 " Quasi statua che ritenesse la solafigura di donna."

Her Ecstacies. 63
ing something for Thy glory? Yet if in this desire Thou seest
aught of vanity or self-love, I conjure Thee annihilate it, destroy it,
tear it out of my heart ! " Fra Niccolo listened with awe and tender
devotion, and with humble reverence extending his hand he touched
her lightly with one of his fingers. And that slight touch communi
cated to his hand so wondrous a fragrance, that for the entire day it
seemed to infuse a strength and consolation as well to his corporal
as to his spiritual senses.1
It very often happened that persons out of mere curiosity would
obtain permission from F. Thomas to secrete themselves somewhere
in order to behold Catherine in this state of abstraction. But again
and again it happened that when such persons beheld her absorbed
in prayer, the mere spectacle so moved them to compunction as to
effect an entire change of heart. Then after they were gone away
the Saint returning to herself, would say to her confessor, " Who were
those persons you brought here just now ? " " And how do you know
I had any person with me ? " he would reply. Then with an air of
gravity she would say, " Father, such and such persons were here,
and they came in your company, being curious to see me thus ; " and
he soon found that it was impossible to deceive her.
These prodigies were not equally well understood by all who
witnessed them, and it sometimes happened that Lapa, who had no
great experience in the phenomena of ecstacies,2 would find her
daughter in this condition, and try to bend her rigid limbs, not
always in the gentlest manner. On one of these occasions she used
so much force as nearly to break her daughter's neck, and Cather
ine, on returning to herself, suffered great pain in consequence.
Another day, being engaged in the kitchen according to her custom,
she sat down by the fire and began to turn the spit ; as she did so,
she was rapt in ecstacy and became wholly insensible to exterior
things. Her sister-in-law, Lisa, observing this, and being better
acquainted than Lapa with the nature of these heavenly raptures,
quietly took her place at the spit, leaving her to enjoy undisturbed
the Divine communications. When the meat was roasted, supper
was served to the family, Lisa still discharging all those services
which were generally rendered by her sister ; and when supper was
ended, having attended to the wants of her husband, and put her
children to bed, she returned to Catherine, intending to watch by
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 3, § 3.
2 " Non consapevole di quest' cslasi, " says Raymund.

64 She falls into the Fire.
her till she should recover consciousness. On re-entering the
kitchen, however, she was terrified to find that Catherine had fallen
forwards, and was lying with her body on the burning coals. The
fire was large and fierce, for an unusual quantity of wood was
always kept burning in the house for the sake of preparing the dyes.
" Alas ! " cried Lisa, " Catherine is all burnt ; " and so saying she
ran and drew her out of the smoking embers, but found to her
wonder that she had received no injury either in her person, or even
her clothes, on which the " smell of fire had not passed." "And yet,"
says her old English biographer, "it was a great fire, and she a long
time in it. But the fire of God's love that burnt within her heart
was of such force and virtue that it would not suffer that outward
fire to prevail over her." This was not the only occasion when fire
seemed to have no power of injuring her. One day when praying
in the Church of San Domenico, and leaning according to her
custom against the pilaster that supports the roof of the chapel
Delle Volte, it chanced that some candles having been set up before
the image of some saint that stood in that place, one of them fell
upon her head, she being at the time in ecstacy, and continued
burning there, without however doing her any kind of harm, or so
much as singeing her veil.
Other ancedotes which seem to belong to this time are of a less
homely character. Her companions tried sometimes to induce her
to accompany them on little expeditions, whether of charity or other
wise, beyond the city gates. One of the places which they visited
was the Monastery of St. Abondio, the favourite resort of St. John
Columbini who was buried there, and whose only daughter was a
nun within its walls. Possibly this circumstance may explain their
visit, as Lisa, who, no doubt, accompanied her sister-in-law, was the
saint's near relative. Catherine, when they set out, was suffering
from an affection of the chest which made any exertion painful to
her, nevertheless, with her usual sweet charity, she complied with
the wishes of her Sisters, and set out in their company. She had
not gone far when, overwhelmed, as it seemed, by some glorious
vision, she exchanged her feeble steps for a pace so rapid that none
of her companions could keep up with her They followed as best
they might, and beheld her carried forward with wonderful impetu
osity, her eyes being all the while closed. Reaching the convent, she
at once entered the church, and prostrated before the altar. When
the others came in they found her in ecstacy, and in that state she

She sings in Ecstacy. 6 5
began to utter such sweet and wonderful things that they were
stupefied with astonishment ; and the rumour of what was passing
spreading through the house, the community gathered in the upper
choir and other parts overlooking the church, whence they could
behold and listen to her.
Another time they took her to a neighbouring village, and as usual
she became so absorbed in meditation, that though indeed she
walked with the others, her senses were quite abstracted, nor could
they rouse her by pushing or shaking her. At last, however, they
were surprised to hear her begin to sing ; and were very soon sensible
of a new kind of marvel. For as they listened to her sweet voice,
they were themselves made sharers in the holy jubilee which filled
her breast, and felt as though transformed into different persons.
They returned to the city singing the Divine praises, and heedless of
the rain which fell in torrents ; and such was the supernatural grace
infused into them, that for three entire days they remained recreated
by it, nor so much as thought of taking their ordinary food.

( 66 )

CHAPTER VII.
CATHERINE'S CHARITY TO HER NEIGHBOUR, 1367, 1368.
CATHERINE had not been drawn from the privacy of her little
chamber merely to take part in household duties, or even to
diffuse among her family and those who from time to time visited
her in her home the good odour of her virtues. In abandoning her
solitude she had feared at first to lose that continual presence of her
Beloved, which was dearer to her than life itself. But He is pleased
to abide in other sanctuaries than the solitary cell, and Catherine
learnt to seek Him and find Him in His two chosen dwelling-places
— the Sacrament of His love, and the person of His poor. And
indeed it would have been impossible for a love like hers to have
rested content with devout affections without seeking for relief in
action. It is her own maxim that " the love we conceive towards God
we must bring forth in acts of charity towards our neighbour. God
Himself is beyond our reach, therefore the services we cannot render
directly to Him, He wills we should render to our neighbour."1 In
conformity with this principle she very soon began to exercise herself
in charitable labours for the sick and needy ; but having nothing of
her own to bestow, and considering herself bound by her religious
character to the practice of poverty, she besought her father to allow
her to deduct the share of the poor from the abundance of temporal
things which were enjoyed by the family. Giacomo willingly con
sented : his reverence for his daughter had increased with years, and
he made known to the whole household the permission he had granted
her. " Let no one hinder my dear daughter from giving alms," he said ;
" if she give all there is in the house, I am well content" Catherine
carried out his permission almost to the letter; but her liberality,
however large, was always discreet. She sought out certain poor
families whom she knew to be in great distress, yet ashamed to beg ;
and gave them relief as secret as it was timely. For, rising very
1 Dialogo, ch. vii.

Her Charity to the Poor. 67
early in the morning, she would load herself with corn, wine, oil, and
other necessaries, and stealing to their houses, she would gently place
her store of provisions within the door, and return home without
being perceived. One day when she was lying sick in bed, suffering
great pain in every part of her body, she learnt that a poor widow of
the neighbourhood was in a state of great distress, not having even a
loaf of bread to give to her children. Catherine spent the night pray
ing to our Lord that He would give her strength enough to go and help
the poor woman ; and rising before it was day, she procured a large
sack and went about the house gathering together meal, wine, oil, and
any other food that she could find. When she had carried all these
things to her cell, she began to fear lest it would be impossible for her
to carry such a burthen. Nevertheless, lifting up her heart to God, she
made the attempt, and as soon as the morning bell had rung (before
which no person was suffered to leave their house), she went forth
into the street, feeling her load " no more than if it had been a wisp
of straw." By the providence of God she found the widow's door
half open, and thrusting in her sack of provisions, she would have
hurried away, when her strength forsook her and she was nearly
sinking to the ground. But turning to her Spouse, between game
and earnest, she began to say, " O Lord, why hast thou deceived Me ?
Is it Thy pleasure that all the neighbours should see my folly and
laugh me to scorn ? Behold the day is coming on, and I shall be
discovered by all men. Give me so much strength that I may be
able to return home to my chamber, and then lay on me as much
weakness as Thou pleasest" Then our Lord heard her, and pitying
her case gave her strength enough to make her way home again,
where, so soon as she had arrived, the grievous sickness from which
she had been suffering returned upon her as before.
Two other incidents must be related in the beautiful language of
the old Legend :
"While Catherine was one day in St Dominic's church, there
came to her a poor man who besought her for God's love that she
would give him somewhat : to whom, because she had nothing there
to give (for it was not her manner to carry either gold or silver about
her), she spake very gently, and prayed him that he would have so
much patience as to wait there till she might go home and come
again. The poor man made answer that he could not tarry so long,
but if she had anything there to give, she should give it, for other
wise he must needs go his way. She was loth that he should go

6 8 She gives away her Cross.
away from her without something ; and therefore bethought herself
carefully what thing she might have about her to serve that poof
man's need ; and it came to her mind that she had a little cross of
silver that hung by her beads, which she broke off with all speed, and
gave gladly to the poor man, who likewise, when he had received
this alms at her hand, went his way, and was seen no more to beg
that day, as though his coming had been for that cross only. The
night following as she was occupied in prayer, after her accustomed
manner, our Saviour Christ appeared unto her, having that same cross
in His hand set with divers and sundry precious stones, and said
unto her : ' Daughter, knowest thou this cross ? ' ' Yes, Lord,' said
she, ' I know it right well ; but it was not so richly decked when I
had it.' Then said our Lord to her again: 'Yesterday thou gavest
Me this cross with a cheerful heart and great charity, which love and '
charity are signified by these precious stones. And, therefore, I
promise thee that at the day of judgment I will show the same, in
the presence of men and angels, to the increase of thine everlasting
joy and glory; for I will not suffer to be hidden such deeds of
charity as are done by thee.' With that, this apparition ceased, and
left her replenished with unspeakable joy and gladness. And from
that time forward her desire of relieving the poor greatly increased."
One day when the office was finished in the church of the Friars,
she remained behind alone with one of her sisters to pray ; and as
she was coming down from the chapel belonging to the Sisters of
Penance, our Lord appeared to her in the likeness of a poor pilgrim,
of the age, as it seemed, of three and thirty years, half naked ; and
besought her that she would give him clothes for the love of God.
" Tarry here a little while," said she, " until I go to yonder chapel
and come again ; and then, God willing, I will help thee with
clothes." With that she went up again to the chapel, and undid her
kirtle, under which she wore a sleeveless petticoat, which she took off,
and came down again and gave it to the poor man very sweetly.
When the poor man had received the coat, he besought her further
more that, seeing she had given him a woollen garment to wear
outwardly, she would also be so good as to give him some shirt of
linen to wear next his body. " Willingly," said she ; " come home
with me, and I will seek one out for thee." And so she went on
before, and the poor man came after. When she was come home
she went to the chests and presses where the linen clothes of her
father and brothers were laid up, and took out a shirt and certain

The poor Pilgrim. 69
other linen clothes, and gave the same gladly to the poor man.
When the poor pilgrim had received all these things at her hand,
he did not depart, but prayed her yet more that she would give
him sleeves to his coat to cover his arms. "With a good will,"
said she, "for otherwise, I grant, this coat were to no great
purpose." And with that she went and sought all about for
sleeves, and at last found a new coat of a maid-servant that was
in the house, which had never been worn, and took off the sleeves
from the same and gave them cheerfully to the poor pilgrim, who
received those sleeves also thankfully at her hand, as he had done all
the rest, and said unto her: "Mistress, ye have now clothed me
thoroughly ; He for whose love ye have done it thank you for it :
but yet one demand more I have to make unto you. I have a com
panion lying in an hospital hereby, who standeth in great need of
clothes; if it shall please you to send him any, I will carry them
unto him in your behalf with a very good will." This new request
troubled her somewhat, and caused her to have a certain conflict
within herself. On the one side she was much moved with compas
sion for that poor man, and had a great desire to supply his necessity.
On the other side she considered the murmuring and grudging of as
many as were in the house, who waxed so weary of her dealing out
their things, that, to keep them from her hands, they began, everyone,
"to keep their apparel and other goods under lock and key. Again
she thought she had done enough to take away the sleeves of the
servant's new coat that was never worn, and that she could not with
discretion take any more from her, being herself also needy and
poor. Then she began to reason with herself whether she might
conveniently part from her own garment or no. She was much in
clined to do it, because she knew it was a great work of charity, and
saw also that she was better able to bear that lack of clothes than
the poor man was. But, on the other hand, she considered that if
she should spoil herself of her clothes, she should in so doing trans
gress the rules of prudence, which might cause great offence in the
minds of men. All which things thus considered, and discreetly
weighed, she resolved in herself that in this case it was far better to
abstain from giving her alms, than, by giving the same, to cause
offence to her neighbour. She spake, therefore, to the poor man
after a very gentle and sweet manner, and said, "Truly, good man,
if I might do it with modesty, I would spoil myself even of this coat
that I wear with all my heart, and bestow it upon thy companion ;

70 Our Lord gives her a Robe.
but because I have no more garments to put on but only this, I must
needs pray thee to hold me excused, for in truth there lacketh no
good will in me but only ability." With that the poor man smiled
upon her, and said ; " Mistress, I see right well that if ye had aught
to give, you would gladly give it. I thank you for your good will :
God reward and keep you ! " And so he took his leave of her, and
went his way in such sort that she gathered, by certain signs, that
this poor pilgrim was indeed He that was wont to appear unto her.
But such was her lowliness and base esteem of herself, that she
thought herself unworthy to receive such honour at God's hand ;
and therefore, with an humble mind, she returned to her wonted
services in the house, where, notwithstanding, she kept her heart
evermore fixed upon her dear Spouse, Jesus Christ, Who the next
night following appeared unto her again (as she was praying) in the
likeness of the poor man, holding in His hand1 that coat which she
had given Him, all set and decked with goodly pearls and precious
stones that shone all over the chamber, and said unto her : " Dear
daughter, knowest thou this coat?" "Yes, Lord," said she; "I
know it very well, but it was not so richly decked when it was with
me." Then, said our Lord to her again: " Yesterday thou gavest
Me this coat very freely and charitably to cover the nakedness of
My body, and to keep it from cold and shame. This day, for
recompense of thy great charity towards Me, I give thee a coat that
shall be invisible to other men, but to thee alone visible and also
sensible, by virtue whereof thou shalt be defended both in body and
soul from all hurtful cold ; and with this garment thou shalt be clad
until the time come that in the presence of angels and saints I shall
put on upon thee the blissful and glorious garment of immortality."
When He had said these words, He drew out of the wound of His
side a robe of sanguine colour, shining all about and yielding a mar
vellous beautiful light ; and putting the same upon her with His own
hands, said : " This garment I give thee for all the time that thou
shalt live here upon the earth, in token and pledge of that immortal
garment that thou shalt receive at My hands in heaven." And with
these words that vision ceased, and left her endowed with such a
1 In the Leggenda Minore, we read that our Lord appeared wearing her gar
ment, and the following marginal note is written on the original MS. preserved
at Siena : " Questo atto i dipinto u. Roma assai adornatamente." Thus show
ing that St. Catherine was venerated as a Saint almost immediately after her.
death.

The Butt of Wine. 7 1
strange grace and quality, not only in soul but also in body," that
from that very instant she never felt alteration in her body, but con
tinued evermore in one temperature, whether it were winter or
summer, hot or cold, wind or rain ; and whatsoever weather came,
she never wore more clothes under her habit than one single
garment." 1
Sometimes these acts of charity were accompanied by other
miraculous tokens, as when hastening to the relief of a poor man
who was dying of hunger, she took a bag of eggs under her mantle.
But on her way, stepping into a church, the door of which was open,
and intending only to make a passing visit, she was seized with an
ecstacy, and fell down on the eggs so heavily as to crush a metal
thimble which happened to be in the bag, the eggs themselves suffering
no injury. One more story was attested by more than twenty persons,
witnesses of the fact. At the time when she had her father's leave
to give out to the poor whatever she chose, it happened that the
vessel of wine which was being used by the family had run low, and
what remained in it seemed to her not good enough to give to the
poor ; for it was her custom in giving alms always to give the best,
for God's sake. She went therefore to the next vessel which had not
been touched, and drew out of it largely, without its coming to the
knowledge of any of the household. When the first butt had been
quite exhausted, the person who had charge of the' wine-cellar came
to this vessel and began to draw out of it for the use of the family,
whilst Catherine likewise continued to draw from it as before.
According to the size of the butt, it would have sufficed the house
hold for fifteen or twenty days, but instead of this a whole month
passed, and the wine decreased neither in quantity nor quality.
Everybody wondered that the vessel should hold out so long, and
declared that in their lifetime they had never tasted better wine ;
but Catherine felt no wonder about it, understanding that it was the
work of God, whose wont it is to bless and multiply the substance of
those who are ready to help the poor, for His love. One month
had expired and another was begun, and still the wine continued as
fresh and abundant as ever. At last, when the time came when the
grapes were ripe and ready for the press, ail the wine-butts being
required to receive the new wine, he who had the charge of the vintage
desired that this vessel should be emptied of its contents, that it
might be filled afresh. They imagined little or nothing could be left
1 Fen., Part 2, chaps, vi., vii.

72 The Butt of Witie.
in it, but to their surprise found that the tap ran as copiously as
ever. At last they resolved to gauge the vessel and see what was in
it, when lo ! they found it perfectly dry, as if it had stood without
liquor for many months, which caused them no less wonder than
they had felt before at the abundance and excellence of the wine.
F. Bartholomew in his deposition relates either the same story
with different circumstances, or, which is very possible, an entirely
different incident. He says that Giacomo had forbidden a certain
vessel of wine to be used for the family, on account of its being of
superior quality. Catherine, hearing this, considered that the better
the quality, the fitter it was to be dispensed to the poor, and drew
from it till it was empty. One day, he continues, her father desired
the maid to go and draw wine out of that cask ; but she returned,
saying there was nothing in it. Every one was dismayed, and some
began to reproach the servant, as though it were she who had
secretly taken it, whilst Giacomo angrily insisted on knowing who
had disobeyed his orders. Catherine was in her own chamber, but
hearing the tumult, and guessing the cause, she went to the
assembled family, and said sweetly, " Dear father, why are you
troubled ? Be not disturbed ; I will go and draw the wine." Going
therefore to the spot, she knelt down by the wine cask, and full of
confidence prayed, saying, " O Lord, Thou knowest that the wine
has been consumed for Thy glory and the necessities of the poor,
therefore permit not that it should be a cause of scandal to my
father and the family." Then rising, she made the sign of the Cross
over the cask, and the wine began to flow abundantly. And giving
thanks, she carried it to them, but said nothing of the miracle.1
Bartholomew was not himself a witness of what he relates, which
happened, he says, "before he knew her." The event, in fact, is
placed by Carapelli, in his Corso Cronotastico, as far back as the
year previous to her reception of the Dominican habit, but the
expressions used by F. Raymund in the Legend oblige us to assign it
to this period of her life, when she had her father's permission to
dispense the goods of his household.2 He adds that "the thing
was known throughout all Siena, and caused great wonder," and the
1 Process, 1317.
2 This version of the story is also given by Pietro di Ventura in his deposition,
who says it was Stephen who reproached his sister for her liberality, but going to
the cask found it full. The probability seems to be in favour of two occurrences
at different times.

She attends a Leper, 73
citizens still speak of " the cask of St Catherine," when they wish to
describe something which never comes to an end.
But Catherine's charity was not confined to the easy exercise of
almsgiving. How often, as she passed through the streets of Siena,
seeking out fresh objects who needed relief, must she not have
meditated over the words in the Gospel, " I was sick, and ye visited
Me." They sounded in her heart as the Voice of her Beloved, and
she may have responded in those other words, " I will rise and will
go about the city : in the streets and the broad ways, I will seek
Him whom my soul loveth." If some things that are related of her
service of the sick seem to pass the limit of what is possible to flesh
and blood, let it never be forgotten that Catherine, possessed of
that magnificent gift, " the perfection of faith," beheld in each poor
sufferer to whom she ministered nothing less than the person of her
Lord. She sought Him then in the streets and broad ways of her
native city, and she found Him in the hospitals of the lepers, and
wherever sickness had assumed its most terrible and repulsive
forms. There was at that time in Siena a poor woman named Cecca,
who, falling sick and being entirely destitute, was received into one
of the city hospitals,1 which, being very poor, was barely able to
supply her with necessaries. At last, her malady increasing, she be
came covered with leprosy ; and no one in the hospital choosing to
have the care of such a case, it was agreed to send her to the leper-
house, which in Siena was outside the Porta Romana, on the spot
now called St. Lazzaro, about a mile out of the city. But before she
was removed thither, Catherine, hearing of the matter, went to the
hospital, and first visiting the poor sufferer and reverently kissing
her, she offered to serve her daily with her own hands, and to supply
her with all she might need, if they would allow her to remain
where she was. Her offer was accepted, and from that day she
came to visit the poor woman morning and evening, dressing her
wounds and doing all that was requisite for her "with as much
care and reverence as if she had been her own mother."
At first Cecca took her charitable services in very good part, but
as time went on, and she grew accustomed to see the holy virgin
bestowing on her a care and attention such as no hired servant would
1 Few cities were more rich in charitable institutions than Siena, which
possessed (says Burlamacchi, in his MS. notes to the Legend), more than
fifty hospitals, besides refuges for orphans, &c.

74 She attends a Leper.
have rendered, there arose in her a sentiment of pride, so that, far
from rendering any thanks to her benefactress, she took all that she
did as a matter of duty, and as no more than she had a right to
expect. If anything was done otherwise than pleased her, she would
reproach and revile her with such unseemly words as might be
addressed to a bond slave. If Catherine came to the hospital a little
later than usual, having been detained by her devotions in church,
Cecca would greet her in mocking and bitter terms : " Good morn
ing, my lady- queen of Fontebranda," she would say ; " where has
my lady been so long? At the Church of the Friars, I'll be bound ;
it seems that my lady-queen can never have enough of those Friars ! "
Then Catherine, without replying, would go about her work ; and
when she saw her time, would speak to her in her accustomed lowly
and gentle manner, saying, " Good mother, have patience, I am a
little late, it is true, but all your wants shall be seen to presently."
Then lighting the fire and putting on water, she would prepare the
food, and serve it with such sweet words that Cecca herself could
only wonder at her forbearance. This went on for some time, to the
admiration of all who knew it, with one notable exception. Lapa
was much aggrieved both at the service her daughter had undertaken,
and the ungrateful return she met with ; and she remonstrated in no
gentle terms, saying, " Daughter, if this goes on, you will in your turn
become a leper, a thing I will never put up with, wherefore, I charge
you, give over this business." "Have no fear about that, dear
mother," she replied ; " what I do for this poor woman I do for God,
and He will not let me suffer for it." At length, however, as though
to test her to the uttermost, He permitted that the leprosy should
indeed attack the hands with which she daily dressed the infected
sores of her patient ; and those who before had praised her charity,
now blamed her imprudence. More than this, they avoided her
company as one contaminated, and spoke of her with disgust and
contempt. All this in no way moved or disturbed her : she counted
her body as dust, and cared not what became of it, so long as she
might employ it in God's service. "Cecca's sickness continued
many days," says the old legend, " but Catherine thought them very
few, by reason of the great love she had to our Lord, whom she
thought she served in that sick woman." At last Cecca died, assisted
by Catherine's prayers and exhortations up to her last moment. And
as soon as she was dead Catherine washed the body and prepared it
for burial ; she caused the dirge and other prayers to be said for the

Sister Palmerina. 75
departed soul, and then carried the body herself to the grave, and
covered it with earth with her own hands. When that last act of
charity had been accomplished, it pleased God that the leprosy which
until then had disfigured her hands, should suddenly and completely
disappear ; they even remained whiter and fairer than the rest of her
person, as was attested by the evidence of many eyewitnesses.
About the same time there was among the Sisters of Penance in
Siena one named Palmerina, who had given herself and all her
wealth, which was considerable, to the service of God ; but her many
good works were poisoned by a secret pride: and the praise which she
heard bestowed upon Catherine excited in her such an envy that at
length she could not bear to see her, or to hear her name spoken.
Unable to repress her malice, she even broke forth in public, cursing
and calumniating the servant of God, if ever she was named in her
presence. Catherine, when she understood this, did what she could
to win her over by sweet and humble words, but finding it of no
avail, she contented herself with recommending the poor Sister to
God. Not long after, Palmerina was seized with a grievous sickness,
which when Catherine heard she hastened to her, and left nothing
undone to touch her heart, fearing that if she departed this life in
such a state of malice her soul would be lost eternally. But the
hatred which Palmerina had conceived in her heart was so deep and
bitter, that she rejected all her courtesy, returning it with reproaches
and execrations, and bidding her depart out of her chamber. And
so, growing worse, without showing any change of disposition, or
having been able to receive the last sacraments, she approached her
end. Penetrated to the heart with pity for her sister's unhappy state,
Catherine returned home, and casting herself prostrate on the ground,
she poured out her soul before God in prayer. " O Lord," she said,
" suffer it not to be that I, who ought to be to my sister an instru
ment of salvation, should become the cause of her everlasting woe !
Are these the promises Thou didst make me when Thou didst say that
I should win many souls to Thee ! Doubtless my sin is the cause of
this, and yet I am well assured that Thy mercies are not diminished,
nor Thy hand shortened to save." But no comforting answer came
to her prayer. On the contrary, she did but understand more clearly
the danger of that soul which was, as it were, hanging on the very
brink of destruction. The thought that she should in any way cause
the loss of a soul pierced her with anguish, and she continued her
prayers with many tears and groans, beseeching God, if need be, to

76 She sees the State of Souls.
lay on her the sins of the dying woman, and to chastise her, if only
Palmerina might be spared ; and raising her heart to God with the
boldness of a loving confidence, she exclaimed, " Never, O Lord,
will I rise from this place till Thou show mercy to my sister ! " Such
a prayer, as the event proved, had power to pierce the clouds. For
three days and nights the sick woman lay, as it seemed, at the point
of death, and yet unable to depart, all which time was spent by
Catherine in unwearied and earnest intercession for her. At last, as
it were, she wrested the sword of God's justice out of His hand, and
obtained for the dying woman grace to see the enormity of her sin,
and truly to repent of it. When next Catherine visited her chamber,
she was received with love and reverence ; and, as well as she could,
Palmerina signified her deep contrition for her uncharitable conduct,
and besought the Saint to pardon her ; after which, receiving the
sacraments of Holy Church, she gave up her soul to her Maker.
After her departure out of this life it pleased God to make known
to Catherine that the soul of her sister had indeed, through her
means, been saved. He showed her also how beautiful that soul had
become in its state of grace, decked with a loveliness that no tongue
of man is able to express. Then He said to her, " How sayest thou
daughter, is not this a fair and beautiful soul which through thy care
has been recovered from the hands of the enemy ? What man or
woman would refuse to suffer somewhat for the winning of so noble a
creature ? If I, the Sovereign Beauty, was nevertheless so overcome
by the love and beauty of man's soul that I refused not to come
down from heaven and to suffer labour and reproaches for many
years, and in the end to shed My blood for his redemption, how
much more ought you to labour one for another, and do what in you
lieth for the recovery of a soul? And for this cause have I shown
it to you that hereafter you might be more earnest about the winning
of souls, and induce others also to do the same." Catherine
thanked our Lord with all humility, and besought Him to vouchsafe
her the grace of seeing the state of such souls as she might hereafter
converse with, in order that she might be the more moved to seek
their salvation ; a grace which she received, and that in so abundant
a measure that, as her biographer says, " she saw more distinctly the
souls than the bodies of those who approached her." Many years
later F. Raymund, being then her confessor, took occasion to rebuke
her for not preventing those who came to see her from kneeling in
her presence, a custom which gave great offence to some who

Death of Giacomo. 7 7
observed it. " God knows," she replied, " I do not often notice
the outward gestures of those who come to see me; I am so
engaged beholding their souls, that I pay little attention to their
bodies." " How, mother," he said, " do you see their souls ? "
" Yes," she replied, " dur Lord deigned to grant me that grace, when
in answer to my prayer He withdrew from eternal flames a soul that
was perishing. He clearly made me see the beauty of that soul, and
since that tiine I seldom see any one without becoming conscious of
their interior state. O father," she continued, " could you but know
the beauty of one immortal soul, you would think it little to give
your life a hundred times over for its salvation."
Meanwhile a great and sorrowful change was preparing for the
household of the Fullonica. Giacomo, the tender father and the
brave and honest citizen, was drawing to his end. Between him and
his saintly daughter there had existed a mutual sympathy which
added a deeper character to the tie of blood by which they were
united. Catherine daily prayed for her father's salvation, whilst
he beheld her sanctity with a love mingled with reverence, and
trusted by her intercession to find favour with God when his last
hour should come. And now at length it seemed close at hand;
he was attacked by his last illness, and night and day Catherine
knelt by his bedside assisting him with her loving words and pious
exhortations. At first she prayed earnestly for his recovery, but
understanding from our Lord that his time was come, and that it was
not expedient for him to live longer, she bowed to the will of God,
and went forthwith to her father to visit him and announce to him
his approaching departure. Giacomo was resigned and ready to
leave the world ; and Catherine gave thanks to God when she saw
his holy dispositions. Yet her deep filial love could not rest satisfied,
without seeking an assurance from God, not only that her father's soul
should depart in good hope of a blessed eternity, but also that it
might be granted to him to pass at once out of this sorrowful life to
the joys of heaven, without tasting the pains of purgatory. This
however she understood from our Lord could not be granted ; be
cause though her father had led a virtuous life and done many good
works, among which one was his maintenance of her in the holy
state she had chosen, yet his soul had contracted some rust of earthly
conversation which in justice must be purified in the fires of purga
tory. "O most loving Lord!" rejoined Catherine, "how may I
abide the thought that the soul of my dear father who nourished

78 Death of Giacomo.
and brought me up, and from whom I have received so many proofs
of loving goodness, should now go forth to suffer in the flames of
purgatory ? I entreat Thee permit not that he depart hence until,
by some means or other, his soul shall have been so perfectly
cleansed of its stains as to need no other purgation." Our Lord
in His amazing pity condescended to grant her request. Though
Giacomo's strength seemed utterly spent, yet whilst Catherine con
tinued as it were to wrestle with Almighty God in prayer, it was
plainly seen that his soul could not depart, but was in some way
held within his body. At last when she saw that the justice of God
must needs be satisfied, she spoke as follows : — " O most merciful
Lord ! if Thy justice must indeed have its course, I beseech Thee
turn it on me, and whatever pains are appointed for my father, lay
the same on me and I will willingly bear them." "Daughter," He
replied, " I am content that it should be so ; therefore the pains due
to thy father I lay on thee, to bear in thy body even to thy life's
end." Catherine joyfully gave thanks to God for this grant of her
request, and hastening to her father's dying bed, she filled his heart
with comfort and hope, and did not quit him till he had drawn his
last sigh. And at the very instant that his soul had departed out of
the body she was attacked by a grievous pain in the side, which from
that day never left her. She made little of the suffering however,
rejoicing in her inmost heart to think of the blessedness of the
departed soul ; and when others in the house were weeping and
lamenting the loss of so good a father, she who loved him better
than them all was seen to smile sweetly as she arranged the body
on the bier with her own hands, saying to herself with a joyful
countenance, " Dear father, would God I were as you are now ! Our
Lord be blessed ! " 1
Giacomo's death took place on the 22d of August, 1368.2 On
the evening of the same day Catherine went to the neighbouring
church to pay her devotions, while Lapa retired to an inner chamber,
and there gave free vent to her sorrow. It happened that a poor
man knocked at the door of the house to ask an alms, but no one
heard him, for the servants were all gone out, and Lapa was too much
absorbed in her grief to attend to anything else. Catherine, however,
had a full knowledge of what was passing, and returning home she
1 Leg., Part 2, ch. vi. ; Sup., Part I, Trat. 2, § 7.
2 It is so registered in the Necrology of St. Dominic's Church, and the date
fixes the chronology of this part of St. Catherine's life.

Lapa is restored to Life. 79
made her mother promise never again to permit that any person
should leave their door without relief. Lapa, astonished at her
daughter's knowledge of the circumstance, gave the promise and
kept it.1 Caffarini in his deposition speaks of the pain which from
that day caused Catherine continued suffering. Yet she bore it not
only patiently but gladly, and if any one asked what ailed her, would
answer gaily, " Sentio un pici dolce fianco."2 For to her, indeed,
it brought a sweet confidence that the father she had loved so
tenderly was now beyond the reach of suffering.
As Catherine had procured that her father's soul should not pass
through the fires of purgatory, so she also delivered her mother from
a yet more grievous danger. Lapa, though a good woman in her way,
was inordinately attached to the things of this life and had a great
horror of death. After the loss of her husband she fell ill, and
Catherine praying for her recovery, understood from our Lord that
it would be for her happiness if she were to die then, inasmuch as
she would thereby escape many grievous trials. Catherine, therefore,
endeavoured to bring her mother to accept the holy will of God,
but entirely without success. Lapa would not hear the name of
death so much as mentioned in her presence, and implored her
daughter to obtain her recovery. The answer she received to her
prayer was to this effect, " Tell thy mother who is unwilling to die
now, that the day will come when she will sigh for death and not
obtain it." Some days later Lapa died without having received the
sacraments, or, as it seemed, resigned herself to God's will. Catherine
was in great anguish, and those who were present, among whom were
Lisa and two of the Sisters of Penance, heard her sobbing and
repeating aloud, " Ah, Lord God ! are these the promises that Thou
gavest me that none of mine should perish ? I will not leave Thy
presence till Thou hast restored my mother to me alive." Her
prayer was granted : Lapa did indeed arise from the bed of death,
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 5, § i.
2 Anastagio da Mont' Altino takes notice of this pain, and of the Saint's habit of
making light of her suffering.
" Poi sente a fianchi soi 1'aspro cottello
Che tutta le divora per usanza
Ne fu giamai dolor simel a quello.
Ella con lo suo Sposo s'imbaldanza
Lassandose, pregando pro coloro
Ch' anno bisogno assai de perdonanza."

80 Lapa is restored to Life.
and lived to a great age ; but she had so much to endure in the course
of her long life, from the loss of worldly prosperity and the death
of her children and grandchildren and all whom she held most dear,
that, as our Lord had foretold, she often complained that " He had
riveted her soul in her body, so that it could not escape." This
event is assigned by Raymund to the month of October, 1370.

( 8i )

CHAPTER VIII.
THE FALL OF THE TWELVE, 1368.

In the very heart of
Siena is a spot to
which every street
converges as to a
common centre, and
which in the days
of the Republic was
known as the Piazza
del Campo. It
bears another name
now, but we shall
retain the title which
was familiar to St.
Catherine's ears, and
which has found a
place in the poetry
of Dante.1 The
shape of this famous
Piazza is semicircu
lar, like that of an
amphitheatre, and its
whole appearance
seems to suggest the
idea of a republican forum. It is surrounded by public offices,
the most remarkable of which is the Palazzo Pubblico, a noble
building, finished about fifty years before the time of which
we write, and assigned to the use of the Executive Government.
1 " Quando vivea piu glorioso, disse
Liberamente nel Campo di Siena
Ogni vergogna deposta, s'afflisse. " — Purg. xi.
This name has been exchanged in our day for that of the Piazza Vittorio
Emanuele. F

PALAZZO PUBBLICO, SIENA.

82 The Palazzo Pubblico.
It may be taken as a fair monument of the ideas which pre
vailed at the time of its erection. The frescoes which decorate
the great hall called the Sala della Pace represent, in a series of alle
gories, the republic of Siena maintaining peace, yet ready for war ;
the beloved city being personified by a majestic figure, seated and
clad in baronial robes. All around her appear the symbols of those
virtues which alone can form the sure foundations of a state, Con
cord, Wisdom, and Magnanimity ; while the three theological and four
cardinal virtues remind us that it is a Christian and not a pagan
republic which is here represented. On another wall appears a
painting of the city itself, girt about with moat and battlement, but,
as it would seem in the mind of the painter, only strong in her
military defences that she may more surely preserve to her people
the blessings of peace; for peasants stream through the open gates
bringing into the town the produce of their farms. The streets are
full of busy citizens ; we see the craftsmen at their trade, merchants
leading mules laden with bales of goods, a hawking party setting out
for their sport, and the plain outside the walls scattered over with
huntsmen, while in the open squares within, there are young girls
dancing, and little children at play. Nay, we even have a school of
the fourteenth century presented to our eyes, and the schoolmaster
is there watching his scholars, while the sculptured figures of Geo
metry, Astronomy, and Philosophy remind us that in a free and well
governed state, science and the arts will be sure to flourish. And as
though to complete the moral of his pictured epic, the artist gives in
his last fresco a hideous representation of the reverse of the medal.
He shows us Tyranny, with all its attendant monsters of cruelty,
injustice, and fraud. The same city again appears, but no longer
the scene of peace and plenty ; the streets are now filled with crime
and bloodshed, and are as revolting to look upon as before they were
beautiful and attractive. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, himself one of the
magistrates of the republic, was the painter of these grand political
allegories, which read many a wholesome lesson to those before
whose eyes they were daily displayed. Nor was he content with
conveying his instructions by means of his pencil only, for under
each painting he added a versified explanation, in which, as in the
frescoes themselves, are conveyed the , doctrines of Aristotle, whose
teaching was at that time held in such great esteem.1
1 Both verses and paintings are now, unhappily, fast decaying, and will soon have
entirely disappeared. The date of their completion was 1339, and they are said

The Campo of Siena. 83
The palace has its chapel, too, erected as a votive offering after
the great plague of 1348, in which mass was said very early for the
convenience of the market people. And attached to the chapel is
the beautiful bell-tower, the Torre del Mangia, as it is called, a thing
of such grace that Leonardo da Vinci is said to have travelled to
Siena for the sole purpose of beholding it. The great bell that hangs
there bears inscribed on it the Ave Maria; and in olden times the figure
of a man stood by the bell which was made by mechanism to strike
the hours with a hammer. The citizens bestowed on this figure the
appellation of 77 Mangia, which was possibly that of the bell-founder,
and hence the tower derives its name.
No one who has once stood in the Campo of Siena will easily
forget the scene ; that forum which we re-people with the stalwart
citizens who struggled here five centuries ago to preserve their
republican institutions ; that quaint old palace, so rich in its historic
memories, lifting to the clouds its graceful campanile, whence, still as
ever, thrice a day comes the call to prayer. We like to think that
Catherine's eyes must often have rested on it,1 and that her ear must
have caught those sounds falling shrill and clear through the morning
air, announcing that the hour was come for the citizens of Siena to
go forth to work. At the summons she, too, went forth to her work
and to her labour until the evening ; sometimes even she anticipated
the signal when the work was pressing, as when the hours of some
poor criminal, to whose scaffold she was hastening, were already
numbered.2 And many times she must have passed the Fonte Gaja
in the midst of the Piazza, destined one day to bestow its name on
the sculptor who was to decorate it with his bas-reliefs ; and whose
chisel was also to reproduce the very act of charity in which Catherine
had on one such morning been engaged.3 Truly, these are but
fancies, yet localities are solemn things. We perish, and they
to have occupied the artist nine years. — Arch. dell. Biccherna, Bk. iv. No. 188,
fol. 59.
1 The tower was completed in 1325. All the best works of Sienese painting
and architecture date about this time, for St. Catherine belonged to the del
secolo of art, as of language.
2 " Poi la mattina, innanzi la Campana, audai a lui." — Letter 97.
3 Jacopo della Quercia, called " Delia Fonte" in memory of his works at this
fountain, is also the author of a beautiful bas-relief representing Catherine bestow
ing her garment on Jesus Christ in the person of a poor pilgrim. The Fonte Gaja
was so called from the joy felt by the people at the successful attempt to bring
water into the centre of the city. It was erected in 1343, and decorated by
Jacopo about seventy years later.

84 The Fall of the Twelve.
endure : they stand now as they stood centuries ago, with a thou
sand memories hanging about their walls ; memories of things that
perish not when all that is mortal of us has fallen into dust : the
fire of genius, the self-devotion of the patriot, the heroism of the
saint. To the Piazza del Campo, then, I must now conduct my readers,
interrupting the narrative of Catherine's personal history for a brief
moment, in order to notice some important changes which in the
year 1 368 were taking place in the government of her native city.
Within a month after the death of Giacomo Benincasa a fresh revo
lution broke out in Siena. The " Twelve," who had held the chief
rule since 1355, had by this time lost favour with the fickle populace.
Assisted by the nobles and particularly by the powerful, though rival,
families of the Tolomei and the Salimbeni, the malcontents rose
against the magistrates, and assembling in the Campo, soon made
themselves masters of the Palazzo Pubblico. They met with but a
feeble resistance, and almost without a struggle the power of the
Twelve was abolished. But the two parties who had united to bring
about this revolution found themselves at variance one with another,
when it became a question what form of government was to replace
that which had been overthrown. The nobles being for the moment
masters of the situation proclaimed the restoration of the old Sienese
consulate ; and ten consuls were appointed, two from each of the
great families of the Malevolti, the Salimbeni, the Tolomei, the
Saraceni, and the Piccolomini, with every one of which, Catherine,
as we shall see, had close relations. But the popular leaders resolved
not to be excluded from power ; and unable to come to terms, the
two parties once more appealed to the Emperor Charles IV, and
invited him to act as moderator between them. The first step taken
by Charles was to send Malatesta Unghero to Siena as his Imperial
Vicar with a body of 800 German soldiers, with whose aid he trusted
to secure possession of the city; but the haughty Sienese nobles
resented the humiliation, and sounded the call to arms. A bloody
street fight ensued, in which, after disputing every inch of ground
with fruitless valour, the nobles were driven out of the city and forced
once more to retire to their mountain fastnesses. A new government
was now installed, which was a coalition of various parties. It con
sisted of fifteen persons, eight chosen from the most plebeian ranks,
out of a class of citizens who had not hitherto been admitted to any
power in the state ; four from the party of the " Twelve," and the

The Riformatori. 85
remaining three from that of the "Nine." This government was
known by the name of the "Reformers" (Riformatori), and the
fifteen magistrates received the title of " Defenders of the Republic."
They did not keep the ascendancy they had gained without a
struggle. Though a few of the adherents of the " Twelve " were
admitted among the Riformatori, their party as a whole had been
crushed ; and to regain their old footing in the state they leagued
with some of the defeated nobles, and agreed once more to call in
the aid of the emperor. In the January, then, of 1369, Charles
entered Siena at the head of his troops. He could reckon on the
firm support of the Salimbeni, who were suspected at aiming at the
sovereign power.
Charles was just then sorely in want of money, and it was
commonly whispered that his plan was to make himself master of
the city and then sell it to the Pope. His first act excited the
suspicion of the citizens. It was a proposal that they should deliver
up into his keeping four strong fortresses, together with the strong
hold of Talamon on the sea-coast, which was the key of the
republic. These haughty demands being rejected, Charles thought to
carry the day by a coup-de-main, and together with his adherents in
the city, concerted plans for a joint attack on the Palazzo Pubblico.
But the spirit of the old Roman tribunes seemed to awaken in the
hearts both of the people and their rulers. In defence of their
liberties they showed themselves fearless alike of emperor or nobles,
and their brave captain, Menzano, undauntedly attacked the well-
armed Imperial troops, and put them to flight. The emperor found
himself in a position of the greatest peril : for seven hours he
watched the struggle from the windows of the Tolomei Palace, and
saw the streets piled up with dead and dying as the struggle was ten
times renewed. He listened to the sound of the combat as it swept
on towards the city gates, telling him of the ignominious rout of his
followers. Then fearing for his personal safety, he escaped to the
stronger palace of the Salimbeni, and there awaited in anguish the
end of that terrible day. It resulted in the complete triumph of the
popular cause. "The emperor," says the republican chronicler,
Neri di Donato, "was alone in the Salhribeni Palace, a prey to
abject fear. He wept, he prayed, he embraced everybody, apologis
ing for his mistake, and at the same time offering his forgiveness.
Every one, he said, had betrayed him, the Twelve, the Salimbeni,
and his own vicar Malatesta. Nothing that had been done was his

86 Defeat of the Emperor.
doing, he was only anxious at once to depart from the city." This
was not so easy, for he had neither horses nor money. Menzano
however at that moment could afford to be generous, and restored
to him some of the property which had been seized by the mob.
Charles provided himself with the means of departure, but before
•taking his leave had the meanness to demand a compensation in
money for the affronts he had endured, and the favours (!) he had
granted. He was asked to name his price ; twenty thousand gold
florins, he modestly replied, payable in four years. It was an
answer fitter for a shopkeeper than an emperor; but the citizens
threw him the first year's contribution with well-merited contempt,
requiring as their sole condition that he would at once rid them of
his presence.1
After the signal triumph of the popular party, the nobles, once
more expelled from the city, continued to carry on a desultory war
fare for the purpose of recovering their civil rights ; nor was it until
the June of 1369 that peace was re-established through the friendly
intervention of the Florentines. The nobles were recalled, and
allowed to hold some offices in the Government, though still
excluded from the chief power, and thus a certain amount of
harmony was restored. But the seeds of bitter dissension had
been sown among the rival parties ; and far from seeking to heal
these, it was rather the secret object of the republican leaders to
foment them. They dreaded nothing so much as a solid and
lasting alliance between the various noble families whom they
regarded as their common enemy. The Salimbeni, in particular,
had shown themselves during the late events the firm adherents of
the emperor, and were naturally therefore the object of special
distrust, a fact not to be lost sight of, as explaining the jealousy
afterwards excited by Catherine's close friendship with this family.
No efforts were therefore spared to keep up the hereditary feuds
between the Tolomei and the Salimbeni, who, as respective heads of
the Guelph and Ghibeline factions, were the Capulets and Montagues
of Siena ; so that the internal harmony enjoyed by the republic was
1 Among those who took part in this great struggle was the sculptor Antonio
Brunaccio, one of the artists employed on the beautiful pavement of the Duomo.
He was Prior of Arts in 1368, and is affirmed by Perkins, in his " History of
Tuscan Sculptors," and by Rio, in his well-known work on Christian Art,' to
have been a disciple of St. Catherine. The fact is very possible, but the letter
quoted in proof of it is addressed to " Ser Antonio di Ciolo," nor have I been
able to find any authority for identifying him with Antonio Brunaccio.

Catherine saves her Brothers. 87
of a doubtful sort ; and Lorenzetti's frescoed ideal of a state made
strong by concord presented a sorrowful contrast to the reality.
In all these sad scenes the Benincasa family had borne their
part ; they belonged to the party of the Twelve, and shared its ruin.
Giacomo indeed did not live to see the outbreak of the revolution,
but Catherine's brothers were exposed to imminent danger, and on
one occasion owed their lives to the respect with which the
populace regarded their saintly sister. The story is thus told by the
author of the Miracoli : — " It happened at that time that there was
a revolt in Siena, and the brothers of Catherine being opposed to
the victorious party, and their enemies seeking either to kill them or
do them some hurt, as they had done to others, there came to the
house in great haste one of their intimate friends, saying, 'The
whole band of your enemies is coming here to seize you, come along
with me at once, and I will place you safe in the church of St
Anthony (which was near the house), where some of your friends
have already taken refuge.' At these words, Catherine, who was
present, rose from her seat, and said to the friend, ' They shall
certainly not go to St. Anthony's, and I am heartily sorry for those
who are already there,' and then she bid him depart in God's name.
As soon as he was gone, she took her mantle and putting it on, said
to her brothers, 'Now, come with me and fear nothing;' and so
she went between them and led them straight through the Contrada,
which was occupied by their enemies. Meeting and passing
through the midst of them, they inclined to her with reverence, and
so all passed through safe and sound. Then she conducted her
brothers to the hospital of St. Mary,1 and recommended them to the
care of the master of the hospital, and said to them, 'Remain
concealed here for three days; at the end of that time you can
come home in safety.' And so they did. When the three days were
passed, the city was quiet again, but all who had taken refuge at St.
Anthony's were either killed or cast into prison. Soon afterwards,
Catherine's brothers were fined one hundred gold florins, which they
paid, and so were left in peace." Nevertheless the family never
recovered its former prosperity. Bartolo, indeed, appears to have held
office in the republic under the Riformatori, and his name appears
as one of the " Defenders " for the May and June of 1370. But in
that same year he and his two brothers, Benincasa and Stephen,
1 The Hospital of St. Mary, that is, of Santa Maria della Scala, of which we
shall_speak in a subsequent chapter.

88 They leave Siena.
removed to Florence where they were inscribed as Florentine
citizens. Even there their bad fortune followed them, and we find
from one of Catherine's letters to F. Bartholomew Dominic, that her
great friend, Nicolas Soderini, had come to their help and lent them
money. Their children meanwhile remained at Siena under the
care of Lapa, and the business at the Fullonica seems to have been
carried on by some other member of the family, for it continued to
be Catherine's home for many years later. All these troubles, and
the loss of worldly prosperity which they entailed, brought sad
distress to the poor mother, and what was worse, she did not always
meet from her sons the return which her maternal devotion to their
interests justly deserved. Among Catherine's letters three are pre
served addressed to Benincasa, her eldest brother, besides one
which is a joint letter to them all. To Benincasa she writes,
consoling him in his misfortunes, but at the same time gravely
reproving him for his ingratitude to their mother. " Try and bear
your trials with patience, my dear brother," she writes, " and do not
forget what you owe to our mother, for you are bound to show her
gratitude by the commandments of God. We will ad&it the fact
that you had it not in your power to assist her ; but even if you had
possessed the power, I do not feel sure you would have used it, for
you have not given her so much as one good word. You will pardon
me in saying this, you know I could not have said it if I did not
love you.1 In the other letter addressed to all three, she urges them
to, mutual charity. " You, Benincasa," she says, " as the eldest, must
make yourself the last of all ; and you, Bartolo, must be less than
the least; and you, Stephen, I beg of you to be subject to your
brothers, that so you may all live together in the sweetness of
charity." 2
Lisa accompanied her husband to Florence, and her separation
from Catherine was keenly felt by both. From childhod her sister-
in-law's sympathy and affection had been Catherine's best earthly
solace. No souls are so capable of solid and lasting friendship as
those whose hearts are truly detached, for they, and they alone, can
love in God ; and to them belongs the happy privilege of giving
free course to a tenderness, which, binding them only the closer to
His Sacred Heart, is exempt from all peril of selfishness. Such a
soul was that of Catherine of Siena, whose heart was keenly alive
to all that is most holy in human affection, and among whose
1 Letter 250. 2 Letter 252.

Alexia Saraceni. 89
characteristics, this one is to be noted, that she loved and was
beloved beyond what is ordinarily granted to mortals. And it is
precisely at this period of her life that we begin to hear of some
whose names will ever be associated with her own, and who are
dear and venerable to us, for this one reason that they were the
chosen friends of Catherine. As the world began to make larger
demands on her, she was careful, with her accustomed prudence,
to have one or other of her religious sisters constantly in her
company. One of these, who is very early named in the Legend
as her habitual companion, was Catherine Ghetti, or Enghecti, 1
whom we learn from the " Processus " to have been one of her nieces.
But among all the Mantellate none was admitted to such close
familiarity with her as a young widow named Alexia, of the noble
family of the Saraceni. After her husband's death, she devoted
all her wealth to pious objects, and took the habit of Penance.
She seems to have been well deserving of Catherine's affection,
and was, says F. Raymund, "the first of her disciples, not only in
order of time but also of perfection." After her first acquaintance
with the Skint, she became so attached to her that she could not
separate from her, and by her advice distributed all she possessed
to the poor, and embraced a life of great devotion and penance.
" Towards the end of her life," he continues, " Catherine made
her the depository of all her secrets," and as we shall see, they
were very seldom parted, Alexia sometimes entertaining her friend
as a guest in her own house for days and weeks together.
It is evident from what has been already said, that at the time
of the revolution of 1368, Catherine was gradually becoming known
to her fellow-citizens. During the time of her strictest retirement
she had been almost forgotten. A few years before, indeed, there
had been a momentary stir and gossip when it was rumoured about
that the Mantellate had received into their society the dyer Benin-
casa's youngest daughter. But the life of shop and market went on
as before in the busy streets, political feuds and bloody revolutions
broke in many a disastrous storm, and still the citizens for the most
part remained unconscious of the presence among them of her whose
1 In a copy of the register of the Sisters of Penance, which is in the possession
of the writer, carefully annotated in the margin by the hand of Signor Grottanelli,
Catherine Ghetti's name has this little note scribbled against it : "nipote di S.
Cat. Proc. MS.fol. 28, recto." We do not know which of St. Catherine's numerous
brothers or sisters was her parent, but, like most of the Mantellate, she was probably
a widow.

90 Lazzarino of Pisa.
fame should one day be their proudest boast. Little by little, how
ever, it became whispered about that the young maiden, who day
after day was to be seen going to and fro on her errands of charity,
was a great servant of God. One had beheld her in ecstacy in the
Friars' church ; another had sat with her at her father's table, and
seen how, amid the abundance of good cheer around her, she con
tented herself with a mouthful of bread and a raw lettuce. The
story of the wonderful butt of wine had been in every one's mouth,
and readily appealed to the wonder of the multitude ; and hence
they began to think of her as a saint, and to regard her with no
little reverence. We have seen her presence respected by the mob
at the very moment they were thirsting for the blood of their
enemies. Those ferocious men in pursuit of their prey had stopped
short at the sight of one in whose form they recognised her who
had stood by the sick-beds of their wives and daughters ; who had
found her way into their hovels when they were dying of hunger,
and fed them, as it were, by stealth ; of one, moreover, whose life,
they knew, was not supported by meat and drink, like the lives of
those around them, and of whom it might almost literally be said that
" she had a meat to eat that the world knew not of."
Nevertheless, as is often the case, the very enthusiasm of her
admirers excited in the minds of some who did not know her a
totally contrary sentiment ; and there were not wanting those who
found matter of blame precisely in those very things which were
quoted as proofs of her sanctity. Bartholomew Dominic says that
at first he used to be publicly derided for his folly in going to see
such a person, and that the examples of her charity were so far
beyond the comprehension of worldly minds, that what they could
not understand they did not fear to judge as presumptuous. Among
those who were loudest in their condemnation was a certain Francis
can professor of philosophy, named Father Lazzarino of Pisa, who
had been sent to the convent of his Order in Siena, where he was
at that time lecturing with great success. He was a man of no
ordinary learning, and although a Franciscan, closely followed the
theology of St. Thomas. " It was at the period," says F. Bartholo
mew Dominic, " when Catherine was still abiding in her secret cell,
before she appeared much in public. She never at that time spoke
to, or saw any man, except her own family, without leave of her con
fessor, and yet the odour of her sanctity had filled the whole city.
Those who were simple and right of heart praised her; but the

He visits Catherine. 9 1
proud and envious blamed and detracted, and among these was
Lazzarino. One day, on the Vigil of St. Catherine the Martyr, he
came to my room at about vesper time and proposed that we
should go together and see Catherine. I consented, believing him
touched with compunction, though in reality he only wished to find
matter for speech against her ; I therefore obtained the permission
of her confessor, F. Thomas della Fonte, and we set out together.
We entered her chamber, where Lazzarino seated himself on a chest
that was in the room ; Catherine sat on the floor, as was her custom ;
whilst I remained standing.' There was silence for a few minutes,
which was at length- broken by Lazzarino : ' I have heard many
persons speak of your sanctity,' he said, ' and of the great under
standing which God has given you of the Holy Scriptures ; I wished,
therefore, to come and see you, hoping to hear something that
would be of edification to my soul.' Catherine replied with her
usual humility, 'And I, too, rejoice to see you, for I think our
Lord must have intended to give me an opportunity of profiting
by that learning with which you daily instruct your disciples. I
hoped that you might be led out of charity to help my poor soul,
and I beg you to do so for the love of God.' The conversation
continued in this strain for some time, till as the evening drew on,
Lazzarino rose to depart, saying that it was late, and he could not
stay, but hoped to come again another day at a more suitable hour.
Catherine knelt, and asked his blessing, which Lazzarino gave.
Then she begged him to pray for her, and more out of politeness
than sincerity he asked her to do the same for him, which she
readily promised. He went away, thinking that Catherine was a
good woman no doubt, but far from deserving any extraordinary
reputation. " The night following when he rose and set himself to prepare the
lecture which he was next day to deliver to his pupils, Lazzarino
began, he knew not why, to weep abundantly. He dashed aside his
tears, and tried to set to his work, but in spite of himself they con
tinued to flow, and he could not divine their cause. He asked
himself in perplexity : ' What is the reason of all this ? Did I drink
anything before I went to rest, or have I slept with my head un
covered?' In the morning they came to summon him to the
lecture-room, but -it was impossible for him to speak to his class. At
the first attempt he broke down, and continued weeping like a child.
He went back to his cell ashamed of his own weakness. ' What ails

92 He is Converted.
me, I wonder,' he said to himself, 'can my mother have died
suddenly, or has my brother fallen in battle ? ' So the whole day
passed, till when evening came he fell asleep, weary and exhausted,
but soon awoke, and then his tears began to flow afresh, and he
could not restrain them. Then he set himself to reflect if perchance
he might not have committed some grave fault, and begged of God,
if so, to make it known to his conscience; and as he was thus
examining himself, a little voice seemed to whisper in his heart, ' Have
you so quickly forgotten how yesterday you judged My servant
Catherine in a spirit of pride, and asked her to pray for you out of
formal politeness ? '
"As soon as Lazzarino saw the truth and owned his fault, his tears
ceased, and now his heart became full of the most eager desire to
return to Catherine and once more to converse with her. At the
first break of day he came and knocked at the door of her chamber.
Catherine was no stranger to what had passed, and opening her
door, Lazzarino at once prostrated at her feet. Catherine also
prostrated out , of humility : then they sat down side by side, and
Lazzarino, whose pride had all melted away, conjured her to direct
him in the way of salvation. Catherine at last moved by his en
treaties answered in these words : ' The way of salvation for you is
to despise the vanities and applause of the world, and to become
poor, humble, and despised after the pattern of Jesus Christ and
your holy father, St. Francis.' At these words the professor saw that
Catherine had read his inmost soul ; that she was conscious of the pride
and ambition which nestled there like a serpent ; and with renewed
tears he promised at once to do whatsoever she might command
him. And he was as good as his word, for at her bidding he distri
buted his money and the useless furniture of his cell, and even his
very books. He only kept a few notes to help him in preaching,
and embracing the poverty of his rule led thenceforth a holy life.
He continued one of Catherine's most faithful disciples, and his
devotion to her was so great that his worldly friends used to call him
' be-Catherified' (Caterinato), an epithet very commonly bestowed
on those who were known to frequent her company." 1
1 This story does not occur in the Legend ; it is related by F. Bartholomew
Dominic in his deposition, and, as we see by his express words, belongs to the early
period of the Saint's life, though no precise date is given. ' Probably however it
happened in the year 1369. See Process., 1374.

( 93 )

CHAPTER IX.
HE A VENL Y FA FOURS, i37o.
THE departure from Siena of Catherine's brothers, which took
place some time in the year 1370, caused many changes in
the household of the Fullonica. It was no longer the bustling
scene of trade that it had formerly been, and Catherine's domestic
life was naturally more free from restraint. Lapa and the rest of the
family had long ceased to offer any opposition to the manner of life
which she had embraced ; her example seems even to have drawn
her elder sister Lisa1 to imitate it, for we find her numbered
among the " Sisters of the Hospital," a title bestowed on those who
served the hospital of Campo Reggio, which was formerly attached
to the convent of San Domenico, but was afterwards made over to
the Tertiary Sisters.
The year 1370 was a memorable one to Catherine ; and at no period
of her history are the records of her supernatural graces more abun
dant, or more precisely recorded. It is no easy matter to speak of
such things ; she herself shrank from doing so, and would often say
that to put into human words the secret intercourse of a soul with its
Creator was like offering clay instead of gold, or dipping a rare jewel
in the mire. Entering on this chapter in her life, therefore, we are
prompted to exclaim with the prophet, " Woe is me, for I am a man
of unclean lips ! " 2 and to desire that the Seraph might touch our
mouth also with the coal from off the altar, as reverently drawing
aside the veil, we dare to contemplate the communications between
the Beloved and His chosen spouse.
1 Not her sister-in-law Lisa, who accompanied her husband to Florence, but
her own sister of the same name, who died in the plague of 1374.
Another of these Hospital Tertiaries was Catherine "della Spedaluccio," to
whom two of the Saint's letters are addressed, one of her most intimate disciples.
Catherine herself is sometimes spoken of as one of the Sisters of the Hospital,
which she doubtless served.
2 Isaias vi. 5, 6.

94 She prays for perfect Charity.
From the moment when Catherine had received from our Divine
Redeemer the mysterious favour of her spiritual Espousals, the
prodigies of her supernatural life were constantly increasing.
"Grace became so abundant in her soul," says Raymund, "that
she might be said to live in ecstacy. . . . God began from that
time to manifest Himself to her not only when she was alone as
formerly, but even when she was in public." But whatever might
have been the mysterious sweetness which Catherine was thus privi
leged to enjoy, she was ever seeking for something better than
the purest and most Divine consolations. As she had formerly
desired the perfection of Faith, so now she longed after the perfection
of Charity, and the light of the Holy Spirit which illuminated her
intellect gave her fully and thoroughly to comprehend in what that
consisted. She understood perfection in no other sense than the
substitution of the holy will of God in the place of our own perverse
and disordered will. Hence she desired to have no other will, no
other heart, than His; and a connected series of wonderful and
beautiful revelations are related by Raymund from the MS. notes
left by her confessor, F. Thomas della Fonte, which show in what
manner her prayer was granted. On the eve of the feast of St. Alexis,
1370, desiring greatly to receive Holy Communion, yet dreading lest"
she might not be worthy, a rain of blood mingled with fire seemed
to descend on her soul, " not merely washing away the stains of sin,
but banishing the very first principles of evil." J The next day, though
so ill she could scarcely rise from her bed, she went to the church,
but remembering that she had been forbidden by her superiors to
receive Communion, except from the hand of her confessor, she felt a
great wish that he might come to say mass in the chapel where she
was praying. F. Thomas has left recorded the circumstances that
followed. He had not intended that morning to celebrate, and knew
not that Catherine was in the church. But suddenly he felt his heart
touched by an unusual fervour and desire for the holy mysteries, so
that preparing himself at once he went to the very altar before which
Catherine was kneeling, though it was never his habit to say mass
there. When he came and found her there awaiting his coming and
desiring to communicate, he understood that it was our Lord who
had moved him to say mass that day, and to choose that altar, con-
1 Corruzione fomitale ; see Leg. Min., p. 74, and note 44.

Our Lord gives her His Will. 95
trary to his usual custom. He offered the Holy Sacrifice, therefore,
and gave her Communion, and beheld how, as she was receiving, her
face appeared all red and shining, and bedewed with an abundance
of tears. After that she remained lost in God, and so unspeakable
was the sweetness with which she was drawn to Him, that even after
she came to herself she was unable for the rest of that day to utter
one word to any creature. On the morrow her confessor asked her
what had been the cause of such unusual devotion, and why at the
moment when she received the Blessed Sacrament her face had been
of that shining red. " Father," she replied, " of what colour my face
may have been at that time I know not; but this I know very well:
when I, unworthy wretch that I am, received the Blessed Sacrament
at your hand, It drew me into Itself after such a sort, that all other
things save It alone waxed loathsome to me, not only temporal things
and delights of the world, but also all other comforts and pleasures,
were they never so spiritual. I made my humble prayer then to our
Lord, that He would take all such comforts and delights from me, that
I might take pleasure in none other thing but only in Him. I besought
Him also that He would vouchsafe to take away my will, and to give
me His will ; which petition He granted me, saying: 'Behold, dear
daughter, now I give thee My will, by the virtue whereof thou shalt
be so strong, that whatever shall happen to thee from this time
forward, thou shalt never be altered or moved, but shalt continue
evermore in one state.'" And this promise God fulfilled; for all
who knew her were able to testify that from that moment Catherine
appeared content in all events and circumstances, so that no contra
diction, however vexatious, seemed to possess the least power to
disturb her. Then she continued, speaking to her confessor : "Father,
do you know what our Lord did to-day in my soul ? He acted as a
tender mother does towards a beloved infant. She extends her arms
from a little distance so as to excite his desire, and when the child
has wept for a few moments she smiles and catches him, clasping him
closely to her heart, and there she satisfies his craving thirst. Our
blessed Lord did the same with me : He showed me in the distance
the Wound in His Side ; the desire I felt to press my lips to it excited
me to burning tears. He seemed at first to smile at my grief, and
then after a few moments He came to me and took my soul in His
arms, and placed my lips upon His Sacred Wound, and my soul was
able to satisfy its desires, to hide itself in His sacred Breast, and there
find heavenly consolations. Oh ! did you but know, you would be

96 The Exchange of Hearts.
amazed that my heart is not utterly consumed with love, and that I
still live after experiencing such a burning fire of charity ! "
The same day 1 Catherine was meditating on those words of the
Psalmist, " Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right
spirit within me ; " and again the thought and desire with which her
soul was at that time filled found utterance in the earnest petition
that our Lord would condescend utterly to take from her her own
heart and will. Her heavenly Spouse was pleased not merely to
grant her request, but moreover to make the same known to her by
a sensible sign. For it seemed to her that He appeared in His own
person, and opening her side, took out her heart, and carried it away.
Two days later, being in the chapel Delle Volte in the Dominican
Church, together with the other Sisters to whose use that chapel was
assigned, she remained, when her companions had gone away, arid.
continued her prayers; until at last as she arose and prepared to
return home, a great light surrounded her, and in the midst of the light
our Lord again appeared, bearing in His hand a Heart of vermilion
hue, and casting forth bright rays as of fire. Then He approached
her, and once more opening her side He placed there this Heart,
and said, " Daughter, the other day I took thy heart ; to-day I give
thee Mine, which shall henceforward serve thee in its place." And
from that day it was her custom when she prayed, no longer to say
as she had done before, "My God, I give Thee my heart," but
instead, " My God, I give Thee Thy heart," because she knew and
understood that in very deed there had been given to her in the
place of her own human will and affections the will and affections
of her eternal Spouse.
F. Thomas della Fonte in speaking of this favour granted to the
Saint, says that it seemed to her as if her heart had entered into the
side of our Lord to be united and blended with His. Dissolved in
the flames of His love, she exclaimed repeatedly, " My God, Thou
hast wounded my heart ! My God, Thou hast wounded my heart ! "
1 That is, July 18th. In the Legend (Part 2, ch. v.), the Communion on St. Alexis'
Day is spoken of after the exchange of hearts and the appearance of St. Mary
Magdalen. But it is expressly said that all these events, and others that followed,
took place in the same year, 1370. If so, by observing the date of the several feasts,
it is easy to restore them to their proper chronological order ; namely, July 17th,
July 20th, and July 22d. Some days elapsed between the loss and restoration of
Catherine's heart, and as the date of the latter event is fixed to the 20th of July, it
is evident that this first appearance of our Lord could only have been on the 18th
i.e., the day after St. Alexis.

The Secret of the Heart, 97
And he says that the event took place on the feast of St. Margaret,
(July 20th), 1370.
St. Catherine, then, was one of the first of those to whom our Lord
thought fit to reveal " the secret of His Sacred Heart." They are
her own words repeated again and again in her Dialogue and her
letters. Contemplating the Body of Christ crucified on the Cross as
the mystical bridge whereby the soul is to be united to its Creator, she
says, " His nailed Feet are a step whereby thou mayest reach the Side
which shall reveal to thee the secret of His Heart." x . . . . " In His
wounded Side you will discover the love of His Heart, for all that
Christ did for us, He did out of the love of His Heart. . . . Let us
go to the great refuge of His charity which we shall find in the
Wound of His Side, where He will unveil to us the secret of His
Heart, showing us that the sufferings of His Passion, having a limit,
were insufficient to manifest His infinite love, as He desired to mani
fest it, and to give us all that He desired to give." And in one
of her letters, glancing back to the memory of these supernatural
favours, she exclaims, " Place your lips to the wounded Side of the
Son of God : from that opening comes forth the fire of charity, and
the Blood which washes away all our sins. The soul that hides
itself there and gazes on that Heart opened by love, becomes like to
Him, because seeing itself so loved, it cannot refrain from loving."
Nor was this first vision the only one in which the Sacred
Heart of Jesus was revealed to Catherine as the sanctuary of His
love. Another day, when she was praying in the same church, she
suddenly saw Jesus Christ by her side, with so wonderful a light
streaming forth from His Breast that the whole of that vast building
was illuminated by it.2 This seems to have been about the same
time as, or very shortly after, the events already narrated.
That there should appear from this time a change, and an
extraordinary increase of Divine grace in the soul of Catherine, can
be no cause for wonder. If there were those who, measuring her
by their appreciation of her exterior actions, already regarded her
as a saint, it is not rash to suppose that between Catherine as she
was before, and after, her change of heart, there was as much
difference as between a saint and an ordinary Christian. She her
self testified to the fact. " Father," she said to her confessor in
broken sentences, which he gathered up and preserved with reverent
fidelity; "I am no longer the same. Did you but know what I
1 Dialogo, ch. xxvi. 2 Sup., Part I, Trat. 2, § 5.

98 Vision of St. Mary Magdalen.
experience, surely, if it could once be known, there is no pride that
would resist it. . . . The fire of love which burns in my soul is so
great, no earthly fire could compare with it, and it seems to renew
in me the purity and simplicity of a little child, so that I feel as
though I were no more than four years of age. This love of God,
too, how it increases the love of our neighbour ! Surely it would be
the greatest earthly happiness to die for another soul ! "
It was very shortly after this x that our Lord one day again appeared
to her, in company with His Blessed Mother and St. Mary Magdalen,
and asked her this question, " Daughter," He said, "what dost thou
desire ? My will, or thine ? " Catherine wept when she heard
the words which seemed to question the reality of the surrender
she had already made ; and she replied, like St. Peter, " Lord,
Thou knowest all things ; Thou knowest that now I have no will
and no heart but Thine." As she said this, she felt within her soul
the same sweetness as St. Mary Magdalen felt when she wept at
our Lord's feet ; whereupon she fixed her eyes upon her. Our
Lord, seeing that, and knowing the inward desire of her soul, said
these words to her, " Behold, dear daughter, from this time forward
I give thee Mary Magdalen to be thy mother, to whom as to a loving
mother thou mayest at all times flee for special comfort ; for unto
her specially have I committed the care of thee." When she heard
that, she gave our Lord most humble thanks, and turning herself to
the Saint with great humility and reverence, she besought her to
take her under her motherly protection. And from that time she
began to cherish a tender devotion to that blessed Saint, and always
called her her mother.
The question seems naturally to suggest itself what was the
significance of this gift to Catherine of the patronage of St. Mary
Magdalen at this particular moment. The incident comes in,
interrupting, as one may say, the regular course of a chain, each
previous link of which is clearly connected. When we remember,
however, that the entire series of these wonderful favours was
manifestly intended (as the sequel will show) to be the introduction
to her public career, the appearance of her on whom the Breviary
1 Probably two days later, which would bring it to the feast of St. Mary
Magdalen. In the Legend, the visit of that Saint seems to break the series of
revelations in an unaccountable manner, which is, however, explained by a little
attention to the respective dates.

The Perfection of Charity. 99
Office bestows the quite exceptional epithet of the " Apostolorum
Apostola," will be seen to have an exquisite appropriateness.
• For the rest, the separate visions we have related above, which in
reality make up but one narrative, when compared and fitted one into
the other, give us a clearer comprehension of the spiritual sense
of that great and signal favour, the gift, namely, to our seraphic.
mother, St. Catherine, of the Heart of her Divine Spouse. Not that
we would presume to explain, far less to explain away, the mysteri
ous exterior sign which was the pledge and token of that surpassing
favour. To students of Holy Scripture there will readily occur
more than one parallel in the prophetic writings, where spiritual
graces are both represented and communicated by the means of
such outward symbols.1 But the exterior sign itself was not the
favour, it was not the grace which Catherine had asked from God.
What she asked and what she obtained, sealed to her by the
outward sign of that magnificent gift, was that thenceforth she
might love only what her Lord loved, and will only what He willed.
In this, and in this alone, she was to find the perfection of
charity.2 In this one page of her life therefore, the page which
presents her to us as the bride and client of the Sacred Heart, we find
a summary of her whole spiritual doctrine.
But we have not yet come to the end of the mystic favours of this
eventful year. She seemed to pass the whole month of August in a
continued ecstacy,3 during which time she received many wonderful
1 As for example, Ezechiel iii. I ; or again we may consider the words of the
same prophet, "I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give
them a heart of flesh" — Ezech. xi. 19.
A verse in one of the hymns in the office of St. Catherine de Ricci (to whom
was granted a very similar favour), seems admirably to express the spiritual sense
of this mysterious event. ' ' O Virgo, cui praecordia
Sanctus percussit Spiritus
Raptoque corde carneo
Dedit superno vivere."
2 Thus we read in her treatise on Consummate Perfection : " The soul having
heard what was the will of God, and how that in order to fulfil it she had need
of perfect charity, and that perfect charity consists in the denial of our own will,
said, " O Lord, Thou hast made known to' me Thy will, and that if I would love
Thee perfectly I must love nothing earthly, for myself : but all I love, I must
love for Thee alone." In short, the whole treatise contains but this one idea,
that in the substitution of God's will for our own will consists the essence of
perfect charity.
3 Latin Sup., Part 2, Trat. 1, § 10.

100 Vision of St. Dominic.
revelations. The narrative of these exhibits to us at one and the
same time her unbroken union with God, and the exquisite tenderness
of her conscience. On the 3d of August, being the eve of the feast of
St. Dominic, she was praying in the church and meditating on the
glory of the great patriarch of her order. About the hour of com
pline, F. Bartholomew Dominic chanced to enter the church, and
Catherine, to whom he acted as confessor in the absence of. F.
Thomas, begged him to hear her, as she had something to com
municate. " Perceiving her countenance all radiant with joy," he
says,1 "I accosted her, saying, 'We have certainly some good news
to-day ; I see you are quite joyous.' Then Catherine began to
speak to me of our holy father, St. Dominic. ' Do you not see
him, our blessed father?' she said; 'I see him as distinctly as I see
you. How like he is to our Lord ! His face is oval, grave, and
sweet, and his hair and beard are the same colour ! " 2 Then she
declared to him how in a vision she had beheld the Eternal Father
producing from His mouth His Beloved Son ; and as she con
templated Him, she beheld St. Dominic coming forth, as it were,
from His breast. And a Voice declared to her, saying, "Behold,
daughter, I have begotten these two sons ; one by nature, the other
by adoption ; " amazing words, which He presently deigned to
explain as follows : " As this My natural Son in His human nature
was ever most perfectly obedient to Me even to death, even so was
this My son by adoption obedient to Me in all points even from his
childhood to his dying day, and directed all his works according to
My commandments, and kept that purity both of body and soul
which he received of Me in baptism, clean and unspotted until the
end of his life. And as this My natural Son spake openly to the
world, and gave a most clear testimony to the truth that I put in His
mouth, even so did this My son by adoption preach the truth of My
Gospel, as well to heretics and schismatics as also among My
faithful people. And as this My natural Son sent out His disciples
to publish the Gospel to all creatures, so doth this My son by
adoption now at this present and shall hereafter from time to time
send out his children and brethren under the yoke of his obedience
1 Process., 1330.
2 St. Dominic had auburn hair, as we know from the description given of him
by B. Cecilia. His likeness to the person of our Lord has always been a tradition
in the Order, and is corroborated by an examination of his only known portrait,
that preserved at Sta. Sabina, and a comparison of its features with those which
tradition assigns to our Divine Saviour.

Her Distraction. 101
and discipline. And so for this cause is it granted to him and his,
by special privilege, that they shall have the true understanding of
My words and shall never swerve from the same. And as this My
natural Son ordained the state of His holy life in deeds and words,
to the salvation of souls, even so did this My son by adoption
employ himself wholly, both in his doctrine and in example of life,
to deliver souls from the snares of the devil, which are error and sin.
For it was his principal intent when he first founded his order, to
win souls out of the bondage of error and sin, and to bring them to
the knowledge of truth, and to the exercise of a godly and Christian
life, for which cause I liken him to My natural Son." x
As Catherine was declaring these things to her confessor, it chanced
that her own brother, Bartolo, who was in the church, passed by, and
his shadow, or the noise he made in passing attracted Catherine's
attention, so that for a moment she glanced aside to look at him.
Instantly recovering herself, she broke off her words, and began to
weep in silence. F. Bartholomew waited for a time till she should
speak again, but finding that she remained silent, he bade her con
tinue. " Ah, wretch that lam!" she said, " who will punish me for
my fault ? " " What fault ? " he asked. " How ! " she replied, " did
you not see, that even while our Lord was showing me His great
mysteries, I turned my eyes to behold a creature ? " " Nevertheless,"
said the confessor, " I assure you the glance of your eye, of which
you speak, endured so short a time I did not perceive it." " Ah,
father," she said, "if you knew how sharply our Blessed Lady rebuked
me for my fault, you would surely weep and lament with me." And
so saying she would speak no more of her revelations that day, but she
retired to her chamber sorrowing and doing penance for her sin ; and
she declared afterwards that St. Paul had also appeared to her, and
reproved her so roughly for that little loss of time, that she would
rather suffer all the shame of the world than abide such another
rebuke at the apostle's hand. "And think," she added, "what a
confusion and shame that will be which all wicked and unhappy
sinners shall suffer at the last day, when they shall stand before the
majesty of God, seeing that the presence of only one apostle is so
dreadful and intolerable. I assure you, father, that his words and
countenance were so terrible to me, that if I had not had the comfort
of a beautiful Lamb2 shining with light that stood by when he spoke
1 Fen., Part 2, ch. xxv. ; Leg., Part 2, ch. v.
2 Fen., Part 2, ch. xxiv. A curious typographical error has here crept into Fen's

io2 Feast of the Assumption.
to me, I think my heart would not have been able to abide the same
but would have died for very sorrow."
F. Bartholomew, who on this occasion received the saint's confi
dence, related the whole matter afterwards to Raymund, and has
besides given the narrative with every particular in his deposition.
He says that Catherine wept over her offence for three hours, until
at length St. Paul appeared to her again, saying, " Daughter, God has
accepted thy tears, be more careful in future." And thus it pleased
our Lord from time to time to put her in mind of her own frailty,
specially after receiving such great revelations which might other
wise have moved her to pride.
When the feast of the Assumption came, it found Catherine so
prostrate with sickness that she was unable to leave her bed. She
was not then in her own home, but staying in the house of one of her
companions, probably Alexia. Unable to go to the church as she
desired, she took comfort in being able to see from the window of
her chamber the distant walls of the Cathedral (which is dedicated
to the Mother of God) ; and uniting in spirit with the Divine offices
which were being celebrated there with 'great pomp on that high
festival, she was permitted to hear the melody of the sacred chant
as though she were present in the church ; so that at the moment
when the celebrant entoned in the Preface the words "Et Te in
Assumptione Bealce Marice," &c, she beheld the Sacred Virgin herself,
and entered into a sweet colloquy with her. l
As she lay on her couch her companions from time to time caught
the sound of the words she was murmuring to herself. They were
simple enough. " O sweetest Jesus ! " she repeated again and again ;
" Son of God," and then after a little pause, " and of the Blessed Virgin
Mary !" "This ejaculation," says Father Fen, "was her matins and
her evensong. Sometimes she prayed to her Spouse that He would
deliver her from the bondage of the body and take her to Himself.
" Not so, My daughter," was the reply ; " I desired indeed to eat the
last pasch with My disciples, yet I awaited the moment fixed by My
eternal Father." Then she requested that if she must still live in
English version of this passage, where the shining Lamb stands as "a goodly
bright lamp."
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 6, § 6. This is the solitary occasion when the Duomo of
Siena appears mentioned in the life of St. Catherine, to whom, however, it must
have been dear and familiar, and whose gilded bust is now to be seen over one of
the three doors of the great entrance.

Thoughts on the Passion. 103
this wretched world He would deign to make her participate in His
sufferings. " If I cannot be with Thee now in heaven," she said,
"suffer at least that on earth I may be united to Thee in Thy
Passion." Her petition was indeed granted. At this time she began to suffer
both in her soul and body something of those pains which our Lord
had endured both in His life and death. She often declared that
the interior cross which He endured out of His desire for the salva
tion of souls, surpassed all His other sufferings : and this torment
of desire she shared to her life's end. Many things also she at this
time declared to Father Thomas concerning the Passion of our Lord,
which he carefully committed to writing, and afterwards delivered to
F. Raymund. Thus she interpreted those words of our Lord in the
garden of Olives, "Father, let this chalice pass from Me," as
signifying His will to be delivered from that same torment of desire
by the hastening of His Sacred Passion, rather than as a prayer that
He might not suffer. She also declared that the pains which our
Lord endured for our redemption were so great, that it would have
been impossible for any man to endure the same without dying a
thousand times. "What man," said she, "would have believed that
those thorns of His crown should have pierced through His skull
into His brain? Yet so it was. Again, who would have thought
that the bones of a man should have been drawn asunder and dis
jointed ? And yet so the Prophet David saith : ' They numbered
all my bones.' " And the dislocation of His bones, especially those
of the Breast, she understood to have been the most grievous of all
His bodily pains. These and other meditations on the Sacred Passion
appear to have occupied her during the three days succeeding the
feast of the Assumption. On the 18th of the same month, being once
more able' to go to the church, she approached the altar in order to
communicate : and as the priest, holding the sacred Host, repeated
the words, " Dotnine non sum dignus," &c, she heard a Voice that
answered, saying, " But I am worthy to enter into thee." When she
had received, her soul was so overwhelmed by what it experienced
that she scarcely found strength to return to her cell, and there lying
down on the planks that formed her bed she remained for a long
time motionless. Then her body was raised in the air, in the pres
ence of three persons who beheld it, remaining so without support.
After which, being again lowered on her couch, she began in a low
voice to say such sweet and admirable things that her companions

1 04 She prays for her Confessor.
as they listened could not refrain from tears. She prayed for many
persons by name, among others for her confessor who was in the
Friars' Church, thinking of nothing just then calculated to move
him to special fervour. But suddenly, as she prayed unknown to him,
he felt his heart touched by a devotion to which he had until then
been a stranger. Shortly after, it happened by chance that one of
Catherine's companions came to speak with him, and said, " Father,
Catherine was praying much for you at such an hour." Then he
understood why at that hour he had felt so unusual a devotion. He
proceeded to inquire more closely what it was she had said, and
found she had asked of God for him and for others the promise of
their eternal salvation. She had been seen also to stretch forth her
hand as she prayed, saying, "Promise me that you will grant it."
Then it seemed as if she had felt some sharp pain, which forced her
to sigh, exclaiming, "Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ!" as she
was used to do when she felt any bodily suffering. F. Thomas soon
after went to see her, and desired her to relate to him the whole
matter. She obeyed, and when she came to that point where she
prayed for certain special persons, she said to him : " Father, when
I prayed for you and for others, that our Lord would vouchsafe to
grant you everlasting life, it pleased His goodness to give me an
assured comfort in my heart that indeed it should be so. With that
I besought Him that He would grant me some token of the certainty
thereof; not that I doubted anything of His promise, but because I
was desirous to have some memorial of the same. Then he bade
me stretch out my hand; and I did so, and He put into my hand a
nail, and closed the same so fast within my hand that I felt a great
pain as if there had been a nail stricken into it with a hammer.
And so (Our Lord be blessed for it !) I have now in my right hand
one of the marks of my sweet Spouse and Saviour, sensible to myself,
though invisible to others." 1
This beginning of her stigmatisation, which was to receive its com
pletion five years later, caused her excruciating pain ; whilst at the
same time the abundance of supernatural communications which
1 This prayer of Catherine for her confessor is very commonly related, as if the
confessor in question were F. Raymund. A reference to the original Legend,
however, will show that this was not the case, and that the whole narrative belongs
to a date much earlier than his acquaintance with her. He relates it throughout
as of a third person, and says distinctly that he (the confessor) left this account in
writing, from which it is evident that the father referred to was F, Thomas della
Fonte.

Her Heart breaks. 105
were vouchsafed to her, utterly broke down her natural powers and
reduced her to a state of extreme weakness. At length, towards the
close of the year, these sufferings reached their crisis. Not to speak
of that terrible torture which resembled the dislocation of the bones
of the breast, and which Raymund assures us never left her ; she
was enduring another kind of anguish, which they who have even
partially experienced it, can in some degree comprehend. The
revelation was being made to her in a sensible manner how deeply
the Divine Spouse of her soul loved her, and not her alone, but all
mankind. She understood, and that so clearly that it seemed to
her she had never known it before, the truth expressed in those
words, " God so loved the world as to give us His only-begotten Son,
that the world by Him might be saved ; " x and again those other
words which tell us that "He died for all."2 A God to love us !
A God to die ! Truly might the Apostle say, " the charity of Christ
presseth us." After all it was no new truth or revelation; 3 only what
she had learnt from infancy in her Creed : but who does not know
that there are times when old truths assume such a life and reality
that they seem to be new ; so that we contemplate them with amaze
ment as though until that moment we had never understood their
sense. So it was with Catherine at this moment. She doubtless ex
claimed with her favourite Apostle in rapturous wonder, " He hath
loved me and hath given Himself for me ! " 4 And unable to bear
that great excess of love, the heart of the Saint was literally broken,
and the links that bound her to life snapped in twain.
It was a Sunday about the hour of tierce, and F. Bartholomew
Dominic was preaching, as he tells us, in the Friars' Church, when
the news was brought that Catherine was in her agony. Many of the
brethren, and a great number of other persons, at once hastened to
her house, and Father Thomas della Fonte, who had been summoned
to assist her, went accompanied by F. Thomas Caffarini. They found
her, apparently in extremity, attended by Alexia, Catherine Ghetti,
and some others of the Sisters of Penance. They began with tears
to recite the prayers for the dying, and as the news spread from
mouth to mouth, they were soon joined by F. Bartholomew
Montucci, the director of the Sisters, who brought with him a
certain lay brother named John, and, as soon as the sermon was
over, by Bartholomew Dominic himself. He says so great was the
multitude that flocked to see her, that her chamber was full, and
1 John iii. 16. 2 2 Cor. v. 15. 3 Ibid. v. 14. l Gal. ii. 20.

106 Her Mystic Death.
the street leading to her house crowded by persons going thither,
so that he found no small difficulty in effecting his entrance. But
before he came she had, as it seemed, expired. " Those who had
been with her from the first assured me," he says, " that she drew
her last breath a considerable time before I arrived." At the sad
spectacle all broke forth into vehement weeping ; and the sorrow of
brother John in particular was so great that he ruptured a vein in
his breast, thereby increasing the general consternation. But F.
Thomas, full of faith in the sanctity of Catherine, made him take
her hand and apply it to the place, and he was at once completely
cured. Then the neighbours flocking to the house began to condole
with the distracted mother, and to prepare all things for the burial.
For four hours she had lain to all appearance dead, when, with a
sigh, Catherine once more opened her eyes and looked around
her. She was living indeed, but what had passed in that mysterious
interval? Those who were with her, and who scarce ventured to
believe their eyes for joy, beheld how, for three days and nights, she
wept without ceasing, as though plunged in bitter sorrow, and they
gathered from her words that she had been admitted into a blissful
state, whence she had returned once more to recommence a life of
labour and suffering. F. Bartholomew examined her as to the reality
of her death, reminding her, however, that there could be no certainty
on a point touching which the great Apostle professed himself igno
rant. At a later period Raymund of Capua interrogated her on the
same subject, pressing her to explain the facts as commonly reported.
She could only answer him with her tears, but at last she exclaimed,
" Oh, lamentable case, that a soul that had once been delivered out of
this darksome prison and had tasted the fruition of that joyous light,
should ever have been constrained to leave it and return to earth !
Father," she continued, " you ask the truth from me, and it is this :
The desire I felt at that time to be united to my sweet Spouse was so
great that it could not be resisted, and seeing as I did by my own ex
perience how great was the love our Saviour bore me, and what intoler
able pains He suffered for my sake, I was wholly overcome with the
force of such inestimable kindness, and my heart, not being able to
tendure the strength of so much love, brake in sunder ; for which cause,
my soul was delivered out of this mortal body, and had the fruition of
His Divine Majesty, howbeit, alas, but for a little time. ... I saw
the pains of hell and of purgatory so great that no tongue of man is
able to declare them. I saw also the bliss of heaven and the glory

Her own Narrative. 107
of my Divine Spouse, which only to think of fills my soul with a
loathing for all things that are in the world. And when I had con
ceived a certain hope that now I was past all pains and cares to a
state of everlasting gladness, our Lord said to me, 'Daughter,
seest thou these unhappy sinners and transgressors of My laws : on
the one side, what joys they have lost, and on the other side, what
pains they have found ? For this cause have I showed these things
to thee, because I will have thee return to the world to declare to
My people their sins and iniquities and the great peril that hangeth
over them if they will not amend.' When I heard that I should
return to the world again, I was struck with a marvellous great fear
and horror. Whereupon our Lord, to comfort me again, spoke
thus sweetly unto me : ' Daughter, there are a great number of
souls in the world which I will have to be saved through thy
means ; and that is the cause why I send thee thither again.
Wherefore go thy way with a good will, and be of good comfort.
From this time forward My will is that thou shalt change the order
of thy life. Thou shalt no more keep within thy cell, but shalt go
abroad into the world to win souls. Thou shalt travel, thou shalt go
from city to city as I shall bid thee ; thou shalt live with the multi
tude and speak in public ; I will send some to thee, and I will send
thee to others, according -to My good pleasure ; only be thou ready
to do My will.' While our Lord spoke these words to me, of a
sudden my soul was restored to the body ; which when I perceived,
I wept for very sorrow for three days and three nights, and never
ceased. And yet to this day I cannot possibly abstain from weeping
when it comes to my mind how I was deprived of that passing great
joy and felicity, and sent back to this dark prison. Therefore,
Father, when you and others understand what a blissful state of life
I have foregone for a time (God knows how long !) and that I have
resigned it by God's ordinance for the good of souls, you must not
wonder if hereafter you see that I bear a great love to them that have
cost me so dear, and that to win them to life, I alter the manner of
my life, and converse more familiarly with them than I have done
hitherto." This was Catherine's own statement of what had passed in her
soul during that mysterious suspension of the faculties of life.
Caffarini, in the Leggenda Minore (Part 2, chap, vi.), examines it very
precisely, and sums up his conclusions under twelve heads. 1. That
Catherine's mystic death was caused by the pain she felt in contem
plating the Passion of Christ and by her ardent love, and that it

1 08 Her own Narrative.
lasted four hours. 2. That during that space of time she beheld the
joys of the blessed, and the sufferings of purgatory and hell. 3.
That believing herself in the possession of eternal bliss, our Lord
bade her look on the punishment due to sinners. 4. That He
commanded her to return to earth for the salvation of many souls.
5. That after this she felt her soul, as it were, restored to the body.
6. That for sorrow she wept three days. 7. That remembering
these things she could not refrain from weeping still. 8. That these
high and secret things of God cannot fitly be declared in our imper
fect language. 9. That after this glimpse of eternal bliss, she longed
to suffer more, knowing that it would increase her crown. 10. That
she bade her confessors not marvel if henceforth she bore a great
love to souls. 11. That the souls of her neighbours became her
glory and her joy. 1 2. That from that time she ceased not to labour
for their salvation. A critical examination either of physical or
psychological phenomena would be sadly out of place in these
pages ; but, gravely considered, there is nothing in this narrative
which will not commend itself to our faith, and, in a certain
sense also, to our comprehension. Here then was the last degree,
not indeed of her spiritual life, but of her preparation for that
providential mission which she was to exercise in the world for
ten brief years. She had seen, — " whether in the body, or out of
the body, we know not, God knoweth," J — the bliss of heaven and
the woe of hell. As in her childhood she had "beheld the
King in His beauty and had seen the land afar off," 2 so now
she had gazed on Him nearer, and, as it were, face to face; and
almost touching the goal of her longing desires, she had turned back
at His bidding, and once more opened her weary eyes on a world
lying in wickedness, that by this sacrifice she might advance His
kingdom on earth, and be an instrument of sanctification to count
less thousands. No wonder, then, that henceforth the love of souls
became her glorious passion, that their salvation stood to her in the
place of meat and drink, that no one thing could render tolerable to her
her prolonged separation from " Him whom her soul loved," save the
labour of winning them to love Him also : no wonder that Catherine,
to use her own words, "bore henceforth so passing great a love
for them that had cost her so dear ; " a love so rapturous that in its
holy excess she was wont to pray, " that God would place her in the
mouth of hell that she might prevent sinners from going thither."
1 2 Cor. xii. 2. 2 la. xxxiii. 17.

Memorials in San Domenico. 109
The memory of all these marvellous graces is still religiously
preserved in the church within whose walls so many of them were
bestowed. A tablet affixed to the great pilaster that supports the
Chapel delle Volte marks the spot where took place the mysterious
exchange of hearts ; another is pointed out against which she is said
to have been accustomed to lean when in prayer ; the very pavement
of the chapel has been protected by a flooring, through an opening
in which, however, you may still see the bricks so often trodden by the
spouse of Christ, though of these many have been given away as
precious relics to various monasteries, specially to that of St. Caterina
in Magnanapoli at Rome, while all around are pictures and frescoes,
on which the first artists of Siena have vied one with another in
depicting the mysterious scenes which we have described.1 We
leave to others the task of enumerating the master-pieces left here by
the pencils of Salimbeni and Sodoma. But over the door of the
chapel appears one sacred work of art which we cannot pass without
a word of notice. It is the painted crucifix attributed to Giotto, and
which, if indeed as ancient as tradition affirms, must have stood there
in Catherine's time. On it, day after day, her eyes must have rested
in loving veneration as she passed through the door to her accus
tomed place of prayer. The pilgrim who comes here full of her
beloved memory, as he gazes on that sacred image whereon the
artist has left the solemn expression of antique piety, can hardly fail
to hear within his heart the echo of her oft-repeated words : " Bathe
yourself in the Blood of Jesus crucified. Hide yourself in the open
wound of His Side, and you will behold the secret of His Heart
There the sweet Truth will make known to you that all that He did
for us He did out of love. Return Him love for love ! "
1 Carapelli, in his Corso Cronotastico, assigns Catherine's mystic death to the
beginning of the year 1371. But a little attention to the narrative as it stands in
the Legend shows that it cannot be separated from the events of the July and
August of 1370. Moreover, we know for certain that in the December of that
same year and the February of the year following, she was engaged in matters
which properly belong to her active mission ; so that it seems scarcely possible to
fix a later date for the above event than the autumn of 1370.

( no )

CHAPTER X.
BEGINNING OF CATHERINE'S PUBLIC LIFE, 1370.
THE year 1370 which had proved so important an era in
Catherine's spiritual life, was destined not to close before
bringing her the first-fruits of those magnificent promises which had
been made to her in the hour of her mysterious agony. The
narrative we are about to relate is given by three different writers, by
all of whom the extraordinary facts were carefully examined, while
to two of them the person to whom they refer had been well known
from a child, and they were present in the city when the events
narrated took place.
There lived at that time in Siena a young man named Andrea' di
Naddino de' Bellanti, belonging to a good family, who, at the age of
twenty, had already rendered himself infamous by his crimes. He
was devoured by a passion for drink and gambling, and had quite
given up all religious practices, being accustomed publicly to mock
at those who frequented the Sacraments. He was such a notorious
swearer that it was said of him that he uttered a blasphemy at every
step he took ; and to crown the catalogue of his misdeeds, having
on one occasion lost a large sum at play, he entered a church, and
seeing a picture of our Lord on the Cross, in his mad rage he
deliberately and many times over stabbed it with a poniard. He is
also said to have trampled on the Crucifix, and to have thrown an
image of our Lady into the fire, as though to revenge himself for his
ill-luck. In the month of September of this same year he fell ill,
and his sickness being soon pronounced mortal, he was visited by
his parish priest, who exhorted him to prepare for death by repent
ance and a good confession. But Andrea, according to his usual
custom, drove the good man out of the room with horrible curses.
His family, distressed at his unhappy state, applied to several other
pious persons, who conjured him to have pity on his soul and be
reconciled to God even at the eleventh hour. But it was all in

Andrea de Bellanti.

i n

vain. He took the exhortations of his neighbours in very evil part,
and would not suffer the subject of confession to be named in his
presence. At last, on the 15th of December, the feast of St. Lucy,
his parents bethought them of calling in Father Thomas della Fonte,
the confessor of Catherine, " who," says Caffarini, " was then just
beginning to appear in public" But Father Thomas succeeded no
better than his predecessors in softening the heart of the miserable
youth, who seemed dying in a state of utter impenitence. For
three days and nights the good father never left him, and devoted
himself unweariedly to the thankless task, but still with no result.
At last, seeing the case was hopeless, he was returning the third
evening to his convent, when passing by Catherine's house he
entered, and knocking at her chamber door, found her praying and
in ecstacy, as was usual with her at that time of the day. Not
wishing to disturb her, he told some of her companions to watch
until she should return to consciousness, and then to tell her of the
great danger of this poor soul on the verge, as it seemed, of a
miserable eternity, and to desire her, in his name, to pray for
Andrea's conversion.
It was the fifth hour of the night when Catherine returned from
her ecstacy, and the Sister who was with her at once gave the
message left by her confessor. No sooner had she heard the sad
case and the obedience given her, than she set herself to pray with
great earnestness, continuing even until the dawn of day to beseech
our Lord that He would not suffer that soul to be lost which He
had redeemed with His most precious Blood. But our Lord made
answer, and said that the iniquity of that wicked man was so heinous
in His sight, that the cry thereof pierced the heavens and called for
justice, for he had not only in words most horribly blasphemed the
holy name of God and of His saints, but also thrown a picture into
the fire on which was painted the death and passion of our Saviour
Christ, together with the images of our Blessed Lady and other
saints : by which and other like impieties he had deserved ever
lasting damnation. When Catherine heard that, she fell down
prostrate before our Lord, and said, "O Lord, if Thou look
narrowly to our iniquities, who shall be able to stand ? Wherefore
earnest Thou down from heaven into the world? Wherefore
tookest Thou flesh of the most pure and unspotted Virgin Mary ?
Wherefore didst Thou suffer a most bitter and reproachful death ?
Hast Thou done all these things, O Lord, to this end that Thou

112 Catherine prays for him.
mightest call men to a strict and rigorous account for their sins, and
not rather that Thou mightest utterly cancel their debts and take
them to mercy ? Why dost Thou, O merciful Lord, tell me of the
sins of one lost man, seeing Thou hast borne upon Thine own
shoulders the sins of the whole world that none should be lost ?
Do I lie here prostrate at Thy feet to demand justice, and not
rather to crave mercy? Do I present myself here before Thy
Divine Majesty to plead the innocency of this wretched creature,
and not rather to confess that he is worthy of everlasting death and
damnation, and that the only refuge is to appeal to Thine endless
mercy. Remember, O dear Lord, what Thou saidst to me when
Thou didst first will me to go abroad, and to procure the salvation
of many souls. Thou knowest right well that I have none other
joy or comfort in this life but only to see the conversion of sinners
unto Thee. And for this cause only I am content to lack the joyful
fruition of Thy blessed presence. Wherefore, if Thou take this joy
from me, what other thing shall I find in this vale of misery wherein
to take pleasure or comfort ? O most merciful Father and God of
all comfort, reject not the humble petition of Thine handmaid ; put
me not away from Thee at this time ; but graciously grant me that
this my brother's hard heart may be softened and made to yield to
the workings of Thy Holy Spirit." Thus did she continue in prayer
and disputation with our Lord from the beginning of the night until
the morning dawned : all which time she neither slept nor took
any rest, but wept and wailed continually, out of the great compas
sion she had to see that soul perish ; our Lord ever more alleging
His justice, and she craving for mercy. At last, our Lord being as
it were overcome by her importunity and prayers, gave her this
gracious answer, " Dear daughter, I can no longer resist thee in
this matter. Thy tears and prayers have prevailed and wrested out of
My hands the sword of justice. This sinful man shall for thy sake
find such grace and favour as thou requirest for him." 1
Meanwhile a strange scene had been passing in the chamber of
the dying man. Through the long hours of that terrible night he
had been unable to sleep, but as the grey light of morning dawned —
at the very moment when Catherine's prayer received a favourable
answer — his wife, who was watching by his side, was amazed to hear
him cry aloud, saying, " Send quickly for a priest, for I will indeed
confess." "How now," said his wife, "what is it you ask for?"
1 Fen. , Part 3, ch. xi.

Andrea dies Penitent. 113
" I ask for a priest," he said. " Look in that corner," and he pointed
with his hand, " do you not see our Lord Christ who commands
me to confess, and near him that Mantellata whom they call Cathe
rine V And in truth at that moment our Lord had appeared to him,
saying, "Dear child; why wilt thou not repent of thine offences
against Me? Repent and confess, for behold I am ready to
• pardon." Which words so pierced the heart of the dying sinner that
he could hold out no longer, but sending for a priest, confessed all
his sins with great sentiments of contrition, made his will, and so
passed out of this world with every token of God's mercy.
On the morning of the 16th of December the news ran through
the city that Andrea de' Bellanti had died penitent and fortified
with the last Sacraments. Men could not believe their ears, for he
was known to every one in Siena for his riches and his vices. They
knew that all through his illness he had been vainly urged by his
friends both to confess and to make disposition of his worldly goods,
which last matter he could not bear so much as to hear mentioned ;
but now they heard of the wise and excellent way in which he had
drawn up his will and distributed his wealth, a thing no less aston
ishing to them than the fact that he had died as a good Christian.
It was not long before the good news was carried to Father Thomas,
who was stupefied with astonishment. No one knew better than he
what had been Andrea's disposition the evening previous to his
death ; what then could have brought about so wondrous a change
in the course of a few hours ? As soon as he had said mass, he
determined to lose no time in ascertaining if Catherine had received
his message, and hastened at once to the Fullonica. In reply to his
inquiries, Catherine informed him that she had done his bidding,
and had prayed for the poor sinner, who, she assured him, had
obtained the Divine mercy, and having confessed his sins with true
contrition, had escaped eternal perdition. " And how do you know
with such certainty the particulars of his death and conversion ? "
asked F. Thomas. Constrained by obedience, yet not without reluc
tance, she related to him how the matter had come about. Amazed
at what he heard, and not yet satisfied that she might not be the
sport of some illusion, he questioned her more closely, " Had Andrea,
then, been guilty of such atrocious misdeeds?" he asked. "Yes,"
replied the saint, " he was an habitual and most sacrilegious blas
phemer; and over and above his other crimes he had, out of pure
malice, dared to stab and trample upon the Crucifix." " And do you
H

1 14 Execution of two Criminals.
know at all what he was like ? " continued the confessor ; " if you can,
describe him to me ; " for he well knew that Catherine had never been
to Andrea's house, nor so much as once seen or spoken to him. Then
she began to describe to him the countenance and person of the
dead man, the size of the room in which he died, and its rich furni
ture ; nay, the very colour of the drapery which covered his bed, and
that as exactly as if she were looking at it all with her bodily eye.
" For," she said, " Our Lord deigned to show me the form and coun
tenance of that poor man, whom before that time I had never once
beheld." *
This wonderful conversion became noised throughout Siena, where
Andrea was universally known. It created a great sensation, and
impressed on those who heard it unbounded confidence in Catherine's
power with God, and her special readiness to exert it on behalf of
souls. And this impression was confirmed by another extraordinary
incident which happened a few weeks later. One day in the February
of 137 1, when Catherine was again staying in the house of Alexia, it
chanced that two famous criminals condemned to death were carried
in a cart through the street towards the place of execution.2 "Their
sentence was, that by the way as they were carried, they should be
pinched, now in one part of the body and now in another, with hot
irons or pincers, and so in the end put to death. Which pain was
so intolerable that they (who were before in a desperate state, and
1 All the additional circumstances of the narrative are given in the Processus by
F. Bartholomew of Siena, and by F. Thomas Caffarini, anfl also by the latter in
his Supplement (Part 2, Trat. 2, § 8). It must be remembered that both these
witnesses were in Siena at the time, and Caffarini, as he says, " had known Andrea
from his cradle." F. Raymund, on the other hand, wrote from hearsay, not having
been acquainted with Catherine till some years later. In the Supplement, how
ever, Caffarini gives the date 1367 ; and we should have accepted it in preference
to that of 1370, assigned by Raymund, but for the irrefragable authority of the
Necrology of San Domenico, in which occurs the following entry : 1370, Andreas
Naddini mortuus est die decimasesta Decembris et sepultus ad pedes scalarum claustri
in Sepulcro suorum. In the MS. of the Processus preserved at Siena occurs a
marginal note in contemporary writing, which runs as follows : Andrea di Naddino
Bellanti, un singolare ribaldo. Al padre suo gli fu tagliato il capo. (An extra
ordinary rascal, his father had his head cut off.)
2 In the Chronicle of Agnolo di Tura [Rer. Ital. Script., torn. xv. p. 220), we find
the following entry :
" 1371. Uno trattato fu scoperto in Siena a di 26 di Gennajo e funne premiati
quattro che lo scupersero, c fu lo dato Varme. E poi a di 8 di Ferraio furono
attanagliati due in sur uno carro, per lo Sena/ore di Siena. " There can be little
doubt that these were the two criminals on whose piteous sufferings Catherine
that day gazed.

Catherine prays for them. 115
might by no persuasions be brought to repent them of their manifold
offences) blasphemed God and all His saints, insomuch that it seemed
that the temporal torments that they were now enduring were but a
beginning and way to everlasting torments. But our merciful Lord,
whose provident goodness disposeth all things sweetly, had otherwise
determined for them. When they were come near to the house,
Alexia, hearing a great concourse and noise of people in the street,
went to the window to see what it might be, and seeing the horrible
manner of the execution, she ran in again and said to the holy maid-:
"O mother! if ever you will see a pitiful sight, come now." At
these words, Catherine went to the window and looked out, but as
soon as she had seen the manner of the execution, she returned forth
with to her prayers again ; for, as she declared afterwards to her con
fessor, she saw a great multitude of wicked spirits about those felons,
who burnt their souls more cruelly within than the tormentors did
their bodies without, which lamentable sight moved her to double
compassion. She felt great pity to see their bodies, but much more
to see their souls ; so that, turning herself to our Lord with great
fervour of spirit, she made her prayer ito Him after this manner :
" Ah ! dear Lord, wherefore dost Thou suffer these Thy creatures,
made to Thine own image and likeness, and redeemed with the price
of Thy most precious Blood, to be thus led, away in triumph by the
cruel enemy? I know, O Lord, and confess that these men are
justly punished according to the measure of their offences. So was
the thief also that hung by Thee on the Cross, whom, notwithstanding,
Thou tookest to mercy, saying that he should be with Thee that very
day in Paradise. Thou didst not refuse Peter, but gavest him a
friendly and comfortable look, though he like an unkind man had
thrice refused and denied Thee. Thou drewest Mary Magdalen to
Thee with the cords of love when she had estranged herself from
Thee by her manifold sins. Thou tookest Matthew the publican from
a sinful trade of life in the world, to be an apostle and evangelist.
Thou didst not refuse the woman of Canaan, nor Zaccheus the prince
of publicans, but didst most sweetly accept the one and invite the
other. Wherefore I most humbly beseech Thee, for all Thy mercies
hitherto showed unto man, and also for all those also that Thine in
finite goodness hath determined to show hereafter, that Thou wilt
vouchsafe to look down upon these wretched creatures, and soften
their hearts with the fire of Thy Holy Spirit, that they may be
delivered from the second death." Our Lord heard the prayer of

1 1 6 Their Conversion.
His spouse, and granted her such a grace, that she went in spirit
with those two thieves towards the place of execution, weeping and
lamenting for their sins, and moving them to repentance. Which
thing the wicked spirits perceived well enough, and therefore they
cried out upon her, and said : " Catherine, leave off to trouble us.
If thou wilt not, we will surely enter into thee and vex thee." To
whom the holy maid made answer : " As God wills, so will I. And
therefore I will not cease to do what lieth in me for the relief of
these poor wretches, because I know it is the will of God that I
should so do." And so continuing her prayer, she procured them
a singular grace and favour, as the effect declared, for when those
thieves were come to the gate of the city, our Saviour Christ ap
peared to them, showing to them His precious wounds all streaming
down with blood, and inviting them to repent of their former life,
which if they did, He assured them that all was quite forgiven. At
this strange sight their hearts were suddenly so altered, to the great
wonder of as many as were present, that they turned their blasphemy
into thanksgiving ; and showing themselves to be heartily sorry and
contrite for their sins, desired earnestly that they might have a priest
to hear their confessions. That done, they went forward cheerfully
towards the place of execution, where they showed likewise great
tokens of joy and comfort for that they had to pass by a reproachful
death to a glorious life. All the people saw this strange alteration,
and were much astonished at it, because they understood not then
the cause thereof, which afterwards came to light in this way : The
priest that heard the felons' confession went soon afterwards to visit
F. Thomas, and in talk declared unto him how wonderfully God had
wrought with them. F. Thomas began forthwith to suspect the truth,
and asked Alexia what Catherine was doing at that time when the
thieves were led through their street towards the place of execution.
She declared the whole process of the matter, as she had seen and
heard it in her own house, whereby F. Thomas saw a very great
likelihood that the thing had been wrought, as he had supposed, by
the prayer and intercession of the saint. However, for more assurance
he took an occasion afterwards to ask the holy maid herself. And
she, to the honour of God and for the satisfaction of her confessor,
declared unto him particularly how everything had passed. Within
a few days after this was done, certain of the Sisters that were present
while Catherine was praying, heard her say these words in her prayer :

Her Power over Evil Spirits. 1 1 7
" O Lord Jesu, I most heartily thank Thee that Thou hast delivered
them out of the second prison." And being afterwards asked the
meaning of these words, she answered that the souls of those culprits
were then delivered out of purgatory, and taken to paradise. For,
having by her charity delivered them from the everlasting torments
of hell, she never ceased to pray for them until she saw ithat they
were also passed the temporal pains of purgatory and received into
everlasting bliss." J
We have now to speak of one of Catherine's supernatural gifts
of a kind differing from any yet referred to. Her power over
evil spirits formed one of her special prerogatives, and is singled
out for notice in the collect of her Office. Between her and the
great enemy of souls there was an unintermitting war. She was
ever robbing him of his victims, and in revenge he ceased not his
efforts to vex and torment her. Though never permitted after her
one sublime victory, in which she had mastered his assaults, again to
disturb her soul, yet he was continually directing his attacks against
her body. Sometimes she was raised in the air and cast into the
fire, at other times when travelling on some errand of mercy she
would be hurled from her horse with .great violence. On one such
occasion when Raymund and others of the brethren were present,
both she and her horse, without any seeming cause, were cast down a
steep precipice. But she arose unhurt and smiling, and dispelled
their alarm, saying, "Take no heed, it is only the work of Mala-
tasca," the name she commonly applied to ihe evil one.
The mastery which she wielded over the unclean spirits becom
ing known, Catherine was constantly receiving applications from the
friends of possessed persons to come to their relief; but however
disposed to help her neighbours in other kinds of suffering, her
humility shrank from being required to exercise sthis power ; she
1 In their version of the above narrative,. F. Ambrogio and his English translator
have fallen into the error of supposing Catherine's confessor herein alluded to, to
be none other than Raymund of Capua. A reference to the story however, as he
himself relates it in his Legend, will show the mistake ; He says expressly,
" The priest who accompanied these criminals gave these details to Father Thomas,
Catherine's confessor. Later, I also received from Catherine, in confidence, the
particulars of what took place, and found them in every circumstance conformable
to what Father Thomas had written."— Leg., Part. 2, ch. vi. And in fact if, as
we suppose, the incident took place in 1371, this was before the coming of
Raymund to Siena.

r 1 8 Laurentia di Monaldi.
evaded such requests whenever she could, and it needed no little
adroitness to obtain her assistance.
One story of a deliverance wrought through her means we will
quote from the English Legend. There was in Siena a certain
notary, named Ser Michel di Monaldi ; he was a pious worthy man,
and had resolved to dedicate his two daughters to the service of
God in the Convent of St. John the Baptist. The nuns of this con
vent were Augustinians, and occupied themselves in the education
of young girls. Monaldi was a benefactor to their community, to
whom he acted as a sort of temporal father, and the two children
were therefore gladly received by the nuns, to be educated by them
until such time as they might be old enough to take the religious
habit. " But they had not been long in the convent when one of
them, whose name was Laurentia (a child of eight years old), was, by
the secret judgment of God, possessed with a wicked spirit. The
whole monastery was much disquieted, and by common consent
they sent for her father, and bade him take back his daughter.
After the child was thus taken out of the monastery the. wicked
spirit uttered many wonderful things by her mouth, and answered to
many dark and hard questions. And. (which was most strange) he
spoke commonly in. the Latin tongue. He disclosed also' many
secret vices of divers and sundry persons, to their great reproach and
slander. The father and mother, and others of their kindred, being
much afflicted, left no means unsought for the relief of the child.
Among other things wherein they hoped to find help and comfort,
was the relics of saints kept in many places in the city, to which
they resorted daily with all diligence, and among others to the
tomb of B. Ambrose of Siena, who had been in his lifetime a Friar
Preacher, and to whom Almighty God had granted a singular grace
in casting out devils, so that his mantle or scapular being, laid upon
those that were vexed with unclean spirits very commonly chased
them away. They brought the child, therefore, and laid her down
upon the tomb, and placed these relics over her; the father and
mother in the meantime earnestly praying our Lord by the interces
sion of that holy saint to take mercy on. their child. Buttheir prayer
was not then heard, which happened not for any sin that they had
committed, but because it was otherwise disposed by the provident
wisdom of God, who put it in the hearts of certain of their friends
to counsel that they should repair to the holy maid for the release
of their child. Sending to her, therefore, they prayed her in

Her Possession. 1 1 9
most earnest manner that she would do her best to help their
daughter ; to which she made answer that she had enough to do
with the wicked spirits that from time to time molested herself, and
therefore prayed them that they would hold her excused. The
parents, whose hearts were very heavy for their innocent child,
would not take that excuse, but took their daughter, and went with
her to Catherine's lodging, and came to the house so suddenly that
she could not possibly escape by the door without their getting a
sight of her. Which when she saw, she found means to convey herself
out by a window, and so hid herself for that time that they could
not find her. At last, when they had tried all ways, and saw that they
could by no means come to her speech (for she had given charge to
as many as were about her that none should move her in that
matter), they resolved to gO' to Father Thomas, her confessor, and
to entreat him that he would command her in virtue of her
obedience to keep the child with her for a time. Father Thomas
was much moved with their pitiful suit, and therefore assured them
that he would do his best. But because he knew well that if he
spoke to her himself she would of humility make one excuse or
other, so that he should not be able to move her any further, he devised
this stratagem. He waited a time late in the evening when he knew
that she was abroad, and then took the child1 that was possessed and
put her into Catherine's chamber, whither he knew she would come
that night, leaving word with the rest of the Sisters that they should
tell her when she came home that he commanded her, in virtue of
obedience, to suffer that child to remain with her all that night until
the next morning. And so he went his way, and left the child with
them. When she came home and found the child in her chamber,
she asked the Sisters who had brought her thither. They said that
Father Thomas, her confessor, had left the child there; and declared,
moreover, that he desired her, in virtue of obedience, to take charge
of the child till the next day. When she heard that she made no
more resistance, but set herself at once to prayer, and caused the
child to kneel down and pray with her. And so they continued
together all that night, fighting against the wicked spirit, until at
length, a little before day, he was constrained by the force of her
faithful prayer to depart, and to leave the innocent child without
doing any harm to her body. Which, when one of her Sisters, called
Alexia, perceived, she ran to Father Thomas and told him that the
child was delivered. He, likewise, being very glad of the joyful

1 20 Her Deliverance.
news, went to the father and mother, and brought them with him to
Catherine's chamber, where, when they saw the child delivered
indeed, they wept for joy, and glorified Almighty God that had
given such power to His humble spouse. But the holy maid knew
that the wicked spirit had not quite forsaken the child, and therefore
entreated the father and mother that she might remain there with
her a little time, which they willingly granted. She then began to
instruct the child, and exhorted her to give herself to continual
prayer. And she charged her that she should in nowise depart out
of the house until her father and mother came thither again to fetch
her home, which points the child carefully observed. Meantime, as
the holy maid had occasion to go home to her own house about
some necessary business (for all this was done not in her own house,
but in the house of Alexia), she left the child with a servant, and
gave her charge to have a care of her. When she had passed the
whole day in her own house about necessary business, and night was
come, she desired Alexia to give her her mantle, for she would
return with her to her house. To that Alexia answered that it was
very late, and that it would be evil thought of if women (especially
religious persons) should be seen abroad at that time of night.
' O Alexia,' said she, ' we must needs go, for that wicked wolf is
about to take my little lamb away from me again.' And with that
they went both together, and found the child indeed strangely
altered, her face all red and her wits utterly distracted. When the
holy maid saw that, she exclaimed in holy indignation : ' Ah ! thou
foul fiend of hell, how durst thou thus to enter again this poor
innocent ? I trust in the goodness of my dear Lord and Saviour
that thou shalt now be cast out in such sort that thou shalt never
dare to enter any more.' And with that she took the child into her
chamber, where she continued for a certain time in prayer. But
the wicked spirit was so obstinate that she was fain to persevere even
until the fourth hour of the night before she could expel him. At
last, constrained by the force of her prayer and by virtue of the
charge that she gave him in God's behalf, he said these words to
her : ' If I must needs depart out of the child, I will enter into
thee' Whereunto she made answer and said, ' If it be God's
pleasure (without Whose licence I am well assured thou canst do
nothing), our Lord forbid that I should be against His holy will in
anything.' Which words, proceeding from a humble and resigned
spirit, so struck the proud fiend that he lost all the strength that he

Donna Rabes Tolomei. 1 2 1
had before against the innocent child. Howbeit, in passing out he
rested awhile in the child's throat, which was perceived by a great
swelling that he made in that place, which the holy maid seeing, she
made the sign of the cross over the child's throat, by virtue whereof
the wicked spirit was thoroughly dispossessed in such sort that he
might never return to disquiet the child again. And the next day
she sent for the father and mother, to whom she said, ' Take your
child home with you, in God's name, for from this day forward she
shall never be troubled more with that wicked spirit.' They took
their child with glad hearts, and led her to the monastery whence
she came, where she lived a very blessed life under that rule and
discipline, and was never molested more to her dying day. Which
thing was so joyous to Ser Michel, her father, that he could never
tell it afterwards but that he wept for joy. And he honoured the
holy maid in his heart as if she had been an angel of God."
It may easily be understood that facts of this kind, when once
known, could not fail to bring Catherine's name before the notice
of her fellow-citizens. " People began to resort to her," says F.
Bartholomew Dominic, " more than they had done before, coming
even from distant parts of the country to see and speak with her."
In short her public life may be said to have fairly begun. She came
to be regarded as one to whom recourse might be had in desperate
cases, and whose prayers were never known to be left unanswered.
One of the first who was moved by these reports to seek her out
and ask her counsel, was Donna Onorabile Tolomei, wife to Francesco
Tolomei, the ' head of the noblest family of Siena, one which boasts
of having given a long line of illustrious citizens to the republic, and
no fewer than fourteen saints to the Order of St. Dominic. Onorabile,
or Rabes, as she was commonly called, was a virtuous and religious
matron, though not without plenty of family pride and a certain
infirmity of temper. Her tale of sorrow was soon told. She was
the mother of several sons and of two daughters, all of them given
up to the vanities of the world. Giacomo, or James, the eldest son,
led a life of ferocious crime. Whilst yet a child he had killed two
men with his own hand, and such was his pride and cruelty, that
though still a mere youth he was feared by all men. He had two
sisters, one named Ghinoccia, and the other Francesca ; Ghinoccia
in particular was passionately addicted to the world and its pleasures,
and carried her love of dress to an extremity of folly, filling the house
with her perfumes and cosmetics. Rabes feared for the souls of her

122 Conversion of her Daughters.
children, and specially of her daughters, whose giddiness and levity
seemed even to threaten the loss of their good name. And inasmuch
as she herself feared God, and desired nothing so much as the con
version of her children to a better life, she conjured the Saint to come
with her to her house and see these young girls and give them some
pious exhortation. It was probably the first time that Catherine had
ever set her foot within one of the great houses of Siena. The
Tolomei Palace still stands, a venerable building, ancient even in
Catherine's time, and bearing in every part the tokens of belonging
to the proudest family of the republic. Rabes introduced her to her
two daughters, and then left them together. One little phrase which
occurs in the narrative, as it is told by Caffarini in the Leggenda
Minore, suggests a fact which possibly moved the heart of the
Saint as she gazed on those young faces to a deep and singular
interest. Does the reader remember that compliance with a foolish
fashion in her early childhood (the dyeing of her hair to a fictitious
appearance of fairness), which all through Catherine's innocent life
weighed upon her conscience, and which she even regarded as a
deadly sin ? As she looked on the two maidens now before her,
she beheld the revival of that same fashion. Dressed in the extra
vagant modes of the fourteenth century (and few centuries could
boast of extravagances more preposterous), the raven hair of the
two Italian girls was pomaded and powdered in the vain attempt
to make them appear like English blondes. Catherine, as she
looked at them, silently raised her heart to God, and that done,
addressed them a few words of gentle remonstrance. It did not
take many minutes for her to win their hearts and touch their
consciences; her words, but far more her presence and the sweet
odour of that perfect charity, tore away the veil from before their
eyes, and wrought in them a change which was in truth " a change
of the right hand of the Most High." Detesting the vanities which
until then they had clung to, they cast all their cosmetics into the
gutter, says Caffarini, and cutting off their (artificially) fair hair
(tagliati e' loro biondi capegli), they placed themselves at the
disposal of Catherine, and declared themselves ready to begin an
entirely new life. It was one of those conversions in which souls
cannot stop half way ; and before many days were over, Ghinoccia
and Francesca had asked and received the habit of the Sisters of
Penance. Ghinoccia, in particular, who had formerly been the
most given to worldly excess, was now the one most disposed to

A nger of Master fames. 1 2 3
the practice of penance, and both embraced a rule of life as austere
as it was edifying.
While all this had been going on, James, their eldest brother, had
been away from Siena. When he learnt the change that had come
over his sisters, he raged like a madman, and cursed all those who
had had any part in it : the friars, the sisters, and Catherine above
all, and ended by swearing he would tear from their backs the
religious habit which they had had the folly to assume. Rabes,
who knew her son's violence, and dreaded what he might be capable
of doing, sent a private message to Catherine, to warn her of the
gathering storm. The Saint contented herself with requesting F.
Thomas to go and talk to the youth, saying, " You may say such
and such things to him from, me, and I on my part will pray for him
to God."
There was a younger member of the family, named Matthew, who
at this juncture was the only one who had the courage to face his
ferocious brother. " Brother James," he said, " you do not know this
Sister Catherine. She is a wonderfuliwoman. If once she sees you,
she will turn you. also and make you go to confession." " To confes
sion !" he exclaimed, " I defy her and all of them ; you may be sure of
this, I will- cut the throats of all those priests and friars before they bring
me to confession." " Well, brother," replied the boy, " you will see my
words will come true ; and that holy Sister will bring you to the grace
of God." James replied only by fresh curses, and on reaching Siena,
went at once to his father's house, where, he threatened all manner
of horrible revenge, if his sisters, and Ghinoccia in particular, were
not made to lay aside the religious habit. Rabes, who knew his
violent nature, did what she could to calm him, and succeeded so
far as to get him to harm no one that night The next morning she
sent for F. Thomas, who came in company with F. Bartholomew of
Siena ; and both spent several hours endeavouring to make him hear
reason, but in vain.. All this time Catherine was in prayer, and as
the event showed, her prayers prevailed where the eloquence of the
good fathers was of no effect. For when they had done their utmost
and saw that they gained nothing, they were about to take their leave,
when suddenly, and contrary to all expectation, the young man, as if
touched by the hand of God, began saying of his own accord that
he was well content to leave his sisters to serve God in the holy rule
which they had chosen. The friars could not believe their ears, but
their astonishment increased when James went on to say that he

124 Conversion of Master fames.
desired to be confessed and absolved from his sins, that he might
serve God with them. In fact, he made his confession that same
day, and the raging wolf was now as gentle as a lamb. Rabes and
all her family rejoiced at the unaccountable change, whilst F. Thomas
and his companion hastened to Catherine's house that they might
bring her the good news. They found that she was in an upper
chamber absorbed in prayer, and so were obliged to remain until
she was able to see them. But one of her Sisters coming in to
entertain them meanwhile, F. Thomas began to relate what had
taken place. " It is no news to us," replied the Sister. " Catherine,
from whom I have just come, has told me the whole matter." Then
they all went up together to the Saint's chamber, who received them
very courteously, and before they had had time to speak, expressed
her joy at the conversion of Master James. " We are indeed bound
to thank God," she said, " the wicked enemy thought to have got a
little lamb of which he had some hope, but through the unspeakable
mercy of God he lost a great prey of which he had full possession.
He laid a snare for Ghinoccia, but he has lost James. May our Lord
be blessed who turns all things to the comfort of His servants."
Ghinoccia and Francesca persevered in the holy life they had em
braced, and died a few years later in great repute of sanctity. James
married, and became another man, showing so good and exemplary
an example as to be the admiration of his neighbours. Towards
the end of his life he put on the habit of a Dominican Tertiary and
died in 1406. Matthew, as we shall see, became in time a Friar
Preacher and one of the faithful disciples of our Saint.
It is not to be doubted that the connection thus formed between
Catherine and the members of the Tolomei family must have brought
her into relation with many other noble houses, and that by this
means she became more fully cognisant of the troubles which infested
not Siena only but all Italy. Her circle of friends was, moreover,
becoming enlarged in another way. In a former chapter we have
spoken of the heroic services she was in the habit of rendering to the
sick, and of her visits to the Leper Hospital. There were other
hospitals in Siena which she was wont to frequent; one was the
Casa della Misericordia, whose rector was one Master Matthew di
Cenni di Fazio; the other was the great hospital of La Scala.
Matthew was a man of noble birth, who in his youth had led a
dissolute life, but who, together with his friend Francis Lando, was
won over to better things through the means of a certain Father

Hospital of La Scala. 125
William Flete, an English Augustinian hermit. At the time of which
we speak, Master Matthew was one of the notabilities of Siena, known
to everybody, and everybody's friend; for his genial sympathetic'
nature won him the confidence of young and old. Between him and
Catherine an intimate friendship soon sprang up, and lasted till her
death. At La Scala also she came in contact with a group of ex
cellent men who may be said to have made up the pious society of
Siena. This noble hospital, which still exists, boasts of being one
of the most ancient charitable institutions in Europe. It was founded
in 832 by a poor shoemaker, and takes its name from three marble
steps which were discovered when digging out the foundation, and
which are supposed to have belonged to an old temple of Diana.
Hence it was called "the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala."
Here Catherine often came, and a little room was assigned to her
use. A stone is still shown on which she is said to have lain down
to rest, and above it is the inscription : " Here lay the spouse offesus
Christ, the Seraphic Mother, St. Catherine of Siena. Laus Deo!"
whilst among the relics of the Fullonica is the lanthorn she carried
with her when called forth on some errand of charity during the
night. Caffarini in his Supplement speaks of her habit of attending
the sick in the hospitals, and specially notes the fact of her serving
them at night, which explains why she may have required the use of
a little room in which to rest. " Whenever there was question of
serving God or performing any works of charity," he says, "she
readily quitted her cell to employ herself for the good of her neigh
bours, as our Lord commanded her after her three years of retirement.
She was not afraid of serving the sick in the hospitals, even at the
most fatiguing hours of the night ; nor did she shrink from those
miserable creatures who were suffering from the most repulsive
maladies. She once bestowed her whole care on an unhappy woman
who for years had lived an abandoned life, and who now lay dying
on a wretched bed, where she complained that she could find no one
to assist her, or give her the kind of food she liked. Catherine
resolved to take care first of the body and then of the soul of this
poor creature. She prepared her the necessary food, and waited on
her day and night, while at the same time she encouraged her to
repent and have confidence in God's mercy." J But La Scala, besides
being a hospital, was the rendezvous of a certain Confraternity which
assembled in some subterranean vaults or catacornbs, and was known
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 3, § 6.

126 Company of the Blessed Virgin.
by the name of "the Company of the Discipline of the Virgin Mary,
under the Hospital." This Company was far more ancient than the
hospital itself, and traced its origin to those first Christians of Siena
who, converted to the faith by the martyr St. Ansano, assembled in
these catacombs for the secret exercise of their religion. When the
great hospital was built at a later period, the vaults were not destroyed,
but included in the fabric and still assigned to the use of the
company. Here the brethren had their own chapel and rooms in
which they assembled and took the discipline.
They met on all festivals, and on every Friday in the year made
a long meditation, heard mass, and approached the sacraments. Be
sides this they carried on a great number of good works, attending
the hospitals both in and out of the city, and assisting the poor, the
sick, orphans, and pilgrims, from their large revenues. This Con
fraternity was the very life and centre of the piety of Siena. It
numbered among its associates a noble army of saints and saintly per
sonages, and in St. Catherine's time we find in the Catalogue of the
Brethren, the names of F. Raymund of Capua, F. Thomas della Fonte,
F. Thomas Caffarini, F. Bartholomew of Siena, F. Bartholomew Mon-
tucci, Gabriel Piccolomini, Stephen Maconi, and the two Augustinians,
F. John Tantucci, and F. William Flete, to which must be added
that of Don John of the Cells of Vallombrosa ; all in due time to
be numbered among Catherine's friends and disciples.1 By all the
members of this holy company Catherine was regarded with affec
tionate reverence, and accepted rather as a mother than as an
associate ; and when they assembled on festival days to sing the
divine office in their chapel, Catherine would assist and share their
devotions in the privacy of her little chamber.
Here, then, we probably see the first beginnings of that Spiritual
Family which gradually gathered round the Saint, and which little by
little drew into itself all those souls of predilection, who in a sad and
evil day preserved in Siena and the other cities of Tuscany "the
1 Among the beatified and canonised saints who' were members of the Company
may be named — B. Ambrose of Siena, B. Andrew Gallerani (founder of the
Misericordia), B. Jacopone of Todi, B. Bernard Tolomei (founder of the Olivetans),
St. John Colombini, (founder of the Gesuati), B. Peter Petronio the Carthusian,
St. John of Capistran and St. Bernardino of Siena. A reference to the Company will
be found in the Breviary lessons for the feast of St. Bernardino ; and the author
of his Life in the Acta Sanctorum calls it : " Pons, exemplar, ac schola a multis
temporibus devotionis, ex qua Disciplinatorum Familia qicam plures nominalissimi
viri ac spirituals prodicrunt." — Act. Sanct. Maji. 20.

Catherine 's Spiritual Children. 127
sweet savour of Christ." Whether seculars or religious, men or
women, Dominicans or members of other religious orders, they all
called her mother, and stood to her in the relation of spiritual
children. It mattered little that she who was looked up to as their
head was at this time but twenty-four years of age ; of her, if of any
one, it might be truly said, that, "Venerable age is not that of long
time nor counted by the number of years, but the understanding is grey
hairs, and a spotless life old age." x Her very confessors regarded
themselves in no other light than her " sons," and whilst she rendered
them the most implicit obedience in the discharge of their sacred
office, it is impossible not to see that they were no less her disciples
than the others. " People often said," writes F. Raymund, " that
it was from the friars she learnt her wonderful doctrine, but the con
trary was the case ; it was they who learnt from her." And as the
circle widened and extended, it came about necessarily and naturally
that Catherine often had to communicate with those who sought her
advice and direction at a distance. Hence the origin of that mar
vellous correspondence of which we possess but very imperfect
fragments, but which, incomplete as it is, furnishes us with by far the
most precious materials for forming a knowledge of her real character.
As she herself did not as yet possess the art of writing, she was de
pendent on the assistance of others, to whom she dictated her letters
with wonderful ease and fluency. Nor is it possible to doubt the
originality of these compositions ; on every page, in every word there
is impressed the mind and heart of Catherine, wonderful in variety,
adapting itself to the rank, the circumstances, the spiritual needs of
each one whom she addresses : now burning with zeal, now melting
with tenderness, supplying a body of spiritual direction of which the
distinguishing feature is practical good sense, and a course of medita
tions, in which she is content to build up the faith of her disciples on
the Eternal Truths.
Before going further in the course of our history, therefore, it will
best answer the purpose we have in view if we pause for a brief space,
and introduce to the reader a little more particularly the Spiritual
Family of St. Catherine, confining ourselves, for the sake of brevity,
to those most closely associated with her, and whose names will most
frequently recur in the following pages.
1 Wisd. iv. 8, 9.

( 128 )

CHAPTER XI.
CATHERINE'S SPIRITUAL FAMILY.
AND first, we will say a few words of those who may most
properly be called St. Catherine's companions, the members,
namely, of that religious body to which she belonged, the Mantellate,
or Dominican Sisters of Penance. From the time she quitted the soli
tude of her cell, it had been her custom always to have one or other
of them in her company. Of Alexia we have already said some
thing, and she will often reappear in the course of our narrative.
Catherine, as has been seen, loved her dearly, and on that account
she did not spare her. From various little words that are dropped in
her letters, it would seem that at the period of their first acquaintance,
the Saint considered her friend a little open to that feminine weakness,
an unguarded tongue. " Make a tabernacle in your cell," she says,
" so as not to be going about everywhere gossiping ; only go out when
called by necessity, or charity, or obedience to our Prioress. . . .
Watch the movements of your tongue, and do not let it always follow
those of your thoughts ; regulate your time well, watch at night, after
you have slept as much as you require, and in the morning go to
church before occupying yourself in frivolous things. Do not change
your rule of life too often ; after dinner take a little time for recollec
tion, and then occupy yourself in some manual work. At vesper
time go where the Holy Spirit may call you, but be sure you return
and take care of your old mother, and see she has all she requires,
for that is your plain duty. From this time until I return, try to do
as I say." Alexia often succeeded in getting Catherine to take up
her abode for some time together in her house,1 and on one occasion
the Saint spent an entire winter with her. The way it came about
1 Where was this house? Some writers suppose Alexia to have occupied a
portion of the Saraceni Palace during the lifetime of her father-in-law. It stands
in the Via del Casato di Sotto, not far from the Piazza del Campo. It was pos
sibly from the windows of this palace that Catherine beheld the criminals on their
way to execution.

Francesco Saraceni. 129
was this. Alexia's father-in-law, Francesco, an old man above eighty,
was still living, and made his home under her roof. For years he
had neglected his religious duties, and resisted every effort which his
daughter-in-law made to put the affairs of his soul in better order.
At last she bethought her that if she could secure that Catherine
should come and stay with her for some months, her conversation
during the long winter evenings might produce the desired result.
The Saint consented, but owned that the task was a difficult one
At last, however, the hard heart was touched, and he said : "lam
determined to confess, but first of all I must tell you, that I enter
tain such a hatred against the prior of a certain church that I daily
seek means of killing him." But Catherine said such moving things to
him on this subject that he finished by exclaiming, " I am ready to
do whatever you order me; you need only speak." So she said
to him, " I wish that for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in
order that He may pardon you, you should forgive the prior, and
be reconciled with him." He promised, and on the morrow, at dawn
of day, he took a falcon of which he was very fond, and went alone
to the church where the prior lived. The latter immediately fled ;
but the old man charged a canon to go and tell him that he did not
come to injure him, but, on the contrary, to bring him good news.
The prior learning that he was alone and unarmed, first caused
several persons to come into his apartment and then permitted his
visitor to be introduced ; who bowed to him and said, " The grace
of God has touched my heart, and I am come to offer to be reconciled
with you ; and to prove that I am sincere, I entreat you to accept this
falcon, of which I am extremely fond." Peace was soon concluded.
and the old man returned to Catherine. "I have obeyed your
orders," said he, "and I will obey you again." The Saint told him
to go and confess to Father Bartholomew. His general confession
occupied three days, and when he had received absolution, his con
fessor was at a loss what penance to assign him, because he was very
aged, and although noble was poor. So he gave him a trifling
penance, and said, " Return to her who sent you, and what she gives
you, I give also." Catherine bade him rise every morning at dawn
for a certain period, and go in silence to the cathedral, reciting each
time a hundred Paters and Aves, and gave him a cord with a
hundred knots on which to reckon them. He accompUshed the
whole with fidelity, and after a few years spent in the exercise of
religion and charity, made a peaceful end.

1 30 Cecca di Gori.
This story must not be confounded with that of the conversion
of another of Alexia's relations, Nicolas Saraceni. This old knight
resisting all his wife's exhortations that he would attend to the affairs
of his soul, she came as a last resource to Catherine and asked her
prayers. Catherine promised not to forget him; and soon after
appeared to Nicolas in his sleep, and desired him to give heed to
his wife's counsel. Awaking in terror, he told the latter what had
happened, and promised to go and talk with the holy virgin, who
had no difficulty in sending him to confession. When he came
from the church, she inquired if he had confessed all his sins. '
"Yes," he replied, "all that I could remember." On which she
reminded him of one thing that had happened many years before in
Apulia, which was known to no living man and which he himself
had forgotten. Filled with wonder he owned it to be true, and
having finished his confession according to her direction, he was
accustomed to tell the story to her honour, and say in the words of
the Gospel, " Come and see one who told me all things that I have
done : is not this a prophetess ? "
Another of the Sisters was Cecca, or Francesca, the widow of
Clement Gori, of whom Raymund often speaks in the Legend, calling
her Francesca of Gori. Her husband was of noble birth, and her
three sons were Dominican Friars. They all died holy deaths-
before her, and as it would seem in the service of the plague-
stricken. Her daughter Justina was a nun at Montepulciano.
Alexia and Cecca frequently acted as Catherine's secretaries, and
when they had finished writing what she dictated, they generally
added some little message of their own, by which we are able to
identify the writers. They were on specially familiar terms with F.
Bartholomew Dominic of Siena, who held among them the place 0/
a brother. So in the letters addressed to him on occasion of his
frequent absences, there is often a playful and affectionate word
from Alexia grassotta, or Cecca pazza. In one letter we read,
" Alexia recommends herself to you a thousand times' ; she is as
tonished at not hearing from you. May God bring us where we
shall all meet face to face ! " And Alexia, who is acting as the scribe,
adds from herself, "Alexia the negligent would very much like to
put herself into this letter, that she might be able to pay you a visit."
Of Lisa Colombini, Catherine's sister-in-law, we have elsewhere spoken.
Through her, no doubt, it was that Catherine became so well known,
both to other members of the Colombini family, and to those

Giovanna Pazzi. 1 3 1
numerous Gesuati whom we learn from the Processus were to be
found among her disciples. St. John Colombini, Lisa, Matthew, and
the Blessed Catherine Colombini were all four first-cousins, being
children of four brothers. B. Catherine, who had been first con
verted to a holy life by the exhortation of St. John, her cousin, had
a great love and devotion to our Saint, with whom she was on terms
of intimate friendship. As she lay on her deathbed, we read that
there appeared to her St. John Colombini, and St. Catherine of Siena,
and recognising' them with immense joy, she exclaimed, " O Blessed
Catherine ! O John, father of my soul, my sweetest patrons, I am
coming to you ! " and so expired.1 Lisa had also a brother, who
seems also to have been one of the Saint's disciples. In the same
letter quoted above she says, " I send you this letter by the brother
of her who is my sister-in-law 2 according to the flesh, but my sister
in Christ." Of the other Mantellate, it will suffice to mention
Giovanna Pazzi, a member of a branch of the noble Florentine
family of that name, Jane di Capo, and a certain Catherine of the
Hospital. It may illustrate the familiar and pleasant terms which
existed among all these good Sisters, when we say that they not only
gave each other nicknames, a habit from which no Italian could per
haps abstain, but at times were guilty of something very like a pun,
so that Giovanna's family name is occasionally transformed from
Giovanna Pazzi to Giovanna pazza, that is, mad or foolish Jane.
From the sisters let us now turn, to the brethren of this happy
society, three of whom have already been frequently mentioned.
And first we must glance at the holy, though unlearned F. Thomas
della Fonte, who acted as Catherine's chief confidant and director
from her childhood until the year 1374, when in his simple humility
he resigned his charge into the hands of Raymund of Capua, making
over to his keeping all the notes which during fifteen years he had
kept regarding his holy penitent. They filled four closely written
quires, and are among the chief materials from which Raymund
afterwards composed the Legend ; but with the exception of a few
pages which have been embodied in the Leggenda Minore, no
fragment of the original work has been preserved.3 F. Thomas
1 Fasti Senensi.
2 Mia Cognata secondo la came, ma Sorella secondo Christo, Letter 209. M.
Cartier has a mistranslation of this passage, rendering Cognata, as Cousine ; but
Lisa was not cousin, but sister-in-law to Catherine, as the word really means.
3 According to Echard and Quetif (Script. Ord. Proed., torn. 1. 696), this work
bore the title of Singularia et mira Sancta Catherine Senensis.

132 F. Bartholomew Dominic.
Antonio de Nacci Caffarini was, next to him, the oldest of Catherine's
Dominican friends. Unlike his namesake he was a man of con
siderable learning, and seems to have assisted the Saint in her studies
of the Sacred Scriptures. So we gather from one of his letters
addressed to Catherine which has been preserved, and in which he
replies to her inquiries as to the right reading of the 130th Psalm.1
For ten continuous years he enjoyed her society and confidence, and
during that time often acted as her confessor. Hence he became
acquainted with many secrets of her interior life, which he has
preserved in the Supplement to the Legend, so often quoted in the
foregoing pages. But the one who has left us the most life-like
portrait of the holy virgin is undoubtedly Father Bartholomew of St.
Dominic, or, as he is commonly called, Bartholomew of Siena. He
also frequently acted as her confessor and seems to have lost no
opportunity of searching and examining her spirit. Sometimes when
she bitterly reproached herself with faults which none but her own
eyes could detect, or charged herself with being the cause of all the
evils that happened in the world, he either was, or feigned himself
to be incredulous of her sincerity. " How can you say such things
sincerely," he asked, "when it is plain you have a great horror
of sin?" "Ah, father," she would sorrowfully reply, "I see you
do not know my misery. The most contemptible wretch on earth
that had received the graces I have received would be on fire with
the love of God. She would spread such fervour abroad by her
words and example that men would everywhere leave off sinning.
But I who have received so much, I am only a cause of ruin to those
whom I ought to save, and so I ana doubtless most guilty before
God." He testifies to her wonderful love of suffering, and describes
her as fastened to the Cross by three distinct kinds of torture, in her
head, breast, and side. Yet never could he detect a shade of
melancholy on her placid and smiling countenance, and if others
pitied her she would not merely be cheerful, but gay. He also testifies
to her wonderful prophetic spirit. Father Thomas della Fonte
and he determined one day they would put her to the test on this
point. Going together to her chamber, therefore, they desired her
to tell them what they had been doing at two and three o'clock that
morning.. She replied evasively, "Who knows better than your
self? " Her confessor said, " I command you to tell, if you know,
what we were doing at that time." She was obliged to obey, and
1 Lettere dei discepoli di S. Cath., No. I.

Catherine's prophetic Gifts. 133
humbly bowing her head, she replied, " You were four together in
the cell of the sub-prior, and there you conversed together a long
time." She named all who were present and the subject on which
they had spoken. Father Bartholomew was amazed, but he thought
she might know from some of the persons present, so he determined
to try her again. On the morrow he went to her, and said, " Then
you know, Mother, what we do ? " She answered, " My son, know
that my Divine Saviour having given me a spiritual family, leaves me
in ignorance of nothing that concerns them." "You know, then,
what I was doing yesterday evening at such an hour ? " " Without
doubt," she answered, " you were writing on a certain subject. My
son, I watch and pray for you continually until I hear the matin
bell of your convent. I see all that you do, and if you had good
eyes, you would behold me as I do you." x He experienced also on
another occasion this power which Catherine had of knowing what
was passing at a distance. Being sent at one time to Florence to
discharge the office of Lector he was attacked by scruples on the
subject of a supposed irregularity in his ordination, which gave him
such trouble that he left off saying mass. One day being in the
church of Santa Maria Novella, he was revolving these things in his
mind in bitter grief, and thinking how Catherine would surely comfort
and give him light could he but see and speak with her, he called on
her to help him in his anguish as though she could actually hear him.
At that very moment Catherine, who was praying in the church at Siena,
was observed by her Sisters to give signs of extraordinary emotion.
When they came away her companions asked for an explanation.
"My son Bartholomew, at Florence," she said, "was at that
moment being tormented by the enemy." She had prayed earnestly
for him, and at the same time Bartholomew was unexpectedly
summoned to the presence of the Bishop, who inquiring the cause
of his trouble was able to dissipate it in a few words. Another
incident somewhat similar in its character to the one just narrated is
related by Raymund of Capua. It happened during his residence at
Montepulciano, "Where," he says, "as there was no convent of
Friars, and I had with me but one companion, I was often glad to
receive visits from the religious of neighbouring places. It happened
once that Father Thomas della Fonte, Catherine's confessor, and
1 Caffarini in his Supplement tells this story a little differently, and adds that
the matter on which the two religious were engaged was the registering of her own
miraculous favours.

1 34 F. Thomas is Delivered from Thieves.
Father George Naddi, professor of theology, proposed coming to see
me from the convent of Siena, in order to converse and consult with
me. In order to travel more quickly they took some horses which were
lent them by their friends. Arrived within about six miles of Monte
pulciano, which is situated among the mountains, they imprudently
halted to rest themselves, when some of the people of the place
perceiving the two travellers alone and unarmed resolved on way
laying and robbing them. Going on before, therefore, to the number
of ten or twelve, they awaited the arrival of the luckless friars
in a solitary place. As they approached, the robbers rushed out of
their ambush, dragged them from their horses, stripped them of their
clothes and everything which they carried, and then led them into
the depth of the forest where they held council whether it would not
be best to kill them and conceal their bodies, so as to leave no trace
of their crime.
"F. Thomas seeing his danger was lavish of his entreaties and pro
mises to observe silence, but without effect ; and when he saw that
the robbers were leading them further and further into the entangled
forest, he comprehended that God alone could succour them, and
began to pray. Knowing how agreeable his spiritual daughter was
to God, he said interiorly : " O Catherine, servant of God, help us
in this peril." Scarcely had he uttered these words in his heart, than
the robber nearest him, who appeared to be charged to kill him, said :
"Why should we kill these poor friars who never did us any injury?
it would be indeed an enormous crime ! let us suffer them to go ;
they are good-hearted men, who will never betray us." All accepted
this opinion so suddenly advanced with such unanimity that not only
they allowed the religious their lives, but even restored to them their
garments, horses, and all that they had stolen, except a little money,
and suffered them to go at liberty : they arrived at my house on the
same day, and related all these circumstances. When Friar Thomas
returned to Siena he certified, as he wrote to me, that at the same
moment in which he had invoked her assistance, Catherine said to
one of her nearest companions : " Father Thomas is calling me, he
is in great danger," and rising immediately she went to pray in her
oratory. It cannot be doubted that it was at that moment by the
efficacy of her prayers that a change so wonderful was produced in
the dispositions of the robbers, which she could only have known in
the spirit of prophecy, being then at a distance of four and twenty
miles."1 1 Legend, Part 2, ch. ix.

Neri di Landoccio. 135
It often happened that Bartholomew was called away from Siena
either to fill the office of Lector, as at Florence, or to preach in the
surrounding towns and country districts. Five of Catherine's letters
to him were written whilst he was giving what we should mow call a
mission at Asciano, near Siena, in which she took a peculiar interest,
sending some of her other spiritual sons to help him in his work.
He was also Lector at Pisa for some time, and during his stay in these
places helped to spread abroad her fame.
Good Master Matthew, the rector of the Misericordia, has already
been made known to the reader, but a few particulars must be added
touching the manner of his first introduction to Catherine. He and
his friend, Francis Lando, went once to see her in ecstacy, as others
were accustomed to do when they could obtain permission from her
confessor. It was a visit of pure curiosity, and as she -was quite
abstracted during the whole time, they did not hear her speak a
sirgle word. But the spectacle so powerfully impressed them, and
such a devotion filled their hearts, that they felt like new men.
Coming away, they said one to another : " What is this ? If only to
see her once, without her saying one word, thus moves us to com
punction, what might we not hope for if she admitted us to the
number of her spiritual children ! " They therefore returned with a
far more serious purpose ; and when they had once listened to her
prudent words, and saw the sweet courtesy of her manners, yielding
to the charm which none could resist, they gave themselves to her
as to their mistress and Mother.1
Next on our list of Catherine's disciples comes one different in
character and position from any yet named, Neri di Landoccio dei
Eaglieresi, a man of good family, well skilled in letters, and a writer
cf graceful verses, which have earned for him no mean repute. We
know neither the time nor the occasion of his first introduction to
Catherine, but it seems to have been about the year 1370. When once
she had accepted him as her disciple, he never separated from her, but
accompanied her on all her journeys, and was the first of the three
noble youths who acted as her secretaries. He had the true poetic
temperament, a gift of doubtful value to its possessor, and which in
his case was linked with much sorrow. " The lover, the poet, and
the madman," says Shakespeare, " are of imagination all compact ; "
and Neri during one brief period in his life knew what it was for a
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. I, § 3.

1 36 Letters to Neri.
tortured imagination to overmaster reason.1 Sensitive in the extreme,
and ever trembling on the verge of religious despondency, Catherine
had to be always lifting him out of his natural tendency to sadness
and discouragement, and infusing into him. her own strong and high
hearted hope. We have her first letter to him written on one of the
occasions when F. Bartholomew Dominic was preaching at Asciano,
whither Neri had accompanied him and was assisting him in his
work. It was in the early days of his friendship with Catherine, ar|d
in reply to his request to be received among her disciples, she wrote
as follows : " You ask me to receive you as my son ; I am unwortpy
to do so, for I am only a poor sinner ; yet I both have received ycu,
and will do so with all affection. I promise to answer for you before
God for any faults you may have committed, only, I conjure ycu,
satisfy my desires ; conform yourself to Christ crucified, and separate
yourself utterly from the world."
In another letter written a little later she tries to calm me
troubles of his conscience Neri's habitual mental trial was thi ;
that he could not realise that God had forgiven him his sins. " let
the trouble of your soul (she says) be destroyed in the hope of tie
Blood. True self-knowledge by humbling you will increase ligit.
Is not God more ready to pardon than we to offend? Is He rot
our Physician, and are not we His sick children ? Has He riot
borne our iniquities, and is not sadness the worst of all our faults ?
Yes, it assuredly is so, my dear son. Open your eyes then to tie
light of faith. See how much you are beloved of God, and behoH-
irtg His love, do not be troubled because you likewise see tie
ignorance and coldness of your own heart, but let self-knowledge
only increase your humility and kindle your love. The more you
see how badly you correspond to the great graces bestowed on you
by your Creator the more you will humble yourself, saying, with holy
resolution, ' That which hitherto I have failed to do, I will do now.'
Remember that discouragement will make you entirely forget the
teaching that has been given you ; it is a leprosy which dries up alike '
both soul and body. It chains the arms of holy desire, and prevents
our doing what we would ; it renders the soul insupportable to itself
and agitates it with a thousand phantoms. It takes away all light,
natural and supernatural, and so the soul falls into a thousand
infidelities, not knowing the end for which God created her; that
1 His short attack of insanity took place several years after Catherine's death.
We learn the circumstance from one of Stephen Maconi's letters.

Gabriel Piccolomini. 137
He created her, namely, to give her Ufe eternal I Courage then, and
let a lively faith and firm hope in the precious Blood triumph over
the demon who would trouble you." x
This beautiful letter contains the sum of all Catherine's instruc
tions to this holy, but much tried soul. He proved himself worthy
to be her son ; yet, as we shall see, even to the end the same dark
shadow dogged his footsteps and caused him a lifelong martyrdom.
Neri had a great talent for friendship, and succeeded in bring
ing not a few of his friends to join the number of Catherine's
disciples. Among these was Gabriel di Davino Piccolomini, a
married man, whose son Giovanni at the instance of the Saint took
the Dominican habit.2 Gabriel belonged to that noble family of
Siena whose boast it is to have given to the Church four cardinals,
fourteen archbishops, twenty-one bishops and two popes, of whom
one was destined to pronounce the canonisation of St. Catherine.
No less illustrious in the career of arms, the family records are full
of the great deeds of those warlike Piccolomini who headed the
armies of the republic as well as those of foreign states. Gabriel
shared this military spirit, and his chivalrous character longed for
the proclamation of another crusade that he might take the Cross
and strike a blow for Christendom. Herein was his great bond of
sympathy with Catherine, whose heart responded to any note of true
generous enthusiasm, and who would gladly have armed all her
spiritual sons and sent them to fight against the infidels, had she but
lived in the days of Godfrey and Tancred. When she wrote to
Gabriel, therefore, she clothed her spiritual exhortations in military
language, and spoke to him of arms and the battlefield, of courage
and the love of glory. She told him to strike hard at his spiritual
enemies with the sword of patience, to put on the cuirass of true
charity, blazoned with the vermilion coat of arms of Jesus crucified.
" I speak to you of these arms," she says, " that you may be the
better ready when the standard of the Holy Cross is raised. I want
to make you understand which are the best weapons ; begin to make
use of them now when you are still among Christians, that they may
not be rusty when you march against the infidels."
Gabriel's brave honest nature made him embrace the cause of
1 Letter 274.
2 He was a great promoter of regular observance, and is commonly assigned
the title of blessed, though not formally beatified. See Diario Sanese, Part i,
P- 434-

138 Francesco Malevolti.
Catherine as a true champion ; and he opposed himself with a loyal
fidelity to all the calumnies of which she was often the object. He
led a most holy life, and was present on many occasions when the
extraordinary powers of the Saint over the bodies and souls of men
were most strikingly manifested.
Another of Neri's friends has left the history of his first acquaint
ance with Catherine written by his own hand, and his testimony
regarding her is perhaps one of the most valuable of any that has
been preserved. This was Don Francesco Malevolti, who, like
Gabriel, belonged to one of the noblest stocks of Siena. He
describes himself at the age of twenty-five as being " hot-tempered
and audacious on account of his family and nation," and was living
a worldly life, intolerant of any kind of restraint. "Among the
companions whom I loved the best," he says, " there was one noble
youth of Siena, named Neri Landoccio dei Paglieresi, with whom I
spent the greater part of my time, both because he was virtuous and
agreeable, and also because he was a composer of most beautiful
verses, in which kind of thing I then greatly delighted. After we
had been intimate for some time, Neri having heard of the fame of
the glorious virgin Catherine, went to see her without my knowing it,
and so had become greatly changed, and, as it were, a new man.
And pitying me on account of the dissolute life I was leading, for he
loved my soul more than my body, he often begged me to go with
him and speak to her. I gave little heed to his words however, only
laughing at them, and so some time passed without my granting his
request. At last, not wishing to vex him, because of the singular
friendship that united us, I told him one day that I was willing
to gratify him ; though in my secret soul I went out of no kind of
devotion, but rather in derision, resolved, if she spoke to me on the
subject of religion, and particularly of confession, to give her such
an answer that she would not venture to speak to me again. But
when we came into her gracious presence, I had no sooner beheld
her face than there came upon me such an awful fear and trembling
that I almost fainted ; and though, as I have said, I had not the
least thought or intention of confession, yet at the first words she
spoke, God so marvellously changed my heart that I went at once
to confession and became the very opposite of what I had been
before. After that I visited her several times, and left off all my
miserable habits, and instead of frequenting as formerly places where
there was singing and dancing, I now fled from them, and found my

His Introduction to Catherine. 139
delight in visiting churches, and conversing with the servants of God.
However, though I often went to her house and took great pleasure in
her admirable doctrine, and speedily corrected my vicious habits,
yet being still weak, and not fully established in the right way, it
chanced once that I fell into a grievous fault, which none but God
however could possibly have known. The next time I went to her
house, before I had even come into her presence she sent for me,
and dismissing all those who were present, she made me sit down
beside her and said, ' Tell me, when were you last at confession ? '
I replied, ' Last Saturday,' which was true, that being the custom
with all of us who conversed with her. Then she said, ' Go to con
fession directly ! ' I replied, ' Sweet Mother, to-morrow is Saturday,
I will go then.' But she only replied by saying, ' Go, and do as I
bid you.' I still pleaded for some delay and refused to go, when
with her face all bright and kindling, she said to me, ' How, my
son, do you think I have not my eyes always open upon my
children? You can neither do nor say anything of which I am
ignorant. And how can you suppose that to be hidden from me
which you have just now been doing ? Go then at once and wash
yourself from this misery.' Confused and full of shame I obeyed
her commands at once ; and this was not the only occasion when she
manifested to me not only my secret acts, but also toy thoughts
both good and bad, and that always in very modest and humble
words. " Another time much later than this, after her return from Avig
non, I had fallen back into something of my old way of life ; and
going to see her, she received me like a kind and sweet mother with
a joyful countenance, which greatly encouraged my weakness. But
one of her companions who was with her complained somewhat of
me, saying that I had very little stability. She only smiled however,
and said, ' Never mind, my Sisters, for he cannot escape out of my
hands whatever way he may choose to take ; for when he will think
that I am far enough away, I shall put such a yoke on his neck that
he will never be able to get out of it again.' What this prophecy
meant and the manner of its .accomplishment will be seen in a
future chapter.
Very different from these brave and accomplished gentlemen is the
next of the little company for whom we must solicit the reader's
indulgent patience. Ser Christofano di Galgano Guidini, or, as he is
more commonly called, Christofano di Gano, has contrived to make

1 40 Christofano di Gano.
himself better known to posterity than many men of more genius
than he. In fact, genius he had none, and what happy fatality put
the thought into his head of becoming an author can never now be
known. He was a man of low birth, a plain notary and man of
business who lived in the world of matter of fact, and was equally
insensible to the poetic as to the humorous. He had the fidelity
and the plodding perseverance of a terrier dog ; nothing ever
turned him from his purpose. So the thought having once suggested
itself to him of writing his memoirs, he carried it into effect as a
grave and solemn duty. Never surely did a man sit down to such
a task who had less to say about himself, and never has it chanced
that memoirs so barren of interest on all points save one should
have enjoyed the fame accorded to his. It is thus he introduces his
work to his readers.
" In this book shall be written certain memoirs of me, Ser Christo
fano di Gano, notary of Siena, who live at Uvile,1 in the Popolo di
San Pietro ; of my doings. And because it is only lately that I
began to write my memoirs, they will not be very long. To which
memoirs, written by my hand entire faith may be given, by reason
that they are true, as is everything contained in this book ; and to
make them of greater faith, I have set to them my sign —

Jesu, ftB* Christofano,
my sign. A the aforesaid
notary.

In the name of God, Amen.
" Memoirs of certain of my doings, done by me, Ser Christofano di
Gano di Guidini, notary of Siena, who am now living at Uvile, in the
house which belonged to Abra di Cione Barocci, who bought it of Chi-
mento di Niccolo. This book'and these memoirs I have written with
my own hand in memory of my doings. However, as I have said above,
it is only a short time ago that I began to write and keep memoirs
of my doings, and I have not written them all, as many do, but only
a part. And first, it will be manifest to any one who sees this
writing that I, Ser Christofano di Gano aforesaid, am of low extrac
tion." He then proceeds to relate his early history : how his father
married his mother, who had a hundred florins for her dowry, which
1 The Porta Ovile, on the north-west extremity of Siena.

His Memoirs. 141
was never paid; how his father died of the plague in 1348, after
getting into debt and leaving nothing behind him ; and Christofano
at the age of two was left to his mother's care and in great
poverty. They went to live at Rugomagno with her father, Manno
Piccolomini, who did his best for the boy, had him taught " Donatus,"
that is his Latin grammar, and got him placed as " repeater " x to the
children of Ristoro Gallerani. In this employment he got six florins
a year and his expenses, and was able meanwhile to learn the notary's
business. So he plodded on, scraping together an education as well
as he could, and getting various small employments, till at last he
came to live in Siena and to have business at the Palazzo, and in
short to get on in the world, as a steady painstaking man of his
calibre was pretty sure of doing. We will now let him continue his
own story.
" At the time when I began to live in Siena God put forth a new
star in the world. This was the venerable Catherine, daughter to
Monna Lapa of Fontebranda, a tertiary to whom I was introduced
by Neri di Landoccio and Nigi di Doccio, two of her spiritual sons.2
Both then and afterwards I heard things from her which it is not
possible for a man to utter, and such as none who had not heard
them would believe possible from a woman. Wherefore, listening
to her holy teaching, I became pretty intimate with her, and so God
touched my heart to despise the things of the world, and I had a
mind rather to leave the world than to defile myself with it. But my
mother, fearing I should choose some other state of life, began to beg
me and to get others to beg me to marry. For her sake, then, I be
gan to consent to take a wife, and among others that I thought of,
there were three, the daughter of Francesco Ventura, and the one I
now have, and another, whose name I do not at this moment
remember. " Catherine was not then at Siena, with whom I could have taken
counsel, and though things had gone some way, yet I would do
nothing till I had written to her. She was then at Pisa ; so I wrote
to her, telling her how I had a conscience of leaving my mother, that
my word was given too far to go back, and asking her to advise me
1 That is, he helped the children to repeat their school lessons.
2 "With all his matter of fact Christofano makes a rule of omitting all dates
which would be of the least value. We do not therefore know in what year he
made Catherine's acquaintance ; it might have been at anytime between 1368 and
*375-

142 Letter to Christopher.
which of the three I should take ; how one had been married before,
though her husband had not lived long, and other things I do not
now. remember. Catherine having received my letter replied to it,
and out of reverence to her, and also because her reply contains
some remarkable things, I will here give it. Outside was written,
' Given to Ser Christofano di Gano, notary of Siena,' and inside as
follows." He then gives the letter, which is printed at length in Gigli's
Edition (No. 240). Catherine had believed him called to another
state of life, but seeing the line matters had taken, with her usual
prudence she does not seek to argue with him, but only to confirm
him in his good resolution, whatever state he might be led to enter.
" Since it is so," she says, " I pray the Sovereign Truth to extend His
holy hand over you, and to direct you in the state which may best
please Him. In all states and in all your works fix your eye on
Him, and seek His honour and the salvation of His creatures. As
to the choice of a wife, it is painful for me to have to occupy myself
in this matter, which is more suitable to seculars. However, I can
not oppose your desire, and examining the conditions of the three
you name, I find them all good. If you do not object to take the
one who has been married before, do so, otherwise take the daughter
of Francesco Ventura. I pray the Supreme Charity to shed on you
both the plenitude of His grace."
" And now," continues Christofano, " before we say more of the
holy spouse of Christ, Catherine, let us make here three tabernacles."
We shall follow his example, and for the present quote no further
from this singular -biography, though we shall frequently be in
debted to its notices of Catherine's disciples and friends ; we will
only here observe that he does not seem to have taken either of the
two ladies above spoken of, and after asking Catherine to choose
his wife for him, he ended, quite naturally, by pleasing himself.
We have presented our readers with a poet among St. Catherine's
disciples ; the little society could likewise reckon in its ranks a
painter. The Vanni of Siena were a family of artists. Andrea
Vanni was not perhaps the most illustrious of their number, nor
was he so entirely devoted to his art as to neglect the career of a
statesman. In fact, Catherine's acquaintance with him came about
through his political connection with her brothers. In 1368 he was
one of the leaders of the popular party, and took part in the revolu
tion which resulted in the overthrow of the " Twelve." After that

Andrea Vanni. 143
time he held office in the " Mount of the Riformatori " and attained
the first post in the Government, being one of the " Defenders " in
1370, conjointly with the Saint's brother Bartolo. In 1373 he was
Gonfalonier of Justice, and in the same year went as ambassador to
Pope Gregory XL at Avignon, in company with two other Sienese
of noble birth, to solicit the Pope's return to Rome. In 1376 he was
Rector of what was called the " Opera del Duomo," a sort of stand
ing committee for finishing the Cathedral of Siena ; for which office
his knowledge of art rendered him much better fitted than for politi
cal life. At last in 1379 we find him Captain of the people, holding
that dignity for the two months of September and October. This
was a post of much dignity and importance and could not be held by
a foreigner. The Capitano was in fact at the head of the magistrates
in time of peace, while in time of war it was his duty to guard the
Carroccio, or great car on which the standard of the republic was borne
to battle ; and in his red toga, red cap, red shoes, and red stockings,
with golden cords and other ornaments, he made no little display
before the eyes of the people.
Some of Andrea Vanni's despatches have been preserved, which
do not impress us with much idea of his powers as a man of the pen.
One of them is written under the pressure of money difficulties, which
he complains of bitterly, inasmuch as he affirms he has made sacrifices
for his country, and neglected his shop and his business to attend to
the affairs of the Commune He was a great friend of Christofano
di Gano, for whom he is believed to have painted a portrait of
Catherine which has not been preserved. One of her letters is
addressed to him when captain of the people. Another is written to
him whilst holding some other office during the season of Advent,
probably the months of November and December. Neither of the
letters have anything very special in them, and they are chiefly
directed to reminding Vanni to go to his duties like a good Christian
at least once a year. She also exhorts him to be a just magistrate,
and in her Advent letter asks him to make it a sweet Advent by
keeping the coming feast of Christmas close to the crib of the humble
Lamb. " There you will find Mary, the poor traveller, adoring her
Son : she has no riches, nothing suitable in which to wrap Him, no
fire by which to warm Him, the Divine Fire ; only the beasts who
bend over His little Body and warm Him with their breath." Is it
fanciful to suppose that Catherine, as she wrote these words, did not
forget that she was addressing a painter (indeed, she addresses her

144 His Portrait of Catherine.
letter "To Master Andrea Vanni, painter "), and that she drew her
picture of the crib of Bethlehem as it would commend itself to his
artist's eye?
Some of Vanni's pictures are yet to be seen at St. Francesco fuori
dell' Ovile, and elsewhere. His fame, however, chiefly rests (at any
rate to the lovers of St. Catherine) on that portrait of the Saint,
attributed to his pencil, which is still to be seen in the Church of
San Domenico. It was painted as far back as 1367, as appears from
the inscription on the spot. In 1667 it was taken from the wall it
originally occupied, and transferred to its present position. It was
before this picture that the Blessed John Dominic received a favour,
the account of which he gives in his letter to his mother, Paola.
Having asked to be received into the Order of Preachers when
seventeen years of age, he was on the point of being rejected in con
sequence of an impediment in his speech which seemed to make
him useless to their community. However, he overcame them by
. his prayers, and being at Siena and feeling a great wish to preach,
he suffered much on account of his incapacity, to rentedy which he
twice had an operation performed on his tongue, but without success.
One day, however, being in the church, he prayed earnestly before
this portrait of the Saint that she would obtain from her Divine
Spouse that his tongue might be loosed, that so he might announce
the Word of God. His prayer was granted, and he lived to become
one of the greatest preachers of his Order.
Many copies, good and bad, have been made of this picture, and it
is the original from which almost all the engravings have been taken
which profess to be the portraits of St. Catherine. It is much
injured by time, and has evidently been retouched, for on the
extended hand of the Saint there now appears the sacred stigma.
This could not certainly have been represented by Vanni in 1367,
nine years before that mysterious favour was granted to the Saint.
However, the outline and general character of the figure and features
are undoubtedly genuine. She is represented in abstraction of mind,
in which unconscious state a devout disciple kneels and reverently
kiss.es her hand, a circumstance which often actually took place, and
gave rise to many murmurs.
We will pass briefly over the names of some other of Catherine's
devoted followers, such as Anastagio di Monte Altino, who wrote
her life in verse, Jacbmo del Pecora the knight of Montepulciano,
also a poet ; and Peter Ventura, who was brought to Catherine by

HEAD OF ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA.
From the Painting by A ndrea Vanni.

[Tofucep. i44'

Fra Santi. 145
his sister, that she might say something to the profit of his soul, and
who was thoroughly gained at his first interview. A somewhat more
particular notice is claimed by the good hermit, Fra Santi, a native
of Teramo in the Abruzzi, and a friend of many saints, among others
of St. John Colombini, and B. Peter PetronL "He was holy hy
name and by life," says F. Raymund, "and having quitted his
parents and country for God's sake, had settled in Siena, where for
more than thirty years he led a solitary life, never speaking of
himself, and following the direction of holy and pious religious. In
his old age he found the precious pearl of the Gospel, our blessed
Catherine. For her sake he gave up the quiet of his cell and the
manner of life he had been so long used to. in order to labour for
others ; and he constantly affirmed that he found more peace and
profit to his soul in following and listening to her than he had ever
found in solitude. He suffered from a disease in the heart,. and the
Saint taught him to bear his continual sufferings not only with resigna
tion, but even with joy." It is not to be supposed by this account
that Fra Santi abandoned his hermitage, though he often quitted it
to accompany Catherine on her journeys. On the contrary, his cell
had more than once the privilege of affording her, a place of quiet
retreat. In company with some of her religious Sisters she would
often visit the holy old man ,in his hermitage, finding in his little
oratory a welcome change from the noise. and, bustle of the city. It
is remarkable that Catherine had a great love for hermits, and
numbered several among her disciples.1 .And as by far the most
distinguished of these was . a countryman of our own, whom we desire
to make well known to English readers, we will not omit mention of
him in this place, but in consideration of the interest which attaches
to his name will give him .and his companions a chapter to them
selves. 1 There were an extraordinary-number of hermits in the Sienese territory, all
of them, as Father Thomas .Angiolini tells us, supported at the expense of the
Republic.

( 146 )

CHAPTER XII.
THE HERMITS OF LECCETO.
A BOUT three miles from Siena are still to be seen the remains of
XX. the monastery of Lecceto, a venerable sanctuary which derives
its origin from a few hermits who fled from persecution in the fourth
century, and being found here by St. Augustine as he passed through
these parts, received their rule from him about the year 391.
Landucci, the Augustinian chronicler, claims them therefore as the
true founders of the " Hermits of St. Augustine." Their retreat
was a thick wood of oaks (Sylva Ilicitand) whence the name of
Lecceto is derived. It was called by many titles, all indicative of
its sylvan solitude, as "The Shady Hermitage," "The Hermitage of
the Wood;" while attached to it, at a little distance, was another
retreat known as "The Hermitage of the Lake." It was in old
time a woody wilderness, so overgrown with bushes that they were
only cleared with immense labour. In St Catherine's days the great
oak forest still offered the charms of solitary retreat to the good
hermits, among whom she counted not a few of her most devoted
disciples. One of these was the prior, Master John Tantucci, a
member of the noble family of that name settled in Siena. He was
commonly called John III., as being the third prior of that name
who had governed the convent. He was a man of genius and learning
and had finished his theological course at the University of Cam
bridge,1 where he graduated as Doctor. The manner in which this
" great learned Doctor " (as Father Fen calls him) first became known
to Catherine is remarkable ; and as this story has been admirably told
by Francesco Malevolti, it shall here be quoted at some length. The
1 Father Ambrose Ansano Tantucci, O.P., of the same family, who, in 1754,
edited the Supplimento of Caffarini, has gone sadly astray in his English names,
and tells us that John III. was Doctor in the " then famous University of Canton-
beri" (!) Burlamacchi, a little happier, but not entirely accurate, and possibly
victimised by a printer's error, calls it " Cambudge." From other authorities,
however, we know that he graduated at Cambridge.

Father fohn Tantucci. 147
precise date at which the events he relates took place is not given ;
but they must belong either to 1373 or the year following. "There
were," he says, " at that time in the city of Siena two religious, very
influential and of great renown. One was called Brother Gabriel of
Volterra, of the Order of Friars Minors, Master of Sacred Theology,
of whom it was said that there was no man in the whole Order so
mighty for learning and preaching as he was ; and who was at that
time Minister Provincial. The other was called John III., also a
Master of Sacred Theology ; he was of Siena, of the order of Augus-
tinian Hermits. These two powerful masters used sometimes, when
speaking together, to murmur against the blessed Catherine, saying,
' This ignorant woman goes about seducing persons with her false
expositions of Holy Scripture, and is leading other souls along with
her own to hell ; but we shall take such order in the matter that
she shall see her error.' So after many conversations of this sort
they resolved to go both together on a certain day and with difficult
theological questions to shut up her mouth and put her to shame.
But the Holy Spirit who spoke by that holy virgin took care to dispose
things otherwise. When the appointed day came, they went with
their companions to Catherine's house. Now it so, happened that
when they arrived, our Lord so disposing it, many persons of both
sexes were at the moment with her, having come together to listen
to her holy words. There was Brother Thomas della Fonte and a
certain Brother Matthew Tolomei of the same Order, and Nicholas
Mimi, a great servant of God, and Thomas Guelfaccio, a Gesuat, all
men of good report; and Neri Landoccio, already named, and
Gabriel Piccolomini, and many others whom I cannot remember.
Likewise Donna Alexia, Donna Lisa, and Donna Cecca of Clement,
and others, all Sisters of Penance ; I also, though unworthy, was
among the rest. And as we stood there listening to the admirable
words of that holy virgin, she suddenly broke off her discourse, and
becoming as it were all on fire, with her face quite resplendent, she
lifted her eyes to heaven, and said, ' Blessed be Thou, O sweet and
Eternal Spouse, who findest out so many new ways by which Thou
leadest souls unto Thyself!' We all stood amazed and attentive,
observing her words and gestures, and Father Thomas, her confessor,
said to her, ' Tell me, daughter, what does all this mean that you
have just said? Let us understand something about it' Then like
an obedient daughter she replied, ' Father, you will presently see
two great fishes caught in the nets.' She said no more, and we were.

1 48 Catherine and the Doctors.
standing in great surprise awaiting what would come next, when lo !
one of the companions of the virgin who lived in the house with her
said to her : ' Mother, Master Gabriel of Volterra of the Friars
Minors with a companion, and Master John III., of the brethren
of St. Augustine, with a companion, are below, and wish to see you.'
She went at once to meet them, and behold, they themselves came
up and entered the room where we were. When therefore Catherine
had shown them great respect and made them sit down, and the rest
of us stood near (as they said they did not wish to speak to her in
private) these two masters, like raging lions, full of the purpose they
had conceived, began to put forth the most difficult theological
questions to that meek and tender virgin, thinking to find her
defenceless and forsaken by her most sweet Spouse. So when
Master Gabriel had said what he thought good, the same was re
peated by Master John, who added another most difficult question,
both intentionally perplexing the matter, believing that she would
remain quite vanquished, so that they might afterwards have occasion
of giving vent to their malice and ill-will. But the Holy Spirit, who
. forsaketh not those who put their trust in Him, gave His handmaid
such wisdom and strength that she would have been able to have
overthrown, not these two only but ten thousand such as they, had
they been there. And so when these masters had proposed their
questions, she stood for awhile with her eyes lifted up to heaven, they
meantime awaiting her reply. At last with her countenance all beam
ing with Divine zeal she turned to them ; and though she bore herself
towards them with great reverence, yet she broke out in words to this
effect : ' Oh ! confounded, confounded, be this inflated science of
yours, which does yourselves so much harm and to others so little
good whilst you use it as you do ! What does such a saint say in
such a place, and such a one, and such a one ? ' And thus she con
tinued bringing forth many examples to them. At last she concluded,
saying, ' How can you understand these things ? you who only seek
after the husk of truth that you may please creatures and win praise
from them? and on this only have you set your hearts; but, my
Fathers, do so no more for the love of Jesus crucified.' Wonderful
to relate, these two great pillars were forthwith cast to the earth ;
these two wolves became tender lambs, so immediately were they
changed to the contrary of what they had been before. The first-
named, Master Gabriel, had previously lived in such pomp that in
his convent out of three cells he had made for himself one ; and

She confounds them. 1 49
furnished it in such sumptuous style as would have been superfluous
for a Cardinal. There was a fine bed with a canopy and curtains
round about it, all of silk ; and so many other precious things that
reckoning with them the books, they were worth not less than a
hundred ducats. But this man, touched by the Spirit of God at the
words spoken to him by His handmaid, was suddenly stricken with
such fear, that taking the keys from his girdle in the presence of us
all, he cried out : ' Is there any one here who for the love of God
will go and give away all that I have in my cell ? ' At once there
rose up Nicolas Mimi and Thomas Guelfaccio, and taking the keys
they asked him, 'What do you wish us to do?' And he answered,
' Go to my cell, and whatever you find there give away for the love
of God, so that nothing may remain except my Breviary.' So they
went, and perfectly fulfilled all he had charged them with ; for they
distributed the books among the other brethren who were students
in the convent, and all the rest they gave to the poor, leaving nothing
in the cell save what might suffice for one poor observant Brother.
Master Gabriel himself, though he was Minister Provincial of the
Order, went afterwards to the monastery of Santa Croce at Florence, .
where he lived in great fervour, and appointed himself to serve the
brethren in their refectory at meal time, and exercised many other
acts of humility. Master John III. did as much, and even more ;
for though he had not so much to distribute, yet he also only re
served to himself his Breviary ; and at once forsaking all the things
of this world, and his hermitage also, he followed the holy virgin
Catherine wherever she went, even as far as Avignon, and from thence
to Rome and many other places even to the time of her departure.
And he was one of the three confessors deputed by the See Apostolic
to hear the confessions of those who by the means of the said holy
virgin should be brought to salutary penance."
Thus much for the conversion of John III., but he was not
the only or the most illustrious disciple whom Catherine possessed
in the hermitage of Lecceto. Among the holy solitaries of that oak
forest was Father William Flete, the English "Bachelor," as he
was commonly called by the Saint and her companions. "This
excellent religious," says Caffarini, in the third part of his Supple
ment, "chancing to pass through Tuscany, had become enamoured
of that beautiful desert ; and having obtained leave from his
superiors, he determined there to abide with the sole thought of
giving himself to the things of God, and not caring to pursue after

1 50 Father William Flete.
the honour of the Doctorate or the advantages he might thereby
attain." In fact, he was as unlike to Master John in his natural tastes
as could well be supposed, though they were probably fellow students
at Cambridge. The author of the Miracoli informs us that his
devotion to Catherine began even before he had seen her, and that
their acquaintance had in it something of a supernatural character.
"There is," he says, "dn the Wood of the Lake, a hermitage of St.
Augustine, about four miles from Siena, in which is an English
brother, called 'The Bachelor.' They call him 'The Bachelor of
the Wood of the Lake,' and he has been there more than twelve
years. He is a man of great learning, and venerable for his holiness
and love of solitude. He often lives in the caves which he has
himself made in the most dbscure and savage parts of the forest :
and there he takes his books, flying from the conversation of men.
He goes as he likes from the church to the forest, and from the
forest to the church. He is a man of wise counsel, the friend of
God and of a most holy life, speaking little, and only when necessity
requires. He has never seen Catherine, nor she him ; but they
know each other through the instinct of the Holy Spirit, so that
they speak of each other with great reverence and respect." This
account agrees with that of Christofano di Gano, who says that " he
was a man of great penance, held in reverence by many people ;
that most of his time he abode in the forest, only returning to his
convent in the evening, and that he never drank anything but
vinegar and water."
Though F. William may not have known Catherine personally
at this time, yet they probably corresponded. His determination
not to leave his solitude without necessity prevented his going often
to Siena, but in spite of his recluse habits he was a member of the
Company of La Scala, and had had something to do with the
conversion of Master Matthew, so that he could not have kept so
absolutely in his caves as the above anonymous writer (whose
accuracy is not always to be trusted) seems to have imagined. But
if he could not come to visit Catherine, she was not prevented from
visiting him. Lecceto, it must be remembered, was one of the holy
places of Siena, visited as a sanctuary by Popes and Princes, and
by many saints, among others by the holy Father, St. Dominic.
Catherine, as we know from the Legend, was fond of making such
pious pilgrimages, and on a certain feast of St. Paul, F. Thomas

The Wood of the Lake. 1 5 1
della Fonte, and F. Donato of Florence, who were going to Lecceto,
came to her house and proposed that she should accompany them.
Catherine who was just recovering from a prolonged ecstacy, which
had lasted three days and three nights, was still so absorbed
in the thought of the wonderful revelations she had received, that
when the two friars tried to rouse her, saying, " We are going to visit
the hermit who lives out in the country,1 will you go with us ? " she,
hardly conscious of what they said, answered "Yes." But no sooner
had she uttered the word than the exquisite tenderness of her
conscience reproached her with it as with a falsehood. Her grief
restored her to perfect consciousness, and £he mourned over the
fault for as many days and nights as she had been in ecstacy.
Though Catherine did not accompany the brethren on this
occasion, yet it is certain that she did visit Lecceto later, and that
more than once. The wild beauty of the spot and the shadow of
its mighty oaks had no less charms for her than for the English
hermit, for Catherine had a true sense of natural beauty, as is
apparent from a thousand passages in her writings. She therefore
often came to the Wood of the Lake; and when she did so she
occupied a little room near the church, used as a chapel, where may
still be seen her portrait, and over the door the following inscription :
" Siste hie, viator, et has cedes (erectas a B. Joanne Incontrio, Anno
1330) ubi Seraphica Catherina Senensis Sponsum recepiavit Christum,
venerare memento." 2
From the time of their first meeting, F. William became one of
Catherine's most attached disciples ; she contrived to interest him
in all her affairs, and he often acted as her confessor. It was in the
January of 1376 that he wrote down from her dictation, and pro
bably in the above-named chapel, that spiritual " Document " before
alluded to, which throws much light on her interior life. There is
no doubt, however, that if F. William had a fault, it was his excessive
love of solitude, and Catherine did not fail to tell him of it. His
continual absence from the convent and habit of abiding in the
woods with his books gave trouble to his Prior. " I must tell you
on the part of Our Lord," writes Catherine to him, " that you ought
1 Leg., Part 2, ch. v. We know that the hermitage of Lecceto is here meant,
for Raymund speaks of " a venerable religious of .the Order qf Hermits, who
resided in the country."
2 Burlamacchi : Notes to Letter 125.

152 Catherine 's Letters to F. William.
to say mass in the convent J more than once a week if the Prior
wishes it : I would even say that you should celebrate there every
day if that is his desire. You will not lose grace by sacrificing your
consolations, you will rather gain more in proportion as you give up
your own will. If we would show our hunger for souls and our love
of our neighbour, we must not be attached tb consolations, we must
listen to other people's troubles, and have compassion on those who
are bound to us by the bonds of charity ; it is a great fault if you do
not do this. For example, I would have you show compassion for
the troubles and difficulties of Brother Anthony, and not refuse to
listen to him ; and Anthony in like manner should listen to you. I
beg of you to do this for Christ's sake, and mine ; it is the way to keep
up true charity between you : otherwise, you will give the enemy
occasion to sow discord." Then she concludes with one of those
touches so characteristic of her style ; "I pray that you may be
united to the Divine Tree, and transformed in Christ crucified."2
She did not forget that she was- writing to one who would probably
read her letter under the shadow of those mighty ilex trees he loved
so well. Father William, however, stood in need of having the
salutary lesson repeated more than once. In another letter,3 she
reads him a very profitable lecture on the little indiscretions into
which even the most perfect souls may fall, such as half-killing
themselves by excessive austerities, and judging others who do not
follow the same way as themselves, and liking to choose their own
times, places, and modes of consolation. Such persons always say
that they want consolation,not for their own sake, but to please God
better, but she exposes-the delusion and holds up before him another
rule of perfection. " In truly perfect souls," she says, " self-will is
dead, and in nothing do they see the will of man, but only that of
God. Such souls have a foretaste of life eternal. . . . But I do not
see this perfection in you, and it makes me sad. God has given
you great lights; He has called you first to abandon the world,
secondly, to have a. great, love of penance, and thirdly, a desire for
1 He generally said mass in a chapel in one of the caves or grottoes. Of these
there were very many, and it is of them Pope Martin V. speaks in one of his
discourses as- follows: " At nos cum ex Florentia Romam venimus, qucedam
vidimus in agro Senensi, nee sine magna hujus recordationis voluptate per fratres
illos transivimus, tamquam adhuc vetustissimarum cellularum ac speluncarum
vestigia spectaremus. " — Land. Syl. Ilia p. 78.
2 Letter 128. 8 Ibid. 124.

His Sermon on her. 153
His honour. Do not hinder your perfection by spiritual self-will."
F. William took all her exhortations in good part, for he reverenced
her as truly a saint. Christofano says that he held her in such
respect that he would touch her very garments as though they were
holy relics. " He used often to say to us," says the same writer,
"You none of you know her, the Pope himself might think it an
honour to be one of her sons. Truly the Holy Ghost dwelleth in
her ! "
The testimony of one who had so many opportunities of knowing
Catherine, and who enjoyed her most intimate confidence, is doubt
less of the greatest value, and fortunately this testimony has been
carefully preserved. F. Tantucci, in his translation of the third part
of Caffarini's Supplimento, observes that "after Catherine's death,
F. William Flete drew up a compendious legend of the prodigious
virtues of the Saint in the form of a sermon, or panegyric. Our
author (Caffarini) declares that both whilst living in Siena and also
at Venice he had often seen this sermon, but not being now to be
found, we must suppose that from the scarcity of copies it has been
lost." This supposition is happily incorrect, for the Sermo in
revereniiam Beatce Katherintz de Senis is one of the great treasures of
the Communal Library of Siena, and an authentic copy of this
precious manuscript is in the possession of the writer. The
original is in the handwriting of the fifteenth century, and is adorned
with a miniature. The panegyric was composed in the year 1382,
as is stated on the title-page,1 thus disproving the statement of
Tantucci and others that F. Flete died in the same year with St.
Catherine. Had the good father ever seen the sermon he would
have corrected his account of it in another point also, and would
certainly not have called it a compendious legend. Brevity was not
the soul of F. William's wit; but we pardon his prolixity and
disposition to illustrate the life and character of his beloved mother
by copious quotations from every one of the books of Holy Scrip
ture, for the sake of the genuine and original evidence which he
renders to her sanctity; the more valuable as it was given many
years before Raymund's Legend had seen the light.
In the first place, then, we discover from his own words the
precise meaning of what Christofano di Gano tells us concerning
1 Sermo in reverentiam Beata Katherina: de Senis, Compositus in Anno Domini
MCCCLXXXII, per. magm. Servum Dei, Anglicum qui vocatus estfrater Guglielmus
de Anglia de Ord. Heremit. S. Augustini. —Cod. T. ii. 7 a. c, 17.

154 Extracts.
his reverence for her clothes. " Not only the person, but the very
garments of this holy virgin," he says, " gave out a most exquisite
perfume ; and so did the things that she merely touched ; and we
who were intimate with her were sensible of this fragrance which
came forth from her clothes like the sweet odour of a field which
the Lord hath blessed . . . How often have I seen her praying,
prostrate with her face on the earth, for sinners, for the Church of
God, for the sovereign Pontiff and all prelates, and for the reform
of all the evils which afflicted the spouse of Christ ; and when she
thus prayed she suffered incredible pains, a very agony in every
part of her body. It was the same when she prayed in ecstacy,
raised above the ground in the air, as we have many times beheld
her. At such times she underwent a mysterious passion ; her bones
seemed to crack and to be disjointed, and her heart to be torn and
rent by the fervour of her supplications ; she would be bathed in so
profuse a sweat that her Sisters were sometimes forced to change her
clothes even more than once, whilst blood would flow from her
mouth in the extremity of her suffering. If on coming to herself
she perceived this, she would cover it with her foot, lest it should
be observed by any one. These raptures were chiefly after Holy
Communion, when often .as we looked fixedly on her we beheld
her face changed, now into the likeness of our Lord, now into
that of an angel or seraph, which caused us no small terror . . . And
from these ecstacies Alexia and Lisa were forced generally to rouse
her. Her life was doubtless a miracle, one long-continued martyr
dom for the Church of God. What she suffered when she attempted
to eat is known only to God ; and all this she endured for sinners,
for whose salvation she would gladly have died, had it been needed,
a hundred times a-day. Her thoughts were always intent on heaven,
seeking how to draw other souls thither. Her heart, inflamed with
the love of her Spouse, became transformed into the very likeness of
the Object beloved. Some one once said to her, ' Mother, have
you a home of your own ? ' To which she. answered sweetly, ' Yes,
I have a home; it ds in the wounded Side of Christ crucified,
my Spouse' Another time I said to her, ' Mother, how can you
live in such continued sufferings?' She glanced upwards, saying,
' I live, yet not I, but Jesus Christ liveth in me' Wonderful were
her labours for the Church and for souls. How many blasphemers,
obstinate sinners grown old in vice, and those who had never named
the name of God, or obeyed His Church, were by her means con-

Extracts. 1 55
verted and brought to penance ! She despised no one, she rejected
no one, not even the greatest sinners. She welcomed all who came
to her, sometimes prostrating and kneeling to them, at other times
pressing them to her heart. She suffered many to kiss her hand,
she, the border of whose garments they were not worthy to touch.
Some in their pride and ignorant malice took offence at this, but
indeed, she beheld the souls of those before her, and often took no
note of their bodies. Many came to her from the most distant
countries, and to all she was a star of consolation. No one in
affliction ever went to her without receiving comfort. When she
arrived in any place, the joy of the people was universal only to
think that Catherine of Siena was present among them ; and when
she left them they would ask for her blessing and rejoice to think
that their country had been so honoured. Such was our mother,
vituperated in life by evil tongues, even among the number of her
familiar companions, worn out with labours and fatigues, pressed
down by the burden of the Church which she bore upon her
shoulders ! Woe to us, her children, unworthy of the name !
Woe to us, because we can no longer have recourse to that most
sweet mother ! What teaching she would give us, how to live, and
how to direct our souls ! She used to say, ' Let us begin afresh
every day ! ' How she would warm the tepid and rouse the
negligent, for to her every heart was open. Alas, we can no more
run to her as we used to do, saying, ' Let us go, let us go and see
our sweetest mother ! ' Never more shall we read those letters
dictated by the Holy Spirit ; never more shall we be fed with
the food of her familiar words, never, never more ! O holy
mother, where is now that place in my own home of Lecceto where
you used to feed your sons with the pasture of your words ; alas,
alas ! we were not worthy of your presence ! we shall never see you
more ! " 1
Such are some of the words in which F. William has left recorded
his love for his holy mistress, and they need no comment. Among
the other brethren of Lecceto who regarded themselves as her spiritual
1 The above passages do not in the original follow one another consecutively,
ybut are scattered in various parts of the voluminous and verbose panegyric which
fills seventy-two closely written pages. It has been a work of labour to sift the
soil and extract the golden grains, which, when found however, well repay the
trouble expended on the search. I have also thrown in a few sentences extracted
from F. Flete's letter to F. Raymund preserved in MS. in the same library. For a
further account of our illustrious countryman and his writings, see Appendix B.

156 Letter to Jerome of Siena.
sons must be named, besides B. Anthony of Nizza, a certain F.
Felix, of Massa, of the noble house of Tancredi, who is numbered
among the Beati of Lecceto, and who accompanied the Saint on
her journey to Avignon ; and F. Jerome of Siena, to whom Catherine
dictated a letter in ecstacy. This letter we shall quote on account
of its singular beauty, both of teaching and language. If we are
to gather from it any idea of the character of him to whom it was
addressed, we should conclude that F. Jerome was a tender and
loving soul, somewhat addicted to sadness and to a too sensitive
affection towards his friends. Catherine seeks therefore to win
him to an exclusive love of God, the only worthy object of our
tenderness, in Whom, as she says, " nothing is wanting. Know then,
my son Jerome," she continues, "we must be stripped of the love of
self, and of the love of the world, and of all sadness ; for sadness
dries up the soul and hinders us from knowing the infinite goodness
of God. For when a soul contemplates its Creator and His good
ness it cannot help loving Him, and would rather die than do anything
contrary to Him whom it loves. We love what He loves, and hate
what He hates, because love makes us one with Himself. And this
love and this desire inspire us with a passion for the Eternal Truth,
so that we cannot love anything but Jesus crucified. Think how our
Lord delivered Himself for us on the tree of the Cross, as though
His love for us was an intoxication, a folly ! This is the pasch I
desire to eat with you. Now, then, understand what I say. I know
you love the creature only spiritually, in God. But sometimes from
one cause or another, as you know very well, we love spiritually, but
find in this affection a pleasure and a joy, so that our less spiritual
nature finds its part also. If you ask me how you can detect when
this is, I reply, ' If you see that the person beloved fails you in any
thing, is no longer on the same terms with you, or seems to love
another better than you, and if then you are chagrined and disturbed,
and your own love grows less in consequence, then be sure your
affection is imperfect. The Eternal Truth once said to one 1 of His
servants, ' Daughter, act not as those who draw a vessel full of water
out of a fountain, and drink from it when they have taken it out ; the
vessel is soon emptied, and they do not see it. But you, when you fill
the vessel of your soul, making of your affection only one thing with
the love with which you love Me, you will not withdraw the vessel from
Me, who am the true Fountain- of living water; but you will preserve
1 Herself, of course.

The Chtirch of Lecceto. 157
in it the creature you love, as you keep the vessel in the fountain ;
and drinking from it there, it will never be emptied. And so neither
you nor the creature you love will be ever empty, but you will
always be filled with Divine grace, and so will never fall into trouble
and regret He who loves in this way when he sees one whom he
loves change, and perhaps avoid him, does not trouble himself,
for he loved his friend for God and not for himself, though indeed
he may naturally feel a certain emotion when he sees himself separated
from what he loves. Such is the rule I would have you follow if you
would be perfect, and may you ever abide in the sweet and holy
love of God!" (No. 132.)
Lecceto still exists much as it was in St. Catherine's time. A
well, whose waters she is said to have blessed and rendered drinkable,
is still shown, with the ancient oak near the door of the church where
the first hermits hung their bell. In the portico may still be seen
the fine old paintings of heaven and hell, the works of mercy, and
the Seven Sacraments, which date as far back as 1343, and are by
a pupil of Ambrogio Lorenzetti. The place now belongs to the
Seminary of Siena. Fifteen of the choral books of the brethren may
be seen in the Communal Library of Siena, adorned with beautiful
miniatures, which seem to indicate that the good hermits were lovers
of art. At St. Leonard's, or, the Hermitage of the Lake,1 nothing
now remains but the church, the convent having been wantonly
destroyed in 1783 by the family who bought the place on the expul
sion of the hermits. The church however was spared, and contains
some precious frescoes ;, and under it is a cave or subterranean vault
in which the blessed Agostino Novello is said to have lived for the
greater part of his life, doing penance, and dying there in 1309. The
spot was no doubt familiar enough to William Flete, who came to
this place when he desired even more retirement than he could
command at Lecceto. It is remarkable, however, that in spite of
his efforts to bury himself in the wilderness and be hidden from the
knowledge of men, the fame of F. William's sanctity reached his
native land, where he was held in great reverence, and his opinion
1 The lake from which this hermitage derives its name receives the waters of
the Bruna, to keep which within their assigned bounds the Sienese constructed a
wall, the remains of which still exist. The lake, however, burst its boundary and
overflowed the country round, causing much loss of men and cattle. It was into
this dangerous lake that Peter Ventura once rode his horse by accident, and was
delivered, as he states in the Processus, by invoking St. Catherine.

158 Catherines Prayer for her Disciples.
on certain matters had its weight, as we shall see hereafter, even in
the councils of the realm. He is said by Landucci to have foretold
the apostacy of the English nation from the faith, and is numbered
by him among the illustrious men of his Order.
These, then, were some of Catherine's disciples, for it would take
us too long to enumerate them all. How dear they were to the Saint
and she to them may be judged by their words and hers ; she
prayed for them continually, one by one and by name, and in her
Dialogue she recommends them all to God in a touching prayer :
•" O Lord," she says, " I pray for all those whom Thou hast given
me, whom I love with a special love, and whom Thou hast made
one thing with me. For they are my consolation, and for Thy sake
I desire to see them running in the sweet and narrow way, dead to
self-will and pure from all judgment and murmuring against their
neighbour. O sweetest Love ! let not the enemy snatch any of them
from . my hands, but may all attain to Thee, O Eternal Father, to
Thee who art their final end ! " 1 And she received an intimation
that this prayer on behalf of her children was indeed granted.
1 Dialogo, ch. viii.

( 159 )

CHAPTER XIII.
CATHERINE'S PORTRAIT.
WHO does not know the value which attaches to a genuine
portrait ? Could such be found of the saints we love the
best,. we feel that the silent study of their features would help to put
us in communication with their souls, and that we should know and
understand them better if we could but once set them before us in
their living natural reality. It is often our misfortune that the very
veneration which the saints inspire in their biographers, makes war on
the fidelity with which their characters are transmitted to us ; by which
" I do not mean (as the reader may well believe) to throw discredit on
the miraculous facts which are delivered to us regarding them ; but
only that there is a way of presenting us with the extraordinary, which
conceals from us the everyday reality ; we learn something of the
saint or the heroine at the sacrifice of knowing little or nothing of
the woman. It is a vice which in its degree attaches to most
biographies, in which the ordinary rule seems to hold good of
regarding as a disrespect to the persons who are their subjects,
anything which sets them on a level with ourselves, and displays
them to- us in their everyday aspect of flesh and blood. No greater
error can surely be committed, and specially in treating of God's
saints. The tie between them and their votaries is, may I say it,
the sublimest form of friendship. We do not merely venerate, but
we love them ; and we desire to love, not abstractions, but realities.
No fear that we shall venerate them less because we know them as
they were ; no fear that we can be the losers by becoming familiar
with their countenances, the tone of their voice, their ordinary ways,
gestures, and phrases; with their human infirmities, if such they
had ; or with a thousand things which may be trifles to an indifferent
eye, but which to those who truly love reveal the character and the
heart. Willingly would we present our readers with the Vera effigies of

1 60 L ikenesses of Catherine.
our beloved Mother. That which stands as the frontispiece of this
volume is probably the nearest approach which can now be given of
a true portrait. Two likenesses exist of St. Catherine of Siena ; one
is the celebrated painting by Andrea di Vanni, which has already
been spoken of; the other is the almost equally celebrated
marble bust which claims to be the work of Jacobo della Quercia,
and to have been carved by him from a cast taken after death.
A careful comparison of these two portraits will show certain points
of general resemblance. In both we observe the length of the nose,
the great width of the head at the line of the eyes, and the distinctly
cut chin. In both also there are indications of a magnificent
development of that portion of the head which rises above the eye
brows. In the profile of the bust we observe also that strait line from
the top of the forehead to the extremity of the nose which gives a
certain classic character to the features. Add the attitude of the
head, gently but not extravagantly bent, the attitude at once of
meekness and of thought, and you will recognise the general outlines
which seem to have been faithfully reproduced by Francesco Vanni,
the author of the engraving of which our frontispiece is a fac-simile.
Gaze at it, dear reader, and bear in mind that she whom it represents
was never for a moment free from a wearing bodily pain ; you will
detect in it something of the languor of suffering, and of that calm
tranquillity which no provocation ever disturbed ; but do not call it
sad, for those eyes could have rested on you with unutterable
tenderness, and those lips could always command a smile which
carried joy and comfort into the hearts of those who beheld it.
Raymund tells us that the beauty of Catherine was not excessive.
But few persons when they think of the saints represent them as
possessed of that kind of beauty which can be depicted by the brush
or the chisel. We think of them with the light of faith beaming
from their eyes, with purity on their smooth unruffled brows, and
every feature sweetened by charity. We think of them as we think
of our own mothers, who in the eyes and to the memory of their
children are always beautiful ; and sometimes we think of them as they
were transfigured in moments of prayer and communion even before
the eyes of men ; a faint foreshadowing of that heavenly beauty
which will rest on their countenances when we behold them standing
in the eternal light.
Catherine always wore the habit of her Order, a white habit and
veil, and a black mantle. In one of the narratives of her life she is

Her Appearance. 1 6 1
represented as only wearing sandals on her feet. At her belt she
carried her rosary, from which we have seen her breaking off the silver
cross, to give it as an alms. It is a little singular to find that she
always wore a ring, from which she also sometimes parted at the call
of charity. It was a poor exterior enough, but scrupulously clean
and neat, for in the matter of cleanliness, as in so many others, she
resembled her father St. Dominic. Nor did the poverty of her dress
conceal that air of majesty and power which made some say that
they trembled when they gazed at her. Yet the pervading charm
of her appearance was one which carried consolation into the saddest
heart. " No one ever approached her," says Pius II. in the Bull of
her Canonisation, " without departing from her wiser and better."
And one of her disciples adds, " At her mere presence the tempta
tions of the enemy disappeared ; the sun in its meridian splendour
does not more instantaneously scatter the darkness. ... all the
world recognised her as the image of the virtues, the perfect mirror
of Christian purity. Never did I hear an idle word come forth from
her lips, but she turned all things, even those most trifling, to our
spiritual profit."1
Those of her disciples 2 who wrote their impressions of her in verse
while she was yet living, have multiplied phrases which give us to
understand how irresistible was her power over their hearts. " She
draws souls as the magnet draws iron," they say, "always kind,
always full of clemency. She keeps her eyes turned heavenwards,
bathed in pious tears, while she is ready to pour out her heart's
blood at the call of charity, ... She is ever joyful and smiling, and
counts her own sufferings as nothing; though she has always the
sharp knife in her side, yet she makes light of it with her Spouse ;
and recreates herself cheerfully, praying the while for those who have
need of pardon. . . . From the crown of her head to the sole of her
feet, she is full of Christ, and sings His glory day and night. . . .
And when she names the sweet name of Mary, she seems wholly
united to her. O dearest, sweetest, most venerable Mother, I see
thee at the foot of the altar without so much as a drachm of life left
in thee, yet rising in thy spirit to venerate thy Lord, and with thy
countenance wholly transfigured ! It is surely a seraph that I look
upon, dyed in the Blood of the Lamb ! " . . .
In fact there was an ever springing fountain of joy in Catherine's
heart which habitually found expression in her words and counten-
1 Stephen Maconi. 2 Anastagio di Mont 'Altino and Jacomo del Pecora.

162 Her Reading.
ance. At times this joy could take the form of playfulness, and in
the frank and happy intercourse which existed between her and her
spiritual children there was nothing of restraint. They gathered
about her and gave her the tenderest and most familiar titles ;
" Nostra dolcissima mamma " was the ordinary name by which they
addressed her. However distant she might be from them, she
followed them with her heart, we had almost said with her eyes, for all
they did or thought lay open to her gaze. " Truly, Mother," said
Stephen Maconi, " it is a dangerous thing to be near you, for you
find out all our secrets." " My son," she replied, " know that in
the souls God has confided to me, there is not so much as a speck
or the shadow ofa fault which He does not show me.''
She was never idle ; when not engaged in prayer or in works of
charity for the souls and bodies of others, she was always to be
found either reading or working. Burlamacchi bids us take notice
of the thimble that was in the bag of eggs, mentioned in one of the
anecdotes of her life, as a proof that she was accustomed to use her
needle. But we know as much from other circumstances. She
mended and patched the mantle of her clothing, and made the vest
ments and altar linen of her chapel. In fact, she was skilful in all a
woman's best accomplishments ; she could wash and cook, make
bread, or tend the sick, with those same hands that were to be
sealed with the mysterious Stigmas.
Judging from her letters we should say that her reading was
extensive for the times in which she lived, for she quotes not only
from the Holy Scriptures, but from the Fathers, and the Lives of the
Saints, and her illustrations betray a varied knowledge which it is
not necessary to regard as all derived from supernatural sources.
Ignatius Cantti asserts that she was familiar with the poetry of
Dante ; nor would this have been in any way surprising, for Dante
was popular reading in the fourteenth century, and we have distinct
evidence that he was studied by some of her disciples.1 Although,
therefore, no passage in her writings affords any evidence of the fact,
it is quite possible that she may have been acquainted with the works
of the great Florentine, who had visited Siena, and learnt in that
city the terrible tidings of his exile and disgrace. That Catherine
herself had some claim to the title of a poet is more certain ; her
first written composition is declared by the best Italian critics to be
1 " Se mi potete mandare quello pezo di Dante che vi lassai, si me lo mandate?
— Letter from Gionta di Grazla to Neri Pagliaresi.

Her Sense of Poetry. 163
in verse; and she possessed all the other gifts which ordinarily
accompany poetic genius ; a great sense of natural beauty, and the
habit of seeing in exterior forms the symbols of Divine truths.
Hence one of her disciples tells us that " she sought God in all that
she saw. I remember " (he says) " how when she saw the flowers in
the meadows, she would say to us, ' See how all these things speak
to us of God ! Do not those red flowers remind us of the rosy
wounds of our Jesus?' And if she saw an ant-hill she would say,
' Those little creatures came forth from the mind of God. He took
as much care in creating the insects and the flowers as in creating the
angels ! ' And when we heard her speak thus, we neglected every
thing to listen to her, and often even forgot so much as to eat,
neither could we give a thought to our troubles or sufferings." 1 Of her
love of flowers we have elsewhere spoken, and the singular skill she
displayed in their arrangement. Some passages in her letters could
hardly have been written by any one who was not a lover of flowers ;
nor must the reader think it too minute a criticism if we say that
the flowers which furnished her with her favourite illustrations were
no garden exotics, but the wild blossoms which flourish so abun
dantly in the woods and meadows around Siena.2 Hear her describ
ing our Lady as " the sweet field in which was sown the seed of the
Divine Word. In that sweet and blessed field of Mary,3 the Word
made flesh was like the grain which is ripened by the warm rays
of the sun, and puts forth its flowers and fruit, letting its husk fall to
the earth. It was so He did when, warmed by the fire of Divine
Charity, He cast the seed of the Word into the field of Mary. . O
Blessed Mary ! It was you who gave us the flower of our sweetest
Jesus ! That flower yielded its fruit on the Holy Cross, because
there it was that we received the gift of perfect life ; and it left its
husk on the earth, even the will of the only Son of God, who desired
nothing but the honour of His Father and our salvation."4 But
1 Letter of Stephen Maconi.
2 " Under the shade of these woods may be found three kinds of the anemone,
the hellebore, lilies, geraniums, veronicas, and potentillas, also eight species of
orchis. ... Of the multiplicity of plants which are to be found growing wild in
the meadows, not a few are the admiration of flower fanciers. . . . Some of the
trees, natives of these parts, produce an odoriferous wood." — Siena e il suo terri-
torio, 1862. 3 Egoflos campi.-C3.nt. ii. i.
4 Letter 46. The hush; in the original, guscio. St. Bernard uses the same
expression, but applies it to the Blessed Sacrament, cortex sacramenti. See
Harphius, Theol. mys. Lib. I, p. 2, chap. liv.

164 Passage on Art.
Catherine had not only a sense of natural, but even of artistic beauty.
As a citizen of Siena, it would have been hard for her not to have
inherited a taste which was as indigenous with the Sienese, as the
oaks and olives in their soil. She had artists among her disciples,
and she lived exactly at the time when painting, sculpture, and
architecture were cultivated in their purest forms and their most
religious spirit. From her infancy she had daily frequented the
church which boasted and still boasts of possessing the greatest
artistic treasure of Siena.1 She was no stranger to the works then
being actively carried on by the Opera del Duomo, and in her many
visits to the hospital of La Scala 2 she must have seen the glorious
cathedral growing under the hands of the workmen, directed as they
were by the choicest artists of the age. A passage occurs in one of
her letters to Nicolas d'Osimo in which we seem to behold her watch
ing the builders at their work, and giving to all she saw a spiritual
interpretation. "Is there anything better or sweeter for us," she
says, " than to build the edifice of our soul ? But to do so we must
find the stone, and the architect, and the workman. Oh ! how good
an architect is the Eternal Father ! in whom dwell the treasures of
infinite wisdom. He is He who is, and all things that are proceed
from Him. . . . He has given His Son as the foundation stone of
our edifice, which is based on Him and cemented by His Blood. . . .
Then the Father, considering all things in His wisdom, power, and
goodness, has made Himself the artist, creating and building our
souls in His own image and likeness. The artist works by the power
that is in him ; by his memory, in which are the forms of all that he
desires to produce; with his understanding which comprehends, and
with the hand of his will which executes. Now when we had lost
grace by sin, the Eternal Word came to unite Himself to our
nature ; He made Himself the artist, and even the Stone of our
souls, as St. Paul says, 'The rock is Christ' Yea, and He made
Himself the workman also, and the builder of the edifice, for in His
charity He has given us His life and His blood, as a builder mixes
1 The celebrated painting of the Madonna, by Guido of Siena, which is in the
Church of San Domenico, and which according to the inscription attached to it
claims to have been painted in 1221, that is, nineteen years anterior to the birth of
Cimabue ; a claim which, if established, would give to Siena the honour of found
ing a school of art earlier than that of Florence. Since the year 1859, however,
critics have been found to question the real date of the inscription, and have so
thrown doubt on this venerable tradition.
2 The hospital occupies one side of the Piazza del Duomo.

Her Eloquence. 165
the lime and prepares the cement, so that nothing may be wanting.
Let us rejoice then and give Him thanks that we have so good an
architect, so excellent a stone, and a workman who gives His own
blood for the cement of our edifice, and makes it so firm and strong
that neither hail, nor wind, nor tempest can overthrow it unless we
give our consent." (Letter 40.)]
This singular passage is certainly not a hastily written collection
of far-fetched metaphors. When the Saint beheld the Eternal
Father, as the Great Artist, creating our souls in His own image and
likeness ; and goes on to describe every human artist as drawing out
of his memory the forms which he desires to produce, she evinced a
comprehension of the real nature of art as exact as it is profound,
and explains what we mean when, in a certain loose sense, we
attribute to the true artist something of the creative faculty. He
draws from within the ideas of those forms which he outwardly
fashions ; even as the Eternal Word, the First and Mighty Artist,
possesses within Himself the archetypes of all created forms.
Catherine then, as we judgefrom this passage, was a lover of art,
and understood its meaning. Of her musical taste, and of the
traces it has left in her writings, we have elsewhere spoken. She had
a sweet voice, that "excellent thing in woman," and often recreated
herself with singing, and lastly, she had that most bewitching of
gifts, a grace and facility in speaking so that those who listened to
her were never weary ; but again and again declare in their deposi
tions that they could have listened to her for ever.
We cannot now reproduce the charm of that eloquence which
owed half its magic to the tones that uttered it, and the living
energy from which it flowed. We have nothing but dead written
pages which bear the same relation to the spoken word as does a
lifeless picture to the living countenance which it portrays. Yet
taking her letters in our hands and putting from us for the moment all
thought of her supernatural gifts, we are overwhelmed both with the
extraordinary beauty of her language, and the amazing compass of
her mind. You rise from their perusal fresh and vigorous, as though
you had been brought in contact with an intellect whose predomi
nant features were its strong good sense, its absolute freedom from
affectation, and a certain straightforward clearness, which is some
times tinged with a sense of humour, a thing indeed inseparable
from genius ; and we hold it certain that apart from all supernatural
illumination Catherine was a woman of true genius, and one not

1 66 Her Genius.
often surpassed. Her mysticism always has a daylight about it, and
is expressed with such lucidity that after reading in the Dialogo her
explanation of the different kinds of ecstacies, their whole pheno
mena appear to be rendered comprehensible even to the most
ordinary intelligence. Then her mind was possessed of an ex
quisite skill in adaptation and an almost endless variety in its
powers of illustration. I will not say that we never find her
repeating herself, or that there is not a frequent recurrence of the
same words, phrases, and reflections ; but for all that, her style is
never " cut and dried ; " she does not write to a monk as to a man
of the world, or to a noble lady as to one of her own sisters. She
always remembers some little circumstance in the position or history
or character of those whom- she addresses, and introduces it with a
happy grace. Thus in writing to the King of France, she does not
forget his surname of "the Wise ; " in addressing another prince, she
remembers that he is a descendant of St. Louis ; to the knight and
the man of arms she can discourse of lances, spurs, and even of
war-steeds, and to the man of science of mirrors and the stars.
Catherine had a true vein of enthusiasm in her ; a noble word
could fire her, and set her in a glow. Thus we understand the
animation she displays whenever she names the holy war, and that
ardent desire which she shared with St. Dominic of laying down her
life for God. F. Bartholomew Dominic tells us that sometimes
when they were speaking together, she would point to her white
habit and exclaim, " Ah, how lovely it would be if it were dyed red
with blood for the love of Jesus ! " This enthusiasm was accom
panied with a certain energy, almost vehemence, of expression when
there was question of the offence of God. Her intense faith
realised in so sensible a manner that the Church was the Body of
Christ, and that the Pope was His Vicar, that those who set them
selves to divide and contemn the Church and its appointed Head
were to her, by a rigorous logic, members of the evil one, and she
expressed this by calling them "incarnate devils." So too,
regarding priests, as by their office, earthly angels, she did not shrink
from telling those who degraded their high dignity that they were
not men, but demons. To appreciate such language aright we must
measure it by the faith out of which it sprang, and if after so doing
there still seem something of excess, this, it is to be presumed, is no
more than to say that she was a real woman, and not a shadowless
ideal. "She spoke the truth openly," says William Flete, "and

Her Charity towards Sinners. 167
where God's honour was concerned, she never cared about pleasing
or displeasing any one." In her very prayers there appeared the
same amazing energy, when she wrestled with God for the grace of
pardon for some hardened sinner, " with strong crying and tears,
and groanings unutterable," watering the ground even with a bloody
sweat, her whole frame shaken, and as it were, torn to pieces with a
mysterious agony.1
But we have not yet made acquaintance with the real Catherine ;
to do so we must try and set before our minds what she was to the
poor sinful souls whom she rescued out of their misery by thousands
and tens of thousands. Who shall find words with which to depict that
great sea of charity, whose ample floods were ever pouring forth
their tide for the salvation of sinners ? In this too she was the true
daughter of that great and glorious Father whose habitual ejaculation
in his hours of prayer was, " What will become of sinners ! " To
quote the words of the same writer already cited, which are precious
from their unmistakable genuineness : " You may see her kindly and
suppliantly embracing now this sinner and now that ; she takes them
by the hand, and calls them to her if they would hide themselves
from her, and if any conceal his thought, or is silent about it, she
knows it nevertheless ; and if it is evil she bids him drive it away. . .
Her words were like thieves which snatched souls from the world
and drew them to Holy Mother Church. She stood like a rock,
all joyous and transformed in the likeness of her Spouse, and turned
on us her pure vermilion countenance irradiated by that Sun ; then,
bathed in tears,- she would reprove our sins, and teach us the bitter
price at which the soul is cleansed." 2
What is here conveyed in the language of poetry is repeated by
others in sober prose. When any sought her presence weighed
down by the sense of sin, and feeling incapable to achieve their own
deliverance, she welcomed them to her heart as a sister would
welcome a long-lost brother; she lavished on them a tenderness
which she drew out of that heart which God had given her, the
Heart of Christ with which her own had become identified. She
would not hear of the misgivings of fear or the despair of pardon.
1 F. Ambrose Ansano Tantucci, in his notes on the Supplement, has thought
it necessary to say a word to justify these and other exterior signs of Catherine's
emotions from the charge of excess, and he refers to St. Thomas who speaks
of the violence caused at times by the movements of the Holy Spirit.— St. Th.
2da., 2da?., Quest. 175, arts. 1, 2.
2 Anastagio di Mont' Altino.

1 68 The Conversions she effected.
But she would bid them lay their sins and their penalties on her
shoulders, and think of nothing but reconciling themselves with God.
Her beautiful soul, stainless as the driven snow, came in contact
with every hideous form of sin, and it is not to be doubted that the
contact was an agony. The presence of sin made itself sensible to
her exquisite organisation, as an insupportable and pestilential odour,
yet she never shrank from sinners. The hardened and impenitent
indeed she knew how to reprove and even to terrify, but there was
no depth of iniquity from which she ever turned away if there was
any hope of winning it to better things. Thus, besides the un
numbered conversions which she effected among criminals of every
class, she did not refuse to seek out the most abandoned of her own
sex, and to use her most winning eloquence in order to touch their
hearts. We read how one night she returned to herself after a long
abstraction in prayer in which it had been made known to her that
a certain woman in the neighbourhood, fearing the anger of her
husband whom she had betrayed, was on the point of committing
suicide. She at once sent two of her companions to Fontebranda,
desiring them to find the woman out and bring her with them to
her ; they obeyed and were in time to prevent the dreadful deed ;
and by means of Catherine's prudent interference the scandal was
put an end to, and the husband and wife were reconciled. " Listen
to me, beloved daughter," she writes to another unhappy outcast, " if
you will but cast away your sins by a holy confession, and a firm
resolution to return to them no more, the tender goodness of God
has already spoken the word, ' I will no more remember thy
offences.' It is true, those who here expiate their sins by penance
He will not punish in the next life. Surely it cannot be hard to you
to have recourse to our Sweet Mother Mary, the Mother of compassion
and of mercy. She will lead you into the presence of her Son, and
showing Him the breasts that nourished Him in His infancy, she will
move Him to show you mercy, and then like a daughter and a slave
redeemed by His Blood, you will enter within His Wounds, and the
fire of His ineffable charity will consume all your miseries and wash
away all your faults. He will make a bath of His own Blood in
which to purify you ; believe it well ; our sweetest Lord will not
despise you if you come to Him." (Letter 373.)
With words like these did this soul of unspotted purity address
itself to those encrusted with the filth of vice. Often enough her
presence sufficed without her words to pierce them with compunction

Power of her Presence. 169
and draw them weeping to her feet. Nor is this to be wondered at ;
for the true servant of God is a tabernacle in which is ever dwelling
the hidden Christ. As the priest who bears the Holy Mysteries to
the dying, carries through the unconscious crowds the presence of
One who is among them and they know it not, and who yet, little as
they suspect it, is diffusing it may be a grace and a blessing as He
passes by; so the faithful soul united to her God is a true Ciborium,
and bears His Presence into the world that forgets Him, and sheds
around her the perfume of His charity. In this indwelling presence
of God in the soul lies the true power of sanctity, for it is not the
poor fallen child of Adam who effects in another soul its resurrection
to a life of grace, but, "the Spirit of Christ that worketh in her."
Hence it is that the saints, and Catherine among the rest, did far
more by their prayers than their exhortations. What they did they
did in virtue of their union with God, like the little child whose
fingers indeed hold the pencil, which is nevertheless guided by the
master's hand. And this is to be remembered lest any should mis
take the significance of those narratives in which Catherine is pre
sented to us, converting souls by her mere presence ; for such
marvels are not told by her " as though wrought by her own strength
or power," 1 but rather to glorify Him who made her heart His abode,
and thence sent forth the rays of His power, as from a Tabernacle.
Here, then, is a rude and imperfect outline of the portrait of St.
Catherine, as we see her standing surrounded by her disciples. We
could not, when sketching that little group, omit the central figure ;
and now, perhaps, we shall better understand their mutual relations.
Glancing over the names and quality of her devoted followers we see
how greatly her acquaintance with the state of society, both in Siena
and elsewhere, must through their means have become extended.
Vanni, for example, had visited the Court of Avignon, and could tell
her something of the condition of affairs in that luxurious capital ;
and the longing eagerness for the restoration of the Holy See to
Italian soil, which had prompted his journey, found a ready echo in
her heart. From the Tolomei and the Malevolti and other noble
families she must have become familiar with many a history of
family feud and civil discord ; while the Friars, who, like F. Bartholo
mew, were going hither and thither preaching and giving missions,
would bring back sad and terrible tales of the : spiritual desolation
which they found in the scenes of their ministrations, and the scandals
1 Acts iii. 12.

1 70 Her Knowledge of existing Evils.
that had penetrated even into the sanctuary. What kind of reports
could those have been which Bartholomew brought from his long
sojourn at Asciano ; and which prompted her to dictate a letter to
Berenger dei Arzocchi, the parish priest of that place, in which she
hints at ecclesiastics who out of avarice sell spiritual graces, and
spend their money in feasting and fine equipages ; and that other
letter addressed to the parish priest of Semignano which is probably
the most terrific castigation an unworthy minister of the altar ever
received from the lips of man or woman ?
From men of business and of the world, like Christofano and
Master Matthew, she must have heard much of the ruin of families,
and the stagnation of trade caused by those "rapacious locusts," the
roving Free Companies, and the danger constantly threatening the
safety and prosperity of peaceable citizens. Yet existing authorities,
whether civil or ecclesiastical, seemed powerless to apply any remedy
to all these frightful evils, and Catherine, as she poured out her soul
in prayer for her country which she loved like a true Italian, and for
the Church of God which she regarded as none other than the
Sacred Body of her Divine Spouse, must often have cried out in the
language of the prophets : " How long shall I see men fleeing away,
and hear the voice of the trumpet ? How long shall the land mourn,
and the herb of every field wither ? Woe to the pastors that devour
and tear the sheep of the pasture ! For behold ! the city of Thy
sanctuary is become a desert : Sion is a waste, and Jerusalem is
desolate. And the house of our holiness and of our glory where
our fathers praised Thee is burnt with fire, and all our lovely things
are turned to ruins." 1
But before the great thoughts which were working in her soul
could begin to be accomplished, she herself was to be subjected to a
new discipline of persecution. " When God would exalt a work,"
says Saint Vincent of Paul, " He first humbles the workman ; " and
the wonderful career of Catherine of Siena offered no exception to
this Divine law. Let us see in what manner this came about, and
admire the Providence which watches over Its chosen ones, and
guards the souls most richly gifted by grace, from " the moth of pride,"
by covering them over with "the black garment of humiliation."
1 Jer. iv. 21, xii. 4, xxiii. I ; Isa. lxiv. 10, II.

( i7i )

CHAPTER XIV.
IHE STRIFE OF TONGUES, 1372.
IN the beginning of the year 1372 J Catherine received from our
Lord the intimation that the wonders of her life were about yet
further to increase. The promise of graces greater than any she had
hitherto enjoyed was accompanied by a warning that the prodigies
which God was about to work in her would give rise to murmurs on the
part of men, and of some even of her own followers. Hers was not
intended to be a merely splendid career in the judgment of the world,
nor one the sufferings of which should be sweetened by the love
and confidence of all good souls. Like her Divine Master she was
to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence even to her own
brethren. "One day," says Raymund, "as she was praying in her little
chamber, our Lord appeared to her, and announced to her the new
kind of miracle He was about to operate in her. ' Dear daughter,'
He said, ' henceforth thy life will be full of prodigies so amazing as
that ignorant and sensual men will refuse to believe them. Many
even of those who are now attached to thee will doubt thee, and
believe thee to be deceived. My grace infused into thy soul shall
overflow into thy body also, and thou shalt experience its effects, and
no longer be able to live, save in a manner wholly extraordinary.
Thou shalt be exposed to many labours, and gain many souls, but
thy conduct will scandalise many, and they will contradict and
publicly accuse thee. Nevertheless, fear nothing ; I will be ever with
thee,, and will deliver thee from the tongue that speaketh falsely.
Follow with courage the path that I shall show thee, and by thy
means I will save many souls from hell, and conduct them to My
kingdom.' Catherine listened with reverence, and when she heard
the words repeated, ' Fear nothing, for I am with thee,' she answered
humbly, ' Thou art my God, and I Thy little handmaid ; may Thy
1 Corso Cronotastico.

172 Her frequent Communions.
holy will be accomplished in all things, only forsake me not, but
incline to my assistance.'"
When the vision had ended, she reflected within herself what
change it should be that was thus graciously announced to her.
And she became sensible of such an increase of spiritual grace as
had for its inevitable result a yet further suspension of all her natural
powers. At length it pleased God to inspire her with the thought of
receiving as often as she could the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, in
which she might be granted the fruition of her love, not so as she
would enjoy it in the bliss of heaven, yet so as to satisfy her in some
sort during her time of exile. With the permission of her confessor,
therefore, she began to communicate almost daily,1 unless hindered
by sickness ; and when unable from any cause to do this she suffered
so greatly as to be even in danger of death. Moreover, this
heavenly food satisfied and supported not only her soul, but her
body also ; so that ordinary food became no longer necessary to her,
and the attempt to swallow it was attended by extraordinary
sufferings. This fact seemed to her family and those about her so
incredible, that they readily enough decided it was a deceit of the
enemy, and her confessor ordered her to take food daily, and give
no heed to any visions which might seem to prescribe the contrary.
She obeyed, as she invariably did, but the obedience reduced her to
such a state that they feared for her life. Then he examined her
and drew from her the fact that the Blessed Sacrament so satisfied her
as that she neither desired nor was able to take any other food ; nay,
that the mere presence of the Blessed Sacrament, or of the priest who
was privileged to touch It, in some sort refreshed her and supported
her bodily strength. As he still hesitated, in doubt what to think,
Catherine said to him with her customary sweetness and respect,
" Father, I would ask you to tell me one thing : in case I should
kill myself by over-fasting, should I not be guilty of my own death ? "
"Yes," said he. "Again," said she, "I beseech you resolve me in
this: which do you take to be a greater sin, to die by over-eating
or by over-abstinence? " " By over-eating, of course," he replied.
"Then," she continued, "as you see by experience that I am very
weak, and even at death's door by reason of my eating, why do
you not forbid me to eat, as you would forbid me to fast in the like
case ? " To that he could make no answer ; and, therefore, seeing
1 Raymund distinctly says she did not actually communicate every clay, though
this was currently reported. — Leg., Part 2, ch. xi.

Her Inability to Eat. 173
by evident tokens that she was near the point of death, he concluded
by saying : " Daughter, do as God shall put in your mind, follow
the guidance of His Holy Spirit, and pray for me ; for I see the
things that our Lord works in you are not to be measured by the
common rule."
The account which Raymund has given in his Legend is con
firmed by the testimony of many of her disciples. Caffarini, who
often sat with her at table, says that she forced herself to swallow a
few herbs, but that it cost her such pain that she used to call it
" going to execution," and was obliged afterwards to reject whatever
she had taken. He says he had seen the green twigs she introduced
into her throat for that purpose. Francis Malevolti, who on one
occasion spent four consecutive months in her company, gives a
precisely similar account both of her efforts to eat and the suffering
it occasioned. The anonymous author of the Miracoli, who wrote
during her • lifetime, says that this extraordinary kind of life began
with her so far back as the year 1370 ; and speaks as follows : " This
holy virgin always has with her two or three Sisters who wear the
same habit, and who never leave her ; and not for her own con
solation, but theirs, she sits down with them to table. Her
companions do not eat meat, but only herbs, vegetables and fruit,
with bread and wine, and other coarse food, cooked or raw. She
takes something into her mouth, according to what may be on the
table, sometimes a morsel of bread as big as a nut, sometimes a leaf
of salad, or an almond, or other such things, and in like quantities.
She swallows nothing that she puts into her mouth, but when she
has masticated it, rejects it into a little vessel, rinsing her mouth with
some cold water. And this she does only once in the day."
Stephen Maconi gives the same account, and says that she usually
waited till the others had finished to take even this small amount of
nourishment, saying gaily, " Now, let us go and do justice on the
miserable sinner." Often the artificial means she was obliged to use
to reject what she had swallowed caused her to vom'it an abundance
of blood.
Sometimes her confessor would compassionate her, and advise her
to let men talk, and not to torture herself by the effort to eat. " No,
no," she would say ; " it is better to expiate my sins here, I ought
not to shun the occasion which God gives me of making satisfaction
for them in this life. If we did but know how to use His grace,
we should profit from everything. In favourable events or in con-

1 74 Murmurs arise against her.
tradictions, we should always say, 'I must reap something from this.'
Did we but do this we should soon be very rich." 1
This strange and unwonted manner of life gave matter of great
offence to most of her friends. " They were in the valley," says
Raymund, " and they presumed to judge concerning what was on the
summit of the mountain." Some accused her of pride, as seeking to
appear better than our Lady and the apostles, nay, even than our
Divine Lord Himself, whom Holy Scripture declares did indeed
both eat and drink. Others alleged the rules of spiritual life which
forbid religious persons to practise any singularity. Some said that
all virtue is in the mean, and all extremes are to be suspected.
And others again in plain terms declared she was a mere hypocrite,
who made up for the denial she practised in public by plenty of good
cheer in secret. If any of these slanders reached her ears, or were
uttered in her presence, Catherine would reply with unruffled sweet
ness and patience. "It is true indeed," she would say, "that our
Lord sustains my life without food, but I know not why this should
offend you. Truly I would eat with a good will if I could. But
Almighty God for my sins has laid on me this strange kind of infirmity,
so that if I eat, I am forthwith in peril of death. Pray for me there
fore that He will vouchsafe to forgive me my sins, which are the
cause of this and of every other evil."
Yet she did not fail to suffer intensely ; for Catherine had by
nature a keenly sensitive disposition, and the injurious suspicions
which were daily expressed in her presence caused her a secret
anguish. This was rendered yet more intense when she perceived
that in spite of what had passed between them, her confessor himself
began to waver. Caffarini tells the story in his Supplement, and
relates how one morning, meeting F. Thomas, the Saint observed
that he was preoccupied and troubled, and asked him what ailed him.
He endeavoured to evade her question, but she, who knew all that
was passing in his mind, refused to be so put off. " You may tell
me without fear," she said, " for indeed I already know all about it."
Then he told her the various things that were gossiped about the
city, and how he began to fear that he had not the light requisite
for guiding ao extraordinary a case, or discerning by what spirit she
was led. The Saint paused, and then with great Tvumility replied :
" Father, let me pray, and ask God to make us know if you have
hitherto directed me aright or not ; " and then she told him exactly
1 Legend, Part 2, ch. iv.

Her Fast of Fifty-five Days. 175
who the persons were who had suggested his doubts, though she had
never either seen or spoken to them. The night following she prayed,
kneeling without any support and with such intense fervour that,
though it was winter time, her person and the very floor of the room
where she knelt were bathed in a profuse sweat. And even as she
prayed, the trouble passed from the mind of her confessor, and her
own soul too was filled with a wonderful calm and assurance. At
break of day she sent for him, and bade him give thanks to God for
delivering him from his doubt, adding, " When I saw that you, who
know the very secrets of my heart, were beginning to doubt by what
spirit I was led, I too began to doubt, and to entertain great fears,
but God in His goodness has been pleased this night to reassure
both you and me."
Still neither were the murmurs of the world silenced, nor did any
change take place in her condition of body. One day, in the month
of September 1372, as she knelt weeping over her sins, our Lord
appeared to her, and bidding her weep no more, extended His hand
over her head, and pronounced the customary formula of absolution.
For many days after she felt the touch of that Divine Hand, and the
unspeakable joy of her soul was such, that from that date until the
feast of the Ascension in the year following — a space of nearly eight
months — the suffering occasioned by the attempt to take food greatly
increased. From September until Lent she could only retain the
smallest quantity. From Ash Wednesday, whieh fell that year on
the 8th of March, until Passion Sunday even this was impossible,
and from Passion Sunday, until Ascension Day, a space of fifty-five
days, no kind of food passed her lips. And during the whole of that
time she suffered incredible pain, yet neither her weakness nor her
sufferings seemed to diminish her activity in all good works. For
though she had become so feeble that those about her expected
every hour to be her last, yet if there were any occasion for winning
a soul to God, or doing any other good work for His glory, she would
rise and go about without any sign of weariness.
A few days before the feast of the Ascension her sufferings greatly
increased, and believing herself unable to endure them much longer,
she turned to God, saying, " O Lord, how long is it Thy blessed will
that I should endure this torment ? " And she was given to under
stand that it would cease on the coming Festival. During the three
Rogation days her extreme state of weakness prevented her from
going to the church and receiving Holy Communion, the only food

1 76 The Dinner of Beans.
which for two months had sustained her life. Caffarini says that
our Lord took pity on her, and deigned that an angel should bring
her the Sacred Host in a precious veil, which so comforted and
refreshed her that she revived, but during those three days spake no
word to any living creature. The rest of the story shall be told in
the graphic words of F. Bartholomew. He says, that on going to
see her the eve of the Feast, he doubted if she would live till
morning. " The bell rang for Compline and we all rose to depart.
' O Mother,' I said, ' are you about to leave us ? ' 'I know not,' she
replied, ' but either I shall go to God, or, if I recover, I shall live
in some unusual way.' At daybreak (May, 25th 1373) she called
Alexia, saying, 'Give me my shoes and mantle.' Alexia, astonished
but rejoicing, did as she was bid, and they went to the church
together. Catherine went to Communion with the other Sisters, and
remained in ecstacy making her thanksgiving till the brethren came
into the church to finish grace after dinner, according to the custom
of the Order. Having finished grace in choir, many went into the
nave of the church to look at Catherine. Then rising from her
prayer gay and joyful, she comforted them all by her sweet manner
of receiving them. 'To-day is the feast of our Lord,' she said, 'I
think our sweet Lord wishes me to eat with you to-day for your
consolation.' These words filled them with joy, and six of the
Friars went home with her, to dine with her at her own house, but as
nothing had been provided, the brethren sent back to the convent
for some beans dressed in oil that had been cooked for the com
munity. They all then ate with her, rejoicing, and many devout
people hearing what had happened rejoiced also ; and coming in to
visit her, she was obliged for their satisfaction to take food and wine
several times in the course of that day."1
Nevertheless the hard judgments passed on her conduct did not
cease. F. Bartholomew in his deposition mentions the letter written
to her some time later by a certain person of high reputation for
piety, named Elbianco, in which he remonstrated with her for her
unusual manner of life. The letter fell into F. Raymund's hands,
who was at that time her confessor, and was by him shown to
Bartholomew. Whilst they were conferring about it, Catherine
1 We have followed the account of Caffarini and F. Bartholomew. If any one
will compare their joint narratives with the brief and imperfect account given by
Raymund in the Legend, it will be seen that they wrote as eye witnesses, whereas
he only gathered his information from hearsay.

Catherines Letter to Elbianco. i ^y
observed their trouble and asked the cause. When she had heard it
she not unnaturally claimed her letter, and as they hesitated about
giving it to her, she said, " If you will not give it to me, at least tell
me what concerns me in it." Raymund accordingly read it to her.
She listened calmly, and then gently reproved them both for the
indignation they had expressed. "You ought," she said, "to thank
him who has written me this letter. Do you not see that he has
given me precious advice ? He fears lest I should fall into the hands
of the enemy, and wishes to warn me of my danger. I must have
that letter, and shall certainly write and thank the author of it." In
fact she did so ; and seeing that Raymund was not convinced by her
words, she gave him a severe look, and reproved them both for
seeing evil where there was nothing but good.
Her reply is preserved,1 and is as follows : " I thank, you heartily,
my dear Father (she says), for the zeal you have for my soul. It
seems you are astonished at what you hear of my way of life, and I
am sure you have no other motive than a desire for God's honour
and my salvation, and that you fear for me lest I should be deceived
by the enemy. This fear does not at all surprise me, and I assure
you if you feel it, much more do I tremble for myself, so greatly do
I dread the delusions of the evil one. Nevertheless, I trust in
God's goodness, and I am on my guard against myself, knowing that
from myself I can hope for nothing. I take refuge in the Cross of
Jesus Christ, and fasten myself to it, being persuaded that so long as
I am nailed there with the nails of love and humility, the devil cannot
harm me ; not for my merits, but for those of Jesus crucified.
" You tell me I ought to pray God that I may be able to eat ; I
assure you before God that I use every effort to do so, and that once
or twice every day I force myself to take food. I have constantly
prayed to God, and I do and will pray that He will grant me grace
to live like other people, if such be His will. I assure you I have
thoroughly examined this infirmity, and I think that in His good
ness He must have sent it to correct me of the vice of gluttony. I
deeply regret not having had strength enough to correct it from the
motive of love. I do not know what remedy I can now make use
of, but I would beg you to pray the Eternal Truth, if it be for His
glory, that He would enable me once more to take food. I am sure
He will not despise your prayers ; and I entreat you to send me the
remedy you name, and I will certainly try it. I would also ask you
1 No. 305. M

178 Catherine s frequent Communions.
not to judge lightly of what you have not examined before God. I
will conclude."
The gentle reproof contained in the last phrase of this humble
letter must, we would hope, have touched the heart of the person
to whom it was addressed.
But the trials to which the Saint was exposed from the hard
judgment of others were by no means confined to their strictures
on her abstinence from food. It has been said that at the same
time that this suspension of her ordinary powers became more
habitual, her longing for Holy Communion greatly increased. It
grew in very truth to be the life of her life, the daily bread of body
and soul. Most wonderful, indeed, are the things that are told us
of the Communions of Catherine, and of the favours she at such
times received. We do not speak of them in this place, as they
will more fitly form the subject of a separate chapter. x It was not
so much these mysterious favours which formed matter of criticism,
as the frequency of her Communions ; a point on which endless
discussions arose, many even of her best friends withholding their
approval. Among the Mantellate themselves there existed a strong
difference of opinion on the subject. There are indications of a
sort of jealousy which had sprung up about this time on the part
of the elder Sisters against Catherine and her younger companions.
Why should these young ones affect to be holier than their seniors ?
Who was Catherine Benincasa that she should gather disciples about
her and set up for being a Saint ? So the matter was carried to a
director of the Tertiaries, whom Raymund does not name, but only
calls "an unenlightened religious."2 He sided with the mal
contents, and this is less surprising when we remember that such
frequent Communion was not then a common thing even with the
devout. Soon both Friars and Sisters were split into two parties.
1 In order to preserve the chronological order of Catherine's life, it has been
thought best as a general rule not to introduce incidents attested by Raymund of
Capua until we reach the period when he first became known to the Saint. It is
the mixing up of facts which occurred before and after that time which has con
fused the order of events, as given to us in the Legend. On this account, there
fore, we defer the subject of Catherine's favours in Holy Communion to a later
chapter, in which will be thrown together the testimonies of all her confessors
and disciples on this interesting subject.
2 This could not have been F. Bartholomew Montucci, who is generally spoken
of as holding that office, a man of great piety, and one of Catherine's most devoted
friends.

Murmurs arise against her. 179
The one affirmed that these frequent Communions were presump
tuous, and tended to irreverence ; whilst the other as warmly took
Catherine's part. Father Thomas stoutly defended his penitent,
and in reply to the arguments and censures which he daily had to
encounter, appealed to the practice of the early Christians, as
recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, and to the authority of St.
Denys the Areopagite, who declares that in the primitive Church
the faithful communicated daily. His opponents were not at all
disconcerted, but alleged on their side a saying of St Augustine,
"To communicate daily, I neither blame nor praise." When this
was repeated to Catherine, and by no less a personage than a learned
bishop, she listened with her usual sweetness, and gave the matter
a pleasant turn by replying, " If St. Augustine does not blame me,
my lord, why should you ? " Her confessors, who were familiar
with the doctrine of St. Thomas, that they who find in themselves
an increase of devotion and reverence towards the most Holy
Sacrament by frequent Communion may safely receive It oftener,
gave testimony that in her case she did increase, as in devotion,
so also in charity, humility, and godly patience : they said, too,
that when hindered from Communion, she languished as one sick
of some bodily infirmity. Yet for all that many of her own
religious sisters were not afraid of using every effort to prevent her
communicating, on the plea that it troubled the Fathers, that it gave
offence, and other like pretences. On this matter, Raymund has
made some sad and humiliating disclosures. It seems that some
of the elder sisters, moved by their miserable jealousy, so worked
on the Prior of San Domenico, and certain of the friars who had
espoused their side, that at last it was determined that Catherine
should be deprived of Communion, and that the faithful confessor
who had directed her for so many years with consummate prudence
should be removed. When she next approached the altar rail, there
fore, she was driven away before the eyes of the public, and obliged
to retire in confusion. Catherine bore the trial with unruffled
patience, and never uttered a word of bitterness or complaint. But
this was not all. On the rare occasions when she was now permitted
to communicate, they required her to finish her prayers directly and
quit the church ; a thing which was wholly impossible in her case,
as she could never receive Communion without falling into an ecstacy,
and remaining in that state some hours. The Fathers who had taken
this affair into their hands seem to have considered it in the light of

1 80 Insults offered to her.
an intolerable nuisance. Low and vulgar minds will regard even
the sublimest mysteries from a low and vulgar point of view. We
can fancy the old sacristan fidgeting about with his keys in his hand,
unable to shut the church doors because Catherine Benincasa was so
long at her prayers. That was the limit of his view of the subject,
and he found many among his brethren whose comprehension of
the matter did not rise to a higher level than his own. So at last,
one day, losing patience, they took her, all in ecstacy as she was,
and carrying her off in a rough and brutal manner, they flung her
out on a heap of rubbish outside the church doors, which they then
proceeded to lock behind her. There she lay, cast out as if she had
been some vile reptile, with her senses the while all rapt in God.
Her companions, bathed in tears, gathered about her to protect
her from the rays of the midday sun, and so waited the moment
when she would return to herself. And this happened not once,
but often.1 At such times the passers-by would kick her contemp
tuously ; one miserable woman satisfied her malice by kicking her in
the church, and then publicly boasted of what she had done. Catherine
knew all this, but she never spoke of it except to excuse the authors
of these strange excesses. One man, unhappily a religious, was not
content with grossly insulting the Saint in the presence of her com
panions, but went so far as to take from her some money, bestowed
on her for charitable purposes. Catherine gave not the smallest
sign of trouble. She forbade her companions to speak evil of the
miscreant, or to cause him any pain. She possessed her soul in
patience, and by patience she at last overcame. Surely, in the
sight of the angels, this is the sublimest page in Catherine's life.
To many it is given, in a certain sense, to taste of the sufferings
of their Divine Master, but comparatively few enjoy the privilege
of sharing His humiliation. Catherine in her ecstasy, flung out
of the church by rude hands, and lying in the broad thoroughfare
under the scorching sun ; kicked and spat upon by brutal men
and spiteful women; but unmoved in her patience, always calm,
always sweet, always silent ; — what a spectacle is this ! What a
reflection of the ignominies of Jesus ! And having reached that
depth of profound abjection, can we wonder that she should soar
upwards from it to the sublimest heights of charity ?
1 This is clear from the Legend. Raymund gives several instances of persons,
both men and women, who kicked and otherwise maltreated her, and of the
judgments that fell on them. — See Leg., Part 3, chap. vi.

Sister A ndrea. 1 8 1
About this time (probably towards the end of the year 1373), l
Catherine became aware that an old woman named Andrea, herself
one of the Sisters of Penance, was dying by inches of a terrible
cancer. As her malady made progress it caused such disgust to
those about her, that scarcely any one could be found to visit or
tend upon her. When Catherine heard this, she understood that
our Lord had reserved the poor forsaken sufferer for her loving
care; and going to her at once with a cheerful countenance, she
offered to remain with her and assist her as long as her illness
might last The charity thus generously offered was as generously
accomplished ; day after day Catherine lavished on her patient
the tenderest care ; in spite of the repulsive nature of the services
she had to perform, she never showed any sign of disgust or re
pugnance, or adopted any of those precautions which others had
made use of in the tainted atmosphere of the sick-room, lest by
doing so she should give pain to Andrea's feelings. Once when the
intolerable stench almost overcame her courage, she reproached her
self for this as for a weakness, and bending over the bed she even
applied her lips to the wound, until she had triumphed over the
revolt of nature. But wonderful to say, her charity elicited no
gratitude from her who was its object. Andrea's ears had no doubt
been poisoned by the malicious slanders before mentioned. The
tongues of some of the Sisters had already been busy tearing in
pieces Catherine's good name, and getting up a party among the
friars against her and her confessor ; and this explains the other
wise incomprehensible fact that the sick woman should have had her
mind filled with the most injurious suspicions of the holy virgin.
¦She persuaded herself that Catherine's heroic perseverance in doing
what no one else would consent to do was part and parcel of her
affectation of holiness, a would-be superiority to other people, for it
was there that the devil of jealousy had found entrance among the
Sisters ; and at last her diseased fancies so completely blinded her
that whenever Catherine was out of her sight she imagined her to
be engaged in something sinful. Though Catherine knew well
enough the judgment which Andrea passed on her, she did not
1 Carapelli places it at the beginning of that year, but when we remember in
what a condition Catherine then was, it seems more likely to have been some
time after May. We consider then the events here alluded to as occupying the
latter half of 1373 and the beginning of 1374, immediately before her first visit to
Florence.

182 Andrea's Calumny.
show herself one whit less loving or serviceable than she had been
before. But the more charity she bestowed, the more was the
malice of the old woman stirred against her, so that not content
with her unjust suspicions, she went so far as to communicate them
to the other Sisters, to whom she accused Catherine as guilty of a
breach of chastity.
The matter was too grave to be passed over without examination,
and the Sisters, with their Prioress at their head, after questioning
Andrea, summoned Catherine before them to answer to the charge.
Catherine listened to their reproaches in humble silence, and when
she had to speak, said no more than these words, " Indeed, my good
Mother and Sisters, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, I am a
virgin ! " And however much they pressed her she would give no
other answer save again and again to repeat, "Indeed, I am a
virgin." Then she went back to the author of this malicious
slander, and waited on her humbly and charitably as before, yet not
without feeling a pang in her heart when she thought of the infamy
attributed to her. Retiring to her own chamber she opened her
grief to Almighty God : " O Lord, my sweetest Spouse," she said,
" Thou knowest what a tender and precious thing is the good name
of those who have vowed their virginity to Thee ; and Thou seest
the efforts made by the father of lies to hinder me in this charitable
work which Thou hast appointed me to do ; help me therefore in
my innocence, and suffer not the wicked serpent to prevail against
me." When she had thus prayed a long time with many tears, our
Lord appeared to her holding two crowns in His hands, one in His
right hand of gold, all decked with precious stones, another in His
left hand of very sharp thorns, and said these words to her : " Dear
daughter, it is so, that thou must needs be crowned with these two
crowns at sundry times ; choose thou, therefore, whether thou wilt
rather be crowned with the sharp crown of thorns in this life, and
have that other reserved for thee in the life to come; or else,'
whether thou like better to have this goodly golden crown now, and
that other sharp crown to be reserved for thee in the life to come ? "
To. this demand the humble virgin made answer after this manner :
"Lord," said she, "Thou knowest very well that I have resigned
my will wholly-to Thee, and have made a full resolution to do all
things according to Thy direction ; and therefore I dare not choose
anything, unless I may know that the same shall stand with Thy
most blessed will and pleasure. Nevertheless, because Thou hast

The Crown of Thorns. 183
willed me to make answer concerning this choice, that Thou hast
here made unto me, I say thus : That I choose in this life to be ever
more conformed and made like to Thee, my Lord and Saviour, and
cheerfully. to bear crosses and thorns for Thy love, as Thou hast
done for mine." With that she reached out her hands with firm
courage, and taking the crown of thorns out of our Lord's hands, she
put the same upon her own head with such a strength and violence
that the thorns pierced her head round about insomuch that for a
long space after she felt a sensible pain in her head by the pricking
of those thorns, as she declared afterwards to her ghostly Father.
Then our Lord said to her : " Daughter, all things are in My power ;
and as I have suffered this slander to be raised against thee by the
devil and his members, so is it in My power to cease the same when
I will. Continue thou, therefore, in that holy service that thou
hast begun, and give no place to the enemy that would hinder thee
from all good works. I will give thee a perfect victory over thine
enemy, and will bring to pass that whatsoever he hath imagined against
thee, it shall all be turned to his own greater confusion." Catherine,
much comforted, returned to her charitable labours, giving no heed
either to the malice of her enemy or the injurious gossip of the
neighbours. But when the rumours that were spread abroad reached
the ears of Lapa, her anger was past control. She needed no proof
of her daughter's innocence, knowing more than the world did what
manner of life she led ; and bursting into her presence, she began
with her accustomed vehemence : " How often have I told thee that
thou shouldest no more serve yonder wretched old crone ? See now
what reward she gives thee for all thy good service. She has
brought a foul slander upon thee among all thy Sisters, which God
knows whether thou wilt ever be able to rid thyself of so long as
thou livest. If ever thou serve her again after this day, or if ever
thou come where she is, never take me for thy mother ; for I tell
thee plainly I will never know thee for my daughter." Catherine
listened as she spoke, and at first was somewhat troubled. But
after a little time, when she had recovered her usual calm, she went
to her mother, and kneeling down before her with great reverence,
she spoke as follows: "Sweet mother, think you that our Lord
would be pleased with us if we should leave the works of mercy
undone because our neighbour shows himself unthankful towards
us ? When our Saviour Christ hung on the Cross, and heard there
the reproachful talk of that ungrateful people round about, did He

184 Andrea Repents.
because of their cruel words give up the charitable work of their
redemption ? Good mother, you know very well that if I should
leave this old sick woman, she were in great danger to perish of
neglect; because she would not find any one to come near
her and do such service as is requisite to be done about a woman
in this case; and so should I be the occasion of her death.
She is now a little deceived by the ghostly enemy, but she will here
after, by the grace of God, come to acknowledge her fault and be sorry
for the same." With such words she pacified her mother's mind
and got her blessing ; and so returned again to the service of the
sick woman, about whom she did all things with great diligence and
love, never showing either in words or countenance the least token
of discontent or displeasure. So that the sick Sister was much
astonished and withal ashamed for what she had done, and began to
have great sorrow and repentance for the slander that she had
raised against her. Then it pleased our Lord to show His mercy
towards His faithful spouse, and to restore her again to her good
fame after this manner ; — One day the holy maid went to the sick
Sister's chamber to serve her, as she was wont to do ; and as she was
coming towards her bed where she lay, Andrea saw a marvellous
goodly light coming down from heaven, which filled all her chamber,
and was so beautiful that it made her utterly to forget all the pains
of her disease. What that light might mean she could not conceive,
but looking about her here and there she beheld the maiden's face
gloriously transformed, the majesty whereof was so strong that she
seemed to her rather an angel from heaven than any earthly
creature. Which brightness the more the old woman beheld, the
more did she condemn the malice of her own heart and tongue in
slandering such an excellent and holy creature. At last her hear1
being quite softened, with much sobbing and weeping she confessed
her fault to the holy maid, and besought her pardon. When
Catherine saw her repentance and submission, she took the old
woman in her arms, and kissed her, and spoke very sweet words
unto her, saying, " Good mother, I have no displeasure in the world
against you, but only against our enemy the devil, by whose malice
and subtilty I know all this is wrought ; but rather I have to thank
you with all my heart, for you have reminded me to have a more
careful guard to myself, and so doing, you have turned the malice of
the fiend to my greater good and benefit." With such kind speeches
she comforted the' sick Sister, and then she set herself to do all such

Catherine's Victory over Nature. 185
services as were wont to be done about her. And when she had
done all, she took her leave very gently (as her manner was), and so
retired to her chamber, to give God thanks. In the meantime the
old woman, who had a great care to restore the innocent virgin to
her good name again, when any of those came to her before whom
she had made that slanderous report, took occasion openly to
confess, with many tears, that whatever she had at any time reported
against that holy maid she had been induced to report it by the
craft of the devil, and not by anything she ever saw or knew in her-
She affirmed, moreover, that she was able to prove that the holy
maid was not only free from all such suspicion, but also endued with
singular graces of God, and that she was, indeed, a most pure and
holy virgin. " Thus much," said she, "I speak not upon hearsay or
opinion, but upon my certain knowledge." x
But the enemy of souls was not thus to be vanquished, and return
ing to the attack, he endeavoured once more to overcome the Saint's
heroic courage by exciting within her a revolt of the senses. One
day as she uncovered the dreadful wound to wash and dress it, the
infected odour which arose from it was so insupportable that it
seemed impossible for her to repress the disgust which it occasioned.
But full of holy indignation at her own delicacy, she turned against
herself, saying, " O wretched flesh, dost thou then abhor thy fellow
Christian ! I will make thee even to swallow that of which thou wilt
not abide the savour," and collecting in a cup the water in which she
washed the wound, she went aside and drank it. This action became
known, and her confessor questioned her about it. Catherine answered
him with some embarrassment ; at last she owned the truth, and added,
" I assure you, father, never in my lifetime did I taste anything one
half so sweet and delightful." The remainder of the story must be
given in the words of the Legend. " The next night following, our
Saviour Christ appeared to her, and showed her His Hands, Feet, and
Side, and in them imprinted the five Wounds of His most bitter
Passion, and said unto her : " Dear daughter, many are the battles
that thou hast sustained for My love ; and .great are the victories that
thou hast achieved through My grace and assistance. For which I
bear thee great good-will and favour. But especially that drink that
thou tookest yesterday for My sake pleased Me passing well, in
which, because thou hast not only despised the delight of the flesh,
but cast behind thy back the opinion of the world, and utterly sub-
1 Fen., Part 2, ch. xi.

1 86 She drinks from our Lord's Side.
dued thine own nature, I will give thee a drink that shall surpass in
sweetness all the liquors that the world is able to bestow." With
that He reached out His arm, and bringing her lips to the Wound of
His sacred Side, " Drink, daughter," He said, " drink thy fill at the
Fountain of Life ! " Catherine obeyed ; she pressed her lips to that
Sacred Side, and drew from the wounded Heart of her Lord the liquor
of life, as from the fountain of everlasting salvation !
Meanwhile the story of her heroic charity could not be concealed,
Andrea herself proclaimed to all comers the spotless innocence of
her whom she had formerly calumniated, and the marvellous act of
self-devotion which she had witnessed with her own eyes.1 From
that day, says Caffarini, she was called by all men " the Saint ; " and
the fame of her virtue, spreading abroad like a sweet perfume, was
carried beyond the bounds of her native place into the remotest
cities of Tuscany.
1 The story of Andrea is given in the earlier chapters of the Legend. Nothing,
however, is to be concluded on that account as to the actual date of the occur
rence, for Raymund grouped together events without the slightest regard to the
order of time. F. Angiolo Carapelli, who has made a serious study of the chron
ology of St. Catherine's life, assigns it to the year 1373. And on examination,
many things will be found to support the accuracy of this statement. The
calumny, so incredible at a time when Catherine's reputation for sanctity stood
universally respected, would not unnaturally win belief at such a crisis as has been
described in the above chapter, and by the very class of persons whom we have
seen so maliciously disposed against her. Then her words to her Lord, "Thou
knowest that / have resigned my will wholly to Thee," seem to bear evident
reference to that exchange of wills which it is impossible to date earlier than
1371. And lastly, from the expression used both by Caffarini and Bartholomew,
we infer that it was at that time "her fame spread through Tuscany ;" whilst
naturally enough, the very next event following is her summons by the General to
Florence, which we know took place in 1374.

( i*7 )

CHAPTER XV.
THE PLAGUE, 1374.
" TN the May of 1374, at which time the Chapter of the Friar
A Preachers was being held at Florence, there came thither, by
command of the Master General of the Order, a certain Sister of
Penance of St. Dominic, named Catherine, daughter of Giacomo of
Siena. She was of the age of twenty-seven, and was reputed to be a
great servant of God ; and with her came three other Sisters wearing
the same habit, who held her company and took care of her, and
from whom I, hearing of her fame, went to see her and make her
acquaintance." Thus writes the anonymous author of the Miracoli ;
and his words just quoted afford us the only existing notice of this
first visit of Catherine to the city of Florence. No allusion to the
fact is to be found in the pages either of the Legend or of any
other original biography ; we are left entirely in the dark as to the
cause and duration of this visit, so that in the absence of all certain
information on the subject, it may be permitted for us to venture on
our own surmises.
She was summoned thither, as it appears, " by command of the
Master General of the Order." That office was then held by F.
Elias of Toulouse. Considering what had gone before, and the con
tradictory opinions which must have reached the General's ears
regarding this celebrated woman, we can imagine it a very likely
explanation that he summoned her to Florence in order that he
might by his own personal examination satisfy himself as to her real
spirit ; and this appears the more probable, when we learn from the
same writer that the injurious gossip spoken of in the last chapter
had preceded her to Florence, and was there busily caught up and
propagated. For he tells us that a dear friend of hers, in that city
expressing his sorrow at hearing that there was much murmuring
against her singular way of life, not only on the part of the laity, but
also of religious, she replied, "That is my glory; that is what I
desire, to be well spoken against all my life : never you care about

1 88 First Visit to Florence.
it : I am sorry for them, but not for myself." It seems then most
probable that the hubbub which had been going on at Siena, involv
ing as it did not Catherine alone, but also her confessor and the
other fathers who had stood her friends, must have come to the
knowledge of Father Elias, and necessitated his interference. The
great theological Order of the Church, which glories in the title of
the " Order of Truth," could scarcely be indifferent as to the real
character- of one wearing their habit, who was proclaimed on one
side to be an Ecstatica and a Saint, living without corporal food,
nourished by the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, to whose supernatural
glance the secrets of hearts were manifested, and whose prayers
had never been known to be offered without avail ; and who, on the
other, was stigmatised as an impostor and a hypocrite, who not only
went astray seduced by the enemy, but was leading all the weak
heads of Siena after her.
Whatever may have been the cause, the fact of her visit appears
certain, and if there is any truth in the above surmise, we must suppose
that the result of the investigation of the General and the Fathers of
the Chapter proved perfectly satisfactory. It was the first journey
that Catherine had ever taken so far from her native place. No
doubt she must have contrasted the splendour of the great republican
capital with the more homely beauties of her own little city. All
things in Florence were then peaceful and prosperous, and there was
nothing to indicate the outbreak of that terrific storm which two years
later was to bring her back in a far different capacity. There can be
no doubt, however, that the ties she formed during this, her first
visit to Florence, and the impression she left on the minds of the
people, had much to do with their future appeal to her mediation ;
and we may almost certainly conclude that the " dear friend " spoken
of above can have been no other than Nicolas Soderini, the brave
and virtuous citizen whose friendship for her began at this time, and
lasted until death. In fact, his house was always her home in Flor
ence, and in it is still to be seen a little chamber said to have been
that occupied by Catherine, on the wall of which is painted a
crucifix, before which she is supposed to have prayed. Soderini had
been introduced to Catherine by her brothers, who, it will be remem
bered, were then living in Florence, and whom, being unfortunate in
business, he had assisted with money.1 According to the " Archivio
1 " As to Benincasa's affair, I can say nothing about it, not being in Siena. I
thank Master Nicolas for his charity to them." — Letter 115.

Letter to her Niece Nanna. 1 89
di Magistrato" they occupied a house near the Canto a Soldani, in a
street running into the Piazza dArno. Bartolo's children were at
Siena with their grandmother, but Catherine would have found here
her niece Nanna, the daughter of the elder brother, who soon became
dear to her. After she left Florence she often wrote to this young
girl, and one letter is preserved which shall be quoted here for the
sake of its sweet motherly tone, betraying that it was written by one
remarkable for her tender love of children, and who knew how to
adapt her style to the capacity of a child.
" Dearest daughter in Christ, I desire to see you avoiding everything
which can hinder you from having Jesus for your Spouse. But you
will not be able to do this if you are not one of His wise virgins,
who have their lamps full of oil and light. Do you know what that
means ? The lamp is our heart, for our heart should be made like a
lamp. You know, a lamp is broad at the top and narrow at the
bottom ; that is the shape of our heart, which we must always keep
open to heavenly things and good thoughts . . . but the lamp is
narrow at the foot, and so we must shut our hearts up and keep
them closed to things of earth. In this way our hearts will be like a
lamp ; but then we must have oil, for you know, my child, that without
oil a lamp is of no use. Now the oil represents that sweet little virtue
humility, for the spouse of Christ must be very humble, and mild, and
patient ... If we are patient and humble we shall have oil in our
lamp ; but that is not enough, the lamp must be lighted. Now the
light is holy faith, but it must not be a dead faith, but a holy, living
faith ; you know the Saints tell us faith without works is dead. We
must try then to apply ourselves to virtue, and abandon our childish
ways and vanities, and live, not like silly girls in the world, but like
faithful spouses of Jesus, and so we shall have the lamp, the oil, and
the light. But remember our sweet Spouse is so jealous of His
spouses, — I could never tell you how jealous He is ! — If He sees you
loving anything beside Himself, He will be angry, and if you do not
correct your faults, He will shut the door, and you will not be able
to enter when the nuptials are celebrated. It was so with the five
foolish virgins . . . they had not brought the oil of humility, and it
was said to them, 'Go and buy oil.' There is an oil which the
world sells, it is the oil of flattery and praise, and so it was said to
the foolish virgins, 'You have not chosen to buy eternal life with
your good works, but you chose to buy the praise of men, and all
you have done was done for that ; go now, then, and buy that praise,

1 90 Death of Stephen.
but you cannot enter here' Ah, my child, beware of the flattery of
men ; do not seek for your actions to be praised, for if you do, the
door of eternal life will be closed."
Catherine left Florence some time in June, and returned to Siena
to find the city suffering from the twofold calamity of famine and
pestilence. Neither of these scourges were new things in Siena, which
had been wellnigh depopulated by the plague in the very year of
Catherine's birth. But never before had it been known to rage with
equal violence. It attacked persons of all ages, and a single day
often sufficed to begin and end its fatal course. A panic seized the
population ; and whilst the more wealthy sought safety by flight, the
poorer sort were thus abandoned in their misery, with none to help
them. It will be remembered that when Catherine had left the city
in the month previous it was under sorrowful circumstances. Many
of her own sisters, and of those friars whose very footsteps in old time
she had kissed with loving reverence, had turned their backs on her,
regarding her as something half-way between a madwoman and an
impostor. She had received scorn and insult precisely from those
who were most bound to protect her ; and true woman as she was, it
is not to be believed that she could have been wholly insensible to
such cruel injuries, or that the memory of them could have been
quite effaced by subsequent applause. But now when she saw the
gaunt faces of her fellow-citizens, and heard the doleful sound of the
dead-cart as it went from house to house gathering the bodies of that
day's victims for burial, there was but one thought in her heart, " this
time is for me.''
Her first ministrations were needed in her own family. Her
sister Lisa (of the Hospital) was one of the first victims. Then
Bartolo, who had accompanied Catherine back to Florence to see
his mother, was carried off by the pestilence. Francis Malevolti
tells us that Catherine at this time lost two of her brothers, " both
honourable merchants," and his statement is explained by a passage
in the deposition of Peter Ventura. He tells us that Stephen had
gone to Rome on a visit of devotion, and that one night, Catherine,
who had received a revelation of his death, called her mother and
said, " Know, dear mother, that your son and my brother has just
passed out of this life," and some days later the fact was confirmed ,-
by persons who came from Rome bringing the sad tidings.1 But
this was not all : out of eleven of her grandchildren whom Lapa was
1 Process., fol. 199.

The Plague. 1 9 1
bringing up in her own house, most of them the children of Bartolo,
eight died. Truly in that hour of cruel bereavement she must have
sighed for the death from which she had formerly shrunk, and bitterly
bemoaned herself in the desolate house once filled with the gay
voices of so many innocent children. But Catherine, to whom they
were all so dear, buried them with her own hands, saying as she laid
them one by one in their last resting-place, " This one, at least, I
shall not lose." Then she turned her thoughts to those outside her
home, and resumed her old habits of heroic charity. Terrible indeed
are the accounts left by historians of this awful time. In some streets
not a creature was left alive to answer the call when the dead-cart
stopped at their door. Sometimes the priests and those who carried
a bier to the grave, fell lifeless while performing this last act of
charity, and were buried in the yet open sepulchre. The public
tribunals were closed, and the laws no longer remained in force.
The victims were of all ranks. Two of the " Defenders " died within
a day or two of each other. At the great Hospital of La Scala,
the Rector, Galgano di Lolo, gave his life in discharge of the duties
of his office.1 The charity and the resources of the Confraternity of
the Disciplinati were taxed to the uttermost, and not a few of them
in like manner died, martyrs of charity.
Once more, therefore, was Catherine to be seen in the hospitals,
and the most infected parts of the city, assisting all no less with her
charitable services than with her prayers. " Never did she appear
more admirable than at this time," says Caffarini ; " she was always
with the plague-stricken ; she prepared them for death, she buried
them with her own hands. I myself witnessed the joy with which she
tended them, and the wonderful efficacy of her words which effected
1 The office of Rector of La Scala was one of great dignity and importance.
The person who filled it was by right a member of the high Consistory, and, more
over, appointed the governors of a great many other hospitals which depended on
this one, not only in Siena, but even in other towns of Tuscany. He was also
protector of several other charitable institutions in the city. Some of the governors
were bound to be Sienese gentlemen. Besides the ordinary work of a hospital,
La Scala received and educated foundlings, lodged pilgrims, and distributed alms
to the sick and needy outside its walls ; and in time of famine it distributed a
great quantity of grain. Its revenues were very large. Among its sacred
treasures is the Holy Nail that transfixed the left hand of our Lord on the Cross.
Here is also preserved the Sienese standard which was carried at the great vic
tory of Montaperto to which was given the title of the " Manto di Maria ; " and a
picture representing our Lady covering the city and its inhabitants with her mantle
in token of her protection. — Diario Sanese, ii. 95, 96.

192 Catherine serves the Plague-stricken.
many conversions. Not a few owed their lives to her self-devoted
care, and she encouraged her companions to perform the like
services." For herself she was insensible either to fear or the repug
nances of nature. She had died and come to life again, and in what
ever sense we understand that incident, she had come to regard this
world as we also should regard it were we true- to our profession of
faith ; as those could not fail to regard it to whom the last things
and the eternal truths had by earnest meditation become realities.
What were the chances of life or death, sickness or danger, to one
who (as we may say) had seen eternity 1 What should they be to
those who verily believe in it ? " How can you endure such cold ? "
asked her confessor one day, as he saw her setting forth to her daily
fatigues, scantily protected from the bitter winds to which Siena is so
much exposed. " A dead body feels nothing," 1 was her reply ; and
truly in her total insensibility to the claims of nature she might fitly
have been said to have been dead. That heroic act of her early life
by which she had chosen suffering as her portion in this world, was
no empty profession ; in virtue of it she accepted pain, fatigue, humilia
tion, and the frustration of many hopes with an equal mind and
with an utter indifference to everything save the discharge of duty.
Caffarini tells us that her disciples would sometimes express their
wonder at her patience and courage ; but in reply she would only
laugh", and say, " If people knew how sweet it is to suffer for God,
they would covet the opportunities of having something to bear as a
piece of singular good fortune." In the same place he relates how a
certain priest, having come from Florence for the purpose of testing
her sanctity, in his presence uttered the most injurious reproaches
against the holy virgin, who, lying on her bed of boards (for she was
at the time very weak), listened to it all with a countenance so sweet
and unmoved, and with such a heavenly joy and serenity, that when
the speaker left her presence, he could only say that " she was pure
unalloyed gold." 2 It was in this spirit, therefore, that she took on
herself during this frightful time labours and duties, at the thought
of which flesh and blood might well have shuddered ; and whilst we
are told that the unhappy citizens shrank from encountering one
another in the streets, where men, to use the expression of Tommasi,
" were daily falling dead like ripe apples from the tree ; " there was
one form from which they did not shrink, but welcomed it as the,
1 Burlamacchi's notes to the Legend.
2 Process., 1270, 1271,

Raymund of Capua. 1 9 3
harbinger of comfort ; for they recognised in that attenuated, white-
robed figure, "Catherine, the spouse of Christ."
So they called her ; for they had come to understand who and
what she was. In their intolerable sufferings she possessed the power
of consolation. She could give them sympathy, for they had not lost
more than she. They had seen her burying the little ones whom
she loved so tenderly, and mothers, therefore, who had lost their
treasures could bear to listen to her when she told them not to
grieve. It was precisely at this time that she made her first acquaintance
with him who during the remainder of her life was to enjoy her
entire confidence. This was Father Raymund of Capua, a Friar
Preacher eminent alike for his learning and virtue, who for four
years had filled the office of confessor to the nuns of St. Agnes of
Montepulciano, where he wrote the life of that saint. He was a
member of the Neapolitan family Delle Vigne, to which had belonged
the celebrated chancellor of Frederick II. Early called into the
Order of St. Dominic in some remarkable manner which he alludes
to, but does not narrate, he suffered much from weak health, on which
account the physicians forbade his keeping the fasts of the Order.
This greatly afflicted him ; and making it a matter of special prayer,
he obtained strength enough not only to keep the obligations of his
rule, but even to fast on bread and water on the vigils of all our
Lady's feasts.1 After preaching and lecturing on Sacred Theology
in various cities of Italy, he was made Prior of the Minerva at
Rome in 1367, and in that capacity presented his community to
Urban V. when that Pontiff visited the eternal city. He was
remarkable for his great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and com
posed a treatise on the Magnificat in her honour, as well as the
Office used on the feast of the Visitation. Several years before he
became acquainted with Catherine, the same most Blessed Virgin
had made known to the Saint that she would one day obtain for her
a confessor who would give her more help than any she had yet
consulted. The first occasion on which she saw him was the feast
of St John Baptist, when the high mass for. the day was sung by F.
Bartholomew Dominic, assisted by F. Raymund of Capua and F.
Thomas della Fonte. After the conclusion of the high mass,
» 'He relates this story himself in a letter to Philip, Cardinal of Ostia, written
in defence of regular observance, and by way of proving that on this head
physicians are not the only authorities to be consulted. N

194 He becomes Confessor to Catherine.
Raymund said his own low mass, at which Catherine likewise
assisted ; and it was then that she heard a Voice saying, " This is
My beloved servant ; this is he to whom I will give thee." x From
that day she placed the direction of her conscience in his hands.
No doubt Raymund was well aware of the difference of opinion
which existed among some of the friars regarding her. He had
probably been consulted on the subject by them, and the visit of
F. Thomas della Fonte and F. George Naddi to Montepulciano,
mentioned in a former chapter, may have had some connection with
the same affair. It is even possible that his superiors had despatched
him to Siena with a view of settling the disputes which were dividing
the community of San Domenico, as one to whose character and
experience all would yield. These, however, are only conjectures ;
what is certain is, that a complete confidence was established between
him and F. Thomas, equally honourable to both parties. F. Thomas
put him in possession of his long experience in the guidance of this
soul; of the notes he had taken day by day of her supernatural graces ;
and in particular of all the wonderful favours granted to her in Holy
Communion. Raymund, who was a man of much greater learning than F.
Thomas, hesitated not in the favourable judgment which he at once
formed on the question. " I first became acquainted with Catherine,"
he says, " when I went to Siena as Lector ; and I exerted my best
efforts to procure her the privilege of receiving Holy Communion,
so that when she desired to approach, she more confidently addressed
herself to me than to any other Father in the convent." This
simple and unpretentious statement reveals to us that up to that time
the difficulties which had been raised on the subject of Catherine's
communions had by no means been dissipated. But Raymund's reputa
tion and influence were of sufficient weight to prevent any interference
between him and his new penitent ; and from that time Catherine
had no more disturbance on the subject.
Still the plague raged with ever increasing violence. Raymund
perceived the terror that it everywhere inspired, and knowing, as he
says, " that zeal for souls is the spirit of our Holy Order," he devoted
1 (Latin) Supplement, Part 2, Trat. 6, § 17. I quote the original as referred
to and explained by Carapelli, in preference to Tantucci's translation, which is in
this place obscure. See also letter of Stephen Maconi, and Catherine's letter to
Raymund of Capua, No. 134. If the whole circumstances of the foregoing'*
narrative are borne in mind, the change of confessors and final appointment of
Raymund to that office become clear and intelligible.

Master Matthew takes the Plague. 195
himself to the aid of the sufferers. He, too, visited the sick and the
hospitals, and in particular he went very often to the Casa della
Misericordia, the Rector of which establishment, Master Matthew,1
he loved entirely for his virtue's sake. Both he and Catherine
were, in fact, in the habit of calling at the Misericordia every day to
confer with Matthew upon matters connected with the relief of the
poor. One day, then, as Raymund was going his rounds visiting the
sick, having to pass the gates of the hospital he went in to see how
Master Matthew was. The rest of the story must be given as it
stands in the pages of the English Legend.
" When he entered, he saw the brethren busily occupied carrying
Master Matthew from the church towards his chamber. With that
he asked him cheerfully how he did. But Master Matthew was so
feeble and so far spent that he could not give him one word to
answer. Then he asked them that were about him how that sick
ness came to him. And they made answer that he had watched that
night with one that was sick of the plague, and about midnight took
the sickness of him ; since which time, said they, he has remained,
as you see, without colour, strength, or spirit. When they had
brought him to his chamber, they laid him down upon his bed,
where, when he had rested a little while, he came to himself again,
and called for Raymund, and made his confession to him, as he
was wont oftentimes to do. That done, Raymund tried to cheer
him. ' Master Matthew,' said he, ' how do you feel ? Where is
your pain?' 'My pain,' said he, 'is in the groin, so that it seems
as if my thigh is ready to break in sunder ; and I have so vehement
a headache, as though my head would cleave in four parts.' With
that he felt his pulse, and found, indeed, that he had a very sharp
fever. Whereupon he caused them to send for a physician, who,
when he came, declared that he saw evident tokens of a pestilential
ague, and also of approaching death. ' Wherefore,' he said, ' I am
very sorry, for I see we are like to lose a very dear friend, and they
1 Master Matthew was appointed Rector of the Misericordia, August I, 1373,
In the Leggenda Minore the date 1373 is given for his attack of the plague and its
appearance in the city. The author of the Miracoli gives 1374, and the correct
ness of the latter date is confirmed by the Sienese Chronicle of Neri di Donato
and the Necrology of San Domenico. We must remember that, according to the
Sienese method of computation, the first three months of 1374 would be reckoned
as 1373. The plague may also have first appeared in that year, but historians
are unanimous in giving the later date as that of its greatest ravages.

196 Cure of Master Matthew.
of this house a very good Rector.' ' What,' said Raymund, ' is it not
possible by your art to devise some kind of medicine that may do
him good?' 'We will see to-morrow,' said he; 'but to tell you
truly, I have small hope of doing him any good, the disease is too
far gone.' When Raymund heard these words, he returned towards
the sick man again with a heavy heart. In the meantime it came
to the ears of Catherine that Master Matthew was dangerously sick
of the plague. When she heard that she was much troubled ; for
she knew him to be a very virtuous man, and therefore loved him
greatly ; and forthwith went in great haste towards his house. And
before she came into his presence she cried out with a loud voice,
saying : ' Master Matthew, rise ! Rise up, Master Matthew ! It is
no time to lie now sluggishly in your bed.' At that word and at that
very instant the pain and headache and the whole disease quite forsook
him, and he rose up as merry and as sound in his body as if there
had never been any such disease upon him. And when he was
ready he honoured the holy maid, and gave her most humble thanks,
saying that he knew now by experience in his own body that the
power of God dwelt in her and wrought strange things by her. But
she could not abide to hear any words that tended to her own com
mendation, and therefore she went away. As she was going out, F.
Raymund came towards the .house, and meeting her in the gate,
looked very heavily, for he knew nothing of all this that was done in
the house, but came directly from the physician. When he saw her
there, being as it were overcome with sorrow, he said to her : ' 0
mother, will you suffer this good man "that is so dear to us, and so
profitable and necessary to many others, to die after this sort ? ' To
that she made answer very humbly, showing, indeed, that she had
no liking of such words. ' O father,' said she, ' what manner of talk
is this that you use to me ? Do you take me to be a God, that you
would have me deliver a mortal man from death ? ' 'I pray you,'
said he, ' speak these words to those who are strangers to you, and
not to me who know your secrets. I know well enough that what
ever you ask of God heartily He will grant you.' With that she
bowed down her head a little and smiled ; and after a time, looking
up to him again cheerfully, she said these words : ' Father, be of
good cheer, for he shall not die this time' When Raymund heard
these words, he was much comforted, for he knew well what grace
was given to her from above. And so he went into the house to
comfort his friend', supposing that the thing had been yet to. do that

Cure of Fra Santi. 1 9 7
was already done. When he came in he found him sitting up in
good health, declaring to them that were about him the manner of
the miracle that had been wrought upon himself. For the further
confirmation whereof the table was laid, and they ate together that
morning, not such meats as sick men use to eat, but raw onions and
such other coarse meats as cannot be digested save only by those in
perfect health. And as they were eating they took great pleasure to
recite the wonderful things that it pleased God to work by the holy
maid. " In the course of this same plague the hermit Fra Santi caught
the contagion, which, when Catherine understood, she caused him
to be taken out of his cell, and to be brought to the Misericordia,
where she came to him with some other of her Sisters and nursed
him, providing for him all such things as she thought necessary.
And to comfort him with words also, she put her head close to his,
and whispered him softly in the ear, saying : ' Be not afraid, however
you feel, for you shall not die this time' But to the rest that were
there she said no such thing, but rather, when they entreated her
that she would pray to God for his recovery, she gave them but a
doubtful answer, which made them very sad, for they all knew him
to be a holy man, and therefore both honoured and loved him
tenderly. The disease increased hourly more and more, and they
despairing of his life gave over the charge of his body, and looked
only to the health of his soul. At last, when he was in extremes,
and they all stood about him with great heaviness, looking only when
he would give up the ghost, the holy maid came to him again, and
said in his ear : ' Be not afraid, for you shall not die at this time.'
The sick man both heard and understood that word, though before
it seemed that he was past all sense. And he took comfort in it,
crediting the word of the holy maid that sounded in his ear rather
than the throes of death that gripped him by the heart. However,
he showed no token of amendment, and therefore they, not under
standing what she had said, provided lights and other things for his
burial, looking still when he would depart out of this life. At last,
when it seemed that he was even passing out of the world, Catherine
came to him again, and spake these words in his ear : 'I command
thee, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thou pass not at
this time' At that word he took comfort of spirit and strength of
body, and rose up in his bed and called for meat, and ate in the
presence of them all ; and after that time lived many years, and was

198 Raymund s Sickness and Recovery.
one of them that were present with the holy maid in Rome when
she departed out of this life." 1
Besides these cases of her power with the sick, Raymund had
experience of the same in his own person. " When the plague was
raging in Siena," he says, " I resolved to sacrifice my life for the
salvation of souls and not to avoid any plague - stricken patient
whatever. It is certain that the malady is contagious ; but I
knew that our Lord Jesus Christ is more powerful than Galen,
and that grace is superior to nature. I also saw that many had
taken flight, and that the dying remained without assistance ;
and as the blessed Catherine had taught me that charity obliges
us to love the soul of our neighbour more than our own body, I
was desirous of assisting as many sick as I could, and I did so by
God's grace. I was almost alone in that vast city, and had scarcely
time to take a little food and sleep. One night as I rested, and the
time approached to rise and recite my office, I felt a violent pain
in the part which is first attacked by that" malady, and soon dis
covered the fatal swelling which declares its presence. Greatly
alarmed, I dared not rise, and began to think of my approaching
death. I longed to see Catherine before the disease made further
progress, and when morning came, I dragged myself with my
companion to Catherine^ residence; but she was absent, having
gone out to visit a sick person. I decided to wait, and as I could
no longer support myself, I was obliged to lie down on a bed which
was there, and besought the persons of the house not to delay sending
for her. When she came, and saw my excessive suffering, she knelt
down by my bed, placed her hand on my forehead, and began to
pray interiorly as • usual ; I saw she was in an ecstacy, and I thought
that there would soon result some good both for my soul and body.
She remained thus during nearly an hour and a half, when I felt
a universal movement in every limb, which I thought was the
prelude to some dangerous crisis ; but I was in error, for I began
at that moment to improve; and before Catherine had recovered
the use of her senses, I was completely cured, there only remaining
in me a eertain weakness, a proof of my illness, or an effect of my
want of faith. Catherine, aware of the grace that she had obtained
from' her Spouse, came to herself and caused them to prepare for
me the ordinary nourishment common to the sick. When I had
taken it from her virginal hands, she ordered me to sleep a little.
11 Fen., Part 4, chap. iii.

Other miraculous Cures. 199
I obeyed, and on awakening I found myself as well as if nothing
had happened to me. Then she said to me, ' Now, go and labour
for the salvation of souls, and render thanks to the Almighty God
who has delivered you from this danger.' I returned to my
ordinary work, glorifying the Lord who had bestowed such power
on His faithful spouse." At the same time and in the same
manner she effected the cure of F. Bartholomew, though he had
been lying sick of the plague for a considerable time.
Raymund also relates other miracles, such as the cure of one
of the Sisters of Penance, who lived near the Misericordia, and
devoted herself to Catherine's service, and who was crushed under
a falling building. The neighbours drew her out of the ruins, and
found her not dead, but in horrible anguish and past medical aid.
" As soon as Catherine heard it," he continues, " she was filled with
compassion for one who was her Sister, and who had made herself
her servant. She went immediately to visit her, and exhorted her
to patience. When she saw her suffering so excessively, she began
to touch the places of which she complained ; the patient willingly
consenting, because she knew that those blessed hands could not
fail to do her good. As soon as Catherine touched any place,
its pains vanished : then the sick woman showed her the other
parts that were tormented, so that she might apply the same
remedy, and Catherine lent herself to this charity with so much
care that she finished by completely healing her. In proportion
as her virginal hand glided over the bruised body, the pain dis
appeared, and the sick woman who before could not move a
single member, little by little recovered the power of motion.
She kept silence whilst Catherine was present lest she might
alarm her humility, but afterwards she said to the physicians and
neighbours who surrounded her : ' Catherine, Lapa's daughter, has
cured me by touching me' "
Another cure, attested by all Catherine's biographers, was that of
Sister Gemmina, one of the Mantellate, who, being attacked by a
quinsy and in danger of suffocation, by an extraordinary effort
contrived to get to Catherine's house, and said to her, " Mother,
I shall die, if you do not help me ! " Full of pity, Catherine
applied her hand to the sufferer's throat, and at once the malady
left her.
But pestilence was not the only scourge which at this time
afflicted Siena; terrible civil disorders were likewise preying on

200 Execution of Andrea Salimbeni.
the lifeblood of the republic. She was reaping the inevitable
fruits of revolution. No government found itself strong enough
to repress the licence which universally reigned; and while the
Riformatori were capable of any oppressive act towards the weak,
a powerful miscreant had every chance of escaping just punishment.
Geri, Lord of Perolla, had an only daughter, to whom when dying
he left his castle and estates in the Tuscan Maremma. Her kins
man, Andrea Salimbeni, under pretext of a friendly visit, seized
the castle, and dyed his murderous hand in the blood of the
innocent girl. He then applied himself to sack and ravage the
adjacent territories ; but such an excess of brutality did at last
rouse the indignation of the senator, who prepared to avenge the
crime. An armed force was despatched against Andrea : he was
taken with twenty-eight associates, and committed to prison on
the 23d of April 1374. A few days later, sixteen of the more
insignificant criminals were executed, but the senator feared to pro
ceed to extremities against Andrea and his more powerful comrades ;
and so the real authors of the bloody outrage were spared. When
the Popolani learnt this, they assembled in vast numbers, and
marching to the doors of the Palazzo Pubblico, demanded ven
geance. Galgano, the captain of the people, deserted by his
colleagues and powerless to resist the armed multitude, came
forth and declared that he made over to their leader, Nocci di
Vanni, a saddler by trade, the right and authority to do whatever
he might deem best for the public good. The stern tribune
seated himself on the bench of justice and commanded Andrea
to be brought before him. Then in few words sentence was given,
and the miserable man was borne forth into the Piazza, and there
summarily beheaded.
The Salimbeni and all their adherents, furious at this act of popular
justice, flew to arms ; Cione Salimbeni, thinking it a good opportunity
for gratifying his restless ambition, seized several fortresses belonging
to the republic ; and soon the whole mountain region was plunged in
war, if such be not too dignified a word to be applied to the ruffianly
hostilities of these bandit chieftains. Agnolo Salimbeni, the head, of
the family, and a man of chivalrous honour, seems on this occasion
to have acted in a way which earned him the confidence of the
citizens ; for they made over to him the command of some of the
strongest castles, a circumstance which excited against him the
jealousy of Cione, and became the origin of a feud which was only

Famine in Siena. 201
extinguished three years later through the efforts of St. Catherine.
But while such anarchy raged throughout the country, the fields were
left uncultivated, and the miserable peasantry took refuge within the
city walls from the violence of the roving brigand bands. Famine
soon came to increase the horrors of pestilence, and Catherine and
her companions had to feed as well as to nurse the destitute citizens.
To this year must probably be assigned an incident which is related
in the Legend, and which we shall quote from its English version.
Catherine, as it seems, was at that time staying, according to her wont,
in the house of Alexia. " It chanced that year that there was such a
scarcity of corn in the city and country that the people were constrained
to eat bread made of musty corn that had been kept long time in
underground caves, because there was none other to be got for money.
Of such corn Alexia had made provision for herself and her family
for that year. But before her store was spent, the harvest-time was
come, and she heard that there was new corn to be sold in the market,
whereupon she thought to cast away the little portion that was left
of the musty corn, and buy new. But before she did it, Catherine
being in the house with her, she chanced to break her mind to her,
and to tell her what she was about to do. ' What will you do ? ' said
she ; ' will you cast that away that God hath sent for the susten
ance of man ? If you will not eat of that bread yourself, yet bestow
it upon the poor that have no bread to eat.' To that Alexia replied,
saying, that she had a conscience to give such mouldy and unwhole
some bread to the poor, she would rather buy new corn, and make
them bread of that. ' Well,' said the holy maid, ' bring me here a
little water and that meal which you intend to cast away, and I will
make bread of it for the poor.' So Alexia did as she was bid. Then
the holy maid took it, and made paste of it : and of the paste made such
a quantity of bread, and that so quickly, that Alexia and her servant,
who beheld her all the time, were astonished to see it. for they made as
many loaves as would have required four or five times as much meal ;
and delivered them to Alexia to lay upon boards and carry to the
oven. And (which was most marvellous) there was no bad savour in
those loaves as there was in all other made of the same corn. But
when they were baked and set on the table to eat, they that ate of
them could find no manner of evil taste in them, but rather said that
they had not in their life eaten better or more savoury bread.
This miracle being spread in the city, her confessor came with
certain other of his brethren to examine the matter, and found,

202 Catherine multiplies the Loaves.
in very deed, that there were two great miracles wrought, one in
augmenting the quantity of the paste, and another in amending the
evil quality and stench of the corn. And a third miracle was added
soon after, which was, that whereas the bread was very liberally dealt
out to the poor and none other eaten in the house but that, yet there
remained evermore great store of it in the larder. And so it con
tinued many days and weeks, which moved certain devout persons
that understood the truth of the matter to take some of the said
bread, and to lay it up reverently where it might be kept for a relic
and perpetual renembrance of the great work that Almighty God had
wrought by His dear spouse. Afterwards F. Raymund being de
sirous to be more particularly informed of the matter by the holy
maid, prayed her that she would declare to him how the thing had
passed. And she made him answer simply after this manner:
' Father, I had a great zeal that the thing that God had sent us for
the relief of man should not be lost ; and I had moreover a great
compassion for the poor. Whereupon I went to the hutch of meal
with great fervour of spirit. As soon as I was there, behold, our
blessed Lady likewise was there with me, accompanied with a number
of saints and angels, and bade me to go forward with my work as I
had determined And she was so benign and charitable that she
vouchsafed to labour with me, and to work the paste with her own
hands ; and so by the virtue of her holy hands were those loaves
multiplied in such sort as you have heard, for she made the loaves
and gave them to me, and I delivered them to Alexia and her ser
vant.' ' Truly, mother,' said F. Raymund, ' I marvel not now if
that bread seemed to me and others that tasted it passing sweet, con
sidering that it was made with the hands of that most heavenly and
glorious Queen, in whose sacred body was wrought and made by the
Holy Trinity that living Bread that came down from heaven to give
life to all true believers.' "
F. Thomas Caffarini mentions this incident in his deposition, and
says he was one of those who had eaten of the bread thus made.
Father Simon of Cortona also declares that during this time of
famine the Saint often multiplied bread in order to feed the poor,
and that he was himself present on one such occasion.

( 2°3 )

CHAPTER XVI.
CATHERINE AT MONTEPULCIANO, 1374.
A RUMOUR of the heroic deeds, performed by Catherine and
her companions during the plague was not long in reaching
Pisa, where it made a great sensation, specially among the nuns of a
certain convent which Raymund does not name. They appear to
have pressed her to pay them a visit, but not meeting with the success
they desired, they put the affair into the hands of a personage no
less important than Peter Gambacorta, the supreme head of the re
public. The character of this celebrated man is variously represented
by various historians, but if not free from the charge of ambition, it
undoubtedly possessed many noble points. His father and uncles
had distinguished themselves by their resistance to the usurpation of
a certain Giovanni Agnello, who, secretly encouraged by the Emperor
Charles IV. (the same whom we have seen so ignominiously defeated
at Siena), had assumed the title of Doge, and aimed at becoming the
tyrant of the republic. The Gambacorti had paid the penalty of their
patriotism on the block ; their estates were confiscated, whilst Peter
and the surviving members of the family were driven into banishment.
Before many years were over, however, a fresh revolution broke out.
The Doge was deposed, and all the exiles recalled. Peter and his
children, now reduced to the utmost poverty, returned to Pisa, and
entered the city in triumph carrying olive branches in their hands.
Amid the acclamations of the populace they proceeded to the
Cathedral, and there, standing before the high altar, Peter gave
thanks to God for his restoration to his native country, and solemnly
swore in the name of all the exiles " to live as a good citizen, forgiv
ing and forgetting all past injuries." When we remember the ruthless
spirit of the age in all that concerned the forgiveness of enemies, this
act on the part of one who had suffered such bitter injustice appears
truly heroic ; and indeed it was far above the comprehension of his
partisans. Instead of following so glorious an example, they pro-

204 Letter to Peter Gambacorta.
ceeded to celebrate their triumph by setting fire to Agnello's house ;
and the wind being high, the flames spread, and the entire city was
threatened with destruction. Then it was seen that Peter's promise
was not an idle form of words ; he rushed from the Cathedral into
the midst of the burning flames, and interposed his own person
between the savage multitude and his fallen enemies ; all day long
he was to be seen battling with the fire, and driving back the mad
dened mob ; and standing there alone like a true hero he cried aloud
to those who clamoured for the blood of Agnello, "/have pardoned
him, what right have you to revenge ? " :
Such a man was worthy and capable of appreciating the character
of Catherine ; and he was not unwilling to draw her to Pisa at a
moment when the political horizon was overcast, and when there
seemed no small likelihood of a breach between Florence and the
court of Avignon. So he sent her a letter pressing her to come, to
which Catherine's answer is preserved : —
" I received your letter," she says, " and was much touched by it ;
I know it is not my virtue or goodness, for I am full of miseries, but
your own kindness and that of these holy ladies which moves you to
write to me so humbly, begging me to come to you. I would gladly
comply with your wish and theirs, but for the present must beg to be
excused : my weak health will not permit of it ; and, moreover, I see
that just now it would be an occasion of scandal. I hope, however!
please God, that when the time arrives when I can do so without
offence, and without giving rise to murmurs, I may be able to come,
and then I shall be at your command. Recommend me to those
holy ladies and beg them to pray for me, that I may ever be humble
and subject to my Creator."
The state of her health which she here gives as a reason for declin
ing the invitation to Pisa was indeed more suffering than it had been
at any former period. Possibly, she had exhausted her strength
during the time of the pestilence, for we learn by a passage in the
Miracoli that in the August of that same year she was attacked
by grievous sickness. " On the feast of the Assumption, 1374,"
says the author of that memoir, " Catherine fell sick, and was brought
to death's door, but there was no sign of pestilence in her malady.
She believed herself dying, which caused her the most unbounded
joy. It would be impossible to describe the rapture she felt at the
thought that she was passing to eternal life, and the very joy she felt so
1 Sismondi, vol. vii. ch. xlviii.

Catherine's Sickness. 205
comforted and restored her vital powers, that the danger passed.
Whereat she conceived a great sorrow and began to pray to the
Blessed Virgin that she would not permit her to remain longer in
this life. Then our Lady appeared to her, saying, " Catherine, my,
daughter, seest thou all that crowd of people who are behind me ? "
"Yes," she replied, "Madonna mia, I see them all." " Then," con
tinued our Lady, " look and see which thou wilt choose. My Divine
Son, desiring that thou shouldst live yet a little longer, will give thee
all these souls to be brought to eternal life, besides those others
whom He has already given to thee, if thy death is deferred for
another time ; but if thou choose to die now, He will not give them
to thee. Choose, therefore, which thou wilt." Then Catherine re
plied again, "Madonna mia, thou knowest that there is no power in
me to will or not to will, for my will is not mine because I have
given it to thy Son Jesus." Then said our Lady, " Know then that
He has given thee all these souls that I have shown thee ; and that He
will call thee to Himself another time, when it shall please Him."
Our Lady disappeared, and Catherine found herself delivered from
the sickness which she had been suffering. Some time after she
made known this vision to a person, who asked her, saying, " Should
you know any of those persons whom our Lady showed to you ? "
And she replied, " Yes, if I were to see them, I should know them
all" The other reason she assigns for deferring her visit lest she should
give occasion of complaint to her fellow-citizens is but an example
of the difficulties which generally presented themselves in the way
of her leaving Siena. In the present case, however, they were rather
more serious than usual, for just then Peter Gambacorta was not. in
very good odour with the magistrates of Siena. He had encouraged
the Prior of the Pisan knights of St. John to seize possession first of
the strong place called Rocca dell' Albarese, and then of the castle
of Talamon, and to hold them in the name of the Church. Talamon,
as has been stated before, was the key of Siena, and its occupation
by the knights was a very sore point with the citizens. Catherine
therefore was wisely anxious not to irritate them further, and besides,
she was habitually reluctant, and not forward, when there was any
question of producing herself before a world of strangers. So she
remained at Siena during the remainder of that year and the
beginning of the following ; and whilst waiting for a more favourable
opportunity for visiting Pisa, she undertook a less distant journey to

206 ' * Visits to Montepulciano.
the monastery of St. Agnes at Montepulciano. It is here that Raymund
of Capua had resided for three years as confessor to the nuns before
coming to Siena. He tells us in his Legend that Catherine had a
great love for these holy pilgrimages ; and, naturally enough, has
given a rather careful account of the two visits which she paid to the
convent which was his old home, and which he still governed as
Vicar of the Provincial. Moreover, he goes out of his way to relate
to us the history of St. Agnes, which he had written during his
residence there, and which he also related to Catherine. After
hearing his narrative she conceived a great desire to go and
venerate the body of the saint which was preserved there incorrupt ;
and having asked and obtained the permission of her superiors,
she set out with her companions ; Raymund and Father Thomas
following her the day after. Having reached the convent, Catherine
at once proceeded to visit the holy body accompanied by all the
nuns of the community, as well as by the Sisters of Penance who
accompanied her ; and kneeling at the feet of St. Agnes she stooped
to kiss them, when in the sight of all present one of the feet suddenly
raised itself as if to meet her lips. At this spectacle Catherine was
much troubled and confused, and restoring the foot to its former
position, she prostrated in humble prayer. Next day when the two
confessors arrived they found no small discussion on what had
passed going on among the religious; some affirming it to have
been the work of God, and others disposed rather to regard it as
the work of the enemy. Raymund, as superior of the nuns, thought
it prudent to investigate the matter ; and calling the community
together, desired all to give their testimony under a precept of holy
obedience. " All present," he writes, " declared that they had seen
the incident occur as related ; and as there was one who had offered
greater opposition than the rest, I inquired of her more particularly
whether the affair had passed as had been represented. ' Yes,' she
replied, ' I do not deny it, I desire only to explain that the intention
of St. Agnes was not what you believe' ' My very dear Sister,' I
replied, ' we do not interrogate you concerning the intentions of St.
Agnes, being well aware that you are neither her secretary nor her
confidante ; we merely ask you whether you saw the foot rise ? ' To
that she assented ; and I then imposed a penance on her for the
discourses she had indiscreetly held."
Some little time later Catherine returned to the convent bringing
her two nieces, Eugenia and another whose name is not preserved,

Letter to Euge?iia. * ' 207
both of whom took the religious habit in the community. " As soon
as she arrived," says Raymund, " she repaired, as at the first time, to
the body of the saintly foundress with her companions and some
nuns from the convent ; she did not place herself at the feet this
time, but approached the head ; designing by humility, as we presume,
to avoid what had happened before when she attempted to kiss the
feet; or perhaps she remembered that Mary Magdalen at first
poured her perfumes over the Saviour's feet and afterwards shed them
over His head. She placed her face on the ornaments of gold and
silk which cover the countenance of St. Agnes, and there remained
a long time ; then she turned sweetly to Lisa, the mother of her two
nieces, and inquired smiling : ' What, do you not observe the
present that heaven sends us : do not be ungrateful ! ' At these
words, Lisa and the others lifted their eyes and saw a very fine white
manna falling like heavenly dew, and covering not only St. Agnes
and Catherine, but also all the persons present, and with such
abundance that Lisa filled her hand with it."
A letter is preserved, written by the Saint to Eugenia after her
profession at the convent, which exhibits the motherly interest she
felt in her niece. In this letter she warns her against imprudent
intimacies whether with priests or seculars. " If I ever hear of your
contracting such intimacies," she says, " I will give you such a
penance as, whether you like it or not, you will remember all your
life." Then she speaks of the visits of strangers : " If they have
anything to say, let them say it to the Prioress ; do not you stir to
go to them unless the Prioress send you, and then be as savage as a
hedgehog. And when you go to confession, confess your sins, and
having received your penance, retire.1 Do not be surprised at my
speaking thus, for the company of those most falsely called devotees
corrupts the rules and usages of the religious life. Be on your guard,
then, never to let your heart be tied to any one but Jesus crucified ;
otherwise, when you would wish to untie it, you will not be able to
succeed without much difficulty. The soul that is fed on the bread
1 " Recevuta la penitenza, fugge.'' The severe expressions here used may be
understood as in part directed against the Fraticelli, a dangerous and insidious
sect who at that time made it their business to find their way into the parlours of
convents, for the purposes of spreading their pernicious doctrines among the nuns.
St. Catherine had many encounters with these gentry, and her letters are full of
allusions to them. Eugenia died young, like so many of her family. At the
Chapter held at her convent in 1387, her name does not occur in the list of the
community.

208 San. Rocco a Pili.
of angels sees that all these things are obstacles. Seek rather all
that will unite you to God, and the best of all means is prayer." She
then gives her a long and beautiful instruction on the three kinds of
prayer, namely, a recollection of the presence of God, vocal, and
mental prayer. Of vocal prayer, including the recital of the office,
she says, " We should use it in such a way as that, when the lips
speak, the heart is not far from God." She describes the difficulties
which often beset the soul in mental prayer, such as combats,
weariness and confusion of mind ; but warns her niece not on that
account to abandon it, because by these struggles God will fortify
the soul and make it constant ; and if we gain nothing else we get
to know our own nothingness ; whilst God on His part will not fail to
accept and bless our good resolutions. " Prayer of this sort," she says,
" will teach you to love your rule, it will seal in your heart the three
solemn vows of your profession, and engrave there the determination
to observe them even until death. Let me then see you a precious
jewel in the presence of God, and have the consolation of knowing
that I have not lost my time." x
In the narrative of the visit to St. Agnes' body the reader will have
noticed that the name of Lisa once more occurs. She had returned
to Siena after her husband's death, and putting on the habit of
Penance, thenceforth made her home with Lapa and Catherine.
The three are named together in a document dated 1378, as taxed
by the Commune for the sum of six hundred lire2 On Lisa were
settled as her marriage dowry the farm and vineyard belonging to
the Benincasa family at San Rocco a Pili.8 Catherine often visited
this spot, which is situated about five miles out of the city on the
Grosseto road. Caffarini in his Supplement relates the circumstances
of one of these visits, when Catherine came thither at Lisa's earnest
solicitation to recruit her strength, she being at the time in a very
suffering state. Having reached the farm, Catherine had so sharp
an attack of her habitual pain in the side, as to be unable to leave
the house all that day and the following night. Next morning,
desiring to receive Holy Communion, she rose, and went to the little
1 Letter 159.
2 Burlamacchi's Notes to the Legend.
3 Sano di Maco was Procurator to Lisa in a money transaction regarding this
property, the document relating to which is preserved in the Libro delle DenumU
di Dogano (Diario Sanese, ii,, 100). Gigli calls the parish S. Rocco, Grottarielli,
Santa Maria a Pili. At present (he says) it bears the name of S. Bartolomeo.

Rogation Processions. 209
parish church hard by. But presently she bethought herself that she
was perhaps guilty of presumption in thus approaching the altar
without having previously been to confession. She therefore pre
sented herself to the priest for absolution, and at the moment of
receiving it felt herself bathed anew in the Blood of Jesus. Rapt
in ecstacy she communicated, and remained so abstracted, praying
for her confessor and her disciples by name. Raymund and one of
his companions were at that moment in the convent of Siena ; but
feeling a sudden and sensible visitation of Divine grace, they said one
to another, " Catherine must be praying for us ! " and found after
wards that it had been even so.1
The memory of St. Catherine is still preserved in this place, which
is commonly called II Podere di Lisa, or Lisa's farm. It was long
the custom for the Rogation Processions to make a station on the
spot, when the priest would exhort the people to offer special prayers
for a blessing on their parish, on this ground once sanctified by the
footsteps of the holy virgin of Siena.2 And here we may observe that
these Rogation Processions were in Catherine's time ceremonies of
great splendour and importance, at which all the clergy and citizens
assisted, nor is it to be doubted that the Saint herself was accustomed
to take part in these beautiful devotions of her native city. Each
day the crimson banner of the Duomo led the way out of one or
other of the city gates, the procession making a circuit of many
miles to bless the fields and vineyards of the outlying territory.
Those who were too old or feeble to undertake so fatiguing an
expedition, waited at the gates for the return of the banner ; none
ever dreamed of absenting themselves altogether. One beautiful
custom existed of holding the consecrated banner across the street
at certain spots where, according to tradition, pagan monuments
formerly stood, in order that all the people might pass under it,
and so offer their protest against the worship of the false gods, and
render their homage instead to the symbol of Christianity. On the
first day the procession went forth through the Porta Camollia,
saluting as they passed the ancient image of our Lady which stood
there, and being careful to take the road through the chestnut woods
of Montagnuola, that the chestnuts might be well blessed. On
Tuesday they took a southerly direction, going out of the Porta Pis-
pini through the suburban parish of St. Eugenia ; on Wednesday
they issued forth by the Porta Tufi, through the beautiful fields
1 Latin Sup., Part 2, Trat. 6, art. 48. 2 Diar. San. ii. 100. O

210 St. Quirico.
whence are seen the mountain district and the peaks of Monte
Amiata, together with the valleys watered by the Orcia, and the
distant Maremma. Gigli, who preserves these details, tells us that
the Sienese kept the Rogation days as solemn holydays,and even gives
us to understand that they observed what St. Cesarius of Aries had
prescribed regarding them, namely, that on these solemnities no man
should either be bled or take medicine, unless in great danger;
probably in order that none might thereby be prevented from joining
in these devout processions.
One other locality must be named in the vicinity of Siena where
Catherine often retired; it was the hospice belonging to the
Dominican Fathers at St. Quirico in Osenna, twenty-four miles out
of the city on the Roman road. It is situated on a beautiful hill
between the Orcia and the Ombrone, and from it is dated one of
the Saint's letters to F. Thomas della Fonte. In the peace and silence
of that beautiful retreat she pours forth some of the most exquisite
of her impassioned words. Yet she begins by accusing herself of
caring so little for God's honour, and thinking so seldom of His
teaching. "I ought to live dead to my own will," she says, "and
yet I have not subjected it to the yoke of obedience half so much as
I could and ought to have done." Then she proceeds to speak of
that transformation of the soul in God which is wrought by this
conformity of our will with His : " O Love ! Sweet Love ! " she
continues ; " enlarge, enlarge our memory to receive, to contain, to
comprehend all Thy goodness ; for when we comprehend it, we shall
love it, and by loving it we shall be united to it, and so, trans
formed in charity, we shall pass through the door of Jesus crucified,
according to His words to His disciples, ' I will come, and make
My abode with you.' You tell me in your letter," she adds, "that
you have been to visit the body of St. Agnes (at Montepulciano),
and that you have recommended us to her and to all the religious,
which much consoles me ; and you say that you know not why, but
that you have no wish to return thither. I reply, there may be
many reasons for this ; one is, that a soul really united to God, and
transformed in Him, readily forgets itself and all creatures. May
this be so with you." — (Letter 105.)
Catherine often returned to Montepulciano, and corresponded with
the Prioress and other members of the community ; and there are no
tenderer allusions in her letters than those which refer to "her St.
Agnes," as she calls the convent. At the time of her first visit in

Montepulciano. 2 1 1
1374 it was situated at some distance from the town, but a few years
later the unsettled state of that mountain district rendered it necessary
for the nuns to seek safety by transferring their residence within the
walls ; and as the requisite expenses were beyond their means, St.
Catherine applied to Ricasoli, Archbishop of Florence, who had
promised to give her the first alms she wished to bestow. " Since
you are the father of the poor," she writes, "and since you have
made me promise to address myself to you the first time I wished to
bestow an alms, I will fulfil my promise, for there is a very pressing
alms I want to make to the convent of St. Agnes. They must be
transferred within the walls on account of the wars ; but they want
fifty gold florins to begin with, the town will do the rest. I beg of
you therefore, help them if you can."
The secret of Catherine's great love for this community lay in the
revelation which had been granted her, that in heaven she should
enjoy a degree of bliss equal to that of St. Agnes ; and that they
should be companions throughout eternity. It is a beautiful, and
perhaps a unique passage in the lives of the saints. It gives us a
glimpse of something beyond even the hope that shattered links of
human affection will be reunited and purified in another life. It
reveals to us the saints in glory endowed with the capacity, in some
unspeakable way, of drawing near one to another in God, bound by
the ties of a new and unearthly friendship. Nor, as we may safely
infer, could such a trait be found in the history of one the chords
of whose heart did not respond to that note of sublimised human
affection ; Catherine on earth knew how to practise her own doctrine
of never removing the vase from the fountain which supplied it ; and
there was reserved for her in heaven to drink from the abundant
torrents of sweetness which water the courts of the eternal mansions.
It would seem that these journeys to Montepulciano in 1374 had
a double object ; and that, besides the family affairs which often took
her to the convent, Catherine was also bent on the reconciliation of
certain feuds for which her mediation had been solicited. However,
on this, as on many like occasions, her departure from Siena gave
rise to jealousies and suspicions on the part of the magistrates.
They had moreover some difficult business of the same kind on their
hands just then which they despaired of bringing to a favourable
issue without her help; and evil tongues, always busy with their
criticisms on her doings, filled their ears with murmurs and com
plaints. So at last the Signoria despatched her disciple, Thomas

212 F. Raymund 's Request.
Guelfaccio, with a message bidding her return, as she was greatly
wanted in Siena. Catherine, however, was equally proof against
their flattery and the fear of their displeasure. "You desire my
return," she says in her reply, " and ask my advice how to obtain
peace. I am incapable of the least good, but I shall bow my head
whenever God wills me to obey you, for of course I must place the
will of God before that of man. At present I do not see that I can
possibly return, for I have still an important business to negotiate
for the nuns of St. Agnes, and I am here with the nephews of Messer
Spinello, in order to make peace with the sons of Lorenzo. I regret
the trouble my fellow citizens take in judging me ; it really seems as
if they had nothing else to do than to speak evil of me and my
companions. In my case they are right, for I am full of faults, but
they are wrong in their judgment of the others. However, we shall
overcome all things with patience."
It was at Montepulciano that two events took place which are
related by Raymund in the Legend as " occurring in the beginning
of their acquaintance." He had heard many marvellous things con
cerning her, which he hesitated to believe, and desired, as her
confessor, to put them to the proof by some infallible test "I
remembered," he says, " that we were living in the time of the third
beast with the skin of a leopard, whereby is denoted hypocrites, and
in my day I had met with plenty of persons, specially women, easily
deceived like their first mother." The test he resolved on was to
desire that by her intercession she should obtain for him such a per
fect contrition for his sins as he never before had, and that he might
also have some token that the same had been procured by her
means ; for he was assured that the devil could not be the author
of such contrition, and that it is not in the power of any man, but
of God only, to touch and move the heart to conceive such sorrow.
With this purpose, therefore, he went to Catherine, and asked her to
do him a pleasure. " What is it ? " she asked. " None other than
this," he replied, " that you will pray to your Spouse for me, that
of His mercy He will pardon me all my sins." She answered that
she would cheerfully do what he asked, as one who felt no doubt of
obtaining her request. " But," said Raymund, " this is not enough.
I must have a full pardon and bull drawn after the manner of the
court of Rome." She asked his meaning. " The bull I desire," he
said, " is that I may feel a deep and true contrition." At these words
she gave him a sweet and penetrating look which seemed to betoken

The Bull is Granted. 2 1 3
that she had read the secret thoughts of his heart. " Have no fear,"
she said, "you shall have the bull you ask for," And so they parted,
for it was towards evening, and the friars lodged at a house separate
from the monastery. The next morning Raymund found himself
too unwell to leave the house, and so remained in his apartments
together with his companion, Brother Nicolas of Pisa,1 the same who
has before been named as having travelled from Pisa to Siena for the
sole purpose of seeing the Saint. Catherine, understanding in spirit
that he was ill, said to her companion : " F. Raymund is ill ; let us
go and see him." They went, therefore, and entering bis apartment
somewhat suddenly, she approached the couch where he lay, and
asked him how he found himself. Then entering into discourse she
began to speak of God, of His benefits to His creatures, and of their
ungrateful return for all His goodness, with such grace and unction,
that, as he listened, Raymund felt his heart moved as it had never
been before. And all the time he never thought of the bull he had
asked for, but was wholly carried away by the force and efficacy of
her words. They pierced his heart like sharp darts, and wakened
such a sense of his past sins as never in his life had he experienced
until that moment. For he seemed to see himself arraigned as it
were before the tribunal of God, and confessed in himself that he
was worthy of everlasting punishment. Then when this terrible
thought had lasted a good space, he seemed to behold our Lord as
a pitiful Father, clothing His nakedness with His own robes, leading
him into His house, giving him to eat at His table, and accepting
him as one of His own servants. And so considering both the
deformity of his sins, and the merciful goodness of our Saviour who
received him again so lovingly, he burst into tears, and continued
weeping and sobbing as though his heart would break. Catherine,
who had watched the whole matter, and who understood well enough
what was passing in his heart, when she saw the medicine begin to
work, held her peace, and let him weep on undisturbed. At last he
suddenly remembered within himself what had passed between them
the day before, and turning to her he said : " Ah, daughter, is this
1 This Brother Nicolas da Cascina finds honourable mention in the Chronicle
of S. Caterina of Pisa as a man of signal virtue. He was a man of austere life,
chastising his body, and often spending entire nights watching and praying in the
church. He was as learned as he was humble, and a model of religious obedience.
At his death, which took place on the vigil of Pentecost, the angels are said to
have visibly assisted.

214 Catherine's Countenance is transformed.
the bull I asked for yesterday?" "Even so," she replied; then
rising, she touched him lightly on the shoulder, saying, " Forget not
the benefits of God," and departed, leaving him and Nicolas much
consoled and edified.
He tells us of another token of her sanctity, which was given to
him without his having asked for it, and' at- the same monastery. It
happened that she was suffering much from her accustomed in
firmities, and was lying on her little couch, when having received
certain high revelations, she sent to Raymund, praying him to come
at once that' she might communicate the same to him. " When he
heard the things that she reported, and reflected on the greatness of
the same in comparison to what he had read of other saints, he said
to himself, ' Is it possible that all- this should be true that she
saith ? ' And with that, looking steadfastly upon her, he saw her face
suddenly transformed into the face of a Man, who likewise set His
eyes steadfastly upon him, and gave- him a marvellous dreadful look.
The Face that he saw was somewhat long ; it appeared to be that of
a man of middle age ; His beard was somewhat of the colour of ripe
wheat, that is, between red and yellow, His countenance was very
comely, reverend, and full of majesty. And for a little time he saw
that Face only, and could see none other thing, which put him in
such a fear and terror that, casting up his hands above his shoulders,
he cried with a loud voice, and said, 'O Lord, who is this that
looketh thus upon me?' 'It is He,' said she, 'that is.' And
with that she came again toher own form." x " At the same moment,"
he writes, "my understanding was illuminated with an abundant
light on the matter of our discourse. I had indeed been before
incredulous, but- our Lord had come and manifested to me His own
Face, that I might no longer doubt Who it was Who spoke in her.
As Thomas, after he had received the token which he had demanded,
exclaimed* saying, * My Lord and my God ! ' so I also, after this
vision; exclaimed to myself, Verily, this is indeed the spouse and
disciple of my Lord and God, And I declare these things that my
readers may understand' that our Lord displayed His doctrine in her
as in a vessel frail and weak indeed by nature, but by His power
miraculbusly made strong." 2
1 Fen.,. Part I, ch. xxiv. 2 Legend, Part I, ch. ix.

( «5 )

CHAPTER XVII.
BEATI PACIFIC!
IN following thus- far the course of Catherine's history we have
chiefly been engaged with its domestic aspect, and have sought
to unravel the narrative as it has been given to us by Raymund,
supplementing it, where defective, by the abundant testimony of her
other biographers- and disciples. Her life, however, was something
more than a series of charming stories and supernatural favours.
The graces which were poured out on her with such magnificent
profuseness were given to her not for herself alone, but for others.
Called to a special work and a wholly exceptional mission, she was
designed by God to be a chosen vessel to carry His name before
princes and nations.1 And that mission, as was fitting and natural,
she began among her own people.
Surrounded, therefore, by the group of faithful disciples whom
we have described in a former chapter, and to whose ranks fresh
accessions daily flowed, Catherine accepted the work which Divine
Providence presented to her, and applied herself to it with that
earnestness mingled with simplicity which marked her whole career.
If that career were strange and unprecedented for a woman to
follow, this, at least, is worthy of remark, that there is no single
example to be found of her ever taking on herself any duty (beyond
those ordinary good works open to all devout women) without
solicitation or command. On the contrary, there is abundant proof
of the reluctance with which she invariably hung back from the
efforts made on the part of the world to draw her from her retirement.
But when the multitude sought her out in her humble chamber in
the Fullonica, she did not refuse to listen to their sorrows and to
heal their discords, nor did she hesitate to use the marvellous but
unstudied eloquence both of tongue and of pen which God had
bestowed upon her, to deliver His message to men of all conditions.
1 Acts ix. 15.

2 1 6 Feuds of the Middle Ages.
Catherine was a true Italian and a true Dominican also. She loved
her country, and names it in her letters with unmistakable tender
ness, and she inherited the traditions of an order, one of whose chief
works in the early centuries of its existence had been the healing of
party feuds. Everywhere throughout Italy the friars appeared as the
apostles of peace ; we need but mention the names of John of
Salerno, Latino Malabranca, and Bernard di Guido, to remind the
reader of those tales of wondrous and pathetic beauty which exhibit
to us the sons of St. Dominic in the character of the blessed peace
makers. And surely no portion of their apostolic mission could fall
more fitly or gracefully than this to the share of a religious woman.
How could she come in contact with such a soul as that of James
Tolomei without conceiving a detestation for those habits and social
maxims so deeply rooted in the hearts of her countrymen, that crime
had ceased to be regarded as crime, and a youth before he had
attained to manhood could boast of the blood which he had shed,
just as some wild Indian might exhibit and number up the scalps of
his victims ? " The hatreds of the Middle Ages," says Capelcelatro,
"had a vigour and tenacity in them unknown in our days, when base
cowardice sometimes disguises itself under the mask of gentle
manners. The superabundant life of those times, when men seemed
full of young blood, and which when directed to Christian practice
produced such prodigies of charity, betrayed itself also in those
deadly hatreds which resisted even the instincts of faith then so
powerful in society. The customs of their old heathen and barbarian
ancestors had not entirely decayed, so that the supreme moment of
life, blessed and sanctified by the last offices of religion, was often
chosen as a time for securing that the dying sinner's thirst for
vengeance should last beyond the tomb. Horrible oaths sealed
these iniquitous compacts ; the Almighty, the Father of mercy and
of pardon was called to witness the work of hlood, and sons believed
themselves bound to discharge the infamous obligation as a sacred
inheritance from their fathers." 1 Yet the men who made up such
a society were Christians; they believed in God, and expected
to be pardoned through the Blood of His Son; they probably
from time to time recited their chaplet, and asked to be forgiven
even as they forgave; and saw no inconsistency with such words
upon their lips in handing on from father to son a legacy of revenge
and homicide. 1 Storia di St. Cath., Lib. 2.

The Belforti. 2 1 7
When such men heard of the holy maid of the Fullonica (" La
Beata Popolana," as the citizens loved to call her — proud of her
plebeian birth), they often enough came, now with one of her
disciples, and now with another, to behold the prodigy of Siena.
And when Catherine began to speak to such souls, she had in the
most literal sense of the word to "lay again the foundation of
penance from dead works . . . and the doctrine ... of eternal
judgment." x We will give one example of the kind of men with
whom she had to deal, and of her method of addressing herself to
their hearts. There were two nobles, Benuccio and Bernard,
members of the haughty family of the Belforti. They belonged to
the Guelph faction, and reckoned among their kinsmen not fewer
than nineteen valiant warriors. They were the hereditary lords of
Volterra, in whose historic annals the most heroic deeds of valour
and patriotism were often enough mingled with tales of treachery
and assassination. Bochino, the head of the family, was himself
afterwards slain with many of his faction. His brother Pietro was
married to Angela Salimbeni, one of that illustrious family with
whom Catherine was on intimate terms, and Benuccio and Bernard
were their sons. At her urgent request, it would seem, Catherine
undertook to address the two brothers and remind them that they
were Christians. But before we quote her words to the two warriors,
let us hear in what terms she consoles Donna Benedetta, the wife
of Bochino, when she was mourning over the loss of several much-
loved children : — " My dearest mother and sister in Jesus Christ,"
she says, " is it not sweet to you to think that the heavenly Physician
came into this world to heal all our infirmities ? And like a gbod
physician, He is often obliged to give us a bitter medicine, and even
to bleed us sometimes, in order to restore our health. You know a
sick person will endure anything in hope of being cured. Alas ! why
do we not treat the Physician of Heaven as we do the physician of
earth ? He does not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that
he should be converted and live. And so He puts a bitterness into
the things of sense. And He bleeds us too, when He takes from
us our children, our health, our worldly goods, or whatever else He
thinks best. Courage then ; what He has done, He has done to
heal, and not to slay ; and since it is the sweet will of God, clothe
yourself with patience. As to the other son who is left to you, you
must try not to look on him as something that belongs to you, for
1 Heb. vi. 1, 2.

2 1 8 Catherine' s Letter to them.
that would be to appropriate to yourself what is not really yours, but
only lent You know I am speaking the truth, and because these
things are only lent, not given to us, we must be ready to give them
back to our sweet Master Who gave them and Who created them.
When I heard that He had called them to Himself, I rejoiced at
their salvation ; and though I pitied you, yet I rejoiced at the fruit
which you will draw from this affliction. Have courage then, the
time is short, our sufferings are light, and the reward exceeding
great. May the peace of God be with you. Catherine the useless
servant salutes you."
No doubt when Catherine compared the anguish of Benedetta as
she wept over her dead sons, with that which her kinswoman, Donna
Angela, endured when she watched the career of her own living ones,
she must have felt that bereavement was not the worst sorrow. They
were steeped up to their eyes in deadly enmities, to lay "aside any one
of which would have been accounted a blot on their scutcheon. This
was that grievous "point of honour," which the saints so fervidly
denounced ; not honour in its true and noble sense, but the false
honour of the world, which at that time held a man disgraced if he
did not seek to slaughter his enemy.
" My dearest sons," writes Catherine, " I desire to see your hearts
and souls at peace with our crucified Jesus, otherwise you cannot be
sharers in His grace. You know, my sons, that sin establishes a
feud between man and his Creator. When the whole human race
was at enmity with God through the sin of Adam, our merciful
Creator desired to make peace with man, and sent us His only
Son to be our Peace and our Mediator, and He became so by
bearing all our iniquities in His own Body on the Cross. You see,
then, that God has made peace with man, and that so perfectly that
even if man revolt against Him, he can always find the precious
Blood again in holy confession, which we may make use of every
day if we choose . . . But know this, we cannot love God except
through our neighbour. Christ asked Peter if he loved Him, and
when he said 'Yes,' our Lord replied, ' Then, feed My sheep.' As
much as to say, it is very little to Me that you love Me, unless you
love your neighbour. And this is the way of putting an end to the
great feud we have with God. For our crucified Jesus came into
the world to extinguish the fire of hatred between man and hi?
brother. Yes, my dear children, I want to see hatred disappear out
of your hearts. Do not do as madmen do, who by seeking to injure

Nanni di Ser Vanni. 219
others only injure themselves. He who kills his enemy kills himself
first, and with the same poniard, for he dies to grace. Fear the
Divine judgments then hanging over you, and promise me two
things : Be reconciled both to God and to your enemies ; you
cannot have peace with God unless you have peace with your
neighbour ; and, then, come and see me as soon as you can ; if
it were not so difficult for me to do so, I would come and see
you." We do not know the result of this appeal, or whether the sweet
echo of that word peace found an entrance into the heart of the
Belforti, but having seen in what way she sought to win these turbu
lent spirits by her words, it may be well to show her gaining one such
soul by the simple power of her prayers. The story is thus beauti
fully told in the old English Legend.
" There was in the city of Siena a gentleman called Nanni di Ser
Vanni,1 who bore a great sway among the people, being a very fierce
and warlike man, and also of a marvellous subtle and crafty wit in
worldly affairs. This Nanni, with the rest of his family and friends,
maintained a faction and perpetual quarrel among certain other
families in the city, who, dreading his power and policy, sought by
all means and with great submission to make their peace with him.
He made them answer that it was all one to him whether they had
peace or no peace, and that for his own part he was very ready and
willing to come to terms if they would win certain others to it, who
were as much concerned in it as he was himself. And thus he gave
them very fair words, and put them in hope of peace ; but in the
meantime he dealt secretly with those other persons, bidding them
stand stiffly to it, and in nowise to condescend to any conditions of
peace. This matter came to the ears of Catherine, who seeing
herein the occasion of working a charitable work, sought by many
means to speak with him. But whenever he understood that she
1 Mrs. Butler, in her Life of St. Catherine, has confused Nanni di Ser Vanni
with Andrea Vanni the painter. They were two totally distinct persons. She
even imagines that Father William Flete's acquaintance with Nanni was formed
on occasion of having his portrait painted, the last notion that would probably
have occurred to the good hermit. Nanni really belonged to the noble house of
Savini ; Vanni was not his family name, but the Christian name of his father,
and he bore it according to the Italian custom of those times, just as Stephen
Maconi is called Stephen di Corrado, and Neri dei Paglieresi appears as Neri di
Landoccio. For an account of the Savini family, see Diar. San. ii. 162.

220 He visits Catherine.
was coming towards him, he fled from her, as a serpent is wont to
flee from the enchanter that comes to charm him. At last, by the
importunity of a holy hermit, Brother William the Englishman,1
they won so much of him that he was content to hear the holy maid
speak, but yet with this protest, that whatever she said concerning
the peace, he was fixed, and would not be moved. With this
resolution he went to Catherine's house at a time when she chanced
to be abroad. F. Raymund, by the providence of God, was there
at that time, who, understanding that Nanni was coming, was very
glad of it, for he knew that the holy maid had a great desire to
speak with him ; so he went out to meet and entertain him until her
return. When they were come into the house, F. Raymund led
the way to the holy maid's chapel or oratory, where he caused him
to sit down, and entered on such talk with him as he thought most
convenient to protract the time. But after they had sat there a little
while, and saw that she came not, Nanni thought the time long, and
therefore began to break the matter with F. Raymund after this
manner : ' Father,' he said, ' I promised Brother William that I
would come here and speak with this holy maid ; but now seeing
she is abroad about some other business, and I have at this present
certain affairs that must needs be despatched out of hand, I pray
you excuse me unto her, and tell her that I would gladly have
spoken with her if she had been at home.' F. Raymund was very
sorry that Catherine came not. However, to gain a little more
time, he took occasion to talk with him concerning the peace, and
asked him how the matter stood between such and such persons-
Whereunto he made answer after this manner : ' Father,' said he,
' to you who are a priest and religious, and to this blessed maid, of
whom I hear report of great virtue and holiness, I will speak no lies,
but tell you plainly and sincerely how the case stands between these
men. It is true that I am he who hinders this reconciliation,
though indeed it seem otherwise, because the matter is openly con
trived by others, but I alone privily maintain and uphold one side ;
and if I would give my consent to the peace, the matter were ended.
But to tell you my meaning in few words, my peace shall be made
and confirmed with the blood of my enemies. This is my resolu
tion, and from this I will not be moved. Wherefore, I pray you, set
your hearts at rest, and trouble me no more' And with that he
rose up and took his leave to depart ; but F. Raymund was
1 i.e., Father William Flete.

Catherine Prays for him. 221
very loath to let him go, and therefore, though he saw that he was
unwilling to tarry, or to hear any more words of that matter, yet to
gain more time, he asked him divers and sundry questions, and by
that means kept him there so long that Catherine was come home
and entered into the house before he could get out of the oratory.
When Nanni saw her, he was sorry that he had tarried so long.
But she was right glad to see him there, and bade him welcome
after a very charitable and loving manner, and caused him to sit
down again. And when he was seated, she asked him the cause of
his coming. He answered her, and declared so much in effect
as he had declared before to F. Raymund ; at the same time
protesting that concerning that matter of the peace he would have
no talk, for he was absolutely bent to the contrary. The holy maid
hearing that, began to exhort him to brotherly love and concord,
and showed him withal what a dangerous and damnable state they
were in that lived out of charity. But he gave a deaf ear to her
words, which she perceived well enough, and therefore she sat still,
and spake no more to him. But casting up her eyes and heart to
God, she besought His grace and mercy for that hard-hearted man.
When F. Raymund, who had evermore a diligent eye to the
holy maid, had espied that, he spoke some words to Nanni to
occupy him the while, nothing doubting but that she should work
a better effect in him by that silent prayer than both he and she
had done before with many words. And so indeed it proved ; for
within a little time after, he spoke to them both after this manner : ' It
shall not be said of me that I am so hard and untractable that I will
have my own way in all things and relent in nothing. I will con
descend to your mind in some one thing, and then I will take my leave
of you. I have four quarrels in the city, of which I am content to
put one into, your hands. Do in it what you shall think good ; make
you my peace, and I will abide your orders.' With that he rose up,
and would have gone his way ; but on rising, being inwardly
touched, he said these words to himself : ' O Lord, what comfort is
this that I feel at this instant in my soul upon the only naming of
this word " peace " ! ' And soon after he said again : ' O Lord, O
God ! what virtue or strength is this that holdeth and draweth me
after this sort ? I have no power to go hence. I can deny you no
thing that you require me. O Lord ! O Lord ! what thing may this
be that thus enforceth me ? ' And with that he burst out into
weeping, and said : ' I am quite overthrown. I am not able to

222 His Conversion.
make any longer resistance.' Then suddenly he cast himself down
at Catherine's feet, and with marvellous great submission and
abundance of tears, said these words : ' O blessed maid, I am ready
to do whatsoever you command me, not only in this matter of peace,
but also in all other things whatsoever they be. Hitherto I know
well the devil has led me up and down fast tied in his chain, but
now I am resolved to follow you whithersoever it shall please you to
lead me ; and therefore I pray you for charity's sake be you my
guide, and teach me how I may deliver my soul out of his bonds."
At those words the holy maid turned to him and said, ' Brother,
our Lord be thanked that you are now, through His great mercy,
come to understand in how dangerous a state you stood. I spake
to you concerning your soul's health, and you made light of my
words. I spake to our Lord touching the same matter, and He was
content to hear me. My advice therefore is, that you do penance
for your sins in time, for fear of some sudden calamity that may fall
upon you, which, finding you unprovided, may otherwise bear you
down and quite overwhelm you.' Nanni was so inwardly stricken
with these words of the holy maid, that he went forthwith to Father
Raymund and made a general confession of all his sins with great
sorrow and contrition. And so, when he had made his peace with
Almighty God, by the advice of F. Raymund and virtue of the
holy Sacrament of Penance, he was content likewise to submit him
self to the order of the holy maid, and according to her direction
and arbitration to make a firm peace with all his enemies. Within
a few days after Nanni was thus converted, it chanced that he
was taken by the governor of the city and cast into a strait prison
for certain outrages that he had committed before. And it was
commonly said among the people that he should be put to death,
the which when F. Raymund understood, he came to Catherine
with a heavy cheer, and said, ' Lo, mother, so long as Nanni served
the devil, so long did all things go prosperously with him. But now,
since the time that he began to serve God, we see the world is
wholly bent against him. This sudden alteration putteth me in
great fear and doubt of the man, lest, being as yet but a young and
tender branch, he should be broken off by the violence of this
storm, and so fall into despair. Wherefore I beseech you heartily,
good mother, commend his state to God in your prayers, and as you
have by your mediation delivered him from everlasting death, so do
you endeavour also to deliver him from this temporal and imminent

He gives her the Castle of Belcaro. 223
danger.' To that the holy maid made answer, saying, 'Father,
why take you this matter so heavily ? Methinks you should rather
be glad of it, for by this you may conceive a very sure hope that our
Lord hath pardoned him all his sins, and changed those everlasting
pains that were due to him for the same into these temporal
afflictions. When he was of the world, the world made much of
him, as one that was his own ; but now, since he began to spurn at
the world, no wonder if the world should likewise kick at him again.
As for the fear that you have, lest he, being overcome with these
calamities, should fall into despair, be of good comfort, and assure
yourself that the merciful goodness of our Lord, that hath delivered
him out of the deep dungeon of hell, will not suffer him to perish in
prison.' And as she said, so it proved indeed, for within a few
days after he was delivered out of prison ; his life was indeed spared,
but for that they set a great fine of money on his head. Whereof
the holy maid was nothing sorry but rather glad. ' For,' said she,
'our Lord hath mercifully taken away from him that poison with
the which he had before and might again have poisoned himself.' "
Nanni was not ungrateful to her who had delivered him from his
miserable bondage ; and as soon as he regained his freedom he made
over to her by deed of gift his great castle of Belcaro, about four miles
out of Siena, that she might convert it into a convent. And this, as
we shall show, she did a little later, dedicating it under the title of
Our Lady of Angels.
It was not long before Catherine acquired such a reputation for
success in the reconciliation of long-standing family feuds, that
appeals were made to her arbitration from all quarters. As at Mon
tepulciano, so also at Asciano, Semignano, and other of the towns
and. villages in the vicinity of Siena, there are indications in her
letters of her exercising the good office of an angel of peace ; recon
ciling enemies, and not unfrequently administering some well-earned
rebukes. At Semignano, a village about a mile out of Siena, two priests were
themselves engaged in a deadly feud against each other, and St.
Catherine was appealed to, to put a stop if possible to this frightful
scandal. She wrote to one of them, and if her words are terrible in
their severity, there is evidence that they were every whit de
served by the offender. It is thus that she addresses him : " Priest !
whom the august Sacrament which it is yours to administer renders
dear to me, I, Catherine, the slave of the servants of Jesus Christ,

2 24 Letter to the Priest of Semignano.
write to you in His Precious Blood, desiring to see you a vessel of
election, bearing worthily the name of Christ, and applying yourself to
live in peace with your Creator and to make peace between His
creatures. That is your duty, and you ought to fulfil it. If you do
not do it, God will reprove you with severity. Respect the exalted
dignity of your state. God in His mercy has appointed you to
administer the fire of Divine Charity, I mean the Body and Blood of
Jesus crucified. Oh think, the angelic nature enjoys not that honour :
do but consider, He has put His Word into your soul as into a
sacred vessel. You represent the person of Christ when you con
secrate His Sacrament. Therefore, you should love and reverence
your dignity with great purity and with a peaceful heart, tearing out
from your soul every hatred and desire of vengeance.
" Alas ! where is now the purity of God's ministers ! You require a
spotless purity in the chalice you make use of at the altar, and
refuse to use one that is soiled ; remember then, that God the
Sovereign Truth demands a like purity in your soul. Woe is me !
on all sides we behold the contrary. Those who should be the
temples of God are the stables of swine : they carry the fire of hatred
and vengeance, and an evil will in their souls. They forget that
God sees them, and that His eye is ever over them, penetrating to
the bottom of their hearts. Alas ! Alas ! Are we brutes without
reason ? One would say so, when one sees how we abandon ourselves
to our wicked passions. The pride of man is now so great that he
will not humble himself either to God or creatures. If any one
injures him or threatens him with death, he will not pardon his
enemy, and yet desires and expects that his own sins against God
shall be pardoned. But he deceives himself; for with the same
measure that he metes to others he shall be measured himself. . . .
I wonder how a man like you, whom God has drawn out of the
world and made an earthly angel by making him the minister of His
Sacrament, — I do wonder how you can hate. I know not how you
dare to celebrate. I declare to you that if you persevere in this
hatred, and in your other vices, the wrath of God will burst over
your head. Let there be an end of this, reform your life, and cast
out from your heart all this misery, and, above all, this deadly hate.
I desire that you be both reconciled. What a disgrace to see two
priests engaged in deadly hatred ! It is a marvel to me that God
does not command the earth to open and swallow you- both up.
But courage ! there is yet time, have recourse to Jesus, and He will

State of the Clergy. 225
receive you if you will but go to Him. If not, you will be punished
like the wicked servant, who, after he had been forgiven by his
master, refused to forgive' his fellow servant a paltry debt, and tried
to strangle him. Then his master revoked his pardon, and bade
them bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness.
Our sweet Jesus left us those words as a warning to those who lived
in the hatred of God and their neighbour. I will say no more ; but
reply to me, and tell me what is your will and intention. May you
abide in the love of God ! " J
Such a letter as the foregoing suggests the answer to a question
which inevitably presents itself when we read of the kind of work
which fell into the hands of St. Catherine. How was it that in a
Christian land the word of a woman should have been needed to
bring men to penance ? were there not Priests, Bishops, Pastors of
souls ? Alas ! it must be said : at this precise epoch the deepest
and deadliest of all the wounds which were lacerating society was
the corruption of manners among the clergy. Most religious orders
were in a state of relaxation, and the example of the court at Avignon
had spread among the prelates of the Church, to say the least, habits
of worldly ease and luxury which cried aloud for reform. Not to
state this fact plainly would be to omit what alone explains, and
we may say justifies, many of St. Catherine's acts and words ; a fact
also which alone can enable us to comprehend how such events as
the Great Schism in the fourteenth century, and the Protestant
Reformation in the sixteenth, could ever have come about.
This terrible wound of the Church lay open to Catherine's eyes,
and we see by her writings that she had probed it to its depths. It
formed one part of her lifelong martyrdom to know all that she
did know of the lives led by those whom, in her intense and living
faith, she could think of only as " the Ministers of the Blood." If to
love God and see Him offended be anguish to a loving soul, what
must it have been to see every abomination of desolation brought
even into the sanctuary ? It caused her a horror which inspired her
most burning words. "How!" she exclaims, "God has not yet
commanded the ground to open, or wild beasts to devour you : He
1 At Semignano, the residence of the unhappy man to whom this letter was
addressed, there now stands the magnificent villa of Cetinale, where Alexander
VII. was wont to spend his hours of learned retirement. In a chapel in this
villa is preserved, among other relics, a bone of St. Catherine of Siena. She has a
worthy claim to be venerated on that spot.

226 Troubles of Society.
still bids the earth yield you its fruits, and the sun to shed on you
its warmth and light. The heavens still roll on in their course, that
you may live and have time to repent ; and all this He does out of
love ! " Again and again she reminds the priest and prelate to whom
she bears the message of her Master that they are consecrated
chalices, — channels to convey to souls the ever-flowing torrents of
the Precious Blood ; and alas ! reminds them, too, what kind of
sacrilege it is to soil the sacred vessels of the sanctuary with the
iniquities of avarice and sensuality. Hence she was ever praying for
the reform of the Church ; a word which has been laid hold of by
some writers as indicating that the Saint of Siena may be claimed as
one of those precursors of the so-called Reformation, among whom
are to be numbered such luminaries as Huss and Wickliffe. One
passage of her own writing will be the best answer to this extrava
gant theory, and sufficiently explains in what sense she makes use of
a word destined in after ages to bear so questionable a reputation ;
"Strengthen yourself," she writes, "in the sweet Spouse of Christ
The more tribulation and sorrow abound, the more does the Divine
Truth promise an abundance of sweetness and consolation ; and this
sweetness will be in the renewal of good and holy pastors, who like
glorious flowers will offer to God the good odour of virtue. For
this reform will only be in the ministers and pastors : the Church herself
has no need of being reformed, for the fruit she gives can never be
spoiled nor diminished by the sins of her ministers." 1
In addition to what has already been said of the demands made
on Catherine as a healer of feuds, there were other sources of trouble
and civil distraction which naturally arose out of a society seething
with successive revolutions. In the purely political side of these
matters Catherine took no part ; nevertheless the tumults and popular
changes of the republic always brought to her door some new work of
charity. She was not one to harangue mobs, or take on herself the
part of a politician, but when the excitement was over, she was ever
at hand to soothe the susceptibilities which had been roused, and
bring comfort to many a wounded heart. Thus, when in 1373
the populace clamoured for the blood of Vico di Mugliano, senator
of Siena, who had earned their hatred by hanging a good many
public malefactors and banishing others, Catherine was ready with
her words of consolation to support his terrified wife, who in her
dismay had sent her word that she had no other hope than in the
holy virgin's prayers. 1 Letter 90.

Letter to the Prisoners. 227
Daughter of the people as she truly was, she never shrank from
giving her sympathy to the victims of the revolutionary government,
whose leaders were not long in power before they showed themselves
in the light of cruel tyrants. The state prisons were filled with un
happy beings, whose crimes were of no blacker dye than those of
Agnolo d' Andrea, condemned to death for giving a banquet to
which none of the " Riformatori " had been invited. But even into
those darksome dungeons the charity of Catherine penetrated. On
a certain Holy Thursday, when full of the thought of the Passion of
her Lord, the solemn celebration of which is just then commencing,
her heart wanders away to those iforlorn ones whom she had already
doubtless visited; and she strives to render their sufferings more
tolerable to them by reminding them of One, who for their sakes
had suffered torture and impr^onment. " O my sweet Love, Jesus !"
she exclaims, "did not You endure for us opprobrium, and ill treat
ment? were You not bound and buffeted .and scourged at the
column, tied and nailed to the cross, drenched with ignominies,
tormented with thirst ; and for Your relief they gave You nothing
but vinegar and gall, and You bore it all with patience, and prayed
for Your murderers ? O unutterable mercy ! You not only prayed
for them, but excused them, too, saying, " Father forgive them, for
they know not what they do." Oh, my children, it is impossible
that you should not bear your misfortune patiently; .for in the
memory of the Blood all bitter things become sweet, and all hard
things easy. Remember that you have to die,. and you know not
when; prepare then by confession and Communion, that after .death
you may rise again to grace with. Christ Jesus."
These victims, whether of justice or state tyranny, were the. objects
of her peculiar tenderness. She saw in them the likeness of her
adorable Master, as He passed to. Calvary loaded with, chains to die
between two malefactors. Hence she was no stranger<to the " Gius-
tizia," or place of public execution; many. a time had she taken her
place in the grim procession as it set out from the Piazza of the Old
Market, and leaving the city by the Porta della iGiustizia, made its
way through the Val di Montone and ascended the little hill called
the Corposanto a Pecorile, opposite to which was the church of St.
Stefano, where the bodies of those executed were buried.1 Those
who would venerate each footprint left by Catherine of Siena, should
follow that track with a kind of awful reverence. She came thither
not once, but often ; for Caffarini tells us in his deposition that he
1 See Grottanelli's notes to Leggenda Minore, p. 53.

228 Nicholas di Toldo.
could not number the occasions when she gave help to the dying ;
whether those who had been slain by their enemies, or those who
paid the penalty of their crimes on the public scaffold. Of the first-
named act of charity no example has been preserved, but one is
recorded of the second, and by no other than her own pen.
A young knight of Perugia, named Nicholas di Toldo, was accused
of having spoken against the Riformatori, and advised his friends
in Siena to shake off their odious yoke. He was arrested and con
demned to death. The sentence fell on him like a thunderstroke
and drove him to the madness of despair. Of noble birth and full
of gallant hopes, with all his passions unsubdued, he could not
resign himself to give up his life while yet the young blood was
coursing through his veins, and the world spread itself before him as a
fairy land of enjoyment. He had never cared for his religious duties,
never even made his first Communion, so that when that terrible
decree had gone forth, there was nothing to brighten the path that
lay before him. A day or two more in his miserable dungeon, and
when next he should be restored to the light of day that bright sun
in which he had revelled would shine only on the black cart that
would be carrying him to the gallows. In his utter misery he be
thought him of Catherine; he had heard of her, -but they had never
met. Still, her name was in everyone's mouth, and men said her
power of consolation was something boundless ; so, forsaken of every
other hope, the unhappy youth despatched a messenger, and implored
her to come to him in his prison. She came, and when the awful
scene was over, she wrote the following narrative to Raymund of
Capua. " I went to see him whom you know of, and he was so cheered
and encouraged that he confessed at once to F. Thomas, and showed
the best dispositions possible. He made me promise, for the love of
God, that when the time of execution came I would be with him.
I promised him, and I kept my promise. In the morning before
the sound of the bell I hastened to him, and my arrival greatly com
forted him. I took him to Mass, and he communicated for the first
time in his life. He was perfectly resigned to God's will, and had
no other fear than that his courage might forsake him at the last
moment. But God in His goodness inspired him with such a love
of His holy will that, penetrated with a sense of His adorable Pre
sence, he kept repeating the words, ' Lord, be with me ! Abandon
me not, Thou art with me now, and all must go well with me ! I

His Execution. 229
die content!' Oh, how at that moment I longed to mingle my
blood with his, and shed it all for our sweet Spouse Jesus ! This
desire increasing in me, and seeing my poor brother agitated by fear,
I said to him : ' Courage, my brother ! we shall soon be at the
eternal nuptials. You are going to die washed in the adorable Blood
of Jesus, and with His sweet Name upon your lips ! I charge you
forget it not, and I will wait for you at the place of execution.'
Now think, my father, how his soul must have lost all fear ; for his
face was transformed from sadness to joy, and he said in a kind of
transport, ' Whence comes such a grace to me as this, that the sweet
ness of my soul should wait for me at the holy place of execution ! '
You see what great light he must have had to have called the place
of execution holy. Then he said : ' I shall go strong and full of joy ;
it seems to me as if I should have to wait a thousand years till I
see you there ;' and he added other words so sweet that I was amazed
as I beheld the goodness of God.
" I went then to the place of execution, where I ceased not to
invoke Our Lady and St. Catherine the martyr. But before he
arrived, I knelt down and placed my own neck on the block, but
alas ! my desire was not fulfilled. Oh, how I prayed that Our Lady
would obtain for him at that last moment light and peace of heart,
and for me, the grace of seeing him attain his end. My heart was
so full, and the impression of the promise I had received so deep,
that in the midst of all that crowd of people I saw no one. At last
he came, and like a meek lamb he smiled when he saw me, and
desired I would make the sign of the cross on his forehead. I did
so, saying, ' Depart to the eternal nuptials ; soon, very soon you will
be in the life that never ends.' He extended himself on the scaffold,
and with my own hands I placed his head under the knife ; then I'knelt
by his side, and reminded him of the Blood of the spotless Lamb. His
lips murmured the words, ' Jesus and Catherine.' Then the knife fell
and I received his head in my hands. I fixed my eyes on the Divine
goodness, and lo ! I beheld, as clearly as one beholds the light of the
sun, Him who is God and Man. He was there ; and He received
that blood. . . . He received it, and placed it in the open Wound
of His Side, in the treasury of His mercy. . . . Oh, how ilovingly
He looked on that soul bathed in the blood made precious by being
united to His own ! Then Father, Son, and Holy Spirit received
him ; and he was inundated with a joy that would have ravished a
thousand hearts. And then I saw him turn, as the bride does when

230 His Burial.
she reaches the door of the bridegroom, she turns and bows her
head to salute those who have conducted her there, and to give them
a last farewell. Then all disappeared, and I felt a delicious peace,
and the perfume of that blood was so sweet to me, that I would not
suffer them to wash away what had fallen over me. Alas ! miserable
that I am, still to be left to linger in this wretched world ! " l
At this most wonderful scene, F. Thomas Caffarini was personally
present, and he has carefully described it in the Process. He says,
at the moment when the axe fell, Catherine received the head in her
hands, being in an ecstacy. Her eyes were fixed on heaven, and her
eyelids motionless, and so she remained for a long space. The spec
tators were all in tears, and declared they were witnessing the death
of a martyr rather than the execution of a criminal ; while Catherine,
heedless of all around her, was beholding in spirit the happy soul of
him, whose blood was flowing over her garments, ascend to heaven,
and before entering the eternal portals turn to give one last look of
gratitude on her whose amazing charity had rescued him from perdi
tion. " I saw it all," says Caffarini, " and never at the most solemn
religious festival have I witnessed such devotion as there was dis
played at his burial." 2
It must not be gathered from' what has been said of Catherine's
horror of feuds, or of her wondrous pity for criminals, that she was
on the one hand deficient in that appreciation for brave men and
brave deeds which finds- a> place in every woman's heart that is
attuned to what is noble; or that, on the other hand, her compassion
for the erring was akin'tb 'weakness. In the righteous cause of God
1 The last paragraph, which in the letter is very obscure, receives a perfect ex
planation from the following passage in the Leggenda Minore. It will be remem
bered that the writer is F. Thomas Caffarini, who was present on this occasion.
"La> quale disse-por alsuo confessore, e anco a noi altri, che benche si fusse
grande moltitudiue di ! genlte, essa non vedeva neuno. Ma ben vide Jesu Cristo
Benedetto che in virtu della sua santissima passione accett6 il sangue di quello
agnello ingiustamente sparto, con la sua volonta in tutto accordata con la volonta
di Dio, a portare pazientamente questo martirio. Unde in quello punto introdusse
quella benedetta anima nell 'eterno regno. E prima che intrasse si rivolse dietro,
inchinandosi alia vergine in segno di ringraziamento. (Leg. Min., Part 2, chap.
vii., p. 94).
2 Letter 97. The date of Nicolas di Toldo's death is uncertain, but it occurred
after the Saint had become acquainted with Raymund of Capua (to whom the
letter was addressed), and therefore some time later than June 1374. It forms
the subject of a fine fresco by Sodoma, in the chapel. of St. Catherine in the
Church of San Domenico.

Letter to a Knight of St. fohn. 2 3 1
or country, Catherine would have buckled on the sword of the
combatants, and followed them with her prayers to the battlefield.
Some of her letters addressed to knights and men at arms seem to
ring with the very sound of the tourney. Perhaps there are no
figures of speech in which she appears more entirely at home than with
those of knighthood and battle. " Our King," she says, writing to
the Prior of the Knights of St. John, " Our King, like a true knight
remained on the battlefield till all His foes were conquered. With
His flesh all torn with scourges, He vanquished our rebellious flesh;
by His ignominies, He overcame the pride, and by His wisdom the
malice of the devil, and with His unarmed hands, pierced and nailed
on the Cross, He has conquered the prince of this world. Our
knight mounted on His battle-steed, the wood of the most holy
Cross, and for His cuirass He took the flesh of Mary, that clothed
in it He might receive the blows which should satisfy for our
iniquities. The helmet on His head is that cruel crown of thorns
that pierced to His very brain; His sword is that wounded Side
which displays to us the Secret of His Heart, a gleaming sword,
indeed, that should pierce our hearts with ardent love ; and for His
lance, He bears the reed given Him in derision. The gauntlets on
His hands, and the spurs on His feet are the rosy Wounds in the
Hands and Feet of that sweet Word. Who armed Him thus ? It was
Love. What bound and nailed Him to the tree of the Cross ? not
the nails, nor the stones, nor the earth in which it was planted ; they
could not have held fast the Incarnate God. It was nothing but the
bond of love, love for God's honour and our salvation. Oh, what
heart could behold such a knight and such a chieftain, at one and
the same time dying, yet a conqueror, and not be ready to overcome ,
all his weakness, and go forth bravely against all his foes ! It is
impossible. Take then Jesus crucified for your model ; dye your
tunic 1 in His crimson Blood, and by Him you will triumph over all
your enemies."
Nor, when occasion served, did Catherine shrink from reading a
lesson to the magistrates of the republic, and telling them some
honest truths which, had they proceeded from any other lips,
might have sent the speaker to the dungeons of the Palazzo Pubblico.
" My Fathers and Brothers in Jesus Christ," she says (writing to the
' Magnificent Lords Defenders of the people '), " I desire to see you
true and faithful Christians, full of zeal for holy justice, which should
1 The tunic worn by the knights on state occasions was of crimson velvet.

232 Letter to the Lords Defenders.
shine like a precious jewel on your hearts ; stripped of self-love, so
that you may be able to apply yourselves to the general good of the
city and not your own private interests. A man who thinks only of
his own interests has very little of the fear of God ; he does not
observe justice, but breaks it in a thousand ways ; he allows himself
to be corrupted — sometimes for money, sometimes to please those who
ask him to do them a service in an unjust way ; sometimes also, to
avoid the just punishment of his own faults, he will let off those on
whom the stroke of justice should fall. And so he shares in the
guilt and deserves to suffer the same punishment which he has been
bribed to spare another. Yet if a poor man were to do the thousandth
part as much, he would punish him without mercy.1
" A wretch like this who is appointed to govern the city, and yet
does not know how to govern himself, cares not to see the poor
oppressed; he despises their rights, while he listens readily enough to
those who have no rights to plead. But it is no wonder that such
men commit injustice when they are cruel even to themselves,
wallowing in sensuality like swine in the mire. Proud and senseless,
they cannot bear to hear the truth. They tear their neighbours to
pieces and wring out of them unjust gains, and commit a thousand
other offences which I will not weary you with enumerating. I
wonder not that such as these fail in administering holy justice; and
therefore it is that God has permitted, and still permits that we
should suffer from chastisements and scourges, the like of which I
verily believe have never been seen since the world began." 2
Truly, there spoke the "Blessed Popolana," the "Daughter of
the People," fearless and true, striking her blows home to guilty
consciences, and appalling them with her clear, calm words; the
advocate of the poor, the lover of justice, the healer of discords, and
the champion of truth.
And here we close the first part of Catherine's history, to which for
the most part belong those narratives which display her to us exercis
ing her mission of charity within the walls of her native place or its
immediate vicinity. Those who have trodden its streets best know
how ineffaceable are the footprints which she has left behind her.
At every turn they are met by some memory of her who, belonging
1 This passage is aptly enough illustrated by the affair of Andrea Salimbeni,
narrated in the last chapter. It was not, however, written on that occasion, but
some years later.
2 Letter 204.

The Saint of Siena. 233
to a city so rich in Saints, still remains, and will ever remain the
Saint, by excellence, of Siena. They gaze at the grand old church
as it stands on the summit of its grassy hill, and behold, it may be, in
pious imagination the vision of beauty which first won the heart of
Catherine to her Eternal Spouse. They descend to the fountain by
the very path down which so many a time she came to draw water
for those homely household duties she loved to discharge, and which,
ever blended with tales %i vision and rapture, remind us that her life
was all the time the life of a sister and a daughter, perfumed through
and through with the charities of home. They enter her house, and
stand within her chamber ; they see the little window and the hard
brick steps beneath, where she rested her head. And in that
sanctuary they kneel to do homage to the greatest of all the Divine
works ; the sanctity of which a human heart is capable when the will
of God is substituted for the will of the creature ; and they contem
plate in amazement the close union which He, by His grace, renders
possible between Himself and the frail mortal espoused to His
Heart, in " the Perfection of Faith and Charity."

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CHAPTER I.

THE CHURCH AND ITALY,

*372-i374. *

IN the year 1305, in the reign and at the solicitation of Philip le
Bel, Pope Clement V. transferred the residence of the Popes
from Rome to Avignon. Urgent as the causes may have been which
prompted this measure, its effect on Italy and the Church at large
were most disastrous. The six successors of Clement were all
Frenchmen by birth and sympathies; and having purchased from
Joanna of Naples the sovereignty of Avignon, they established them
selves in the fairest city of France, and drew around them the most
splendid and luxurious court in Europe. The cardinals also were
all but exclusively French ; and from their ranks were drawn the
legates sent into Italy to govern the States of the Church. Their
indifference to the populations over whom they ruled, and their
undoubted misgovernment and rapacity, brought the Holy See itself
into contempt, and sowed the deadly seeds of hatred and rebellion.
All good men lamented what in the writings of the times was

238 Urban V.
stigmatised as the second Babylonish Captivity, and minds as widely
apart in their sympathies as were those of Francis Petrarch and St.
Bridget of Sweden alike sighed for the day of deliverance.
Urban V. was the first to conceive and attempt the execution of a
project for returning to Rome. Deaf to the remonstrances of his
French courtiers, he left Avignon in the May of 1367, and reached
Rome in the following October. His progress was one long triumph.
When the rumour of his coming first spread through Italy it awakened
high hopes and passionate rejoicing. Queen Joanna of Naples and
all the maritime republics sent their galleys to conduct him to the
Italian shores ; and when he landed at Corneto, St. John Colombini
was waiting on the landing-place to receive him, surrounded by his
followers, " the poor men of Siena," with rose garlands on their heads
and olive branches in their hands. All the way to Viterbo they ran
beside his litter, singing praises to God and telling the Pope how
glad they were to see him. When he entered Rome, the sad and
melancholy streets of that long-deserted city put on its beautiful
garments to greet him, and every house appeared garlanded with
flowers. All the princes of Italy were there, taking part in the
glorious procession. Nicolas of Este, Lord of Ferrara, headed his
body-guard ; Ridolfo of Camerino bore aloft the standard of Holy
Church; while walking at the Pope's bridle, in the character of
Master of the Horse, was Amadeus IV, the brave Count of Savoy.
-, Two thousand bishops, abbots, and ambassadors followed, and con
ducted Urban to thS palace of the Vatican. It was a day of splendid
promise, which ended in as bitter a disappointment. During the
three years that Urban remained in Rome he did enough to vindicate
the wisdom of the step he had taken ; but the calamities of a century
could not be dissipated in three years, and a nearer view of the
unhappy country, as it lay lacerated by its intestine wars, petty
tyrannies, and the ravages of the Free Companies, so disheartened
him, that in 1370, overcome by the entreaties of his French cardinals,
and desirous, as it is thought, of stopping a renewal of hostilities
between France and England, he returned to Avignon, to die.
Some writers, and among others Isidore Ugurgieri, have repre
sented this visit of Pope Urban's to Rome as due to the representa
tions of St. Catherine. But there is actually no ground for such a
supposition. In the year 1367 she was only just emerging from her
life of retreat, and though she must have heard not a little about the
great event from the lips of the Colombini family, and though,

Gregory XI. 239
doubtless, her own heart responded to the universal joy, yet it is
quite certain that at that time she had as yet taken no part in public
affairs outside her own city.1
The cardinals, on whom devolved the election of Urban's
successor, regarded with dismay the possibility of a second departure
from Avignon, and thought to secure themselves against such a
danger by electing one who, while his virtues rendered him well worthy
of their choice, seemed of all men the least likely to undertake
a difficult and unpopular enterprise. Peter du Rogier de Beaufort-
Turenne, who took the name of Gregory XL, was only thirty-six years
of age, of blameless life, and enjoying a reputation, writes the Floren
tine ambassador, Lucius Coluzzi, " for prudence, modesty, circum
spection, faith, goodness, and charity ; and what is yet rarer to find
in a great prince, for truth in his words and loyalty in his actions."
Despite his gentle and even timid character, Gregory was capable
of great purposes, and from the moment of his accession one desire
filled his breast. It was to bring about the pacification of Europe
by the proclamation of a Crusade. The word falls dull and
meaningless on the ears of our generation, or associates itself to the
notion of a scheme of half-crazed enthusiasm. To regard it in that
light, however, is to betray but an imperfect comprehension of
history. Neither would it be at all accurate to suppose that the
announcement of such a project in the fourteenth century burst on
the world and took it by surprise, as the revival of an idea long
obsolete. In fact, there was nothing at all new in it ; it had been
the cherished desire not of this holy soul or of that, but, in turn, of
all the Sovereign Pontiffs. So long as the safety of Christendom was
threatened on the side of the infidels, that is, for the space of about
six centuries, those who successively filled the Apostolic See were
ever seeking to raise a bulwark against their further advance west
ward, and persevered in unavailing efforts to rouse Christian kings
and nobles to a sense of their terrific danger. What they desired,
and were ever seeking to promote, was to oppose to the onward wave
of barbarism the fair front of a united Christendom. The fratricidal
wars between France and England were for a long course of years
1 TJgurgieri in his Fasti Senensi (part 2, lib. viii., p. 143) affirms as a fact, that
Urban V., desiring to reform the monastery of Monte Cassino, appointed as
abbot Dom Bartholomew of Siena, at the recommendation of St. Catherine.
Malevolti, the historian of Siena, likewise says that she wrote to this Pontiff, but
if so, none of her letters to him hata been preserved.

240 The Crttsade.
the great obstacle to the realisation of these hopes ; and we have but
to turn to history to see what were the efforts of the Roman Pontiffs
to put a stop to those miserable hostilities.
This project of the crusade then, was the first thought which
Gregory shared in common with Catherine. Indeed, most writers
represent him as first moved to act in this matter by her persuasions ;
but such a supposition falls very far short of the truth. He was but
following the constant tradition of the papacy when he proposed to raise
the standard of the holy war, and thereby at one and the same time
to check the advance of the infidels, and sheath the swords which
were drenching the fair fields of his native land in torrents of Christian
blood. Gregory was every way moved to take a keen interest in the
last-named matter. A Frenchman by birth, he was not without a
tie to England. He had resided in that country, where he held
the office of Archdeacon of Canterbury ; he was the intimate friend
of William of Wykeham, to whom he seems to have sent the first
tidings of his election to the papal chair ; and he gladly welcomed
English prelates to his court, and was no stranger to their habits or
language. It was but natural that to one of his gentle character the
chief ambition which filled his breast should be that he might
become a pacificator between two nations both equally dear to him.
His first act, therefore, after his election in 137 1, was to write letters
to the king of England, the court of Flanders, and the doge of
Venice, calling on them to come to the defence of Holy Church and
turn their arms against the Turks. He bestowed on Raymund
Berenger, Grand Master of Rhodes, the rich domain of Smyrna to
be an outpost against the enemy; and to unite in one body the
Christians of the East and of the West, he had it in his mind to call
a congress in which to settle the plan of the crusade and raise the
necessary means for its commencement But at the very moment
when the father of Christendom was thus concerting schemes for the
pacification of Europe and the repulse of the common enemy, two
of the maritime powers on whom he chiefly relied for the accom
plishment of his purpose, took up arms against one another in a
miserable quarrel. War broke out, in short, between Genoa and
Venice ; the navy of the former state was despatched against Cyprus,
and thus the project of the congress for that time ended in smoke.
Still the crusade itself was not abandoned, and the design of the
new Pontiff was well known throughout Europe. It was a thought
which had long occupied the mind of Catherine, and she must have

<**

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^
Bernabb Visconti. 241
rejoiced with exceeding great joy when she understood that the Vicar
of Christ was labouring for its accomplishment. Though far from
believing that it owed its birth to her suggestion, we deem it almost
certain that the projected Crusade formed the matter of their earliest
communication, and that her letters of sympathy and encouragement
on that subject were the first links of their mutual friendship.
But whatever may have been Catherine's enthusiasm for the holy
war, not less urgent was her solicitude for the peace of Italy. How
are we to condense in few words the unutterable woes under which
that unhappy country was at this period writhing? Yet we must
make the attempt, even though it should seem to transform the
page of sober history into the semblance of some monstrous melo
drama. In the middle of the fourteenth century, then, Italy presented
the spectacle of every variety of government. Her old republican
institutions were falling into decay, and in many states the sovereign
power had been seized by some fortunate adventurer who raised
himself to the position of its tyrant. Thus, in the north, almost all
Lombardy was bent under the sway of the Visconti. Bernabb
Visconti, Duke of Milan, a great military genius, an astute politician,
and a patron, moreover, of art and men of letters, had spent the
greater part of his life in arms against the Church. Wholly indifferent
to all religious obligations, he had grown accustomed to excom
munication during the Pontificates of Innocent VI. and Urban V.,
and mocked at the censures of the Church with a profanity worthy
of the age of Voltaire. Indeed, he seems to have united in his
single person the brutality of the eleventh, to the astute cunning of
the sixteenth, and the scepticism of the eighteenth centuries. Mura-
tori gives a summary of his game laws that casts those of our Norman
tyrants into the shade. No man was allowed to kill or eat a wild
animal under pain of death. His five thousand hunting dogs were
quartered on the convents, and the monks were expected to keep
them well fed, and bring them to a monthly review. Those who
failed to bring up their dogs in good condition were fined, flogged,
or otherwise tortured. At the approach of his huntsmen the miserable
peasants quailed in abject fear. None had the courage to rebuke
the tyrant save two friars who, valuing their lives as nothing for
God's sake, entered his presence and reminded him of death and
judgment. Bernabb with a hideous laugh ordered them at once to
be burnt alive. He had gradually obtained possession of his large
Q

242 He is Excommunicated.
dominions by a long course of cunning and treachery. One example
may suffice as showing the origin of his war with Gregory XL, and
aptly illustrating the anarchy which everywhere prevailed.
Gonzaga, Duke of Feltrino, governed the city of Reggio as
feudatory of the Pope. Este, Lord of Ferrara, leagued with some
of the inhabitants to deprive him of his sovereignty; and having hired
a company of German Free Lances, commanded by the celebrated
Condottiere Lando, he loosed these ruffians against the unhappy
city, expecting them to resign their conquest into his hands according
to the terms of their mutual bargain. Lando soon made himself
master of the place, but after frightful slaughter and the desecration
of every sanctuary, he found it more to his advantage to listen to
proposals made him by Bernabb, to whom he sold the city for
25,000 gold florins. The rights of Feltrino and of the Holy See
were naturally as little regarded as the contract with the Marquis, for
whom it is impossible to feel much sympathy when he found himself
the dupe of a more sagacious scoundrel than himself; and it was by
various achievements of a like character that Bernabb contrived to
gain possession of other territories of the Church.
After fruitless appeals and embassies, Gregory at last pronounced
against him sentence of excommunication. But to a man like
Bernabb such a sentence only afforded matter for some grim
pleasantry. When Urban V. had adopted a similar measure,
Bernabb had met the Legates who were bringing the Bulls of excom
munication on the bridge of Lambri, and required them to eat the
parchment on which they were written, on pain of being flung into
the river. Then he dressed the Pope's ambassadors in white gar
ments, and paraded them through the streets of Milan ; and when
the Archbishop ventured a remonstrance against such acts, he
answered fiercely : "I would have you to know that I am Pope,
emperor, and king in my own domains, nor shall God Himself do here
what is contrary to my will." When the news reached him of his
fresh excommunication by Gregory XL, he dressed up a poor mad
man in some ridiculous vestments, and commanded him to excom
municate the Pope. In 1372, therefore, Gregory declared war against
him : he obtained the support of the Emperor, the queen of Naples,
and the king of Hungary ; and took into his pay the English leader,
Sir John Hawkwood. Bernabb did not feel himself strong enough
to oppose an alliance so strong, or so redoubtable a general : he had
recourse, therefore, to his usual weapon of cunning, and despatching

Cardinal D Estaing. 243
ambassadors to Avignon, proceeded to bribe some of Gregory's
counsellors, in order to obtain for himself a favourable truce. Mean
while Cardinal Peter D'Estaing,1 whom Scipio Ammirato calls " a
man of large heart and wise head," was appointed Legate of Bologna.
This was in the year 1372, and the letter alluded to in the last
chapter, as the first of a positively political character which Catherine
is known to have written, is addressed to him by her on hearing of
his appointment. But as a French writer has well remarked, this
letter shows her to be already in the possession of a political influence,
not in its infancy, but fairly established. When the curtain rises to
display her public life at last begun, we find to our wonder that in
reality it must have begun long before. It is impossible to read her
letter to Cardinal D'Estaing and for a moment to doubt that they were
personally, and even intimately acquainted. Perhaps in a former
visit to Italy he had passed through Siena, and visiting the holy
maid of the Fullonica had conferred with her on what lay close to
both their hearts — the peace of Christendom and the proclamation of
a Crusade. It was certainly no stranger whom she addresses with
that graceful play upon words impossible to render into English :
" Scrivo a voi con desiderio di vedervi legato nel legame della carita, sic-
come siete fatto Legato in Italia, secondo che^o inteso." 2 Observe,
too, on this first page of her correspondence that beloved name of
Italy ! and what has she to say to him ?
" Son and servant, redeemed in the Blood of Jesus ! " she cries,
" follow His footsteps promptly and bravely : suffer not yourself to
be held back either by suffering or pleasure ; but apply yourself to
root out the iniquities and miseries caused by the sins which out
rage the name of God. Hunger and thirst for His honour and the
salvation of souls that you may repair so many evils ; use the power
given you by the Vicar of Christ in the sweet bonds of charity, with
out which you cannot discharge your duty. Be strong in Christ, then,
and zealous, not negligent in what you have to do ; and thereby I
shall know that you are a true Legate if you have a longing to
1 In St. Catherine's Letters, those to D'Estaing bear the title " to the Cardinal
Peter of Ostia." But this has been added by some later hand, and is an ana
chronism. D'Estaing afterwards became Bishop of Ostia, but he was not so at the
time of his appointment as Legate.
2 " I desire to see you bound with the bonds of charity, as I hear you have been
made Legate in Italy." The significance, of course, is in the double meaning of
the words legato (bound) and Legato (Legate).

244 Catherine's Letter to Bernabb.
behold the standard of the holy Cross at last displayed on high ! "
In a second letter she urges him to restore peace to the distracted
country. " If possible, make peace," she says ; " is it not miserable
to see us with arms in our hands, fighting one against another, whilst
every faithful Christian should be ready to do battle only against the
infidels ! The servants of God are overwhelmed with sorrow when
they see nothing on all sides but deadly sin and perishing souls ;
whilst the devils rejoice, for they have it all their own way. Peace —
peace, peace, then, dear Father ; urge the holy Father to think more
of the loss of souls than the loss of cities, for souls are dearer than
cities to the heart of God." 1
Meanwhile, strange to say, Bernabb had bethought him of
addressing himself to the holy virgin, of whose marvellous powers
he had often heard. He believed that if he could only establish
relations with her, it would patch up his reputation as a pious
Christian, and stand him in good stead with the court of Avignon.
He therefore stooped to try and gain the good graces of the
" Popolana " of Siena, and in reply to his overtures received a letter
which made him comprehend that there could be no fellowship
between Christ and Belial. It must have stung his brutal pride to
the quick to have been told that " to glory in one's human power is
a folly and a madness," and that " no man can properly be called
the lord or master of anything here below, because he is only
steward of the one real Master." Then she reminded him of the
Blood of Redemption, and that he who holds the key of that Blood
is the Vicar of Christ How mad then is he who revolts against
Jesus in the person of His Vicar ! " Do nothing I charge you, then,"
she says, " against your Head. The devil will persuade you that
you may and ought to punish the faults of wicked pastors. Believe
him not, and lay not your hands on those who are the Lord's
anointed. He reserves that right to Himself, and has confided* it to
His Vicar. Mix yourself no more up in these affairs, but govern
your own cities in peace and justice; punish your subjects when
they do amiss, but judge not the ministers of the Precious Blood.
You can only receive It from their hands, and if you do not receive
It, you are a dead, corrupt member cut off from the body of the
holy Church ! " Then she adds a word of terrible warning. " Think
not because Christ appears to see nothing in this life that He will
not punish in the next. When our soul departs out of our body we
i Letter 24.

Beatrice of Milan. 245
shall then know to our cost that He has indeed seen all." And she
concludes by inviting him to repair the past by taking the Cross and
turning his arms against the infidels. " You must now come to the
help of him whom you have hitherto resisted. The holy Father is
raising the standard of the holy Cross — it is his one wish and desire
Do you be the first to solicit him to carry out his enterprise. Truly
it were a shame for Christians to leave the infidels in possession of
what is our own by right. Be ready then to give your life and all that
you have for the cause of Christ crucified." How great must have
been the opinion in which Catherine was held even by such
characters as the Visconti, may be guessed by the fact that not only
did Bernabb endeavour to make her his friend, but that his wife,,
Beatrice Scaliger (or La Scala), the proudest, vainest, and most
ambitious woman of her time, despatched a trustworthy envoy of
her own to the holy virgin, whom possibly she thought to dazzle by
so bewildering a condescension. The character of Beatrice, like
that of the Visconti themselves, was that of a thorough parvenue.
Her ridiculous assumption went so far that she insisted on being
given the title of Queen, though her husband had never assumed the
royal dignity. She demanded adulation from everybody, and no
doubt expected it from the Saint ; and even on her tomb, after
death, there blazed the pompous words of courtly flattery, " Italia
splendor, Ligurum Regina Beatrix." Catherine replied to her
humbly enough, addressing her with the homely title of " Reverend
Mother in Christ," and requesting her to become the instrument of
reconciling her husband to the Pope. Always happy in her mode
of adapting her exhortations, she suggests to the haughty dame
some wholesome counsel against the pride of wealth and the love
of display, and tells her that she ought to look on herself as the
appointed means for leading her husband to a better way of life, and
keeping him in the paths of virtue ; an idea which was probably the
very last to suggest itself to Donna Beatrice as any part of her vocation.
There was one other member of the Visconti family with whom
Catherine was in correspondence, as is proved by a letter addressed
by her to the Saint in 1375. This was Elizabeth, daughter to the
Duke of Bavaria, and wife of Bernabb's eldest son. From this letter
we learn what we should not otherwise have known that Catherine
contemplated a personal visit to Milan for the purpose of securing
the Duke's adherence to the cause of the Crusade. " Your proposed
visit here," writes the princess, " has filled us with a joy no tongue

246 Gerard du Puy.
can tell, as we hope thereby to receive great consolation." It is need
less to say the journey to Milan never took place, having probably
been frustrated by the negotiations with Florence in which the Saint
soon after became involved.
D'Estaing concluded a truce with Bernabb, a step prompted no
less by the entreaties of Catherine than by Gregory's natural mild
ness of character, and his aversion to bloodshed. " Far be it from
me," he replied to Bernabb's ambassador, "that I should be at
enmity with any one." In a purely political point of view, however, the
truce was a mistake ; for had the allies pushed their advantage at
that moment against the Visconti, their odious power would probably
have been broken ; whereas the moderation shown them, however
creditable to the clemency which inspired it, met with no other
return than renewed treachery. For the moment, however, the
restoration of peace facilitated the prosecution of the Crusade, and
the powers who had joined the league against Bernabb were
naturally those whose support Gregory solicited for his cherished
design. To them also Catherine as naturally addressed herself. She
was unavoidably drawn into the current of public affairs by the con
stant appeals made to her for advice and direction by men in high
position. Thus, when in. 1372 Gerard du Puy, the abbot of Mar-
moutier, and a kinsman of the Pope, was named Governor of
Perugia and Apostolic Nuncio in Tuscany, his first thought was to
write a letter to Catherine and ask her advice as to his future course.
We have her reply ; and we gather by it that the Nuncio must have
written, not in his own name, but rather in that of the Sovereign
Pontiff. In this fact we possibly come on the first link of the chain
which united the future lives of Gregory and Catherine. She writes
as follows :
" I have received your letter, my dear Father, and it gives me great
joy that you should deign to think of a creature so vile as I am. I
think I understand it ; and in reply to the three questions you ask
me on the part of our sweet Christ on earth, I think before God that
he ought above all things to reform two great evils which corrupt the
spouse of Christ The first is the excessive love of relations ; that
abuse should be entirely and everywhere put a stop to. The second
is a weakness which springs from too much indulgence. Alas ! the
cause of all these corruptions is that no one now reproves ! Our
Lord holds in aversion three detestable vices above all others — they
are impurity, avarice, and pride. And they all reign in the spouse

Catherine 's Letter to him. 247
of Christ — at least among her prelates, who seek after nothing but
pleasures, honours, and riches. They see the demons of hell carry
ing off the souls confided to them, and they care nothing at all about
it, because they are wolves, and traffic with Divine grace. It needs
a strong hand to correct them, but over-compassion is real cruelty ;
only in order to reprove we must blend justice with mercy.
" I hope, by God's goodness, the abuse I first spoke of, the exces
sive love of relations, is beginning to disappear, thanks to the
unwearied prayers of His servants. The spouse of Christ will be
persecuted, no doubt, but she will, I trust, preserve her beauty. As
to what you say of our sins, may God show you the abundance of
His mercy. I, your poor little daughter, will take the penalty of
your sins on myself, and we will burn yours and mine together in
the fire of charity. As to the other point, in urging you to labour
for holy Church, I was not so much thinking of temporal things ;
the care of them is all very well ; but what you ought chiefly to work
at in concert with the holy Father is to use every effort to drive
out of the sheepfold those wolves — those incarnate demons — who
think of nothing but good cheer, magnificent banquets, and superb
equipages. What Christ gained on the wood of the Cross they spend
in guilty pleasures. I conjure you, should it cost you your life, urge
the holy Father to put a stop to these iniquities. And when the
time comes for choosing pastors and cardinals, let not flattery and
money and simony have any part in their election, but entreat him
as far as possible to regard nothing but the good qualities of the
persons proposed, and give no heed whether they are nobles or
peasants. Virtue is the only thing which really makes a man noble,
or pleasing to God. This is the work I recommend you, my Father ;
other works no doubt are good, but this is the best. I recommend
myself to you a hundred thousand times in Christ Jesus." 1
We may, I think, safely infer that in 1372, when this very interest
ing letter was written, Catherine was not yet in direct communication
with the holy Father. Had she been, it would not have been requisite
for her to say what she had to say through the intervention of a
third party. Equally evident is it that Gerard had been deputed by
Gregory to ask her opinion, and the next step would easily follow
of a direct communication between Catherine and the Pope. In
this light, then, the letter is an important link in the chain of out
present history; but it has also a melancholy interest of another
1 Letter 41.

248 Proclamation of the Crusade.
kind. It gives us a glimpse of what those disorders were which at
various times drew from the Saint such tremendous denunciations.
Her language no doubt was strong, and so was that of the prophets
when they declared, " Woe to the pastors who devour the sheep,''
and " destroy the Lord's vineyard ; " so, too, was that of the- Chief
Pastor when He unveiled the abomination of the Scribes and
Pharisees, and drove out from His sanctuary the miserable money
changers who had converted it into a den of thieves. It was language
that could only find a place on the lips of one to whose loving faith
the Church was Christ Himself, and the ministers of His sanctuary
by their office, earthly angels; for such alone could measure the
abyss of misery into which those would fall who should profane so
sacred a calling.
In the meanwhile, advantage was taken of the interval of peace to
urge on the prosecution of the Crusade, which was publicly pro
claimed by the Pope in the beginning of 1373 ; and whilst Gregory
was despatching fervent and eloquent letters to the Emperor, and the
kings of Hungary and Bavaria, as well as to the knights of St. John in
England, Bohemia, France, Portugal, and Navarre, Catherine, on her
part, addressed herself to those personages of importance with whom
she had been brought into communication during the course of late
events, and among others to Queen Joanna of Naples.
As the name of this unhappy woman will often occur in our
subsequent pages, a few words must here be devoted to remind the
reader of her character and history. Not a few writers have sought
to draw a parallel between her story and that of the no less unfor
tunate Mary Stuart, and the points of supposed resemblance between
them are obvious at a glance. Both were Queens-regnant, both
thrice engaged in the ties of marriage,1 both charged with the
assassination of one of their husbands, and both themselves the
victims of a violent death. For the rest, those to whom the good
name of Mary Stuart is wellnigh as dear as their own (and in
spite of the freaks of our pseudo-historians such persons still exist)
will feel a reluctance to see it so much as occupy the same page with
that of Joanna of Naples.
We have no great love for tales of scandal, and no skill in their
narration, but one incident in the history of this celebrated woman
must be briefly touched on, as throwing light on some future passages
1 The above expression is not literally accurate, for Joanna was four times
married.

foanna of Naples. 249
in our story. After the death of her first husband, Andrew of
Hungary, whom she was accused of having caused to be suffocated,
Joanna fixed her affections on Prince Charles of Sweden, who visited
Naples with his mother, the celebrated St. Bridget. Charles was
already married, but the infamous queen did not fear to press him to
divorce his wife and accept her hand. St. Bridget, trembling for the
soul of her son, recommended him to God, desiring rather to see
him die than fall a victim to so detestable a conspiracy. Her
prayer was heard, for Charles fell sick and died a holy death, and
was thus preserved from the terrific danger. Those who desire to
know in what light the character of Queen Joanna was made known
to the royal Saint of Sweden may read the awful vision which is
described in the seventh Book of her Revelations.1
However, at this precise time the measure of Joanna's iniquities
was not full ; she had not entirely lost all womanly reputation, and
she had shown herself a zealous supporter of the Holy Father in the
league against Bernabb. Her adhesion to the Crusade was of para
mount importance, as the head of a great maritime state which, by its
geographical position, held command of the southern Mediterranean,
and was in the direct line to Palestine, half-way between west
and east. So Catherine writes to her, and informs her that the holy
Father has sent letters to the Provincials of the Friars Minors and
the Friars Preachers, "and to one of our Fathers, a servant of God," 2
bidding them preach the Crusade, and seek out in all Italy those who
should be ready to offer their lives for the faith. She conjures the
Queen to join the holy cause of the Church, and prepare the
necessary forces ; and it would seem that her appeal received
a gracious answer, for in her next letter Catherine thanks her
for her reply which has filled her with joy, and reminds her in
her felicitous style of the glorious title which she bears as Queen of
Jerusalem. In fact, the sovereigns of Naples had assumed this title
since the year 1272, in consequence of their descent from John of
Brienne, one of the last kings of Jerusalem. Very beautiful are the
words in which she takes this empty and unmeaning title, and makes
it a text to remind her to whom she speaks, that after the sovereign
ties of this perishable world shall have passed away, there is awaiting
us another crown and another kingdom, and the heritage of the
eternal Jerusalem. She also wrote to the queen-mother of Hungary,
1 St. Bridget, lib. vii. chaps, ii., xi.
° i.e , Baymund of Capua.

250 Troubles in Ttiscany.
begging her to use her influence with her son King Louis, and get
him to take the Cross. " Persuade him to offer himself to the holy
Father," she says, " and to assist him in his project of the Crusade
against those wicked infidels the Turks, who, they tell me, are about
to undertake fresh conquests. No doubt you have heard how they
persecute the faithful, and possess themselves of the dominions of the
Church. I have written to the Queen of Naples and many other
princes. They have all replied favourably, and have promised help
in men and money, and seem impatient to see the holy Father raise
the standard of the holy Cross. I trust in God he will soon do so,
and that you will follow their example." In short, at this moment
everything seemed to promise success to the enterprise ; when on the
Tuscan horizon there arose a little cloud. Bernabb Visconti, unable
to meet the allies in the field, had adopted a policy worthy of himself.
Having by a feigned submission secured for himself excellent terms,
he applied himself to work underground, after the fashion of a mole,
in order to destroy the power of the Sovereign Pontiff in Tuscany,
and foment all existing discontents. It was his cunning and
slanderous tongue which first whispered into the ears of the Floren
tines that the real object of Gregory was to enslave Tuscany, and
deprive her cities of their independence. Unhappily, the folly of
some of the Legates gave a colour of probability to the suggestion.
In a former chapter we spoke of the petty civil war that was being
waged between the citizens of Siena and some of her turbulent
nobles, particularly the ambitious and restless Cione Salimbeni. He
was causing endless trouble and bloodshed to his distracted country,
yet he found support and encouragement from Gerard du Puy, the
Legate of Perugia. Bernabb failed not to point to this fact in con
firmation of his statement, and quoted it as a fair sample of the
future policy to be looked for from the court of Avignon. Other
steps as imprudent and impolitic on the part of the Legates were
used with a like skill, and thus were sown seeds of disaffection, which
needed but an accident to ripen into open insurrection. It will be
seen in a subsequent chapter in what way this was at last brought
about, and a storm raised which for ever swept away all hopes of the
holy war.

( asi )

CHAPTER II.
CATHERINE AT PISA, /37J.
IT was not until the February of 1375 that Catherine found her
self able to comply with the renewed and pressing solicitations of
her friends at Pisa that she would repair to that city ; nor did she
finally yield her consent until moved to do so by the express wish of
the holy Father, who committed into her hands certain important
negotiations with the magistrates of the republic. In obedience to
his commands, therefore, she set out, accompanied by Raymund
of Capua, Master John III., F. Thomas della Fonte, Alexia, Lisa,
and her own mother Lapa, who, foreseeing that her daughter's
absence from Siena would be of some duration, refused to be left
behind. Her reputation, as we know, had preceded her, and the eagerness
to behold the Saint of Siena was so great that the citizens gave her
a public reception. In the crowd which on that occasion assembled
to welcome her, there appeared, besides the Sisters of Penance who
were very numerous in Pisa, the Archbishop Francesco Moricotti
da Vico, and Peter Gambacorta, the renowned chief of the republic,
who brought with him his daughter Thora, then a young maiden
of thirteen.
Catherine was received as a guest by Gerard Buonconti, in a
house which may still be seen in the street where stands the little
church of St. Christina.1 Gerard and his three brothers, Thomas,
Francis, and Vanni, were already well known to the Saint. The
three last-named had at her solicitation taken the Cross; Gerard,
as a married man, being excused from joining them. The
chamber which she occupied in his house is still shown, together
with the Madonna before which she was accustomed to pray ; nor
is it strange that these relics of her residence at Pisa should have
1 Baronto in his deposition calls the house "Juxta Cappellam S. Christina."

252 Catherine 's first Letter to Gregory XI.
been carefully preserved, for her visit was of some duration, and rich
in incident.
Almost the first day of her arrival, her host, Gerard Buonconti,
brought to her a youth about twenty years of age, on whose behalf
he begged her charitable prayers. For eighteen months the poor
sufferer had been subject to attacks of fever which had resisted
all medical skill and reduced him to a miserable condition. Fixing
her eyes on the young man, Catherine at once asked him how long
it was since he had been to confession. " Not for some years," was
his reply. " Know then," she said, " that God thus afflicts you on
account of this neglect ; go, therefore, and wash away the sins that
infect your soul, for they are the real cause of your bodily infirmity."
Then sending for F. Thomas, she committed the youth to his care ;
and when, having made his confession, he returned to the holy
virgin, she gently laid her hand on his shoulder, saying, "Go, my
son, in the peace of Jesus Christ, and in His name I bid thee have
the fever no more," and from that moment he found himself entirely
delivered from his troublesome malady.
One main motive which had determined Catherine on undertaking
this journey was the hope that, by her influence, she might keep the
cities of Pisa and Lucca faithful to the Sovereign Pontiff. The
quarrel between the republic of Florence and the court of Avignon
had already begun ; and the Florentines were using every effort to
draw all the other cities of Tuscany into a great league against the
Church. The very first letter which has been preserved from
Catherine to Gregory XL appears to have been written shortly
after her arrival at Pisa, and alludes to these affairs and to the
difficulty in which the Pisans found themselves placed. "I beg
of you," she says, " to send the inhabitants of Lucca and Pisa what
ever paternal words God may inspire you to utter. Help them as
much as you can, and encourage them to stand firm and faithful.
I am here, using every effort to induce them not to league with the
guilty parties who are in revolt against you ; but they are in great
perplexity, for they receive no encouragement from you, and on the
other hand they are threatened by your enemies. However, as yet
they have promised nothing. I earnestly beg of you, therefore, to
write to Master Peter, kindly and without delay." (Letter 1.)
Master Peter, here named, was, of course, Peter Gambacorta, the
Captain of the, people, and first Anziano (or Ancient) of the re-

Pisa and the Holy Land. 253
public. He was at that time in the enjoyment of undisputed power ;
and James Appiano, who eighteen years later betrayed and
assassinated him, was then his chosen friend, and filled the office
of chancellor. Peter's support and alliance was essential to the
success of the contemplated crusade. Pisa was the great naval
republic of the Middle Ages/ and though at the time of which we are
speaking her power had been considerably broken by her wars with
Genoa, yet she was still an important maritime state. With such
traditions as adorned her history, it was not to be doubted that she
would fling herself with enthusiasm into the holy war whenever it
should commence in earnest. Of all the cities of Europe none was
more closely linked than she was to the cause of Palestine, and none
could boast of prouder achievements in the long struggle waged by
Christendom against the infidels. As Catherine passed through the
streets and visited the churches, with her heart and her thoughts full
of the Holy Land, she would everywhere around 'her have seen its
sacred memorials. That noble Cathedral, the glory of Italy, was a
thank-offering for the success of the Pisan fleet, sent in 1063 to
assist the Normans in freeing Sicily from the Saracen yoke Break
ing the chain that guarded the harbour of Palermo, the Pisan ships
attacked the enemy and won a glorious victory ; and returned home
with six captured vessels and abundant booty. It was the best age
of faith and of chivalry ; and with the treasures thus gained the
brave citizens resolved to raise a sanctuary to God which should be
a worthy tribute of their gratitude. Then there was the Campo
Santo, the beautiful cloisters of which were built to receive the
earth brought from Mount Calvary in fifty-three Pisan ships by
Archbishop Ubaldo Lanfranchi, in the days of Saladin. These
cloisters were being decorated almost at the time of Catherine's
visit with the celebrated frescoes which, even in their decay, still
impress us with awe and admiration ; some of them being the work
of her own countryman, Simon Memmi. We are not left merely to
conjecture whether she ever paid her devotions in this holy spot,
and kissed the soil once watered by the Price of our Redemption :
we have sufficient proof of the fact, were any needed, in the letter
she afterwards addressed to "James and Bartholomew, hermits in
the Campo Santo." (Letter 186.) Nor would she fail to have
visited such churches as St. Sisto, erected to commemorate four
victories, all gained over the infidels in different years on the feast of
that saint ; or St. Stephen's, where hung, and still hang the banners

254 The Ambassador from Cyprus.
and scimitars taken by the knights of St. Stephen from the Turks.
Nay, a yet stranger memorial of that distant Eastern land, bound
close to every Christian heart as by the tie of home, might be found
in the camels, whose ancestors had been brought thither by
crusading heroes, and whose uncouth forms would have met her
eye as they passed through the streets, laden with water-skins, or
carried their loads of wood in the pine forests outside the city
walls.1 Naturally, therefore, there was much in the very exterior aspect
of Pisa which kept alive in Catherine's mind the thought of the
Crusade. And as it happened, she found on her arrival in the city
the ambassador of the queen of Cyprus, who was waiting there for
a favourable wind in order to pursue his journey to Avignon. Eleanor,
queen of Cyprus, was a daughter of the prince of Antioch, and
governed the island for her son, Peter II., during his minority. The
same island, which in the strange transformation of European policy
is now held by England for the protection of the Turkish Empire,
was then regarded as an outpost of Christendom, which Europe was
bound to defend against the advancing Turkish hordes. Gregory,
who was well aware of the importance of the island, as well as of the
dangers by which it was threatened, had placed the queen under the
special protection of Raymund Berenger, the grand-master of Rhodes.
But as the inroads of the Turks were daily advancing nearer, Eleanor
now despatched an embassy to Avignon to implore more efficient
aid. The ambassador, whose name has not been preserved, sought
an interview with Catherine ; and we may well imagine how her heart
kindled as she gave ear to the tales he had to tell. They brought in
living reality before her the cause for which she would gladly have
shed her blood ; and listening to his narrative on that heroic soil,
where all around her recalled the memory of the holy wars, she felt
a renewed desire to see all brave and noble hearts rally to the defence
of Christendom, and to do what in her lay to rouse them to embrace
so glorious an enterprise. It would be impossible to quote all the
letters she wrote during her residence at Pisa with the hope of infusing
into the princes and nobles whom she addressed something of her
own generous enthusiasm. Nor must it be supposed that she was
1 Beckford describes the oriental appearance which these animals in his day
imparted to the streets of Pisa. About two hundred of them may still be seen at
the dairy farm of San Rossore in the suburbs ; and are said to be descended
from the same lofty ancestry.

Sir fohn Hawkwood. 255
content with mere pious exhortations on the subject. These letters
bear evidence that in some directions her negotiations had obtained
very substantial results. " Oh ! " she exclaims, writing to F. William
Flete, " could I but hear that word which all the servants of God are
longing to hear : ' Go forth out of thine own home and thine own
land ; follow Me, and offer the sacrifice of thy life ! ' I assure you,
my dear Father, when I consider that God is perhaps giving us at this
time an opportunity of dying for His Name, I feel as if my soul would
depart out of my body. The time seems fast approaching, and
everywhere we find men in excellent dispositions ; I suppose you
know that we despatched Brother Giacomo to the governor of
Sardinia with a letter about the Crusade. He sent a very gracious
reply, saying he would come in person, and furnish for ten years two
galleys, a thousand horsemen, three thousand foot-soldiers, and six
hundred arbaletiers. Genoa also is full of enthusiasm; every one
there seems ready to offer his person and his fortune. God will
surely draw glory out of all this." (Letter 125.)
But by far the most singular episode connected with St. Catherine's
efforts on behalf of the Crusade was the attempt she made to gain the
adherence of Sir John Hawkwood and his company of Free Lances.
This design, had it been crowned with success, would indeed have
been a master-stroke of policy ; at one and the same time ridding
Italy of a terrible scourge, and securing for the Christian armies the
assistance of the most skilful general of the time. It will not be a
digression from the subject in hand if we here say a few words on
the origin of these free companies and the position which they then
occupied in society. A great change in the military system of
Europe, especially in Italy, was taking place in the middle of the four
teenth century. The feudal custom of rendering personal military
service had by this time been exchanged for the payment of sums of
money, which were devoted by the sovereign to the hire of mercenary
troops. This change brought with it two great evils : the people lost
their military habits, and a new class of men were created, most
formidable to society. These were the bands of foreign companies,
known as Free Lances, or Companies of Adventure, composed of dis
banded troops of all nations ; indifferent as to the cause for which
they fought, their only motive in bearing arms being the hope of
plunder and the freedom of a lawless life. Very soon these mercen
aries, when discharged from the service of a state or republic, began
to gather together under leaders of their own, and to make war on

256 The Free Companies.
their own account. This system of brigandage first began in 1343,
when the republic of Pisa having disbanded a large body of German
cavalry which had been employed in the war with Florence, the
troops united into a free company under a chief known as " the Duke
Guarnieri " (or Warner), and roamed over Italy, levying contributions
from the peaceful inhabitants. A little later followed a yet more
formidable body under the command of Conrad Lando, to whom
the rich cities of Tuscany and the Romagna paid large sums in order
to purchase immunity from their ravages. None of the foreign
partisan chiefs or condottieri, however, were so famous as the
Englishman, Sir John Hawkwood, called by Italian writers Agutus.1
The son of a tailor, he had served in the French wars under Edward
III., from whom he received his knighthood ; he was a man of true
military genius, and Hallam calls him "the first real general of
modern times, the earliest master in the science of Turenne and
Wellington." After the peace of Bretigni, a large number of the
disbanded troops, who had hitherto found employment in the wars
between France and England, gathered under Hawkwood's standard,
so that he found himself at the head of a powerful army, with which
he was engaged for upwards of thirty years waging war— sometimes in
the pay of Bernabb Visconti, the tyrant of Milan, sometimes in that
of Florence, sometimes of the Pope, and not seldom living on the
contributions or plunder of the states through which he marched.
Urban V. took vigorous measures for freeing France from the scourge
of the Free Companies, and succeeded to a great extent in driving
them out of that country; but in Italy the evil had taken a yet
deeper root, chiefly owing to the decay of military spirit among the
citizens of the northern republics. They were constantly engaged
in petty wars one against another, and being unable to fight their
own battles, were obliged to have recourse to these paid brigands.
One great object which Gregory XL had in view for urging the
Crusade was, as we have seen, the hope of pacifying Italy by engaging
in this enterprise all the restless spirits who filled the ranks of the
Free Companies. He had very early addressed himself to Hawkwood
for this purpose, and would appear to have received some vague
promise, which however did not restrain the English chief from
continuing his destructive raids; for in 1374, the very year in which
1 The Italian variations of Hawkwood's name are worth preserving : Auguto,
Aguto, Acuto, Haukennod, Hau Kennode, Hau Kebbode, Haucutus, Aucobedda,
and Falcon' del Boscb !

Catherine's Letter to Hawkwood. 257
Tuscany was ravaged by that famine which was the immediate
occasion of the war between Florence and the Holy Father, Hawk
wood's Company appeared to increase the misery of the suffering
population. Angelo de Tura di Grasso, the author of the " Annals
of Siena," thus speaks: "On the 12th of July 1374, the Company
which had been in Lombardy came into Tuscany to make trouble
between the Church and Messer Bernabb. They made a truce for
eighteen months, and all the cities of Tuscany bought themselves
off, and their captain was Messer John Acuto."
We have now to see how it was that St. Catherine was brought
into communication with this redoubtable leader. In one of her
letters to Nicholas Soderini, which bears no date, but which appears
to have been written during her stay at Pisa, she says to him, " The
time is come for us to use our treasure in a sweet merchandise. Do
you know what I mean ? Nothing else than the sacrifice of our
lives for God, by which means we may expiate all our sins . . . The
flower is about to open and shed forth its perfume. I am alluding
to the Holy Crusade, about which the Sovereign Pontiff, the Christ
on earth, wishes to know our dispositions. If men are ready to
give their lives for the recovery of the Holy Land, he will help them
with all his power. This is what he says in the Bull which he has
sent to our Provincial, to the Minister of the Friars Minors, and to
Father Raymund. He recommends them to ascertain the favourable
dispositions which may be found in Tuscany and elsewhere, and to
let him know the number of those who desire to join the Crusade."
The presence in Tuscany at this very time of the English com
mander and his well-disciplined Company suggested to St. Catherine
the idea of despatching F. Raymund to him with a letter from her
self. This letter appears in the old Aldine edition of her epistles,
with a heading (omitted in Gigli's edition) which runs as follows i
"To Messer John, Condottiere and head of the Company which
came in the time of the famine ; which letter is one of credentials,
certifying that he may put faith in all things said to him by F.
Raymund of Capua. Wherefore the said F. Raymund went to the
said Messer John and the other captains, to induce them to go over
and fight against the infidels, if it should happen that others should
go. And before leaving he had from them and from Messer John a
promise on the Sacrament that they would go, and they signed it with
their hands and sealed it with their seals." Then follows the letter :—
" Dear and well-beloved brothers in Christ Jesus, I, Catherine the

258 She urges him to take the Cross.
servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in His
Precious Blood, desiring to see you true knights of Christ, willing if
need be, to give your lives a thousand times in the service of our
sweet Jesus, Who has redeemed us from all our iniquities. Oh, my
dear brothers, that you would enter a little into yourselves, and
consider the pains and torments that you have endured whilst you
were in the pay and service of the devil ! My soul desires now to
see you quite changed, and enrolled under the Cross of Christ
crucified ; you and all your comrades forming a Company of Christ,
and marching against the infidel dogs who possess the holy places
where the Sweet and Eternal Truth lived and died for us. I beg of
you, therefore, in His name, that since God and our Holy Father give
the orders to march against the infidels, and since you are so fond
of fighting and making war, you will fight no more against Christians,
for that offends God, but go and fight against their enemies. Is it
not a cruel thing that we who are Christians, members of one body,
the Holy Church, should attack and slaughter one another ? Do so
no more, but set out with holy zeal and with quite other thoughts.
"I am astonished that you, who, I am told, had formerly promised
to go and die for Christ in the holy wars, now persist in carrying on
war here. It is not a good preparation for what God demands of
you, by calling you to those holy and venerable places. You ought
to be now preparing yourself by the practice of virtue for the moment
when you and your companions may give your lives for Christ.
Then you would show yourselves to be brave and gallant knights.
This letter will be given you by Father Raymund ; believe all he
tells you, for he is a true and faithful servant of God ; and he will
advise you nothing that is not for God's honour and the salvation
of your own souls. In conclusion, my dear brothers, think of the
shortness of time. Abide in the sweet love of God ! — Catherine, the
useless servant."
The promise thus extorted from Hawkwood and his comrades
was conditional on the Crusade actually taking place ; and as it never
did take place, the promise of course fell to the ground. Burla-
macchi, however, in his notes to this letter bids us remark that
Catherine's appeal was not entirely without fruit, for from that
time Hawkwood only used his arms in just and regular warfare,
entering into the pay first of Gregory, then of the Florentines, and
finally into that of Urban VI., for whom we shall hereafter see him
doing good service. I fear we must admit that these fluctuations

Conversions at Pisa. 259
between the service of the Church and the republic were not very
honourable to the memory of the English chief; and that, in spite of
his promises, he did not altogether abstain from private brigandage.
However, Sir John Hawkwood was decidedly the most skilful, and
perhaps not the very most rapacious of the Condottieri, " the greatest
nor the worst " of the Free Lance captains. The Florentines, whom
he served with a certain amount of fidelity during many years,
regarded him with esteem and admiration, and on the occasion of
his death in 1394, they decreed him a public funeral of extraordinary
splendour. He lies buried near the chief entrance of the church of
Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence, where may still
be seen his equestrian portrait, painted by Paolo Uccello at the
command of the magistrates. Another monument to his memory
formerly existed in the parish church of Sybil-Headingham, in Essex
(the birthplace of this singular man), rebussed with hawks flying
through a wood ; but it has long since been destroyed.
The great affair of the Crusade did not so entirely engage
Catherine's attention as to hinder her charity from being claimed on
behalf of many souls who gathered around her, attracted by the fame
of her sanctity. In the letter from the Blessed John Dominic to his
mother; which has already been quoted, he refers to what he himself
witnessed at this time. "In the year 1375," he says, "I heard her
at Pisa speak to many sinners, her words being so profound, burning,
and full of power, that she at once transformed these vessels of im
purity into vessels of purest crystal, as Jesus Christ did to St. Mary
Magdalen, as we sing in the hymn of that saint."1 We should have
been glad if this illustrious writer had given us some more exact
particulars of these conversions, but like too many of the Saint's
biographers he contents himself with referring to facts instead of
relating them. His account, however, corroborates that of Raymund,
who speaks of the wonderful power which she exerted over thpse
who approached her, and which was exhibited in a very special
degree at this time. Many of those who came to see her would
kneel down and kiss her hand, at which some took scandal. Among
others there was a certain famous physician in Pisa named John
Gittalebraccia, who determined on visiting Catherine that he might
put her sanctity to the test. He came, therefore, in company with
Peter Albizi, a very learned lawyer ; and Master John, who was the
1 In vas tranalata glorias
De vase contumelise.

260 Two learned Doctors visit Catherine.
younger of the two, began as follows : " We have heard, Sister
Catherine, a great deal of your virtue and your knowledge of Holy
Scripture, and have come to gather some instruction from your lips.
I wish to know how you explain the passage where we are told that
God spoke when He created the world. How could He speak ? Has
He a mouth or a tongue ? " And he went on further in the same
strain, putting a great number of similar questions ; and then paused,
awaiting her reply. Catherine, who had listened in modest silence,
answered, " I wonder that you who teach others should say that
you come to seek instruction from a poor little woman like me,
whose ignorance you should rather enlighten. However, as you
desire me to speak, I will say what God may inspire. It would be
of very little purpose to me to know how God, Who is a Spirit and
not a body, spoke in creating the world. What does matter both to
me and to you is to know that Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word of
God, took flesh and suffered to redeem us. It is necessary for me
to believe in Him, and to meditate on Him, that my heart may be
full of His love, Who died for the love of me." She continued for
some time to speak in this way, and that with so much fervour and
unction, that at last Peter Albizi could not restrain his tears, and
falling on his knees he begged her pardon for having tried to tempt
her. Catherine knelt likewise, and begged him to rise ; and then
they had a long spiritual conference, which ended by his asking her
to stand sponsor to his infant daughter. She promised to do so, and
from that time both John and Peter became her zealous champions.
But the unfavourable judgments which were passed on the Saint,
in consequence of the exterior signs of respect which were shown by
those who resorted to her, induced Raymund to make his own
representations on the subject. " Why do you not forbid people who
come to you to kiss your hand ? " he asked. " The world says you
like this sort of homage, and it causes scandal ; are you certain that
such things never cause in you a movement of vainglory?"
Catherine replied with her usual frankness, " As to the first part of
your question, my dear Father, I assure you I never observe what
they do ; I am too much engaged with the interior disposition of
their souls, and I certainly do not like it ; as to the second, / marvel
how any creature, knowing herself to be a creature, can find it possible
to be moved to vainglory! 'l Noble words, which deserve to be
numbered among the Saint's profoundest utterances.
1 Process, Dep. of Caffarini.

Baronto di Ser Dato. 261
Yet to one whose humility rested on a less solid basis, the admira
tion and popularity which Catherine excited at Pisa might truly
have been perilous. She could not stir out of her house without
gathering a crowd about her. Among other depositions in the
Process is that of the Cistercian Abbot, Baronto di Ser Dato. He was
a novice of sixteen, in the Dominican Convent of Santa Caterina, at
the time of Catherine's first visit to Pisa ; but afterwards entered the
Cistercian Order, and became Abbot of the monastery of St. Thomas
at Venice. He deposes to having frequently seen the Saint in
ecstasy, both in the church of St. Christina, and likewise in that of
St. Catherine. One day when she was crossing the Piazza in front
of the latter church, the crowd of persons of all ranks and conditions
who thronged about her was so great, that Baronto, wishing also to
see her, and being quite unable to do so, bethought him of climbing
the wall of an old tomb hard by, and was about to do so, when
Catherine, knowing his purpose in spirit, though she could not so
much as see him, nor he her, called out in a loud voice, bidding the
bystanders prevent that young religious from climbing the wall, as
it was unsafe. This proved to be the fact, and the incident soon
became known throughout the city. He also relates that having
some habitual indisposition he went to Catherine, and kneeling down,
begged her to procure for him the same relief which she had obtained
for so many others. But she replied, " My son, this infirmity will be
profitable to you, and will be the means of your ultimate salvation ;
were you to be cured of it you would fall into many sins ; you will
never, therefore, be quite free from it, but it shall not so gravely
incommode you as to hinder you in your religious duties." And her
words proved true, for though he consulted many physicians, and
took every possible means of restoring his health, he suffered from
this malady in a less aggravated form to the end of his days.1
We will now pass on to give some account of two of Catherine's
Pisan friends who were hereafter like her to find a place in the
calendar of the Dominican Order. The first of these was Thora
Gambacorta, destined to commence that reform of the order, so long
one of the cherished desires of Catherine's heart. She was born in
1362, and while still a child was espoused to Simon di Massa, whom,
however, she never saw after her seventh year, for he went to serve in
foreign wars, and died without returning to Pisa. During Catherine's
stay in the city a great intimacy sprang up between her and the young
1 Process, fol. 210.

262 Blessed Clara Gambacorta.
girl, who two years later was left a widow. As soon as she found
herself thus set free from worldly engagements, she resolved to dedi
cate herself to God. That in this resolve she was advised and
encouraged by Catherine is evident from the letters addressed to her
by the Saint, in which, after alluding to the cruel opposition which
Thora had to encounter on the part of her family, she counsels her
" to enter the bark of holy obedience ; it is the safest way, and
makes a soul advance not in her own strength alone, but aided by
that of the Order." (Letter 322.) In another beautiful letter she
seeks to confirm Thora in her generous resolution, by setting before
her the nothingness of the world and the infinite treasures we possess
in God. " If our heart be stripped of the world it will be full of God,
but if it is empty of God, it will be full of the world. We cannot
serve two masters. Let us then free ourselves from the yoke of the
tyrannical world and give ourselves generously to God ; all to God,
without division, without reserve, without pretence, for He is our
own God, and beholds the most secret folds of our hearts. What
folly to wait for a time that may never be ours ! We are always
deferring and delaying ; if God presents one thing to us we take
another ; we fear more to lose some passing pleasure than to lose
God Himself. And so He justly permits that the soul that loves
earthly things with irregular affection shall become weary of them
and insupportable to itself. Such a soul suffers from what it
possesses, through fear of losing it ; and it suffers from what it does
not possess, desiring to obtain it ; and so it is never at peace, be
cause all things that are in the world are less than the soul. God, and
God alone, knows, and wills, and can give us more than we know how
to desire. In Him alone the soul can find peace, because He is the
infinite riches, and wisdom, and beauty, and goodness ; and He will
fill to overflowing the holy desires of those who strip themselves of
the world for His sake." (Letter 323.)
What wonder if such words, from such a teacher, bore fruit in the
sanctification of her to whom they were addressed ? Thora found
courage at the age of fifteen to resist the entreaties, and even the
violence of her father and brothers, and flying first to the Franciscan
Convent of St. Martino took there the name of Sister Clara. But
before her profession she was forcibly seized by her father and im
prisoned at home for five months, at the end of which time she was
released through the interference of Alphonsus di Vadaterra, Bishop
of Jaen, and formerly confessor to St. Bridget. He was one of the

Blessed Mary Mancini. 263
most influential religious of the time, and had a special hold over the
heart of Peter Gambacorta, for in former days they had been
fellow pilgrims to the Holy Land. His mediation obtained Clara's
release, and eventually her father founded the Dominican Convent
of the Holy Cross, into which she entered with four companions in
the year 1382, establishing there such strict observance, that the new
convent became the cradle of reform to the entire Order, in which
she is now venerated as the Blessed Clara Gambacorta.
Another beatified saint of the Dominican Order was likewise
gained to religion by Catherine during her residence in Pisa. This
was the Blessed Mary Mancini. She was the daughter of Bartholo
mew Munguto, and her baptismal name was Catherine. She had
been twice married, and was living as a devout secular at the time of
Catherine's coming to Pisa. A strict friendship sprang up between
them ; and we are told that on Easter Day, the two being together in
prayer in the chapel of the Annunziata, attached to the Dominican
Church of Santa Caterina, they were in the sight of all the people
covered by a beautiful and brilliant cloud, out of which there flew a
white dove. Most writers tell us that it was at this time that
Catherine persuaded her friend to enter the Third Order of Penance ;
while others say that Mary did so in consequence of a vision in which
the Saint appeared to her after her death. She subsequently entered
the convent of the Holy Cross, and governed it as Prioress after the
death of Blessed Clara.
Meanwhile Catherine was still suffering from the same infirm state
of health which she had pleaded in the previous year as an excuse
for not coming to Pisa. At no period of her life, indeed, did her
physical strength appear less equal to the demands of her fervid and
energetic soul. " During her whole sojourn at Pisa," says Raymund,
"her continual ecstasies so enfeebled her body that we thought her at
the point of death. I dreaded losing her, and considered what
means I could take to revive her strength when thus exhausted.
Meat, eggs, and wine she held in abhorrence, and yet more, any
kind of cordials. At last I bethought me of asking her to let me
put a little sugar into the cold water which she drank. But she
answered a little quickly, ' Alas, Father, would you utterly quench
the little life that is left in my body ? for you know that all sweet
things are like a deadly poison to me.' "
It was a difficult case; nevertheless, Raymund and their good
host, Gerard Buonconti, set themselves to consider what they could

264 The Wine of Vernaccia.
find to give her some refreshment. "Then," says Raymund, "I
remembered having seen in similar cases the temples and wrists of
an invalid bathed in a certain red wine, called the wine of Vernaccia,
which caused much relief. I proposed to Gerard that as we could
give her nothing which she could take interiorly, we should try and
administer this exterior remedy. He replied that he knew of one
of the neighbours who had a cask of this kind of wine, and that he
would at once send and procure some of it. The person whom he
sent for the purpose described the exhaustion from which Catherine
suffered, and in Gerard's name begged for a bottle of the wine. The
neighbour, whose name I forget, replied, ' My friend, I would gladly
give Master Gerard not a bottle only, but the whole cask ; but it has
been quite empty for the last three months ; to make sure, however,
come with me and see.' So saying, he led the way to the wine-
cellar, and the messenger saw well enough that the cask was empty.
Nevertheless, the good man, to make more sure, drew the wooden
peg which served for drawing off the wine, when lo ! an excellent
wine of Vernaccia came forth in great abundance and flowed on the
ground. The owner, greatly astonished, replaced the peg, and
calling all the inmates of the house, asked who had put new wine
into the cask. All declared that there had been no wine in it for the
last three months, and that it was impossible for any one to have
poured any into it secretly. The news spread through the neighbour
hood, and every one regarded it as a miracle. Gerard's messenger,
meanwhile, full of joy and wonder, brought back a bottle of the wine,
and related to us what had happened; and Catherine's spiritual
children rejoiced in the Lord, giving thanks to Him for His miracu
lous assistance."
A few days later, Catherine, being somewhat restored in strength,
went to visit the Apostolic Nuncio who had just arrived in Pisa ; but
no sooner had she entered the streets than the whole city was in
commotion. The artizans left their shops, and hurried out to see
her. "Behold," they cried, "the woman who does not drink wine
herself, and who has yet miraculously filled a cask with excellent
wine ! " When Catherine perceived the general excitement, and
knew herself to be the cause of it, she was much distressed, and poured
out her complaint before God. "O Lord," she exclaimed, "why
wilt Thou afflict the heart of Thy poor servant, and render her the
sport of the whole world? All Thy servants may live in peace
among men, save only me ! Who asked this wine of Thy bounty?

// dries up at her Prayer. 265
For many years I have taken no wine, for Thy sake, yet now, behold,
on account of this wine I am covered with confusion. I conjure
Thee, then, of Thy mercy, cause it to dry up again as quickly as pos
sible, so as to put a stop to all this talk and unseemly excitement."
Then in answer to her prayer, our Lord worked another wonder
greater than the first. The cask had up to that time been filled with
the very best wine, and although out of devotion many of the citizens
carried some of it away to their own houses, yet the quantity in no
way diminished. But now it suddenly changed into a thick sedi
ment, and what had before been so excellent and delicious became
nothing but disgusting dregs, quite unfit to drink. In consequence
of this, the master of the house and those who had drank of the
wonderful wine were obliged to hold their peace, being ashamed to
say any more about it. Catherine's disciples were also much morti
fied, but she herself was never gayer or better satisfied, and gave
thanks to God that He had delivered her from the observation of
men, and turned their praise to her own confusion." l
But if Catherine had been revived for the moment by the solici
tude of her friends, no remedy could really relieve the malady under
which she was suffering. She was slowly dying the glorious martyr
dom of the saints, burnt up in the sacred fire of Divine Love.
Moreover, as the time was approaching when she was to be called to
labours yet more responsible than any she had ever yet undertaken
for the good of holy Church, it pleased God that according to
the law which appeared always to regulate the successive stages of
her wonderful life, a Divine seal should be set on this fresh mission,
and a new and surpassing grace bestowed on her to whom had
already been granted the ring of Espousal, the Crown of Thorns, the
exchange of Hearts, and a foretaste of the sufferings of the Passion.
It was a Sunday ; the fourth Sunday in Lent, which that year fell
on the 1st of April. According to their custom, Catherine and her
companions 2 were assembled in the little church of St. Christina to
hear Mass, which was celebrated by F. Raymund. He administered
Holy Communion to all the company, after which, as was usual with
her, Catherine remained a long time in ecstasy. " The soul that
1 Leg., Part 2, chap. ii.
2 In the fourth chapter of the Sommario della disputa a difesa delle Sacre
Stimate, P. Gregorio Lombardelli gives the names of more than twenty persons
present on this occasion, including among others those of Caffarini, Bartholomew
Dominic, the Abbot Baronto, Francis Malevolti, and several Pisan religious.

266 She receives the Stigmata.
sighed after its Creator," he says, " separated as much as it could
from the body. We waited until she had recovered her senses,
hoping to receive some spiritual consolation from her; when
suddenly we beheld her, who until then had been lying prostrate on
the ground, rise a little, then kneel and extend her hands and arms.
Her countenance appeared all on fire, and thus she remained for $.
long time perfectly motionless. Then, as though she had received a
deadly wound, we saw «her fall suddenly, and a few moments later
she came to herself. She immediately sent for me, and said to me
in a low tone, ' Father, I have to make known to you that by the
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, I now bear His Sacred Stigmas in
my body.' I replied that I had guessed as much from what I had
observed during her ecstasy, and asked her in what manner it had
come to pass. She replied, saying, ' I beheld our Lord fastened to
His Cross coming down towards me surrounded by a great and
wonderful light. Then my. soul was all ravished with the desire to
go forth and meet its Creator, so that by the very force of my spirit,
as you might see, my body was constrained to rise. Then there
came down from the holes of His Blessed Wounds five bloody rays
which were directed towards the same parts of my body, namely, my
hands, feet, and heart. I understood the mystery, and cried out,
saying, " Ah, Lord God, I beseech Thee, let no signs of those holy
marks appear outwardly to the eyes of men ! " And while I was yet
speaking, those rays that were before of a sanguine red changed to a
marvellous brightness, and so in the form of most pure light they
rested upon those five parts of my body.' Then I asked her if no
beam of light had reached her right side. She replied, ' No, it fell
on the left side and directly above the heart ; for the ray of light
that came from the right side of our Lord did not strike me obliquely,
but directly.' Then I inquired if she felt any sensible pain in those
places, on which, sighing deeply, she answered, ' I feel in those five
places, but specially in my heart, so great and violent a pain, that
unless Almighty God be pleased to work a new miracle, I cannot
live.' These words filled me with grief, and I carefully examined
whether I could see any tokens of such grievous suffering. So when
she had finished what she had to say, we all went out of the church
together to return home. On reaching the house she went at once
to her chamber, and lying down on her bed soon became quite
unconscious. All her disciples collected round about her, weeping
bitterly to see her whom they loved so tenderly in this state, and

She seems about to die. 267
fearing lest they should lose her. For though we had often before
seen her in ecstasies which deprived her of the use of her senses, we
had never before seen her apparently so near to death. Presently
she came to herself, and when at last she was able to speak she
repeated to me that if God did not come to her aid she felt certain
she should depart this life. When I heard that, I assembled all her
spiritual children, both men and women, and besought them with
tears that they would unite in offering their prayers to God that He
would spare our Mother and Mistress to us yet a little while, and
not leave us orphans before we were confirmed and strengthened in
the path of virtue. They all assented, and going. to her dissolved in
tears, they said, ' O Mother ! we know well that your desire is to
be with your dear Spouse and Lord, our Saviour Christ. But our
earnest petition is that you would take pity on us, your poor children,
and not leave us thus comfortless and without direction. Your reward
is safely laid up for you in heaven, and abideth your coming ; but we
are in danger of perishing a thousand ways in the tempestuous sea
of this world. We know also, good Mother, that your dear Spouse
loveth you so tenderly that He will deny you nothing that you ask
Him. Wherefore, we all beseech you with one voice to make your
humble prayer to Him that He will vouchsafe to lend you yet a little
time of life among us, for our further instruction in this holy order
of life wherein you have begun to train us. We will pray with you
also ; but what are we, feeble wretches and sinful creatures ! We
are unworthy to appear before His Divine Majesty, being, as we are,
full of iniquity and subject to many imperfections. And therefore
we pray you, dear Mother, that our suit may be offered up to
Almighty God by you, who, for the tender love you have always
shown to us, will solicit it more carefully, and obtain it more
certainly.' Many such words we spoke to her, with great heaviness
of heart, which we showed more by tears than by words. Then
Catherine answered us, saying, ' It is now a long time, as' you know,
that I resigned my own will to God, so that I have no will of my
own, nor do I wish or desire aught whether for myself or others save
what is in accordance with His most blessed will. True, indeed, I
love you all entirely, and no less true is it that He also loves you far
more tenderly than I can do, and thirsts for your salvation more than
I or all men are able to conceive, as He has shown by the shedding
of His most Precious Blood. His will therefore be done in this and

268 She recovers her strength.
in all things. Therefore I will not cease to pray, but only that His
gracious will may be done, as may be for the best'
" On hearing these words we remained deeply afflicted, but God did
not despise our prayers. On the following Sunday, having received
Holy Communion, she again fell into an ecstasy, as before ; but this
time, instead of being left prostrate by it, she seemed on returning to
herself to have regained fresh vigour. I told them all that I trusted
our prayers and tears had been accepted by God. But to be more
certain, I asked her, saying, 'Mother, does the pain in your side,
feet, and hands continue as before?' To which she replied, 'I
think our Lord has granted your prayers. For not only are these
wounds no longer a torture to me, but they seem even to strengthen
and fortify my body, so that what before weakened me now gives me
comfort ; and therefore, I see that Our Lord at your entreaty has
given me a longer time of affliction in this life, which I am glad
of for the love I bear you.' "
We have little to add to Raymund's circumstantial narrative of
this wonderful event. It took place when the Saint was twenty-eight
years and six days old. The place where the miraculous favour was
granted is marked in the church of St. Christina by a little column
and an inscription.1 The crucifix 2 before which St. Catherine was
kneeling at the time was in 1563 removed from Pisa to Siena, with
the consent of Angelo Niccolini, Cardinal Archbishop of Pisa ; but
1 This inscription unfortunately contains a chronological inaccuracy which has
caused some perplexity to St. Catherine's biographers. It states that she received
the stigmas in 1375, when she was on her way to Avignon. One or other of these
statements is necessarily mistaken. If the date is correct, she was not then on
her way to Avignon, whither she did not proceed till the June of 1376 : if it was
on her journey thither that the event took place, then the date 1376 should be
substituted for 1375. But we know for certain that this latter supposition is im
possible, for the chief witness and narrator of the event is Raymund of Capua,
who did not accompany Catherine on her journey from Florence to Avignon, but
preceded her thither some time before. Moreover, all the other witnesses concur
in assigning 1375 (i.e., the period of Catherine's first visit to Pisa) as the known
date of her reception of the stigmas. P. Gregorio Lombardelli, in his Disputa a
difesa della Sacre Stimate, misled by the inscription which he too easily accepted
as correct, has included among the witnesses present, all those whom he knew to
have been her companions on her journey to Avignon, and among others Stephen
Maconi, whose acquaintance with the Saint did not commence until after her
return from Pisa, and who certainly therefore could not have been present on this
occasion. 2 This crucifix, the work of Giunta Pisano, is now preserved in the chapel of
the Fullonica, Siena.

Remarks on the Stigmas. 269
so great was the devotion of the inhabitants to everything connected
with her memory, that the removal had to be effected by night, and
under the escort of an armed force.
During the lifetime of the Saint the stigmas remained invisible,
but it was not so after her death. P. Gregorio Lombardelli, in his
learned " Defence of the Sacred Stigmas of St. Catherine," has col
lected the testimonies of several witnesses who actually beheld them.
Among others he quotes a letter written to Raymund of Capua by
F. Antonio of Siena, who was Prior of the Minerva at the time of
Catherine's death, and who solemnly affirms that on the day of her
obsequies the stigmas1 were distinctly seen both by himself and other
persons. On the foot preserved at Venice, in the Church of SS.
John and Paul, the stigma is said to be plainly marked. P. Frigerio
of the Oratory, the author of an excellent Life of St. Catherine, writes
in 1656, that he had seen the hand, which is kept as a sacred relic in
the Convent of SS. Domenico and Sisto at Rome, and declares that
on it, also, the stigma is plainly discernible. If by a stigma we are to
understand an open wound or scar, this assertion is certainly not
correct. Nevertheless, the precious relic does exhibit in the centre
of the palm an appearance as though all the substance of the hand
under the skin had in that part been pierced, or removed ; so that
when a lighted candle is placed behind it, a spot of light becomes
distinctly visible, shining as it were through the thin integument.
Caffarini in his Supplement has an entire treatise on the subject of
the stigmas, in which he enumerates the various ways in which they
may be, and have been received at different times and by different
persons. He dwells on the thought that this crowning and stupen
dous favour was granted to Catherine as a means of more entirely
imprinting on her the likeness of the sufferings of Our Lord ; those
sufferings which she contemplated with such devout affection, and
strove to make her own by such generous and lifelong penance.
1 " The Blessed Anthony, of the illustrious family of the Counts of Elci of Siena,
was Prior of the Minerva at Rome when Catherine died there, and kept account
of all things which took place at her death and burial : and in a letter written by
him to Raymund of Capua he testifies to having seen with his own eyes her five
sacred stigmas, which were manifest after death to whosoever chose to behold
them." (Sommario della disputa a difesa della Sacre Stimate. Part I. chap, x.)
Although no reference to the stigmas is made by Pius II. in his Bull of St. Cath
erine's Canonisation, yet the fact is affirmed in the Office drawn up for her feast
by the pen of the same illustrious Pontiff, in the Vesper Hymn, in which occur
the following words : Vulnerum formam miserata Christi exprimis ipsa.

2 70 Ranieri di Sta Christina.
And he adds one fact, which is given by no other writer, but which
coming from his pen must be held as of undoubted authenticity,
namely, that she who in her younger days was wont to chastise her
own flesh with such rigorous severity, was accustomed in later years
to receive the same penance from the hands of her companions, in
order the more exactly to conform herself to the humiliations of our
Divine Lord.1 The office of the stigmas of St. Catherine was first
granted by Pope Benedict XIII. to the whole Order of St. Dominic;
and afterwards at the request of the Dukes of Tuscany was extended
to every part of their dominions. This feast is now kept on the 3rd
of April.
At the time of Catherine's residence at Pisa the little church of
St. Christina, which was the scene of the mysterious event just
spoken of, had for its curate a certain Ranieri, commonly known
among his fellow-citizens as Ranieri di Sta. Christina. After Catherine
left Pisa he decided on entering the Dominican Order, and we
have a letter addressed to him by the Saint on hearing the good
news of his approaching reception of the habit. In Gigli's edition
this letter (120) is addressed : "To Father Ranieri in Christ, of St.
Catherine, of the Friars Preachers at Pisa." The old Dominican
convent at Pisa is dedicated, it must be remembered, to St. Catherine
the Martyr. Burlamacchi in a note to this letter observes that in the
Aldine edition of 1500, the words stand, not ' of St. Catherine] but '-of
St. Christina ; ' but that Farri, who published a later edition of the
letters in 1579, substituted the words 'St. Catherine' instead: and
this last reading was adopted by Gigli. " Whether of the two read
ings is correct," he continues, "I cannot guess." His perplexity
would have been easily set at rest had he been acquainted with the
ancient and very curious "Chronicle of the Convent of St. Catherine in
Pisa" which has of late years been printed in the second Part of the
6th Volume of the Archivio Storico Italiano. There we find entered
the name of "Fra Ranieri di Sta. Christina" with the following
notice : " Fra Ranieri, called of Sta. Christina, by reason that when
he entered our Order he was parish priest of the Church of St. Chris
tina at Pisa. He had before been chaplain of other churches in our
1 " Caterina quante volte si fece dar la disciplina dalle compagne, e per tali per-
cosse si vedevano in lei i lividi segni." (Sup. Part 2, Trat. 7.) This treatise is
not included in F. Tantucci's Italian translation of the Supplement. It is to be
found, however, in the original MS. preserved at Siena, and an authentic copy
of it is in the possession of the writer.

Nino Pucci. 271
city of Pisa, and received the habit of our holy Order on the feast
of St. Thomas. He was assiduous in the Divine Office, and sang
well, with a good voice. He was also a skilful, acceptable, and inde
fatigable confessor."
It is evident that the Aldine reading is the correct one, and that
Farri only blundered in seeking to amend it. And thus we come
on the interesting fact that St. Catherine numbered among her
disciples, and welcomed into the ranks of her own Order, the parish
priest of the little church where during her stay at Pisa she made
her daily orisons, and where she received the supreme favour of the
stigmas.1 The Chronicle contains no direct reference to St. Cather
ine's visit to Pisa ; but glancing further over its Catalogue of the
brethren, we come on the name of Fra Niccolo Gittalebraccia,
" whose family was very great and powerful in the time of the Lord
Peter Gambacorta, and who was a great friend of the blessed Clara."
And we learn in a note that "of this family was the famous physician,
John Gittalebraccia, who lectured at Pisa in 1373 at a salary of 200
gold florins ; " and who, I need not say, was identical with our friend
John, the companion of Peter Albizi, when he tried to puzzle the
Saint with hard questions.
One other fact may be given to show in what light the reception
of the stigmas of St. Catherine was regarded in her own time, and
by those immediately surrounding her. Among the disciples whom
she gained at Pisa was Giovanni di Spazzaventi di Puccetto, or, as
he was more commonly called by his fellow-citizens, Nino Pucci.
He was priest and chaplain of the Metropolitan Church, of great
repute for holiness, and a large benefactor to the Certosa of Calci.
He was also the founder of a pious Confraternity among his peni
tents and disciples, and chose for its title, "the Stigmas of St.
Francis," in memory, as is commonly supposed, of the somewhat
analogous favour granted in Pisa to the holy maiden of Siena,
whom he regarded and venerated as his spiritual Mother.
'' Ranieri was probably present on the occasion. P. Lombardelli, in his list of
the witnesses, gives twice over the name of Ranieri (or Neri) dei Paglieresi, and
it seems possible that this error arose from the circumstance of a second person of
the same name being present.

THE ISLAND OF GORGONA.

CHAPTER HI.
CALCI AND GORGONA, 137s.
ABOUT six miles to the east of Pisa, in a beautiful spot called the
<. Valle Graziosa, stands the celebrated Certosa of Calci, the
splendid buildings of which were raised in the seventeenth century
on the site of a more ancient monastery which was founded in St.
Catherine's lifetime, and the erection of which remained incomplete
at the time of her coming to Pisa from the want of funds. Nino Pucci
and the Gambacorta family had helped the monks with liberal alms ;
but their contributions did not supply the whole sum required. The
Prior of Calci at this time was the Blessed John Opezzinghi, who
had joined the ranks of Catherine's disciples; and we learn from the
MS. memoirs left by Don Bartholomew Serafini of Ravenna (one of
the witnesses of the Process) that the Saint undertook to plead the
cause of the Carthusians with the Sovereign Pontiff, and that in con
sequence of her representations, Gregory gave them 1000 gold florins
towards the completion of their monastery. She visited Calci more
than once, and made the brethren several fervent exhortations, and

The Isle of Gorgona. 273
her correspondence exhibits the close relations which she kept up
with these and other Carthusian disciples, between whom and herself
there existed a syrnpathy the more remarkable from the contrast
which existed between their respective states of life. Two inscrip
tions are to be seen at Calci which affirm that it was owing to St.
Catherine's good offices with Gregory XL that the island of Gorgona
was made over to the Carthusians of Calci ; if this statement is cor
rect, it would serve to explain the visit which she made to that island
at the urgent entreaty of the Prior, Don Bartholomew. The island of
Gorgona is about twenty-two miles from the shores of Tuscany, and is
not without its poetic and classic associations. It finds a place in the
poem of Dante, who after relating the terrific story of Count Ugolino's
starvation, denounces Pisa for the monstrous crime, and calls on the
two islands of Capreja and Gorgona to rise from their deep founda
tions, and dam up the mouth of the Arno, that so every soul in the
guilty city might perish by the overflowing waters.1 Gorgona was a
dwelling-place for monks as early as the fourth century, as we learn
from some verses of Rutilius Claudius Numantius, which are quoted
by Baronius in his Annals. St. Gregory the Great reformed their
discipline, but in the fourteenth century their descendants had be
come so relaxed that Gregory XL removed them and made over the
island to the Carthusians of Calci. Don Bartholomew Serafini was
appointed their first Prior, and through his exertions religious observ
ance was rigorously established, and all inhabitants besides the monks
excluded from the island. They remained there until 1425, when
the attacks of the Saracen corsairs forced them to return to Calci.
It was certainly a bold proposal on the part of the Prior that
Catherine and her companions should come and spend a day with
him and his brethren in their island retreat ; involving as it did a
voyage of twenty-two miles for one as yet wholly unused to the perils
of the sea. Indeed, he had to renew his request several times before
it was granted, and was obliged at last to secure the powerful support
of Father Raymund to back his petition. Catherine's consent was
1 Inferno, Canto xxxiii. 82. " Cette imagination peut paraitre bizarre et forcee
si Ton regarde la carte ; car 1'ile de la Gorgone est assez loin de 1' embouchure de
l'Arno ; et j'avais pense ainsi jusqu'au jour, 011 etant monte' sur la tour de Pise, je
fus frappe de I'aspect que de la, me presentait la Gorgone. Elle semblait fermer
l'Arno. Je compris alors comment Dante avait pu avoir naturellement cette idee,
qui m'avait semble etrange ; et son imagination fut justified a mes yeux. Cefait
seul suffirait pour montrer combien un voyage est une bonne explication d'un
poete."— f. F. Ainp're, Voyage Dantesque. S

274 Catherine visits the Island.
at last obtained, and our readers may think of the little company
setting out in the early summer morning, and riding through the
great pine woods which extend between Pisa and the seashore, till
they reached what we now name Leghorn, then more often called " the
Port of Pisa" There, from that shore, she for the first time beheld
the sea ! Perhaps she had before this caught its distant gleam from
the hills about Siena, or from the peaks that rise above the Certosa
of Calci ; but not until now had she stood on its shores or beheld
its big waves breaking at her feet. Now for the first time she lifted
her eyes to the broad horizon of the purple Mediterranean, and felt
its breath on her forehead, while its musical chant was sounding in
her ears. She drank in that spectacle of the " mare magnum et
spatiosum " which as yet she knew only in the poetry of the Psalter.
It left its impress on her memory and in her writings, stamping
there two images, the one of trouble and restlessness — a fitting
symbol of the inconstant world ; the other of peace and immensity,
which became to her the most familiar image of God ; so that often
afterwards she was heard in her hours of prayer and ecstasy murmur
ing the words, " O mare piacevole ! O mare pacifico /" And in her
Dialogue we see her contemplating Him again and again under that
aspect, and likening Him to the tranquil sea.1
Gorgona is a lofty and picturesque rock rising precipitously out of
the waves, in form not unlike a haystack ; the landing is at certain
times attended by some danger, but no misadventure befel the little
party, who were about twenty in number. " The evening of our
arrival," says Raymund, " the Prior lodged Catherine and her com
panions about a mile from the monastery ; and the following morning
he conducted all his monks to Catherine and requested her to favour
them with some words of edification. Catherine refused at first,
excusing herself on the grounds of her incapacity, her ignorance, and
her sex ; saying that it was meet that she should listen to God's
servants, rather than speak in their presence. Overcome at last by
the earnest prayers of the Prior and of his spiritual sons, she began
to speak, and said what the Holy Ghost inspired her in reference to
the numerous temptations and illusions which Satan presents to
solitaries, and concerning the means of avoiding his wiles and of
gaining a complete victory ; and all this she did with so much method
and distinctness, that I was filled with amazement, as indeed were
all her audience. When she had terminated, the Prior turned to-
1 Dialogo, chaps, liii., liv.

Her 'Gift of Prophecy. 2 73
wards me and said with admiration ; ' Dear Brother Raymund, I
am the confessor of these religious, and consequently know the
defects of each. I assure you, (that if this holy woman had heard
the confessions of all of them, she could not have spoken in a more
just and profitable manner ; she neglected none of their wants, and
did not utter a useless word. It is evident that she possesses :the
gift of prophecy, and that: she speaks by the Holy Ghost'"
When they were about to quit the island and return home, Don
Bartholomew begged the Saint to leave him her mantle as. a remem
brance.1 She complied with his request, saying as she did so,
" Father Prior, watch well over your flock, for I warn you the. enemy
is trying to cause some scandal." Then seeing him troubled, she. added,
"Have no fear, he will not prevail." Some of the monks accom
panied their visitors on their return, and when Catherine had landed,
they asked her blessing before starting home again. She gave it
them, saying, " If any accident should befall you on .the way, fear
nothing, for God will be with you." As they. approached the island
a storm arose, the helm broke, and the vessel striking on. a danger
ous part of the coast filled with water. A monk who came down
to their help was carried away by the waves, yet in spite of all this
no harm befel any of them, and the vessel itself was uninjured. It
was not long however before Catherine's warning to the Prior
received its accomplishment. " Some days later," says Don Bartholo
mew in his deposition, " the master of a boat from Pisa, laden with
wood for our island, brought to one of the young monks bad news
of his mother. He asked leave to return to Pisa in the boat, and
when permission was refused, he fell into melancholy and temptation.
One day he came to me with a disordered countenance and de
manded with great violence that he might be allowed to go to Pisa.
I was reluctant to give consent, but seeing his excitement, desired
one of the elder monks to follow him. The unhappy youth ran to
his cell, and taking thence a knife tried to kill himself. His com
panion, however, was in time to catch his hand, and calling for help,
I went with all speed and endeavoured to calm him by promising
that his request should be granted. But he began to say, ' No, no ;
it is the devil who is tempting me, and he is even now endeavouring
to persuade me to throw myself from the top of the convent' And
as all the religious were agitated and terrified, I ordered the cloak
1 This mantle he afterwards left as a. precious relic to the Certosa of Pavia,
where he died in 1413.

276 Catherine's Carthusian Disciples.
that the Saint had given me on quitting the island to be brought, and
placing it in the arms of the monk, he immediately recovered. I said,
' My son, recommend yourself to the prayers of Sister Catherine.'
He answered, ' She is truly praying for me, otherwise I should
certainly have been lost' " Being at Pisa, after Catherine's departure,
Don Bartholomew interrogated a possessed person. " Is that Saint
in Siena as holy as persons think ? " he asked. " More holy," answered
the possessed. Another religious asked him whether Catherine could
deliver him ; " She could do what you could not do," he replied,
" because, although you are a good religious, you have not arrived to
the same degree of perfection."
Catherine had a special love for the Carthusian Order, and corre
sponded with the General, Don William Rainaud, as well as with the
monks of Pontignano and Belriguardo near Siena, and those of Milan,
Rome, and Naples. Her letters to Don John Sabbatini at the
Certosa of Belriguardo were written from Pisa, Gerard Buonconti
acting as her secretary. There is also a curious letter written to
another Don John of the Roman Certosa, to comfort him under his
unreasonable affliction at not being permitted by his superiors to visit
the Purgatory of St. Patrick1 Nor among Catherine's Carthusian
disciples and correspondents must we omit the name of Francesco
Tebaldi of Gorgona, whom she addresses as "my sweetest, my
dearest, and my best beloved brother, whom I love as my own soul,"
and to whom she sent a copy of her Dialogue.
Catherine's residence in Pisa certainly lasted as long as six months,
during which time her attention was directed to every variety of
business. A rumour reached her that the Pope was about to raise
F. Elias of Toulouse to the dignity of Cardinal ; and considering how
this event might be made to advance the good of the Order, she
at once wrote to Gregory, entreating him to appoint " a good and
virtuous Vicar ; our Order needs one," she adds, " for its garden has
run very wild." She suggests his consulting on the subject with the
1 This is a cave or well in an island in the Lake of Dungal in Ireland, where,
according to tradition, St. Patrick, finding it impossible to make the people believe
in hell, traced a circle with his stick, when an abyss opened, out of which cries and
groans were heard to issue. It was further said that the saint obtained a promise
from God that those sinners who should spend an entire day in this cave should,
on their repentance, be entirely purged from their sins. In consequence of this
tradition the cave was visited in pilgrimage by great numbers of persons from all
parts.

Letters to Siena. 277
Archbishop of Otranto, and Master Nicholas da Osimo, two of her
own personal friends, to whom she writes more openly than she could
venture to do in addressing the Pontiff. " I hear," she says, writing
to the Archbishop, " that our General is to be made a Cardinal ; I
conjure you, think of the interests of the Order, and beg the Christ
on earth to give us a good Vicar. Perhaps you could suggest Father
Stephen della Cumba, who has been Procurator. He is a virtuous
and energetic man, and has no fear ; and just now our Order needs
a physician who will not be timid, but know how to use the knife of
holy justice. Up to the present time so much ointment has been
applied that the diseased members have become corrupt. I have
not named him in writing to the Holy Father, but only begged he
would consult with you and Master Nicholas. If F. Raymund can
be of any use in this matter, he will be at your command." (Letter
33.) She wrote in the same terms to Nicholas, but the report in
question proved fallacious, and Elias remained in office, and lived,
unhappily, to take part in the Great Schism.
. We also find letters which belong to the same time, and which
are addressed by Catherine to Peter, Marquis del Monte, who held
the office of Senator of Siena ; in which she calls his attention to a
number of affairs, and requests that justice may be done on a certain
offender who has been persecuting a convent of nuns. Peter held
his office from the February to the August of 1375, the precise time
of Catherine's stay at Pisa ; a fact which shows that she took cogni
sance of the events which were meanwhile passing at Siena, and
relaxed nothing of her vigilance over the interests of her native city.
Meanwhile Catherine's prolonged absence was exciting great im
patience among her friends at home. She exercised a power over
the hearts of her disciples which had in it this great inconvenience;,
that they found it difficult to make themselves happy without her;;
and when she left them for any length of time, some of them were
foolish enough to think and to say that she did not care for them,
or that she cared more for others. Something of this sort reached
the Saint's ears when she was at Pisa, and what is more, she had
reason to think that no less a person than good Master Matthew had
joined in the silly gossip. So she wrote him a letter (142), in which
we seem to see that one cause of the discontent so often expressed
arose from a sort of jealousy on the part of those she did not take
with her, against those whom she chose as her companions. Sad
and humbling as it is to think that these petty feelings could exist

278 Letter to Master Matthew.
among the disciples of a saint, we cannot say that it was altogether
strange or unnatural ; and perhaps it better helps us to realise her
life and its difficulties when we see her dealing with the ordinary
infirmities of men and women of precisely the same quality as other
sons and daughters of father Adam. In her letter to Matthew, St.
Catherine says a good deal about sheep and shepherds, and tells him
that shepherds must not abandon, the sheep who are in real danger
to go after those who only fancy themselves so. "Look at the saints,"
she says, " whether they travelled, or whether they stayed at home,
you may be sure there were always plenty of murmurs. Now, do you
all be faithful sheep ; and do not suppose I am leaving the ninety-
nine for one. On the contrary, I can tell you this ; for every one of
those I am leaving, I have ninety-nine known only to the Divine
Goodness ; and this is what makes me endure for God's glory the
fatigue of the journey, the burden of my infirmities, and the annoy
ance of scandal and murmurs. If I go, or if I stay, I shall do it to
please God, and not man. I have been delayed by sickness, but still
more, because it is God's will ; we shall return as soon as we can.
Meanwhile you ought to rejoice to see me go, or stay ; so calm your
selves, and believe that all will be ordered by Providence, if I am not
an obstacle by my sins." (Letter 142.) In this letter she speaks of
sickness as the cause of her delay, but from another written about the
same time to F. Thomas della Fonte, we find that the Archbishop of
Pisa had applied to the General of the Order for permission to keep
her a little longer.1 By her words we gather that some kind of a
storm had been raging in the home circle, and that Alphonsus
Vadaterra, who was then at Siena, was one of those who had been
agitating for her return. " The cross is our best consolation, my dear
Father," she says, "let us make our bed upon it. I assure you I
rejoice at all you say, and to hear that the world is against me ; I feel
unworthy of so great a mercy, since what else are they giving me than
the vestment which was worn by our Lord ? And then it is such a
trifle — a trifle so small as to be next to nothing. May the Sweet Word
give us some good morsels ! I fear not to be faithful to obedience,
for the Archbishop has asked our General as a favour to let me stay
1 This fact is worthy of notice as showing that the Tertiaries were at that time
under the government of the Order, and that a strict obedience to her religious
superiors was required of Catherine, without whose permission she undertook
no journeys.

Famine in Tuscany. 279
here a few days longer. Beg that venerable Spaniard, therefore, not
to oblige us to return without necessity." x
But before Catherine returned to Siena, she was doomed to receive
the tidings of events which filled her with the deepest affliction, and
seemed to put a stop to all present hopes of the proclamation of a
Crusade. Allusion has been already made to the intrigues set on
foot by Bernabb Visconti, with the view of effecting a breach between
the Pope and the Florentines, and to the partial success of his efforts.
The famine, which had followed the pestilence of 1374, and spread
through every part of Tuscany, had been the immediate occasion of
fanning the smouldering embers of resentment into a flame. William
Nbellet, Cardinal of St. Angelo and Papal Legate of Bologna,
whether actuated by an ill-will to the Florentines, or merely by the
desire of protecting the interests of his own dominions, refused to
allow corn to be exported from the States of the Church into Florence
during the time of scarcity, although earnestly implored to give the
starving people this relief. . At the same moment when his refusal
was causing the utmost suffering and exasperation, other sinister
events occurred. The troops of Hawkwood, who had been taken
into pay by Gregory, in order to carry on the war with Bernabb, were
dismissed after the conclusion of the truce. And foreseeing that the
leader of the Free Lances was not likely to leave the country without
seeking to indemnify himself for his trouble by some acts of pillage,
Nbellet warned the Florentines that should Hawkwood enter and
ravage the lands of the republic, it would not be in his power to hold
him back, he being no longer in the pay of the Church. In fact, the
terrible bands appeared as was expected; laid waste the whole
country, and even attempted to take possession of Prato, at the very
gates of Florence 2 So far from being pacified by the assurance of
the Legate, the enraged republicans saw in the whole transaction
only fresh and convincing proof of the Legate's treachery. Mad
with rage, the Florentine rulers determined to take Hawkwood into
their own pay, and heedless of their Guelph traditions, to declare
war against the Sovereign Pontiff. A frightful revolutionary spirit
seemed to awake among the citizens ;. they rose in insurrection, at
tacked the convents and churches, slaughtered the inquisitors in the
public streets, and declared the clergy to be the enemies of the State ;
1 Letter 106.
2 This was the event alluded to in the preface to Catherine's letter to Hawk
wood, quoted in the last chapter.

280 Revolution in Florence.
while the Magistrates sharing in the popular excitement, passed a
decree, in virtue of which the nomination to all benefices, as well as
judgment in all ecclesiastical causes, was made over to the civil
government. When the tidings of these events reached Avignon, they deeply
afflicted the gentle and fatherly heart of Gregory. He at once gave
orders for the export of grain from the Romagna to the suffering
districts ; but Nbellet refused so much as to read the Papal Brief, and
persisted in his former odious prohibition. War seemed inevitable,
and both parties began their preparations. Fresh troops were taken
into pay by the Pope, while the Florentines, according to their
custom, elected a body of Magistrates to whom was entrusted the
management of hostilities. All the members of this body were in
the present case chosen from the ranks of the most advanced
Ghibellines ; they were eight in number, and were commonly known
as the " Eight of War," but the mob, with horrible pleasantry, con
ferred on them the title of the " Eight Saints," in mocking allusion to
the deeds of blood and sacrilege which marked the beginning of
their rule. Another committee was formed to propagate the revolt
throughout the rest of Italy ; and for this purpose envoys were
despatched to a great number of cities, who, by a singular anticipation
of the phraseology and even of the badge of modern revolution, dis
played a blood-red flag inscribed with the ominous word " Liberty!"
" Fling off the yoke of the foreigner," they cried; " the time is come :
Every man who takes up arms against the Church is the friend and
ally of Florence ! " These words betrayed the root from which the
whole evil had arisen ; the Popes, since their residence on the soil of
France, had come to be regarded by the natives of the Italian pro.
vinces as, foreigners, and the national jealousy of the Italians had thus
been roused against their authority. The flame spread like wild-fire :
Civita di Castello was the first city to join the alliance, and her
example was soon followed by Viterbo, Perugia, Narni, Spoleto,
Urbino, and Radicofani : in short, before the close of 1375, eighty
cities and strong places had joined the league, and taken up arms
against their common mother.
These, then, were the tidings which reached Catherine and her
companions while they were still at Pisa. When Raymund re
ceived the news of the revolt of Perugia he was overwhelmed with
grief and horror. "I went at once to Catherine," he says, "in
company with F. Pietro of Velletri, penitentiary of St. John Lateran.

Catherine s Prophecy of the Schism. 281
My heart was drenched in grief, 'and with tears in my eyes I an
nounced to her the sad event. At first she mingled her sorrow
with ours, deploring the loss of souls and the great scandals which
afflicted the Church ; but after a little, perceiving that we were too
much dejected, she said, in order to calm us : " Be not in haste to
shed tears ; you will have worse things to excite your lamentations ;
what you now mourn is mere milk and honey to what will follow."
These words, instead of administering comfort, awakened a deeper
grief, and I said to her : " Mother, can we possibly witness greater
misfortunes than to behold Christians lose all love and respect for
the Church of God ; and many, fearless of her censures, even separat
ing from her? the next step will be to deny our Lord Himself!"
Then she said to me : " Now it is the laity who behave thus ; but
ere long you will find that the clergy will also render themselves
guilty." And as, in great astonishment, I exclaimed, " How ! —
will the clergy also rebel against the Sovereign Pontiff?" she
continued, "When the Holy Father will attempt to reform their
morals, the clergy will offer the spectacle of a grievous scandal to the
whole Church ; they will ravage and divide it as though they were
heretics." These words overwhelmed me with emotion, and I asked,
" What, Mother, will a new heresy arise ? " She answered : " It will
not be an actual heresy, but it will divide the Church with all Christen
dom; hence arm yourself with patience, for you will be obliged to
witness this misfortune." x
The course of our history will show the fulfilment of this prophecy,
which anticipated the origin and course of the schism that was
hereafter to break out with a precision truly extraordinary. At this
moment, however, the dangers which threatened were of another kind ;
and the too probable success of the intrigues by which the Florentines
were seeking to draw into revolt, not Pisa and Lucca alone, but Siena
also, made clear to Catherine the new line of duty which lay before
her. The power which God had given her over the hearts of men
she was now to use to hold them to their allegiance ; and at once
accepting the burden, she turned her steps homeward, and arrived at
Siena some time in the month of August 1375.
1 Leg., Part 2, ch. *.

( 282 )

CHAPTER IV.
CATHERINE AT LUCCA, 1375.
CATHERINE'S return to Siena was scarcely a return to rest,
nor indeed was her stay there of any long duration. The
grievous events related at the close of the last chapter were rousing
anxiety on the part of all good men ; and no one knew where next
the spirit of insurrection might be expected to break out. Moreover,
there was an additional sorrow in the reflection that all the fault
was not on the side of the rebellious people. Though Catherine
was ready to shed her life-blood in the cause of the Sovereign
Pontiff, and refused no labour that could avail to win back the cities
of Italy to their true allegiance, yet she never dissembled the grave
fact that all the disasters which had taken place had had their origin
from "bad pastors and bad governors." Hence, when at the close
of the year she learnt the nomination of nine new Cardinals, a pang
shot through her on hearing that seven out of the nine were French
men, and three of them near relations of the Pope. Not that either
condition was incompatible with their being worthy of their high
dignity ; but the moment seemed to demand the promotion of those
only who would secure the confidence of Gregory's estranged subjects,
and be the certain pledge of a sounder future policy. Hence in
writing to the Pope she refers to the event in a few prudent but
suggestive words, " It is said here that you have made some new
Cardinals. I think God's honour and your own interests require
that you should choose men of virtue ; otherwise you will incur
blame and do harm to the Church, and then we cannot wonder if
God sends us chastisements. I entreat you do what you have to do
courageously, fearing no one but God."
But soon came rumours that the danger was approaching nearer
and nearer ; the emissaries of the revolution were everywhere busy ;
and the little repubhc of Lucca was being sorely pressed — now by the
threats, and now by the promises of the cities already in revolt

Letter to the Magistrates of Lucca. 283
Catherine had already exerted herself with success in holding back
Pisa from joining the league, and she now considered what steps
could be taken to preserve Lucca also unshaken in its fidelity. And
first she addressed a letter to the Magistrates of that city, the nervous
eloquence of which fills us with amazement. "You fancy perhaps,"
she says, " that the Church has lost her power, that she is weak and
ready to succumb, and that she can help neither herself nor her
children. Believe it not : trust not to appearances, look within, and
you will discover a strength in her before which no enemy can stand.
What madness for a member to rise up against his Head ! specially
when he knows that heaven and earth will pass away sooner than
the power and strength of that Head. If you say, ' I know nothing
about all that ; I see some of these rebellious members prospering and
doing very well,' I reply, Wait a little, it will not be so always ; for
the Holy Ghost has said, ' Except the Lord keep the city, he labours
in vain that keeps it.' Their prosperity will not last, but they will
perish, body and soul, as dead members. God will not defend them
if they turn against His Spouse. Never let yourselves be moved by
servile fear ; that was what Pilate did, when for fear of losing his
power he put Christ to death, and so lost both soul and body.
"I entreat you then, my dear Brothers, all of you children of
Holy Church, be firm and constant in what you have begun. Do
not let yourselves be persuaded either by demons, or by men who
are worse than the demons whose office they fulfil. Keep faithful
to your Head, and to Him Who alone is strong ; and have no fellow
ship with those dead members who have separated themselves from
the source of strength. Beware, I say, beware of allying yourselves
to them, suffer anything rather than that ; fear to offend God above
all things, and then you need fear nothing else1 As for me I thrill
with joy in thinking that up to this time you have remained firm in
your obedience to the Church. I should be overwhelmed with
sorrow if I heard the contrary, and I come on the part of Jesus
crucified to tell you that on no account must you abandon what you
have begun. If you are tempted to do so under the hope of pre
serving peace, be very sure you will only plunge into wars more
bloody and ruinous than anything you have yet experienced. You
know that if a father has many children and only one remains faithful
to him, that one will receive the inheritance. But, thank God, you
1 In these words St. Catherine almost anticipates the famous line of Racine,
"Je crains Dieu, O Abner, et je n'ai point d' autre crainte.''

284 She goes to Lucca.
are not alone. There are your neighbours the Pisans, they will not
abandon you, they will help and defend you until death against any
attacks. Oh, my dear Brothers, what demon can hinder the union
of two such members in the bonds of charity ! " (Letter 206.)
But she was not content with despatching to them her written
words of encouragement. Caffarini tells us she had received an
express command from Gregory to repair in person to Lucca ; and
though only just returned from her former journey, she was ready to
defy the murmurs of her own people in order to obey the orders of
the Sovereign Pontiff, and to leave no means untried to confirm the
wavering allegiance of the Lucchese. She set out, therefore, in the
month of September, once more passing through Pisa on her way.
A close connection subsisted between these twin republics, and at
various times Lucca had been subject to her powerful neighbour,
though at that moment she enjoyed her independence, and was
governed by her own Gonfalonier and Ancients, chosen from patrician
families. The two cities were but ten miles apart, but separated by
that high ridge of mountains which, as Dante says, prevents the
Pisans from beholding Lucca.1 Over those beautiful mountains
Catherine now travelled, passing on her way through the frontier town
of Ripafratta, destined only four years later to give to her Order a
saint,2 foremost in the cause of reform ; while all around her bristled
castles and towers, many of which may still be seen standing, the
memorials of a feudal age long since passed away. On reaching
Lucca the warm reception given her by the inhabitants suggested the
consoling hope that her mission would not prove ineffectual. She
was lodged in the house of a noble citizen named Bartholomew
Balbani, who lived in a villa outside the city ; and here Catherine
was received with open arms by Donna Mellina Balbani, who had
assembled a little group of pious ladies at her house, all eager to see
and listen to the saintly maiden of Siena. The names of this devout
little company are preserved in the letters addressed to them by
Catherine after her departure, but we possess no other notices
regarding them. F. Thomas Caffarini has left us a vivid account of
the enthusiasm which her presence caused among the Lucchese.
1  il monte
Per che i Pisan veder Lucca non ponno.
Inf. xxxiii. 36.
• Blessed Lawrence of Ripafratta, born 1359, professed 1379.

Catherine at St. Romano. 285
" She was received," he says, 1 " by the nobles and citizens with every
demonstration of honour. As she passed through the streets, all
those who had any petition to recommend, and who could find no
other means of obtaining an interview, were to be seen running to
her and flocking about her. Persons of every age, sex, and condition
demanded to see her ; and it was no wonder, for her reputation had
preceded her, and through all the country round they spoke of her
admirable holiness and prudence, and the wonderful graces which
God had granted to this young maiden — destined to treat of such
important affairs though she was no more than twenty-eight years of
age. Moreover, He gave manifest proofs of her sanctity when she
was in St. Romano, the Church of our Order, where she used to
repair for prayer and Holy Communion. She was often seen there
after Communion, not only motionless and in ecstasy, but with her
body raised from the ground in the ardour of her contemplation, and
remaining so for a long time, supported, as it were, by an invisible
hand." The Dominican Convent attached to St. Romano was
founded in the year 1236. The Church, however, which still exists,
is much older, and dates from the eighth century. Modern restora
tions have left little of the ancient structure, nor does it contain any
memorial of St. Catherine, unless we class as such the beautiful
picture of her in ecstasy, together with her patron St. Mary Magdalen,
by Fra Bartolomeo, which is to be seen near the entrance door.
However, in this church, or in that which stood in its site before
the barbarians of the seventeenth century began their so-called
restorations, wonderful scenes were witnessed. F. Francis of Lucca,
a Friar Preacher, whose deposition is in the Process of Venice,
declares that he often beheld her at this time, and saw her do many
things which caused her to be regarded as a saint. Such multitudes
of both sexes resorted to her, that even in the church she was often
quite surrounded, in such sort that many who wished to see her
could not get at her for the crowd. And he tells a story which is
also related by Caffarini, from whose pages we shall quote the
narrative. During her residence in the city Catherine fell sick, and made
known to a certain priest her humble desire of receiving Holy
Communion, from which alone she hoped to receive any relief.
The priest appeared willing to grant her request, but formed the
guilty resolution of making this an opportunity for testing the truth
2 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 6, § 7.

286 The Volto Santo.
of the common report that she could take no food save the Holy
Eucharist. He therefore went to the church, and thence set out for
Catherine's house, accompanied as usual with a number of the
faithful, chanting psalms and bearing lights, whilst he carried in a
small pyx an unconsecrated Host, which he determined to give her.
Entering the house he approached the bedside of Catherine, but she
neither moved nor gave the least sign of religious reverence, though
the bystanders, according to custom, prostrated in worship, making
acts of faith and adoration. Seeing Catherine did not join in these,
the priest went so far as to reproach her for her indevotion. Then
the Saint, justly indignant at beholding the sacred mystery thus
profaned, kindled with holy zeal, replied, " Are you not ashamed,
Father, to bring me a piece of common bread, an unconsecrated
Host, and with this ceremony to deceive all the people assembled
here, and oblige them to commit an act of idolatry ? If they stand
excused of impiety, being ignorant of what you have done, I could
not be excused, God having made known to me your fraud." Full
of confusion the priest retired, troubled as much by her reproof as
by the remorse of his own conscience. He sincerely repented of his
fault, and always retained a great veneration for her whom, by his
own experience, he had certified to possess such supernatural light1
There is another sanctuary in Lucca which Catherine certainly
visited, and which contains a sacred treasure, to which she alludes in
writing to one of her Lucchese disciples. In a chapel attached to
the cathedral is preserved the " Volto Santo di Luca,"2 an ancient
cedar-wood Crucifix, said to have been carved by Nicodemus, the
disciple of our Lord. When he came to the face, says the old
tradition, he desisted through fear and reverence, and was assisted
by an angel who completed it, and thus gave the features that expres
sion of majesty which is recognised by all beholders. It was brought
to Lucca from Palestine in the eighth century, and is held in great
veneration by the inhabitants who call it the Santo Volto, or, quite as
often, the Santa Croce. It is under the latter term that St. Catherine
refers to it, in a letter to be quoted presently. During Catherine's
stay at Lucca she visited at their own houses several sick persons
who could not come to her, and an incident which occurred in one of
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 6, § 7.
2 In Latin " Vultum de Luca." This explains the customary oath of William
Rufus, "Per vultum de Luca," rendered by many English writers as " By the
face of St. Luke."

Incidents at Lucca. 287
these visits of charity is related by Caffarini in the Supplement.
"Happening one day," he says, "to hear that a poor woman lay in
her agony and in imminent danger of losing her soul, she left the
house without delay and hastened to find her out, though a torrent
of rain was falling at the time. Catherine remained with the dying
woman, consoling and assisting her till she breathed her last sigh.
The rain meanwhile continued to fall, so that in returning home she
found the streets running with water, nevertheless she reached the
house without being in the least wet"1 Many other remarkable
events happened at Lucca, which are unfortunately alluded to, but
not related, by Caffarini. The same observation applies to the testi
mony of Dino and Leopard, two Lucchese merchants, disciples of
Catherine, who are named in the Process as having witnessed marvel
lous, but unrecorded incidents.2 No allusion occurs in the Legend to
this visit of Catherine's to Lucca — a fact which is sufficient to illustrate
how imperfectly the narrative of Raymund gives the real history of
her life. He probably did not accompany her thither ; and judging
from the manner in which Caffarini appears as the chief authority
for what relates to this journey, we should judge him on this occasion
to have taken Raymund's place. Neri di Landoccio was also one of
her companions, a fact which we learn incidentally from a line in one
of his poems, one of those half revelations which tantalise us by what
they leave untold, rather than satisfy by what they tell.
" E non di vero gia mai si strucca
In fin che tu non mi sarai ben certo
Di cio che mi promettesti a Luca."
What it was that she promised him at Lucca he does not say ;
but judging from his ordinary temptation to despondency, it seems
probable that at this time she encouraged him by some powerful
hope of his perseverance.
I will conclude this part of our narrative with a few extracts from
her correspondence with her Lucchese friends after her departure
from the city. She seems to have spent about three months with
her hospitable host, and returned to Siena towards the close of the
year. The warm affection which Donna Mellina had conceived for
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. I, § 5.
* Included in the Process are the depositions of two other men of Lucca, F.
John of Lucca, Dominican friar, and Thomas Thomasini, a bishop ; but they bear
no reference to her visit to the city. They are printed by Baluze in the fourth
volume of his " Miscellanea."

288 Letter to Donna Mellina.
her new friend left her inconsolable when the time came for their
separation. It was an embarrassment to which Catherine was con
stantly exposed : those who were brought into close relations with
her found in that wonderful mixture of strength with sweetness, and
that unbounded power of sympathy, which sprang from her habit of
loving all creatures in God, so great a support and consolation that
they knew not how to live without it. Mellina was one of these, and
together with her little circle of devout friends conveyed to Catherine
a woful expression of the desolation they felt after her departure
from among them. It was a great blank which nothing would fill
up, and they knew not how to endure it. Catherine was indulgent,
and wrote no fewer than five letters of consolation to her sorrowing
friends. That to Mellina is of touching beauty, and is worth quoting
for the sake of its exquisite lesson on detachment.
" I wish, my dear daughter," she says, "that I could see you trans
formed in the ardour of charity, so that no creature could separate
you from it. You know that in order that two things should be
united there must be no obstacle between them that would hinder
their perfect union. Think then, that God would have no other love
come between Him and you, whether it be the love of yourself or of
any other creature; for God loves us, entirely, generously, gratui
tously, without obligation, and without being first loved by us. Man
cannot thus love God ; he is bound to love Him by duty, being
always the object of the benefits and goodness of God. We should
love nothing, therefore, whether spiritual or temporal, out of God.
You will say, ' How can I obtain such a love as this ? ' I reply,
only by drawing it out of the Fountain of Supreme Truth. There you
will find the beauty and the dignity of your soul. In that Fountain the
soul drinks deep ; seeing and loving nothing in herself, but seeing all
things reflected in the clear Fountain of God's goodness ; loving all
that she loves for His sake, and nothing apart from Him. When
once she beholds how good God is, how can she help loving Him ?
And it was to this that He invited us when He cried, standing in the
temple, ' If any one thirsts, let him come to Me and drink, for I am
the Fountain of living water.' Let us then go to the Fountain of
God's goodness, whence we can draw out the water of Divine grace;
but to follow this path we must lay aside every burden. And
therefore I will not have you love me, or any other creature, unless
it be in God. I say this, because I see from your letter that you
have suffered from my departure ; but you must follow the example

Letter to Donna Mellina. 289
of our Lord, who did not allow His love for His Mother and His
disciples to hinder Him from running to the shameful death of the
Cross. He left them, though He loved them ; . He left them for
God's honour and the salvation of His creatures. And the Apostles
also separated, because they did not rest in themselves. They
renounced their own consolation in order to glorify God and to save
souls. No doubt they would gladly have remained with Mary whom
they so tenderly loved ; and yet they all went away because they did
not love themselves, neither did they love their neighbour nor God
for themselves ; but they loved God for His own sake, and in Him
they loved all things.
" And this is how you must love yourselves and creatures. Think
only of God's honour and the good of souls. If the separation from
those you love causes you sadness, do not let yourselves be cast down.
Try not to be any more afflicted about me, for that would really be
an obstacle, and prevent your being united with Jesus crucified,
and resembling Him. God gave Himself generously to us, and He
demands the like generosity from us ; therefore renounce all affection
which opposes charity. That glorious affection unites, it never
divides. It is like the mortar which an architect uses when he builds
a wall of many stones ; for the stones only form a wall when they are
cemented together by mortar ; without that they would all fall asunder.
" Perhaps you will remind me of our Lord's words to His disciples
when He said, ' A little while and you shall, not see Me, and again,
a little while and you shall see Me,' and you will ask me, ' Why say
that God will have no ties of the heart, when here He speaks of them ?'
My dear children, the bond of charity is not a tie. If you put in place
of it the tie of self-love, that, indeed, will separate us from God, and
lead us to nothing. So now, have courage. I feel for your sorrow
but I show you the remedy : give your hearts wholly to God ; and if
indeed you desire to love me, unworthy as I am, I will tell you where
you may always find me. Go to that sweet — that adorable Cross,1
with the good and tender Magdalen, and there you will be able to
satisfy all your desires ! " (Letter 348.)
One more quotation, and we must take leave of Lucca, though not
without regret and a wistful longing to know more of her relations
with the place and its inhabitants who seem so heartily to have
appreciated her. This time she is writing, not to senators or noble
ladies, but to John Perotti, a poor tanner, and to his wife, who had
1 i.e., the Santa Croce of Lucca, spoken of above.

290 Letter to fohn Perotti.
sent her, as a souvenir from their city, one of those " Bambini," or
images of the Infant Jesus, for the manufacture of which Lucca is
still famous. The good couple had dressed the Bambino with their
own hands ; and in reward for their kind thought and simple piety,
Catherine found time to write them a graceful letter of thanks. She
reminds them that we should try not only to clothe the little image
of the Bambino, but ourselves to be clothed with Jesus Christ. " I
thank you with all my heart for your present," she says, " and as out
of love and charity you have clothed the Child Jesus, I doubt not He
will clothe you with the new man, Christ crucified ; and in His sweet
love I pray that you may ever abide" (Letter 302.)
Of Catherine's political negotiations at Lucca and their result, not
a trace is to be found in the pages of her biographers ; but the pre
sumption is that she had the same success there as at Pisa, and that
neither of these cities joined the league. They probably did not
entirely escape the same kind of trouble as that in which Siena be
came involved, by holding friendly communications with the Floren
tines after they had incurred the censures of the Church ; but they
certainly took no open part in the hostilities carried on by Florence
against the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff. Considering the power
then exercised in Tuscany by the latter republic, this abstention could
not have been persevered in without considerable firmness on the
part of the weaker cities ; nor can it be doubted that this result was
mainly owing to the counsels and influence of Catherine.

( 29i )

CHAPTER V.
STEPHEN MACONI, 1376.
AT the moment when Catherine was entering on a period in her
life which was to be filled with fresh sufferings and heavy
responsibilities, it pleased God to sweeten her path by the gift of a
great consolation. He brought into the ranks of her spiritual family
a soul who became dearer to her, perhaps, than any of her other
disciples, and whose name for tire remainder of her life was to be
indissolubly connected with her own. Stephen Maconi was the son
of Conrad Maconi and his wife Giovanna, a daughter of the house
of Bandinelli. They were Grandees of Siena, and as noble by
character as by birth. We first hear of Stephen as the school-fellow
and close friend of Thomas Caffarini ; and their friendship not only
lasted through the vicissitudes of school life, but stood the test of
separation. At fourteen Caffarini entered the novitiate of San
Domenico, whilst Stephen remained in the world and was bred to
arms ; yet in spite of the widely different careers which they
embraced, nothing dissolved that tie of friendship, "which has
remained unchanged," writes Caffarini in the concluding part of his
Supplement, "for more than fifty years." Stephen's parents were
proud of their son, and not without reason. In addition to a
handsome person and bewitching manneis, he possessed great
natural gifts, and a heart as pure and innocent as that of a child.
In this lay the secret of that gaiety and light-heartedness which made
him so universally beloved ; but it was not long before dark clouds
gathered on his horizon. At a banquet at which were present
certain members of the Rinaldini and Tolomei families, between
whom and the Maconi there existed a kind of rivalry, a dispute
arose on some point of honour. Stephen himself had good sense
enough to desire that this unfortunate quarrel should not be suffered
to ripen into a feud ; but his companions were less reasonable, and
urging him to support the honour of his family, they pledged them-

292 Feud between three Families.
selves to stand by him to the end. Stephen, therefore, in com
pliance with the miserable customs of the time, raised a band of
followers, and being joined by several of his relatives, they went
about the city armed and prepared for bloodshed. All this took
place in the year 1374, when Siena was being ravaged by the plague,
a circumstance which produced no sort of impression on the youthful
partisans. Efforts were made by mutual friends to bring about a
reconciliation, but without success ; and so a year or more went by.
At last some were found who advised Stephen to apply to Catherine
and secure her mediation; for the continuance of the feud with two
such powerful families would, it was feared, bring ruin on his house.
But Stephen scorned the idea. " To what purpose would it be," he
said, " to apply to a woman of no rank or authority ; one who has
managed to get a reputation for sanctity by sitting in the corners of
churches telling her beads ? Do you suppose that one like her will
be able to succeed where many iRustrious gentlemen have failed ? "
At this time he had no knowledge of the Saint. " Although a
citizen of Siena," he writes, " neither I nor any of my family had any
acquaintance with Catherine before the year 1376. At that time I
was carried away in the current of a worldly life, and had no thought
of becoming known to her ; but the Eternal Goodness Who wills not
that any should perish, saved my soul from the abyss by means of
this holy virgin." It was through the entreaties of his mother that
Stephen's pride at last yielded. She cast herself into his arms, and
implored him to make peace at any cost, advising him to place him
self in the hands of a certain Peter Bellanti, a friend of the family,
and one well acquainted with Catherine, being probably a relative of
that Andrea dei Bellanti whose conversion on his deathbed has been
related in a former chapter. Stephen consented to be guided by
his advice; and Peter, who had himself been reconciled to his
enemies through Catherine's means, offered to introduce him to the
Saint, and accompany him to her house. " We went therefore
together," says Stephen, " and she received me, not with the timidity
of a young girl, but like a sister who was welcoming a brother
returned from a distant journey. Full of astonishment, I listened to
the words she addressed to me, exhorting me to confess, and lead
a Christian life. I said to myself, 'The finger of God is here.'
When I had unfolded to her the object of my visit, ' Go, my son,'
she said, ' leave the matter with me ; I will do all in my power to
obtain for you a good peace' And thanks to her efforts, we did

Catherine restores Peace. 293
indeed obtain peace in a manner truly miraculous." What this was
he does not say, but the story is related at length in his life.
Catherine, after much difficulty, succeeded in getting all the hostile
parties to agree to meet in the Piazza Tolomei to be reconciled ; but
when the appointed day came, the Tolomei and Rinaldini kept
away, and avoided meeting Catherine for some days after. She per
ceived their intention of escaping from their engagements. "They
will not listen to me," she said, " well, then, whether they will or no,
they shall listen to God." So saying, she left her house, and going
to the Piazza Tolomei, where she had desired Conrad Maconi and
his son Stephen to meet her with the rest of his family, she led
them all into the neighbouring church of St. Christoforo, where,,
prostrating in prayer before the high altar, she was rapt in ecstasy.
And suddenly there entered the church the Tolomei and the
Rinaldini; they came, neither aware of the other's intentions,
brought thither by God ; and seeing the holy virgin raised in
ecstasy, her face surrounded by light, the spectacle so struck them
with compunction, that they laid aside their rancour, and agreed to
place themselves entirely in her hands ; nor did they all leave the
church until a perfect reconciliation and mutual forgiveness had
been exchanged between them.1 This occurrence took place in the
beginning of the year 1376.
After this Stephen often visited her on business connected with
the reconciliation, and she asked him to help her by writing some
letters from her dictation ; for, says Dom Bartholomew, the author of
his life, " this holy virgin being engaged in many affairs regarding
the salvation of souls, in which, by reason of her sex, she could not
always personally appear, was obliged to have recourse to letters,
and sometimes dictated to two or three secretaries at one and the
same time, and on different subjects." He gladly complied with
her request, and whilst writing from her dictation felt a singular
change working in his heart, as though called to be a new man.
And the change soon became apparent to the whole city, exposing
him to no little ridicule. There were plenty of mockers to whom
the spectacle of a young man of rank and worldly reputation acting
as the secretary of the poor dyer's daughter, was regarded as an
excellent joke; and he was followed through the streets by some who
spent their jests on his sudden conversion, calling him "be-Catheifned"
(Caterinato) the cant phrase with which the street wits of Siena were
1 Vita Steph. Maconi, lib. i., cap. vi.

294 Stephen becomes her Disciple.
wont at that time to greet any who were known as disciples of the
Saint.1 Stephen soon became thoroughly one of the "spiritual family,"
and endeared himself to all of them, no less than to her whom they
regarded as their mother. Between him and Neri di Landoccio a
strict friendship sprang up, which was perhaps all the closer by
reason of the marked contrast of their natural characters. Where
indeed could two beings have been found more unlike each
other, than the gay young cavalier full of life and drollery, who
even when writing on the gravest affairs could not restrain his love
of banter, and the sensitive poet, the "grazioso rimatore," as Gigli
calls him, who was ever trembling on the verge of despondency,
and needing Catherine's strong and masculine direction to lift him
out of himself?
But as is generally the case, each found a charm in the opposite
qualities of his friend. Stephen by his raillery often drove away
from Neri's soul the black clouds of melancholy ; whilst Neri's graver
and more thoughtful character was ever on the watch to guard the
brilliancy of Stephen from degenerating into levity. Catherine loved
them both ; but Stephen was, or was supposed to be, the Benjamin .
of the " family," and like other Benjamins he had to pay for the
privilege, real or supposed, of being his mother's darling, by incurring
a certain amount of jealousy on the part of his companions. "She
loved me," he says, " with the tenderness of a mother, far more than
I deserved, so as to inspire some of her children with a kind of envy;
she admitted me into her closest confidence, whilst on my part I
studied her words and all her actions with the greatest attention,
and sinner as I am, I can say on my conscience, that though for
sixty years I have frequented the company of many great servants of
God, yet never did I see or listen to any one who had attained such
exalted perfection as she. Never did an idle word fall from her
mouth ; our most frivolous conversations she knew how to turn to
our spiritual profit. She could never be satisfied with speaking of
God and Divine things, and I believe could she have found any one
to listen to her on those subjects, she would never have slept or eaten.
If any one spoke in her presence of worldly things, she took refuge
in contemplation, and then her body would become wholly insensible.
Her ecstasies were continual, and we witnessed them a thousand
times. Her body might then be seen raised in the air, contrary to
1 It was the same witticism which had been expended on Fra Lazzarini.

His Testimony regarding her. 295
the laws of gravity, as I myself can personally testify. Her whole
life was a miracle, but there was one circumstance about it truly
admirable. Nothing that she did, said, or heard, hindered her soul
from being intimately united to God, "and plunged as it were into
the Divinity. She never spoke save of God or what referred to Him ;
she sought Him and she found Him in all things, and that by an
actual and sensible love Temptations and troubles vanished in
her presence. Criminals condemned to death often sent for her ;
and when she had once visited them, they seemed no longer to think
of the terrible destiny awaiting them. I myself remember often
going to her in some interior trouble, and afterwards acknowledging
to her that I had quite forgotten what it was. I would ask her to
tell me, and she would do so, and explain it far better than I could
have done myself. Nor is this surprising, for it is well known that
she saw souls as we see faces ; we could hide nothing from her. By
her holy words she brought back an immense multitude of persons
to the path of virtue, and led them to confess their sins ; in fact, it
was impossible to resist her.
" Sometimes sinners presented themselves who were so chained by
their sins, that they would say to her, ' Madam, were you to ask us
to go to Rome or to Compostella, we would do it directly ; but as to
our going to confession, do not mention it, it is impossible' When
she had exhausted every other method, she would say to them : ' If
I tell you why you refuse to go to confession, would you then go ? '
They would accept this condition, and she would then say to them :
' My dear brother, we may sometimes escape the eyes of men, but
never those of God. You committed such a sin, in such a place, and
at such a time, and that is the reason that Satan troubles your soul
and hinders you from confessing.' The sinner finding himself dis
covered would prostrate himself at her feet, acknowledging his fault,
and with a profusion of tears confess without delay. This I can
certify as having occurred to many. One among others who held a
high position and enjoyed a great reputation throughout all Italy,
told me: 'God and myself alone know what that holy woman
revealed to me, I cannot therefore doubt that she is much greater
before God than we can even think.' " x
1 Stephen had personal experience of the Saint's wonderful powers in this re
spect. In the early period of their acquaintance he allowed himself to be drawn
into some plots against the government, and attended the secret meetings of the
conspirators, held in the vaults of La Scala. Catherine, who knew by revelation
what was going on, sent for Stephen, and, severely reproving him, bade him take

296 He accompanies her to Florence.
Such are some of the words in which Catherine's favourite disciple
committed to writing his testimony of "the holy memory," as he
calls it, looking back on it through the long vista of thirty years.
No wonder that the affection and confidence given him by such a
soul weaned him from every other human tie, and that his inter
course with her seemed to satisfy every wish and desire of his heart.
"The longer I was with her," he says, "the more I felt the love of
God and a contempt of the world springing up and growing within
me. Soon after our acquaintance had first begun, Catherine one
day said to me, 'You will see, my dear son, that ere long your
greatest earthly wish will be accomplished.' These words surprised
me much ; I did not know what I could desire in the world, I was
thinking rather of quitting it entirely. I said to her : ' My very dear
Mother, what is that greatest desire?' She replied, 'Look into
your heart' I said, ' Beloved Mother, I do not find any greater
desire than that of always remaining near you.' She answered
instantly, ' And it will be satisfied.' And, in fact, shortly after this
conversation, events occurred which once more summoned Catherine
away from Siena." x And in these fresh journeys Stephen was chosen
to be one of those who should bear her company. " I left my father,
my mother, my brothers and sisters, and all my kindred with joy,"
he says, " so happy was I to remain in Catherine's presence, and to
be admitted to her holy friendship." And it is of these new and
important expeditions that we now have to speak.
a discipline, and shed as many drops of his own blood as he had spoken words in
the unlawful assembly. She also foretold that these holy subterranean vaults
would one day be closed in consequence of the bad use made of them by seditious
persons ; a prediction which was verified in 1390. (Vit. Steph. Mac, lib. v. c. 2.)
1 In his letter to Caffarini, from which the above extracts have been taken,
Stephen says that he soon afterwards accompanied Catherine to Avignon, omitting
all mention of their previous visit to Florence. Caffarini, however, with his usual
accuracy, says in his Supplement, that Stephen went with her, "from Siena to
Florence, and from Florence to Avignon, and thence to Genoa ; after which he
again returned with her to Florence."

( 297 )

CHAPTER VI.
CATHERINE'S FIRST EMBASSY TO FLORENCE, 1376.
IN the part which Catherine had hitherto taken in the affairs of
Tuscany she had found means of combining an uncompromising
zeal for loyalty with an earnest advocacy of indulgent measures
towards the revolted cities and provinces. There were two objects
which she sought to gain by her efforts and by her prayers : on the
part of the rebels, an unconditional submission ; on that of the
Pontiff and his advisers, a policy of peace and reconciliation. Hence,
while in her correspondence with her friends at Florence, she exerted
herself to convince them that members of the Church when separated
from its head must inevitably become dead and corrupt, and that
no amount of wrongs endured can justify children in revolting against
their Father, her letters to Avignon as constantly pleaded for pardon
for the past and good government for the future. She used every
argument in her power to induce Gregory to adopt measures of
pacification. She admits the just complaints which he might allege
against the rebellious Florentines, but urges on him the magnanimous
policy of forgiveness, as best befitting the Vicar of Him Who laid
down His life for His sheep. What hope for the reform of scandals
and abuses, what hope for the prosecution of the Crusade, if the
Church were to plunge into war with her own children ? Better far
to admit their real grievances, and to appoint good and just governors;
this is the summary of all her arguments, and still she reiterates the
cry, " Peace, for the love of Jesus crucified, no more war, my sweet
Father, but peace ! peace ! " Gregory, who had already taken a
considerable body of troops into his pay, listened to St. Catherine's
appeal, and in the beginning of 1376 despatched ambassadors to
Florence, offering very moderate terms. If the Florentines would
renounce their warlike programme and engage not to stir up Bologna
to rebellion, the Pope would grant freedom to Perugia and Citta di

298 Letter to Soderini.
Castello.1 But such a proposal was by no means acceptable to the
" Eight of War," whose power and consequence were entirely bound
up with the prosecution of hostilities. Whilst, therefore, the Pope's
envoys were actually negotiating these terms of peace with the citizens,
the " Eight of War " secretly despatched their own envoys to Bologna,
with instructions to rouse the populace to revolt ; and the Legate of
that city had to seek safety in flight.
This odious piece of treachery was naturally resented by Gregory,
who saw himself mocked and betrayed at the very moment when he
was condescending to the Florentines and soliciting peace. Catherine,
however, did not yet despair, and whilst she continued to implore the
Pope still to show clemency to the infatuated people, she addressed
herself to one of the Florentine Magistrates whom she knew and
trusted as an honest citizen, and faithful son of Holy Church. This
was Nicolas Soderini, who had been Gonfalonier of Justice in 13 71,
and at this time was one of the " Priors of Arts " in Florence, and a
chief Magistrate of the republic. Catherine addresses him in just
such plain common-sense terms as suited his straightforward char
acter. " Can there be a greater misfortune than to lose God ? We
may form a powerful league, and be allied with many cities and
great personages ; but what good will that do us if we are not united
with God ? What blindness ! It is God Who preserves all the cities
in the world, and I revolt against Him ! Perhaps you say, ' I do not
revolt against God ; ' but I say, what you do against His Vicar you do
against Him. Since the Vicar of Christ has such power that he can
open or shut the gates of life eternal, what are we but dead members
if we revolt against him ? Without him we can do nothing. If you
are against the Holy Church, how can you share in the Blood of
Christ ? For the Church is none other than Christ Himself.2 Per
haps it seems to you that it is you who have received the injury, but
how can those judge others who have themselves fallen into the same
fault? I beg of you, Nicolas, do your utmost to be just. It is not
for nothing that God has put it in your power to make peace ; it is
to save you and all Tuscany. War does not seem to me to be such
a sweet thing that we need seek for it when it is in our power to
1 A glance at the map which is given at p. 241 will help us to understand this
proposal. All the other territories of the Church surrounded Tuscany, from which
they were separated by the mountains ; Perugia and Citta di Castello alone were
on the Tuscan side of the Apennines, and might more suitably claim by their posi
tion to share in the independence of the Tuscan republics.
2 La Chiesa non i allro che esso Christo.

Murder of the Nuncio. 299
avoid it. Try and discharge the office of the Angels who are ever
seeking to make peace between us and God. Do your utmost, whether
it pleases or displeases men ; think only of God's honour and your
own salvation, and even if it cost you your life, never hesitate to
speak the truth, fearing neither men nor devils." (Letter 217.)
Meanwhile things seemed approaching a crisis ; on the one hand
the mad Ghibelline mob, encouraged by their " Eight Saints," after
slaughtering the inquisitors, seized the Papal Nuncio and flayed
him alive in the streets of Florence with circumstances of unspeakable
atrocity. The Pope replied to these enormities by placing the city
under an interdict, and excommunicating the authors of the crime.
The censures of the Church in those days were no mere nominal
punishment, nor were their consequences exclusively spiritual. In
the present case the sentence pronounced against the Florentines
broke up their commercial prosperity, and thus touched them on
their tenderest point. To preserve their important mercantile relations
with England, they despatched envoys to that country, declaring
themselves entirely innocent of the crime of rebellion against the
Pope, and requesting that their merchants might take refuge in the
king's dominions, " till a more serene air of papal grace should smile
upon them." Richard II. received them kindly, and showed himself
disposed to grant their request, when letters were received from the
Pope explaining the facts of the case ; declaring the Florentines
excommunicated for their crimes, and specially for the horrible
murder of the Nuncio, and requiring that the Bulls to that effect
should be published in the metropolis by the Bishop of London. A
singular alternative, however, was offered by these Bulls to the
Florentines residing in England, If they were willing to become
bondsmen, with all their goods and chattels, it would be lawful for
the English who so received them to communicate and treat with
them, and for the Florentines who consented to such an alternative
to remain and dwell in the land. In short, strange as the condition
appears, it was, and was intended to be, a way of escape from the
extreme penalty, as it enabled the Florentine merchants to hold on
until better times ; and they unanimously agreed to accept the
proposed condition.1
The injury inflicted on their commerce induced the Florentines to
1 See Thomson's "Chronicon Angliae," by a monk of St. Albans, pp. 101-2,
109-1 1. These facts explain the statement of Scipio Ammirato, who says that the
English made slaves of the Florentines residing in England.

300 Envoys are sent to Avignon.
pause in their headlong career, and despatch envoys to Avignon to
treat for peace. The envoys were accompanied by Donato Barbadori,
a popular orator, who set forth the grievances of his fellow-citizens
and the misdeeds of the Legates in a strain of impassioned eloquence,
but without one word in acknowledgment of the treasons and atrocious
acts of violence with which these grievances had been met. After
some days' consideration, during which the Italian Cardinals pleaded
for gentle measures, and the French for war, the final answer was
given : the counsels of the French prevailed ; the interdict was to
remain in force, and war was declared.
When this news reached Florence, it raised a furious storm. The
revolutionary party proposed to break with the Church altogether and
establish a new religion ; and, on the other hand, Count Robert of
Geneva, appointed commander of the Papal forces, was leading into
Italy an army of 10,000 Breton Free Lances. The danger was
imminent, and in their extreme alarm the Florentines turned their
thoughts towards Catherine, and the less insane members of the
republic, with Soderini at their head, implored her to come to
Florence and assist them in fresh negotiations with the Pope ; " for,"
says St. Antoninus, " they knew her to be most acceptable to his
Holiness." She set out, therefore, in the month of May 1376, just
two years after her first visit. Many of the citizens had seen her
on that occasion, and formed their own opinion of her sanctity.
Others knew her by report alone, and the events of her six months'
residence at Pisa in the previous year could not fail to have reached
the ears of many. It is thus that Scipio Ammirato, the Florentine
historian, and one by no means to be reckoned among Catherine's
adherents, speaks of the feeling of his countrymen regarding her.
" The Florentines knew for certain that she had remained many days
without any other food than the Blessed Sacrament, though that was
impossible in the natural order ; they were aware that she had
passed most of her life in the most absolute solitude; they were
convinced that it was by the particular design of God that she had
exchanged the contemplative for the active life; and hearing that
with no knowledge of Latin she yet explained the most difficult
passages of Holy Scripture, and that she had learnt to read by no
human means, all her words and actions came to be regarded as
divinely inspired. Hence she was continually implored to reconcile
enmities, to deliver the possessed, to console the afflicted, and to
come to their help ; all which she did with so much, zeal and

Catherine is invited to Florence. 301
humility, that though some were not wanting who blamed her with
little kindness, she was generally regarded, as well by men as women,
as a true servant of God, and very dear to His heart." J
This passage is a valuable testimony from a purely secular writer,
and shows in a clear manner how it was that Catherine was drawn out
of her solitude and compelled to take part in public affairs, through
the increasing fame of her sanctity, and its power over a believing
people. She therefore prepared to depart She had already sent
Neri di Landoccio to Avignon, bearing a letter to the Pope, and had
urged him to support its arguments with all his might. " Labour in the
cause of charity," she writes to him " and so you will be doing the
will of God and that of your poor mother, whose heart is just now
very sad." Some time in March she had likewise sent F. Raymund
of Capua, and Master John III. to Avignon to prepare the way
for a pacification.2 We learn this from Raymund's own words in
the Legend (Part III. chap, vi.), and from a letter written to him by
the Saint, in which she speaks of certain revelations made to her
" on the first day of April." She was then preparing for her own part
in the mission of peace. On that first day of April God revealed to
her admirable things, and explained to her " the mystery of the
persecution which the Church was then suffering." He made her
comprehend how it was that these scandals which obscured the
Church's splendour were permitted. " I allow this time of perse
cution," He said, "in order to tear up the thorns with which My
Spouse is surrounded ; but I do not consent to the guilty acts of
men. I do as I did when I was on earth : I make a scourge of cords
to drive out those who buy and sell in My Temple, and with it I
chastise those impure, avaricious merchants who traffic with the gifts
of the Holy Ghost" Then Catherine beheld herself surrounded by
many saints, among whom were St. Dominic and St. John the Evan
gelist, together with many of her children ; whilst our Lord placed
His Cross on her shoulder, and an olive branch in her hand, and
commanded her to bear it all ' uno popolo, ed all ' altro ; that is, to both
1 Scipio Am., liv. xiii. p. 71 '•
2 Capelcelatro supposes Raymund to have accompanied Catherine to Florence,
and to have been sent thence by her. But these are Raymund's own words:
" The Florentines decided that I should first go to the Holy Father on the part
of Catherine ; and then they summoned her to Florence." She did not go to
Florence until the beginning of May ; and writes to Raymund in the early days
of April, her letter being addressed to Avignon. St. Antoninus says she was at Pisa
when she was summoned to Florence, but this is allowed to be a mistake.

o

02 Catherine proceeds to Florence.

the hostile parties. " I am dying of desire and expectation," she
concludes ; " have pity on me, and beg the Christ on earth not to
delay." (Letter 87.)
This, then, was her preparation for her first public mission, the
Cross laid on her shoulder, the olive branch placed in her hand !
This interesting passage does not appear to have been quoted by any
of the Saint's historians ; but no more exquisite introduction to her
political life can surely be imagined.
She proceeded then to Florence, accompanied by some of her
ordinary companions and disciples, and among others by Stephen
Maconi : and, as Raymund tells us, was met by all the principal men
of the city with every mark of respect. In Francesco Vanni's illustra
tions of her life, he represents them riding forth in state to receive
her, as she and her companions appear coming over the hills, clad in
the garb of pilgrims. All the Magistrates were not strangers to her.
With Buonacorso di Lapo and Charles Strozzi she had probably made
acquaintance the previous year, when they came to Siena as arbiters
to settle the difference between the Sienese government and the
nobles. Nicolas Soderini was also an old and long-tried friend, and
he now gladly received her and all her company into his house,1
furnishing them with all necessaries, and exerting himself to introduce
the Saint to those who might be likely to forward the business on
which she came.
Immense difficulties stood in the way of any peaceful accommoda
tion. The government of Florence was carried on by a number of
separate committees of magistrates, a minute account of which will
be found given in Capelcelatro's history. It was a system which
seemed to have been devised with the express view of promoting fac
tions and misunderstandings ; at any rate it offered singular facilities
for the purpose. Moreover, like all the Italian republics, Florence
was (torn by the contending parties of Guelph and Ghibelline, and by
the feuds of rival families. The Ricci fomented the war, because
they aimed at placing themselves on a level with the great Guelph
family of the Albizi ; and for that reason set themselves to oppose
the efforts of the Saint to promote peace by all the means in their
1 " Pursuing the quay along the river, the present Casa Molini and the houses
on the other side of the Piazza beyond belonged to the Soderini family, who
from the earliest times exercised great influence in the republic. It was here that
Nicolas Soderini received St. Catherine of Siena." — (Homer's " Walks in Florence,"
vol. ii. p, 284.)

Letter to Gregory XI. 303
power. That in spite of every difficulty Catherine should have
succeeded in gaining a hearing, and in softening the hearts of men
inflamed with revolutionary passions, speaks volumes of itself. In a
short time she was able to despatch a letter to Gregory, in which
she assures him of the pacific dispositions of the Florentines, while
at the same time she ceases not to press upon him the necessity
of three important measures — the conclusion of peace, the return
to Rome, and the proclamation of the Crusade.1 "Do not be
discouraged," she says, " by the scandals and revolts of which you
hear, give no ear to the devil who sees the loss which threatens him,
and who would do all in his power to dissuade you from returning
to Rome. My Father, I say to you in the name of Christ, come,
and come quickly. Remember you hold the place of the Sweet
Lamb of God, whose unarmed hand slew all our enemies. He made
use of no other weapons than those of love. He thought only of
spiritual things, and how to give back to men the life of grace. My
dearest Father, with that same sweet Hand of His, I conjure you,
come, and conquer all our enemies in the name of Christ crucified ; do
not listen to those who would hinder you : be generous and fearless.
Respond to the call of God, Who bids you return to the city of St.
Peter, our glorious Head, whose successor you are ; come, and live
there, and then raise the standard of the Holy Cross. This will
deliver us from our wars, and divisions, and iniquities, and will at
the same time convert the infidels from their errors. Then you will
give good pastors to the Church, and restore her strength, for those
who have hitherto devoured her have drained her of her life-blood,
so that her face is become quite pale. Do not stay away because of
what has happened at Bologna. I assure you the savage wolves are
ready to lay their heads on your bosom like so many gentle lambs,
and to ask mercy of you, as of their father. I conjure you, then,
listen favourably to what F. Raymund and my other sons will say to
you ; they come to you on the part of Jesus crucified, and are faith
ful children of Holy Church."
This letter explains St. Catherine's entire policy. Peace at any
cost, and the prevention of that worst of all scandals — the war
between a father and his children ; the return of the Pope to his
own States, that he might govern them with justice and clemency in
his own name, and deliver them from the rapacity and cruelty of his
lieutenants ; and, lastly, the Crusade, — to heal society, wounded to
1 Letter 6.

304 Her Florentine Friends.
the heart with faction and civil discord, and unite all in a common
cause, namely, the protection of Christendom from the approaching
hordes of the Turks. Her views were not the views of a visionary
enthusiast, but eminently practical, had there been in any of the
public men of the time the heart that could have responded to such
a call. She loved her country, and, like a true Italian, held in
horror the bands of mercenary foreigners ready to be let loose on the
fair fields of Tuscany; and so in her next letter she failed not to
remind the Pope that if he came, it would be to little purpose if he
brought with him his foreign soldiers. " Keep the troops you have
taken into pay," she says, "but do not let them come into Italy, for
instead of settling our difficulties, they will spoil all. Come like a
brave and fearless man, but, for the love of God, come with the Cross
in your hand, not with a great military escort."1 Unhappily, even as
she was writing the words, the Breton troops were already on their
march. Robert of Genoa left Avignon on the 27th of May, and his
soldiers, entering the Bolognese territory, at once commenced a course
of pillage and devastation, which furnished triumphant arguments
to those who desired nothing better than an irreconcilable breach.
Catherine's stay at Florence during this second visit could hardly
have exceeded a month or six weeks, for she came thither in the
early part of May, and entered Avignon on the 18th of June.
During this time, short as it was, she was able to make many friends.
Of Nicolas Soderini I have already spoken ; to his name must be
added those of Peter Canigiani, and his two sons, Ristoro and
Barduccio ; of Don John of the Cells, the hermit of Vallombrosa,
whose acquaintance she had already made at Pisa, and who had
given her his hearty support in her negotiations for the Crusade ; of
Bartolo Usimbardi, an illustrious noble, and his wife Monna Orsa,
to whom she sent several letters which, oddly enough, are addressed
to them in common with Francesco Pepin, the tailor, and his wife
Agnes. She likewise formed ties of yet stricter friendship with some
of the religious communities in and near Florence, specially with
that of St. Gaggio, whose Abbess, Nera (" My own dear Nera," as
Catherine called her after her death), was tenderly loved by the
Saint. In the intervals of her business with the citizens and
magistrates, she resorted to various churches and monasteries, and
1 In these words she was unconsciously reproducing the argument formerly
urged by Petrarch: "No need," he says, "of warlike trumpets; the Alleluia
will suffice. "

Letter to the Florentine Ladies. 305
it was probably at this time that she was often seen by Blessed John
Dominic in the church of Santa Maria Novella. Writing to his
Mother Paola, many years later, he reminds her of this circumstance.
" I saw her at Santa Maria Novella in Florence, and I think you
yourself must also many times' have seen her there when she was in
ecstasy, rapt out of her bodily senses, and remaining for a long time
motionless as if dead." This is the wonderful feature in the
character of Catherine ; it had as many sides as a cut diamond, and
each side reflected its own exquisite colour. Now engaged in weighty
negotiations for the pacification of her country, and braving all
human respect, as she lays before the eyes of the Pontiff the wounds
inflicted by bad pastors, who had drained Italy of her life-blood ;
now instructing and reforming religious Communities that had fallen
into decay, or building up others in the spiritual life ; now beheld in
her hours of privacy rapt in ecstasy and dead to things of self; and
now giving rules of Christian life to persons as opposite in their
calling and intellectual calibre as Ristoro Canigiani, the scholar and
advocate, and Monna Agnes, the tailor's wife.
Her letters to Ristoro form a series by themselves, and contain a
body of instructions for the sanctification of persons living in the
world, which for their prudence and practical utility have never been
surpassed. At the time that she was dictating these admirable
compositions she was sending a good scolding to her female friends
in Florence, who, after her departure from the city, had got them
selves into a vexatious quarrel, all out of their love for her. They
had undertaken to defend her against malicious tongues, and they
did not defend her wisely. So Catherine writes a joint letter to
them all. " I shall scold you well, my dear daughters, for forgetting
what I told you. I recommended you to have nothing at all to say
to those who might speak against me. Now, remember I will not
have you begin it all over again. My faults are many, so many, alas !
that I could not confess them all. When any persons speak to you
of them, tell them to have compassion on me, and to pray to God
that I may change my life ; He will punish my faults, and reward
those who bear with me for His love. As to Monna Paula, I will not
have you put yourselves in a temper with her. Try and think that
she acts like a mother who wishes to see if her daughter has virtue
or not. I confess sincerely I find nothing good in myself, but I
trust that God in His mercy will change and correct me. Courage,
then, and do not torment yourselves any more ; let us all be united
u

306 Santa Maria Novella.
in divine charity, and then neither men nor devils will be able to
separate us." (Letter 366.)
In another Letter (No. 367), addressed to "Three Florentine
ladies," she gives some admirable practical advice on the folly of
choosing many spiritual advisers, and following the direction of none.
Nor in noticing her relations with her Florentine friends can we omit
an anecdote related by Caffarini in his Supplement, though without
indicating at what time the event occurred. There was, he says, a
certain noble lady living in Florence named Donna Christofora, who
had in her service a waiting woman named Elizabeth. The latter
had a most ardent desire to see and speak with Catherine, whose
fame resounded throughout Tuscany. She wished to consult her on
some interior troubles, but her state of servitude rendered it impos
sible for her tp undertake the journey to Siena in order to satisfy her
wishes. One night, however, Catherine entered her chamber after
she had retired to rest, and, sitting down beside her, consoled her
with charitable words. Elizabeth was able to explain all her troubles,
which the Saint entirely dissipated ; and after a long and sweet con
ference she disappeared, leaving the poor woman full of consola
tion.1 The notice in Blessed John Dominic's letter of Catherine's
habitual visits to Santa Maria Novella has its special interest, as it
enables us to fix with certainty one locality in Florence associated
with her presence. Begun in the year 1279, this beautiful church
was not completed at the time of Catherine's visit ; its decorations
were still in progress, and on one series of frescoes, only recently
finished, her eyes must often have rested with pleasure, whether for
the sake of the subject of which they treat, or of the hand that
executed them. We allude to those scenes from the Life of St.
Dominic, which were painted in the old chapter house 2 (as is
supposed) by the Sienese artist, Simon Memmi. To so ardent a
lover of her glorious Father as was St. Catherine, it must have been
a delight to have gazed at his noble form represented again and
again as the Preacher, the Apostle, the Lover of Souls ; she was one,
too, who could relish the quaint device of her fellow-citizen, who has
depicted the followers of sin and error a* wolves dispersed and
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 5, § 4.
2 Now the Cappella degli Spagnuoli. The paintings are commonly attributed
to Simon Memmi and Taddeo Gaddi, though the fact is disputed by Crowe and
Cavalcaselle.

The Embassy to Avignon. 307
driven away by black and white dogs, the Domini Canes ; and from
those other grand and solemn representations of the Sacred Passion,
of Judgment, Heaven and Hell, on whose faded colours careless
eyes now come and gaze as on mere artistic curiosities, she received,
perhaps, an illumination, a comprehension of the eternal truths,
which rapt her in ecstasy, and drew her upwards to a region wherein
the turbulent dissensions that raged outside those walls were for the
time forgotten.
We must also assign to this time spent in Florence certain visits
which Catherine seems to have paid to various places in the neigh
bourhood of the city, where local tradition still preserves the traces
of her presence. Thus in the Villa Petrognano in Val d'Elza,
there is a fountain from which she is said to have drunk, and which
is on that account held in veneration by the people. A little chapel is
built over it, and an inscription commemorates the fact. At Pon-
torno another interesting tradition declares that she came thither at
the time when the church bell was being founded, and that she cas>
into the melted metal her own ring. The inhabitants bestowed on
the bell the name of " Catherine," and consider themselves to have
been frequently preserved from tempests by ringing it. Gigli, in his
Vocabolario, mentions these anecdotes, and also speaks of another
inscription to be seen in the church of St. Antonio de' Fanciulli, in
memory of her residence near that spot, at the time of her embassy
to the city. Of Vallombrosa, and her relations with its austere her
mits, we must speak in a separate chapter.
Meanwhile the leaders of the more moderate party at Florence
were urging their colleagues to place the renewed negotiations for
peace in Catherine's hands. Soderini and Buonacorso di Lapo
were among those whose influence and persistency for the moment
won the day ; and presenting themselves to the Saint they besought
her to save their city from destruction, by undertaking to go to Avig
non, and plead their cause with the Sovereign Pontiff in a personal
interview. One and all assured her of their sorrow for what had
passed, and their readiness to humble themselves in any way that
the Holy Father might require. Catherine's quick discernment dis
posed her to doubt the perfect sincerity of some, at least, of the
speakers. " See, gentlemen," she said, " if you really have the inten
tion of submitting to the Sovereign Pontiff, and if you desire me
to present you to your Father as children willing to humble your-

308 Arrival at Avignon.
selves, I will shrink from no trouble or labour in bringing this busi
ness to a happy issue ; but on no other conditions will I go." x
They all declared that those were their true sentiments, and that
they desired nothing better than that she should so represent the case
to the Holy Father. On this understanding Catherine consented to
accept the difficult and responsible task; but before starting she
wrote to Raymund, expressing her ardent desire to see that removal
of scandals, and that renewal of fervour for which she was ready to
give her life. And she concludes with a touching message to the
Holy Father, whom as yet she had never seen. " Tell the Christ on
earth that when I have seen him I shall sing my Nunc dimittis."
It was the beginning of June when Catherine and her companions
left Florence. A manuscript by Buonconti, preserved in the Ban-
dinelli family, informs us that the little party included the three
Pisan brothers, Thomas, Gerard, and Francis Buonconti, besides
Stephen Maconi, and three of the Saint's religious sisters. F.
Bartholomew Dominic, and Felix of Massa were also of the party :
Raymund, Neri, and Master John III. awaited them at Avig
non. We do not know with any certainty what route they took.
Pius II., in the Bull of St. Catherine's canonisation, speaks of her
having crossed " the Alps and the Apennines" in the service of the
Church ; and it is therefore most probable that she performed the
journey by land, at least from Genoa, following the Riviera, or coast
route. In any case it was a journey which involved fatigue and even
danger, and must have occupied some time. The date of her depar
ture from Florence has not been preserved ; but that of her arrival
at Avignon is given by her own pen in a letter to Sano di Maco,
then in Siena : " By God's grace," she says, "we arrived in Avignon
twenty-six days ago, and I have already spoken to the Holy Father
and to some of the Cardinals and other prelates of the Church, and
have done a good deal in the affairs which brought us here. We
reached Avignon June 18th, 1376." 2
1 Per alt/o modo io non v'andarei. The whole narrative, even to the very
words spoken, is given by the Saint herself in her letter to Buonacorso (Let. 215),
written from Avignon, and reminding him of what had passed.
2 Letter 214.

( 309 )

CHAPTER VII.
THE COURT OF AVIGNON, 1376.
ON the platform of the great Rocher des Doms, which overlooks
the whole city of Avignon, rises a pile of buildings wherein the
fortress, the palace, and the cathedral are blended together in strange
and picturesque confusion. You ascend to the cathedral, which is
the most ancient part of the structure, by a flight of steps known as
the Escalier du Pater, from the circumstance of its numbering as
many steps as there are words in the Pater Noster. By the side of
the cathedral stands the Papal palace, which Froissart calls "the
strongest and finest building in the world." Begun by John XXIL, it
received additions from each of his successors, and was only com
pleted in 1364 by Urban V., who added that tower of St. Lawrence,
which was called by the name of Rome as though to keep alive the
memory of the widowed city in the hearts of her exiled Pontiffs.
The city of Avignon as yet formed no part of the dominions of
France. It had been purchased by Clement VI. for 80,000 florins
from Joanna of Naples, who ruled this part of the country as Countess
of Provence. During the long wars with England which raged with
short interruption throughout the fourteenth century, the peace and
security which were banished from every other province found refuge
here ; and, sheltered from the clash of arms, the Avignon of the Popes
became the home of the arts, and the centre of a luxurious civilisation.
Churches and monasteries, palaces and public buildings of all kinds
multiplied ; the unceasing chimes of its many bells earned for it the
title of la ville sonnante, while magnificent walls arose of squared
stone, flanked with nine and thirty grotesque towers; structures
which Time's destroying hand has as yet spared, and only imparted to
them the mellow tint as of a faded leaf, which but augments their
beauty. Strange, indeed, that to such a capital there should have come such
an ambassadress as Catherine Benincasa, the humble Popolana of

3 1 o Appearance of Avignon.
Siena. On that June evening when her little company entered the city
gates she found herself in an atmosphere entirely new to her. With
all their vices, the capitals of Tuscany, with which alone she had
hitherto been acquainted, cherished in their citizens a certain robust
ness of character which grew out of their republican institutions. If
Siena cultivated the arts with passionate enthusiasm, and if the
Florentine merchants were second only to those of England in their
pursuit of wealth, yet greater even than their love of money, or of
the arts, was their love of liberty ; and the democratic forms so jeal
ously cherished among them, fruitful as they were of many social
evils, had at least protected them from courtly corruptions. But the
character of a Court was precisely that most unmistakably stamped
on the society as well as on the exterior aspect of Avignon ; nor were
the disadvantages of such a state of things diminished by the fact
that the courtiers were for the most part ecclesiastics. We have
elsewhere spoken of the abuses which prevailed in Italy, and which
had been so unsparingly denounced by St. Catherine ; of the luxury
and worldliness too common among the prelates of the Church, and
of the vices of the inferior clergy. But how could these abuses be
remedied, so long as the city, which was now regarded as the capital
of Christendom, presented such an example as we find portrayed in
the pages of John Pino of Toulouse ? As the modest band of pilgrims
made their way through those streets of Oriental magnificence,
they would have met the equipages of cardinals and prelates, the
trappings of whose very horses blazed with gold, attended by crowds
of servants in costumes of extravagant magnificence. Avignon had
its ladies, too, the nieces and sisters of great prelates, who thought it
no inconsistency to display themselves and their finery in those same
streets, and whose influence at court was reported as often more
powerful than it was edifying. Much has often been said by ecclesi
astical historians of the evils of nepotism ; tut at Avignon the abuse
had taken a form which could hardly fail to give scandal. It was
commonly said that the road to promotion was through the salons
of these great dames ; and those who desired a rich benefice were
advised to pay their court to Miramonde de Mauldon or Enemonde
de Boulbon,1 or to some other lady as skilled in the "gate science,"
as she was nearly allied in blood to eminent and illustrious pre
lates. Provence, it will be remembered, was the native soil of the
muses of the Middle Ages, and these muses often bore but a doubtful
1 The nieces, respectively, of Clement V. and Innocent VI.

First Interview with Gregory. 3 1 1
sort of character. In any case it was unfortunate that the temporary
capital of the Church should have been fixed in a region so given up
to the influence of "singers, actors, cooks, mimics, and trouba
dours."1 A motley crowd of such personages crowded thither day
after day, and found liberal patronage at the hands of those who, in
that soft and delicious climate, seemed to forget that life had any
more serious end than amusement and enjoyment.
A residence was assigned to the use of Catherine and her com
panions, by order of Gregory, in the house of John de Regio. Stephen
Maconi calls it " a handsome house with a richly adorned chapel,"
but when purchased by Cardinal Brancaccio in the seventeenth
century and presented to the college of Jesuits, nothing remained
but a tover, in which, though the chapel iiad disappeared, a room
was still shown as St. Catherine's so late as 1706. Two days after her
arrival she was admitted by the Pope to an audience,2 and for the
first time the holy maiden of Siena and the Vicar of Christ met face
to face.
Gregory's appearance was the index of his character. Small in
stature, ofa pale and delicate complexion, Peter du Rogier de Beau-
fort-Turenne bore on his person none of the marks of commanding
will 01 splendid genius. He looked a man fitter to be loved than
feared; and distinguished, as he undoubtedly was, for modesty,
fidelity to his word, and goodness of heart, he lacked ithat force of
charader which seemed needed for one who would stem the torrent
of an evil time, or accomplish great and difficult achievements. Yet
in the councils of Divine Providence such an undertaking was
reserved to Gregory XL, and it was from the poor dyer's daughter
of Siena that he was to receive, if not the inspiration to resolve
upon, yet undoubtedly the courage to execute it. He could not have
been nsensible to the irresistible charm which has been attested by
all wlo knew her ; and he probably felt the power of that great soul,
the strength and grandeur of which one of her disciples has described
by spying, that " you could not look at her without trembling." 3
Theie was, nevertheless, some difficulty in their holding any intercourse
together, for Catherine spoke only in the Tuscan dialect, which to
1 ohn Pino, Vita Div. Cath.
2 Capelcelatro says he received her in public Consistory ; but there is no ex-
preision in Raymund's account which seems to indicate that it was anything but
a private audience.
' Burlamacchi's MS. Notes to Legend.

312 Bad Faith of the Florentines.
Gregory, unhappily, was an unknown tongue. He himself addressed
her in Latin, and Raymund of Capua acted as interpreter between
them. Still, even with this disadvantage, it did not take long for
Catherine to win the Pontiff's entire confidence. She pleaded the
cause of peace with her lips, as she had already done by her letters,
and that so successfully that Gregory placed the whole matter at
issue with the Florentines in her hands. " The Holy Father/' says
Raymund, " in my presence and by my mouth, committed the treaty
of peace to Catherine's decision, saying to her, ' In order to show
you that I sincerely desire peace, I commit the entire negotiation
into your hands ; only be careful of the honour of the Church.' "
F. Bartholomew Dominic, who accompanied the Saint to Avignon,
lets us know what Raymund does not notice, namely, that on first
coming to the court Catherine had to encounter prejudices; not only
on the part of the cardinals and prelates, but even of Gregory him
self* "Almost the whole court of Rome," he says, "rose lp against
her ; nevertheless their minds soon underwent a wonderful change,
so that those who were at first her persecutors became her greatest
benefactors." He names among these the Lord (i.e., Archbishop) of
Bari, afterwards Urban VI., who at this time made his first acquaint
ance with Catherine1
After leaving the presence of the Pope, Catherine held confeences
with some of the cardinals and others of his councillors, and was
able in a few days to give hopes to her friends at Siena of a
speedy and favourable termination of her enterprise. Writiig to
Sano di Maco about three weeks later, she says, " I have seei the
Holy Father and several cardinals, and other lords of the cour, and
the grace of our sweet Saviour has already done much in the business
which brought us here ; therefore rejoice in Him, and be fill of
confidence." And indeed the obstacles which had hitherto op; osed
themselves to the conclusion of peace, and which had rendered
fruitless the previous embassy of Barbadori, all yielded to the
persuasive eloquence of the Saint; and her mission would pave
been crowned with complete success, but for the bad faith ol the
Florentines themselves. It had been agreed before Catherinelleft
Florence, that as soon as she had arrived at Avignon, other ambas
sadors should be despatched to the Papal court to treat for peacl in
a formal manner, on such terms as she might have been able to secue.
Weeks passed on, however, and no ambassadors appeared. But
1 Process, 1337.

Letter to the " Eight of War." 3 1 3
instead there came rumours of fresh taxes having been levied on the
clergy ; and Catherine, who instinctively felt that the hindrance of
her efforts came from the " Eight of War," addressed them a letter
of remonstrance which gives us a clear idea of the situation of affairs.
"I have great cause to complain of you," she says, "if it is true, as
is here reported, that you have taxed the clergy; you have no
right to do so, and it would be a great obstacle in the way of con
cluding peace, for the Holy Father when he hears it will be naturally
indignant. I have had an audience with him, and he listened to
me most graciously, through the effect of God's goodness and his
own. He expressed the most sincere wish for peace, and seemed
like a good father who, instead of regarding the offences committed
by his son, remembers only that his son has humbled himself for his
fault, and is ready to show him mercy. No tongue could tell the
joy which this has caused me. After my long conference with him
he told me that if things were as I said he was ready to receive you
as his children, and to do whatever I might judge best. It seems to
me that he cannot give any further reply until your ambassadors
arrive. I wonder that they are not yet come ; I shall await their
arrival, and will see both them and the Holy Father, and I will then
write to you and say what are his dispositions. But I fear you will
spoil-all with your taxes and your new decrees. I beg of you not to
do so, for the love of Jesus crucified, and for your own interests."
It would seem that this rumour about the new taxes was a false
report, spread abroad by the secret malice of those who had no
desire to see the Florentines admitted to terms of reconciliation.
On the other hand, the non-arrival of their ambassadors gave the
enemies of peace grounds only too plausible for casting discredit on
the whole affair. Gregory himself understood that the Florentines
were not to be trusted ; and in speaking to Catherine he expressed
his misgivings in words which were exactly justified by the event.
" Believe me, Catherine," he said, " the Florentines have deceived
you, as before now they have deceived me. You will see they will
send no ambassadors, or if they do, the ambassadors will conclude
nothing." And, in fact, when at last Pazzino Strozzi, Alexander dell'
Antella, and Michael Castellani arrived as envoys from the republic,
it was plainly to be seen that the conclusion of peace was the last
thing contemplated by those from whom they had received their
instructions. In justice to the Florentines, however, it must be
borne in mind that the parties at whose entreaty Catherine had

314 A rriva I of the Envoys.
undertaken her journey, were not the same as those who had
despatched the envoys. The mischief arose from the vicious system
of the Florentine government, which admitted of power being vested
in several distinct bodies who were often of opposing views and
interests, with no one supreme and responsible head. Soderini and
the more moderate party in the republic had been sincere enough in
soliciting Catherine to make their submission to the Pope ; but after
her departure their views had been overruled by the more powerful
"Eight of War," whose only object was to prolong their own term of
power, which would cease with the proclamation of peace. They
had consented therefore to despatch the envoys, but with a purpose
very different from that which Catherine had designed, desiring only
to soothe the irritation which had been roused at the Roman court
by their proceedings, but with no purpose of submission.1
As soon as they arrived in Avignon, Catherine requested an
interview, in which after reminding them of the mission which had
been intrusted to her by the Magistrates of Florence, she informed
them that the Sovereign Pontiff had listened graciously to her
representations, and had placed the matter in her hands. It was in
their power, therefore, to obtain peace on the most favourable
conditions. If they dared not trust themselves to the French
cardinals who had caused the rejection of their former overtures,
they might safely place themselves in the hands of one who was
ready to give her life to restore peace to Italy. To this the envoys
replied briefly and coldly that they had no instructions to treat on
the subject with her, but only with the Pope ; and on her reminding
them of the pledge so solemnly given her at Florence before she
would consent to undertake the mission, they only returned an
abrupt and insolent refusal to have anything to say to her on the
affairs of the republic.
An ordinary character, if placed in so mortifying a position as that
in which Catherine now found herself, would have taken little further
trouble in the cause of the treacherous Florentines ; but no motive
of self-exaltation or desire of renown had prompted her to enter on
her present undertaking. A dead body is not more insensible to
1 It is Scipio Ammirato, a partisan of the Florentines, w.ho gives this explana
tion of their conduct. "The Eight," he says, "thought it necessary to send an
embassy to the Pope to calm somewhat the jealous suspicions of which they
were the object ; but they did not on that account renounce their projects of war!'
(Stor. Fior., lib. xiii. p. 699.)

Letter to Buonacorso di Lapo. 3 1 5
pain or pleasure, than she was to all those human considerations
which have their root in self-love. She desired peace, because in
the continuance of hostilities she beheld the loss of souls, and the
offence of God ; and the contempt and ingratitude of the rebellious
Florentines produced absolutely no change in her purposes regarding
them. "Catherine saw through their dishonesty," says Raymund,
" and perceived that the prediction of the Holy Father had been
correct; nevertheless, she did not discontinue her solicitations to
Gregory XL, but continued as before to plead that he would show
them the clemency of a father, rather than the severity of a judge." x
However, she expressed her opinion on the conduct of the
Magistrates in a letter to Buonacorso di Lapo. " Alas ! my dear
brother," she says, " I am distressed at the means they are taking
here for asking peace from the Holy Father ; they ask it more in
words than in truth. You remember that when I consented to come
here, you and the other Magistrates seemed repentant for the faults
committed, and ready to submit to the Holy Father in order to
obtain mercy. I said to you then, that if you really meant to
humble yourselves, and to allow me to present you to your Father as
contrite children, I would shrink from no trouble or fatigue, but that
otherwise I would not go. And you all declared that you joyfully
consented to these terms. That was the only right way of acting,
and if you had persevered in it you would have obtained the most
glorious peace. I do not say this at random, for I know what the
dispositions of his Holiness were. But now we have taken quite the
wrong road, and are employing the deceitful ways of the world, con
tradicting our words by our actions, and so rather irritating the Holy
Father than appeasing him.
" When your envoys came here they did not act as they should
have done with the servants of God ; and it is now impossible for me
to ascertain if you have spoken to them in the same sense as you did
to me, when giving them their credentials ... If you had trusted
your interests with the servants of God, they would have obtained an
excellent peace for you from the Holy Father. But this you have
not done. I am sorry for it, because of the offence of God, and the
injury you do yourselves, and you do not see the terrible conse
quences which your perseverance in this line of conduct will certainly
produce." The reader will not fail to notice that in this simple and
straightforward remonstrance, not a word appears expressive of a
1 Leg. , Part 3, ch. vi.

3 16 Catherine's Opinion of the Court.
woman's mortified vanity ; and so far was she from abandoning the
cause of the people who had treated her so unworthily, that at her
urgent solicitations Gregory agreed to condescend to yet further
overtures, in the hopes of winning back his rebellious children, and
saving them from the horrors of war, as it were, against their will.
In the meantime the extraordinary favour with which Cathe
rine was regarded by the Holy Father, was causing much per
plexity in the court circles of Avignon. That one so wholly
separate from the world should have been chosen to mediate be
tween the greatest of the Italian republics and the Holy See, was in
itself a difficult problem ; but the amazement of the French lords and
ladies was increased when they formed a close acquaintance with
this wonderful woman, and took notice of her indifference to the
splendour which everywhere met her eye, and the freedom of speech
with which she passed her judgment on the courtly crowds around
her. On one occasion, soon after her arrival in Avignon, when she
was conversing with the Holy Father (Raymund of Capua, as usual,
acting as interpreter), Catherine expressed her sorrow at finding the
Roman court, which should have been a Paradise of heavenly
virtues, stained by so many grievous vices. The Pope, astonished at
her words, turned to Raymund and asked how long they had been
in the city; and understanding it was only a few days, " And how/'
he asked, " have you in so short a time been able to gain so much
information as to the manners of the Roman court ? " " Then," says
Raymund, "suddenly changing her attitude of profound humility
and reverence, she raised herself with an air of majesty, and said,
' To the honour of Almighty God I will dare to say that I was more
conscious of the infection of the sins committed in the court of
Rome when I dwelt in my native city, than those are who daily
commit them.' The Pope remained silent, and I have always remem
bered her words with astonishment ; nor shall I ever forget the dig
nity with which she feared not to speak to so great a Prelate."
Her wonderful knowledge of souls was never more signally dis
played than at this time, and enabled her to detect the concealed
profligacy which often lurked under the fair outside of those with
whom she came in contact. No mannerism of piety could deceive
the keen spiritual instincts of the Saint. " It often happened both to
me, and others who accompanied her on her journeys," says Ray
mund, " that we found ourselves with her in companies altogether
new to us, where we saw for the first time persons of honourable and

Her Knowledge of Souls. 317
respectable appearance, who were in reality addicted to every vice.
Catherine knew the state of their interior directly, and would refuse
so much as to look at them or answer them if they addressed her on
spiritual subjects. And if they persisted she would say, ' First let
us purify ourselves from our faults, and be delivered from the bon
dage of Satan, and then we will converse about God.' In this way
she would soon rid us of the presence of these hypocrites, whom we
afterwards discovered were plunged in incorrigible habits of sin."
It was in this way that she conducted herself towards some of the
fair dames of Avignon who sought an interview with her to satisfy
their curiosity, and who imagined it necessary to assume the airs of
devotes when they appeared in the presence of so holy a personage.
But no pious grimaces could ever impose on Catherine. One day a
lady presented herself at the house, who, to the unsophisticated eyes
of Father Raymund, bore every semblance of respectability ; her
demeanour was so modest and her conversation so edifying, that
it caused the good father no little surprise when he perceived Cathe
rine resolutely turn her back, as though she would neither see nor
be seen by her. On the departure of this visitor he ventured to
remonstrate with the Saint for her apparent rudeness ; but she soon
explained the matter. " O Father," she said, " if you had been
conscious as I was of the stench of sin that made itself sensible
whilst that woman was speaking to us, I think it would verily have
turned you sick." He took some pains to ascertain the real circum
stances and character of the person in question, and found indeed
that her life was a deplorable scandal.1
The Countess of Valentinois, sister to the Pope, and a person of
real and unaffected piety, had succeeded in obtaining several inter
views with Catherine, whose conversation inspired her with great
esteem and veneration. Desiring much to be present on some
occasion when the Saint should approach Holy Communion, she
made known her wish to Raymund, who promised to satisfy her.
On the following Sunday Catherine went to the chapel, and making
her preparation for Communion, was as usual rapt in ecstasy.
Calling Stephen Maconi, who was present, Raymund bade him go
at once to the palace, and tell the Countess that Catherine would
communicate that morning. The Countess was just about to hear
1 " Se voi aveste sentito il puzzo che io sentiva mentr' ella meco parlava, voi
avreste vomitato." (Leg., Part 2, ch. iv.) St. Antoninus says of this person,
" Erat cujusdam magni praelati ecclesise concubina."

3 1 8 She is examined by three Prelates.
Mass, but on receiving the message she at once set out for Catherine's
residence, accompanied by a number of persons equally curious as
herself, but considerably less devout. Among others was Elys de
Turenne, wife of the Pope's nephew, a young and giddy woman of
the world, and an utter stranger to divine things. While the Coun
tess was praying with all earnestness, Elys was examining Catherine,
whose ecstasy she supposed to be feigned in order to attract attention :
she perceived that the Saint wore nothing but sandals ; so, stooping
down under pretence of devoutly kissing her feet, she drew out a
large pin and with it pierced one of them through several times so
as to draw blood. Catherine, however, remained motionless, for at
such times, says Stephen, you might have cut off her feet sooner
than have moved her. But when the crowd had withdrawn, and she
resumed the use of her senses, she felt a sharp pain in her foot, and
found herself unable to walk. Her companions, perceiving this, had
their attention drawn to the cause, and found the bleeding wounds
that had been thus wantonly inflicted.1
There were wiser and more respectable judges than Elys of
Turenne, however, who expressed their incredulity as to the real
character of her whose name was in everybody's mouth. By desire
of the Pope, Catherine had spoken several times in presence of many
assembled prelates and cardinals, and her eloquence and heavenly
doctrine drew from them expressions of wonder and admiration,
" Never man spoke like this ! " they exclaimed ; " it is surely no
woman who speaks, but the Holy Spirit dwelling in her." The
report of her marvellous gifts, and of the impression they had made
on the Pope and the cardinals soon spread abroad, and three
prelates of very high rank sought an interview with Gregory for the
purpose of speaking to him on the subject. "Holy Father," they
said, " what think you ? Is this Catherine of Siena as saintly as she
is reported to be ? " " In truth," replied the Pope, " I believe her to
be a Saint." "If it please your Holiness," they continued, "we will
go and s'e'e her." "Do so," he replied, "and I think you will be
greatly edified." So they proceeded to her house about the hour of
None, and knocking at the door, it was opened by Stephen Maconi,
1 Process, 1374. The cruel experiment of Elys de Turenne, mentioned above,
had once before been tried on St. Catherine by a Dominican Friar, named F.
Pietro Landi, who did not believe in her ecstasies, and who, to test their truth,
pierced the Saint's foot with a large needle during the time she was rapt out of
her senses. Simon of Cortona tells the story in his Deposition, and adds that
this religious died a miserable death, out of his Order. (Process, fol. 212.)

Her admirable Replies. 3 1 9
who relates the story. " Tell Catherine," said one of them, " that
we wish to speak with her." The message was delivered, and
Catherine at once came down, attended by Father John Tantucci,
and certain other religious. They bade her be seated, and at once
began to address her in a haughty and insolent manner, endeavouring
to irritate her by their wounding speeches. " We have come from
his Holiness," they said, " and we desire to know if it be really true
that the Florentines sent you here, as is pretended. Have they not
got a man among them capable of undertaking such an important
affair ? And if they did not send you, we marvel how an insignifi
cant little woman like you should presume to converse with the Holy
Father on so weighty a business." Catherine showed no signs of
disturbance, but replied with a humility and firmness that filled them
with astonishment. When she had satisfied them on this point, they
proceeded to put to her many difficult questions on the spiritual life,
and to examine her touching her ecstasies, and her extraordinary
manner of Ufe, reminding her that Satan often transforms himself into
an angel of light, and inquiring what means she adopted in order to
avoid his deceits. " The conference lasted until late in the evening,"
says Stephen, " and I was present the whole time. Sometimes
Father John would endeavour to answer for her, but though he was
a learned doctor in theology, they shut him up in very few words,
saying, ' You should be ashamed to speak in such a manner in our
presence. Leave her alone, for she satisfies us much better than
you do.' One of these prelates was a learned professor of the
Order of St. Francis, and seemed as though unwilling to accept
Catherine's replies. But at last the other two gave over their attack,
and took part with her against him." "What more would you
have?" they said; "she has certainly explained all these matters
better and more fully than we ever found them set forth by holy
writers." On this they began to dispute among themselves, but
at last departed, well satisfied with the result of their visit, and
reported to the Pope that " they had never met a soul at once so
humble and so illuminated." Gregory was not a little displeased
when he understood in what manner they had tried to move her to
anger, and excused himself to the Saint, assuring her that it had
been done without his knowledge or consent. He said, moreover,
that should these prelates come again to speak with her, she was to
shut the doors against them."1 The next day Master Francis
1 Fen, p. 14, c. 18.

320 Father fohn's Reflections.
of Siena, the Pope's physician, came to see Stephen. "Do you
know those three prelates who called at your house yesterday?"
he said ; " I can assure you that if the learning of those three were
put in a balance, and the learning of all the rest of the court of
Rome in another, the learning of those three doctors would weigh
against it all. Wherefore I tell you this, that if they had not found
Catherine's wisdom and virtue truly solid, she would have made as
bad a venture in coming hither as ever she did in her life."
No doubt during this singular scene Father John III. made
his own reflections ; for his memory must have recalled that other
occasion when, in company with Master Gabriel of Volterra, he had
first entered Catherine's presence with the like intention of " shutting
her up." x The humiliation which he that day received at the hands
of the three learned doctors was a fair penance for his former offence ;
and we would venture a shrewd guess that some of the party did not
fail to rally him on so remarkable a coincidence.
1 See p. 147.

( 32i )

CHAPTER VIII.
THE DEPARTURE FROM A VIGNON, 1376.
CATHERINE'S mission on behalf of the Florentines had, as
we have seen, been frustrated through their bad faith, and
in the eyes of many her journey to Avignon had doubtless been
pronounced a failure. But the providential end for which she had
been brought thither was yet to be accomplished, and a far more
extraordinary success was to crown her enterprise in the restoration
of the Sovereign Pontiff to his long-forsaken See of Rome. Not
that the first suggestion of this step is to be attributed to our Saint ;
Gregory himself had long contemplated, and even resolved upon it ;
and in the beginning of the year 1375 he had solemnly announced
his intention in letters addressed to the Emperor and the other
sovereigns of Europe. He had done more than this. When
Charles V., king of France, filled with consternation at the prospect
of such a change, despatched his brother the Duke of Anjou to
represent to the Pope that his health would suffer if he ventured to
quit his native air, that Rome was a sort of desert, and its citizens a
set of turbulent savages, Gregory replied with firmness and dignity
that "whatever it might cost him to separate himself from a country
so dear to him as France, he felt it his duty in the interests of the
Church to return to that holy city which was the true See Apostolic ;
and that with the help of God he should do so in the coming
autumn."1 But the resolutions which determine human acts pass through two
distinct stages. One is the decision of the judgment, comparatively
easy to men of clear mind unprejudiced by passion. The other is
the far more difficult decision of the wilL That the two are not
identical, who does not know, who to his sorrow sees the right, but
lacks the strength and courage to accomplish it ? In the dispro
portion between these two kinds of decision lies written the history
1 Rinaldi, Ann. 1375, n. 22.

322 Dante, Petrarch, and St. Bridget.
of all mental struggles, and the explanation of those amazing dis
appointments which make us marvel how men so wise in thought
and word can often be so feeble and faulty in action.
Gregory had thought out the problem, and satisfactorily convinced
himself that its true solution was in a return to Rome. Nor was it
any wonder that he should have come to such a conclusion. It was
a word re-echoed from the lips of all those whom men most held in
veneration. Full sixty years had passed since Dante had reminded
the Cardinals that it was their duty to elect a Pontiff who should
restore to Rome the sun that had suffered eclipse ; x and Petrarch,
to whom, if to any one, Avignon was dear, had nevertheless nothing
closer to his heart than the desire of witnessing the resurrection, as
he terms it, of the eternal city. He even ventured to address a
poetical epistle to Benedict XII., in which, by a bold personification,
he makes Rome plead her own cause, as a spouse forsaken by her
bridegroom. " Behold me at your feet," she is made to exclaim ;
"were I as in the days of my youth I need not declare my name;
but worn out as I am, and disfigured by poverty and sorrow, I must
name myself to be recognised. Know, then, that I am Rome, once
famous throughout the whole world : can you discern any traits of my
ancient beauty ? Yet, alas ! it is less age which has effaced them,
than the long regret for your absence ! " It was a strange device for
setting the truth before the eyes of the Pontiff; but in a second
epistle the poet continues his allegory in a yet more touching strain.
"Holy Father," he writes, "I have seen at your palace door a
venerable lady whom I seemed to know, yet could not name ; she
was sad, and her appearance showed signs of poverty and neglect,
yet withal she bore the traces of unforgotten majesty. Royalty was
in her countenance, and she spoke with the voice of command;
even through her rags you could discern her mighty soul. I asked her
name, but she hardly dared pronounce it ; only through her broken
sobs did I catch the name of Rome."2
Yet severer and more terrible were the warnings and remonstrances
addressed to Gregory XL by St. Bridget of Sweden. Her dying
words were carried to him in 1373 by Alphonsus- Vadaterra, and were
calculated to rouse the most sluggish conscience.3 And meanwhile
his Legates never wearied of conjuring him to come, and to come
quickly, if he would prevent a frightful scandal and restore peace to
1 Ep. vii. (ed. Wite.) p. 48. 2 Petrarch, lib. i., epist. 2 and 4.
3 Rev. S. Brid., lib. iv. chap, cxxxix.

The French Councillors. 323
Italy. To one and all Gregory replied by saying that it was indeed
his purpose to come ; but weeks and months passed on and brought
fresh pretexts for delay, and fresh obstacles on the part of the
Cardinals; nor was it until he had been fortified by the heroic
presence of Catherine that he at length gained from her the courage
to obey his convictions. In the letters she had addressed to him
before her coming to Avignon she had urged his speedy return in
words which, if they displayed less poetic grace than those of Petrarch,
had yet a winning sweetness that was not to be found in the terrific
adjurations of St. Bridget. On her arrival at the court she found
the question one of daily discussion, and quickly comprehended
where the real difficulty lay. The upright mind and tender heart of
Gregory were overborne by the opposition of his French councillors,
who found no difficulty in devising arguments to support their own
wishes. In particular they set before him the example of Clement
IV., who made it a rule to do nothing without consulting the Sacred
College. A greater Pontiff, they argued, had never lived ; and would
Gregory depart from this wise precedent, and dare to take so momen
tous a step on his own sole responsibility? Gregory listened and
hesitated, and finally appears to have sent a message to Catherine to
ask her opinion of the matter. Her reply is worthy of being studied,
so skilfully does she in her lucid and inartificial language unravel
the fallacy, and defeat the manoeuvres of these false councillors.
" Holy Father," she says, " I, your miserable little daughter Catherine,
desire to see you immovable as a rock in your holy resolutions,
so that you may be able to resist all the cunning artifices by which
the enemy would prevent your return, and hinder all the good which
he knows it will cause. Your Cardinals allege the example of Clement
IV., who would undertake nothing without the advice of the Sacred
College. It is true he often renounced what seemed to him to be
best, in order to follow their advice. But, alas ! those who cite the
example of Clement IV. are careful to say nothing at all about that
of Urban V, who in things doubtful did, indeed, ask their advice, but
in things which to him were as clear and evident as the duty of your
return is to you, he followed his own judgment, and did not trouble
himself about contrary opinions. It seems to me that the counsel
of the good should always tend to the love of God, the salvation of
souls, and the reform of Holy Church, not to the love of self: and
that such counsel should be listened to rather than that which
proceeds from men who love only the honours and pleasures of this

324 They try to alarm Gregory.
life. Oh, I beg of your Holiness, for the love of Jesus crucified, not
to delay. Hasten, and fear nothing; if God is with you, nothing
will be against you. Hasten, and you will restore the crimson bloom
of life to the cheeks of your Spouse, who is lying now in the pallor
of death." J The famous appeal to the practice of Clement IV. soon
fell to the ground, but the Cardinals had a more powerful weapon in
reserve. They urged — as they and their predecessors had continued
for more than sixty years to urge — the danger of returning to a country
so torn with civil disorders as Italy. Nay, they whispered that the
Italians were skilful assassins ; and they asserted as a well-known fact
that the poison was already prepared which would be administered
to the Pontiff as soon as he had set foot within the walls of Rome.
He would then leave the soil of France which he loved, and which
loved him so well, to find a cruel and ignominious death in Italy !
Did not every one know that Urban V. had been poisoned, and that
precisely at the moment when he was preparing a second time to
return to Rome ? Would he not take warning by such an example ?
It must be owned that in their eagerness to scare the timid heart
of Gregory, the Cardinals had here committed themselves to a notable
blunder. For if Urban V., who died at Avignon, had been, as they
asserted, the victim of poison, it is plain that the poison must have
been administered, not at Rome but in their own city ; and if, further
more, he had been thus assassinated at the moment when he purposed
returning to Italy, the crime must have been perpetrated by those
who sought to hinder his return, — a line of argument which would
bring the matter very close to their own doors. Nevertheless, they
made as much as they could of the spectral fears which they had thus
conjured up; and having discovered how greatly Catherine's influence
weighed with the Pope, who regarded her as a Saint, they contrived
that a letter should be delivered to him, purporting to come from
another person of reputed sanctity,2 which warned him not to go to
Rome if he were not prepared to be immediately assassinated.
Catherine was of too fearless a nature herself to allow of much
importance being attached to these appeals to cowardice. To her it
seemed impossible that any man could be held back by fear from
doing what he knew was right. And she quickly exposed the miser
ably bad logic of her opponents, and the transparent forgery of which
they had been guilty. " This letter," she said, " purports to come
from a just and virtuous man ; it will not be. difficult for your Holi-
1 Letter 7. 2 Supposed to be B. Peter of Arragon.

Catherine's Reply. 325
ness to ascertain if this be so, and for the honour of God you are
bound to examine into it. For my own part, as far as I can under
stand the case, its language is not that of a servant of God. It
seems to me to be a forgery, and the hand that forged it is not a very
skilful one ; he ought to be sent back to school, for he writes like a
child. Observe, Holy Father, he tries to appeal to the weakest part of
human nature, the fears which those entertain who have an excessive
love of their own ease and safety, and who shrink from the least
bodily suffering. This is his main argument, but by the grace of God
I trust your Holiness cares more for God's honour and the salvation
of your flock than for yourself; like a good pastor who is ready to
lay down his life for his sheep. Then this false councillor goes on
to tell you that your return to Rome would, indeed, be a most holy
and excellent thing, only that he is afraid they are preparing poisons
for you. He advises you to send trusty men before you, who will
find poison ready on the tables (that is, no doubt, in the shops,
where they are preparing it), in order to give it to you in a few days,
or in a month, or in a year. For my part it seems to me you might
quite as easily find poison on the tables in Avignon, or any other
city, as on those of Rome, and that in a month, or a year, according
as might suit the purchaser ; nevertheless the writer of this letter
would have you send some one to Rome to search for it, and mean
while delay your journey ; and all the time he himself is adminis
tering the worst of all poisons ; he is trying to prevent you from
doing that which God demands of you. If now you do not set out,
you will cause a great scandal, and you will be accused of falsehood —
you, who sh in the chair of Truth : for you have announced and
fixed your return ; and if you do not keep your word you will cause
trouble and scandal to many hearts. I admire the words of this
writer who begins by advising good and holy actions, and then desires
you to give them up out of a fear of your bodily safety. That is not
the language of the servants of God, who would never abandon their
holy undertakings for any bodily or temporal fear, not even for the
risk of life itself. Otherwise they would never attain their end, for
it is perseverance alone that is crowned with glory. Be firm then to
your purpose, most Holy Father ; it is the only means of securing
peace with your revolted children and the reformation of the Church.
Then you will satisfy the desires of those who desire to see you raise
the standard of the holy Cross; and then you will be able to

326 Conversation on the Crusade.
administer to those poor infidels the Blood of the Lamb, of which you
hold the key." x
These last words show us that Catherine had not forgotten the
Crusade, and that the difficulties of the time did not seem to her by
any means to have closed that question. In fact, Raymund tells us
that it was one of the chief objects of her journey to Avignon, and
that it often formed the subject of conversation between her and the
Pope. As has been elsewhere said, the project was a favourite one
with Gregory, though probably his views and plans regarding it
partook of the same shadowy character which attached to his other
resolutions. If so, Catherine was ready to give them substance. One
day when she was in the company of Gregory he adverted to the
subject, saying, " First of all we must establish peace among
Christians, and then we will organise a Crusade." "Pardon me,
Holy Father," she replied, " but the proclamation of the holy war will
be the best means of re-establishing peace among Christians. All
the turbulent soldiers who now keep up division among the faith
ful will cheerfully go and combat in that sacred cause; very
few will refuse to serve God in the profession which pleases them,
and it will be a means of expiating their offences : the fire will thus
be extinguished for want of fuel. You will thereby, Holy Father,
accomplish several excellent things at once — you will bestow peace
on such Christians as require it, and you will save many great
sinners. Should they gain important victories, you could act, in
consequence, with the Christian princes ; if they are overcome, you
will at least have procured salvation to their perishing souls ; and
besides, you might convert a number of Saracens." 2
This was the policy she constantly recommended ; and she re
garded it as the most likely means of putting a stop to that
fratricidal contest between France and England which had for years
been the open wound of Christendom. Wonderful to say, she made
a convert to her views in the person of one who had come to
Avignon for the express purpose of counteracting her influence.
This was Louis, Duke of Anjou, brother to Charles V. of France.
1 Letter 10. The letters to Gregory quoted in this chapter were all written at
Avignon, and seem to have been summaries of conversations already held with
him. They are in Latin, not Italian. Gregory being ignorant of the latter lan
guage, the conversations between him and Catherine were necessarily restricted,
and she seems, on leaving him, to have dictated their substance to her secretaries,
who translated her words into Latin before sending them to the Pope.
2 Legend, Part 2, cha.p. ix.

Louis, Duke of Anjou. 327
He was the second son of King John, whom he had replaced as
hostage in England. His ambition was greater than his ability, but
it would seem that his acquaintance with Catherine for a moment
awakened in him nobler and better aspirations than any of which he
had hitherto been conscious. He was not content with ceasing to
oppose her, he desired to be regarded by her as a friend, and even
a disciple. No doubt her very appearance in the midst of that gay
and luxurious capital read a silent lesson to many hearts, who, while
they had no courage to free themselves from the shackles of a
worldly life, could nevertheless feel and do homage to the power of
sanctity. They listened to her, as in old time Felix listened to St.
Paul, and like him they trembled when she discoursed " of justice,
and chastity, and the judgment to come." 1 They gave to truth the
homage of a passing sigh that bespoke regret for wasted years, and
a kind of wish that better things were possible for them ; and then
they put the thought away "till a more convenient season," and
plunged afresh into the old track of habit. But in the heart of Louis
of Anjou the Saint appears to have awakened a deeper interest, and
he begged her to accompany him to his castle at Villeneuve, that he
might introduce her to his Duchess, and apart from curious eyes
might open to her his secret heart. It was all one to Catherine
whither she went, if there were question of helping the soul of one
of God's creatures. She proceeded then to the royal castle with as
much readiness and simplicity as she would have gone to the lepers'
hospital, if summoned on a mission of charity. Villeneuve was at
that time a place of some importance ; it was the border fortress of
France, and occupied the western bank of the Rhone, Avignon
standing on the east. From the platform of the Rocher des Doms
you look across the river towards its towers on the opposite side,
to which you now cross by a wooden bridge. But in the days of St.
Catherine the stone bridge built in 1188 by St. Benezet2 was still
1 Acts xxiv. 25.
2 St. Benezet was a poor shepherd boy, who, afflicted at the number of persons
drowned in crossing the river, which at this spot is rapid and very dangerous,
devised a scheme for building a bridge, and actually carried it into effect, directing
the work himself. (For the interesting story see his Life in the Bollandists, April.
Tom. ii., p. 958.) After his death he was buried in a chapel erected between the
second and third arches of the bridge, which is still standing, and where his body
remained for five hundred years. In 1669 a great part of the bridge fell, through
the swift current of the waters. The coffin was removed and placed in the
church of St. Didier, where it still lies. On this occasion, and again in 1674, it

328 Her Visit to Villeneuve.
standing, with its nineteen arches, and by this bridge she crossed to
what was then the important border town of Villeneuve-lez- Avignon.
She remained there three days, during which time Louis gave her
his entire confidence. He owned to her that he was weary of
the vanities in the midst of which he lived, and that he longed for
some way of escape. Would the Crusade open to him such a way ?
Should he take the Cross and seek the glory which he coveted, not
on a European throne, but amid the lances of the infidels ? The
thought came to him like a gleam of light piercing through the
clouds, and Catherine hesitated not to encourage him with her joyous
enthusiasm. " I am sure," she wrote to him on returning to Avig
non,1 " that if you fix your eyes on the Lamb sacrificed and consumed
with love upon the Cross to deliver you from death, it will excite
you to carry out your holy purpose, and will soon banish out of your
heart all thought of the vanities and foolish pleasures of the world.
They pass like the wind and leave death behind them in the
souls of those who possess them. I speak of those whose whole
life is given to pleasure and magnificence, to luxury and feasting.
It is on these things they spend their riches while the poor are
dying of hunger. They seek out abundance of everything delight
ful — beautiful plate, delicate dishes, sumptuous clothing — and never
give a thought to their poor soul that is perishing of hunger.
My dear and sweet lord, my brother in our sweet Jesus, do not
let yourself be drawn away by the world in these years of your vigo
rous and youthful manhood; remember the words of the Blessed
Christ, when He told the Jews that they were like sepulchres fair
outside, but within full of dead men's bones and of all corruption.
Oh, how true are those words ! Yes, . indeed ; those who seem so
fair and beautiful in all their costly finery have death in their hearts,
which are full of all that is shameful and detestable. But if, in the
Divine Goodness, you are steadfastly resolved to change your life,
those words will not apply to you. You will' raise the holy standard
of the Cross, you will efface all your past offences, and God will say
to you, " Beloved Son, you have laboured and suffered for Me, come
then to the nuptials of eternal life, where is fulness without disgust,
hunger without suffering, and pleasure without shame. Far different
was found perfectly incorrupt, unchanged in colour, and even with the eyes bright
and lively. St. Benezet is regarded as the patron saint of Avignon. Four
arches of his bridge are still standing. No doubt St. Catherine, when she crossed
over it, entered the chapel and venerated his relics. 1 Letter 190.

Louis resolves to take the Cross. 329
are the joys of this world ; they cost much and have no profit, and
the more a man partakes of them the emptier he becomes ; he seeks
enjoyment, and finds nothing but sadness. It was but yesterday
that you experienced the truth of what I say. You had prepared a
great entertainment and a magnificent feast, ahd it all ended in sorrow.
God so permitted it that He might show you and those who were
with you how vain and empty are all earthly joys."
Catherine is here alluding to an accident which had recently
occurred at a great banquet given by the Duke ; in the midst of which
a great wall suddenly fell and killed several of the guests. Coming
at that moment, the event served to foster the serious impressions
which Louis had received, and he authorised her to acquaint the
Pope with his determination of taking the Cross. She accepted
the commission with joy. " Holy Father," she said to Gregory, " I
announce to you that you have two Crusades to undertake. There
must be an interior Crusade against bad pastors and all the vices
with which the garden of the Church is overgrown; and there must be
an exterior Crusade against the infidels. You will tell me that for this
last a captain is needed ; he is found, and I can offer him to you.
The Duke of Anjou, out of devotion to the death of Christ and to
the holy Cross, desires to take on him this office. He will see you
soon, and speak of this great affair ; for God's sake give him good
words, and promise him that his hopes shall be realised."1
The deep veneration which the Duke had conceived for Catherine,
and the opinion he had formed by experience of her great qualities,
led him to entertain the project of taking her to Paris,2 that she
might negotiate a treaty of peace with England. In her humility she
declined this mission, though, doubtless, had it been laid on her by
obedience, she would have accepted it with as little hesitation as she
had shown on other occasions. But without some evident and unmis
takable token of God's will, Catherine was never forward in under
taking such responsibilities ; however, she did not refuse to write to
Charles, and we shall quote from her letter in this place, because for
the first time it brings her before us in connection with the affairs of
our own country.
It is a remarkable fact that in the part which the Roman Pontiffs
took in the quarrel between France and England, they seem to have
shown more consideration towards the latter country than might have
been expected, either from their own national predilections, or from
1 Letter 9. 2 Process, 1337.

330 Letter to Charles the Wise.
what would seem to us at first sight to have been the merits of the
case. A close study of the action of the Holy See during the whole
of that disastrous contest fills us with admiration for the strict im
partiality and zeal for the interests of right and justice which were
invariably displayed. The right and justice for which the Sovereign
Pontiffs contended were something higher than the claims of any
particular prince or nation; they pleaded the cause of God; they
sought to stop the effusion of Christian blood and the ruin of souls, far
dearer to them than the gain of any national advantage ; and at every
pause in the hostilities, their Legates were constantly at hand to offer
their mediation, and urge on both parties to accept terms of peace.
When we remember that the Popes of Avignon were all Frenchmen,
and all but exclusively surrounded by French councillors, their absten
tion from a party view in this matter, and the noble manner in which
they acted as the common fathers of Christendom, is truly wonderful ;
and it makes us understand Catherine's language in her letter to
the king of France, which in a merely political view of the matter
would otherwise seem a little hard.
She urges him to observe three things in the discharge of his royal
office, and as one worthy of being called the Wise.1 First, not to look
on his kingdom as his own property, but as something lent to him, of
which he only has the stewardship ; secondly, to maintain justice,
and to defend the rights of the poor ; " and the third thing," she
says, — " and this is the point which my soul most earnestly desires, —
is that you live in love and charity with your neighbour 2 with whom
you have so long been at war. Remember the example of our sweet
Lord, how, when the Jews cried, ' Crucify Him ! ' He replied by the
prayer, so full of meekness, ' Father, forgive them ! ' Follow His
example; show that you have a care for the salvation of your neigh
bour ; yes, my lord, do not trouble yourself about the loss of worldly
possessions ; such a loss will be a real gain to you, for it will enable
you to make peace with your brother. For my own part I wonder that
you are not ready to give your whole life to procure this end, con
sidering the destruction of souls and bodies caused by this miserable
war. Be sure that if you refuse to do what you can in this matter,
you will be held as the cause of these evils. Alas, for Christians !
and alas, for the infidels too ! for it is your policy that has prevented
1 Charles V. was surnamed the Wise, and Catherine did not forget the circum
stance. Vi prego che come Savio, facciate come buono dispensatore. (Letter 186.)
2 i.e., the King of England.

Gregory asks her Prayers. 331
and still prevents the Holy War ; and had it no other result than
this, it seems to me we should fear the judgments of God." l
Charles might have replied with considerable show of reason that
the policy she here complains of was nothing else than the patriotic
endeavour to rid his country of foreign invaders ; and Catherine
would have answered by reminding him at what a cost. The cost of
maintaining the contest was in fact the dissolution of Christendom,
and its poisoned fruits were to be gathered in the centuries that
followed. In the eyes of the Saint the glory of a patriot king would
have been surpassed by that of a champion of the Faith ; and she urged
him therefore, even at some sacrifice of national interests, to give
peace to Europe, that so all the children of the Church might unite
together to heal her wounds and check the onward march of the
infidels. " Follow," she says, " the way and the doctrine of the Cruci
fied Lamb. You will follow the way He trod if you bear injuries
with patience, and you will follow His doctrine if you are reconciled
with your neighbour. You will prove your love of God by helping
forward the holy war. Your brother Messire the Duke of Anjou
has resolved for the love of God to devote himself to this enterprise,
and it would be a terrible thing if you were to hinder or prevent it."
Meanwhile the question of the Pope's return to Rome did not greatly
advance. When Catherine came back from Villeneuve she found
things much as she had left them. Gregory continued to declare
that his determination had been taken, and that he was indeed about
to depart ; but there were no signs of actual preparation. He still
hesitated, and desired to obtain through the prayers of the Saint
some certain and unmistakable sign of the will of God; and for
this purpose he one day sent her a message that she was to pray for
him in a particular manner the next morning after Communion.
She obeyed ; and her prayer, uttered in ecstasy, was preserved and
written down by Thomas Petra, the Pope's Notary, afterwards secre
tary to Urban VI., and one who formed an intimate friendship with
the Saint during her stay at Avignon. It is printed first in the
collection of her prayers, and concludes as follows : — ¦" O Ineffable
Deity ! I am all sin, and unworthy to address Thee, but Thou canst
make me worthy. O Lord, punish my sins, and regard not my
miseries. I have one body, and to Thee I give it : behold my blood,
behold my flesh; destroy it, annihilate it, separate it bone from
'bone for the sake of those for whom I pray. If it be Thy will, cause
1 Letter 1 86.

332 Her Prayer in Ecstasy.
my bones and my very marrow to be ground to pieces for Thy
Vicar on earth, the bridegroom of Thy Spouse, for whom I pray;
that Thou wilt deign to hear me, and that he, Thy Vicar, may both
know Thy will, and love it, and perform it, to the end that we may
not perish ! Give him a new heart, that he may increase in grace,
and raise the standard of the holy Cross, and make even the
infidels to be sharers in the Passion and Blood of the Immaculate
Lamb, Thy only Son our Lord ! O Ineffable, Eternal Deity ! —
Peccavi Dotnine, miserere mei ! "
Having ended this prayer she remained for some time in a state
of abstraction, after which she again began to speak ; the prayer she
uttered being that which immediately follows the one above quoted.
Her Pisan disciple, Thomas Buonconti, was present at the time, and
carefully noted every circumstance ; and in the original manuscript
he has left a marginal note in his own handwriting to this effect :
" Having finished these words, she remained as before, — silent, im
movable, rigid and abstracted, with her arms crossed on her breast,
— for about an hour. After that we sprinkled her face with holy
water, and frequently invoked the name of Jesus Christ, and in a
little while she began again to draw breath, and said in a low voice,
' Praised be God, now and for ever I'"1
When Catherine returned to herself, she addressed two letters
to Gregory, in both of which she refers to the command which
he had given her to pray for him. " Holy Father," she says,
"Brother Raymund brought me your command to pray to God, in
case you should meet with obstacles. I did so after Communion,
and I saw none of the perils and dangers of which your councillors
speak." Then she declares to him, as from God, that the most
certain sign he could receive of the Divine will was the opposition
he was sure to encounter in carrying it out. But aware of the
immense difficulties that beset him on the part of his own family,
she advised him, if he had not the resolution to carry matters with a
high hand, to have recourse to stratagem, and while seeming to leave
his departure indefinitely deferred, to prepare for it in secret without
loss of time. In fact, Gregory's naturally affectionate heart was
suffering a martyrdom from the appeals made him by his nearest
1 Buonconti collected other prayers made at Avignon, in the presence of twelve
persons who heard the Saint in rapture holding converse with God. One of
these prayers was spoken on the vigil of the Assumption, and he describes her
state as "abstracted, unconscious, and rigid, so that it would have been easier to
break her limbs than to bend them." See Gigli, Tom. iv., Pref. xv., xvi.

She reminds Gregory of his Vow. 333
relatives,1 and the necessity he was under of struggling against his
own tenderness. One day having asked Catherine what she would
really advise him to do in these difficult circumstances, she turned
on him that penetrating look which had read the secrets of so many
hearts, and replied, " Who knows what ought to be done better than
your Holiness, who has long since made a vow to God to return to
Rome ? " Gregory started. He had indeed made such a vow long
back, but had spoken of it to no living soul. He perceived that
in very truth Catherine was possessed of powers given her by God ;
and recognising the sign of the Divine will which he had asked for,
he at once gave orders for the necessary preparations for departure2
Catherine would willingly now have taken her leave of the Court ;
her mission at Avignon was ended, and she was anxious to find her
self once more at Siena, where her long absence was exciting many
complaints. But Gregory felt the support of her presence far too
necessary for him to consent to part with her, and it was agreed
that she should leave Avignon on the same day 3 as himself, though,
as it would seem, not by the same route.
No further particulars have been left us of Catherine's residence in
the Papal city, nor have her biographers enabled us to follow the
track of her footsteps to any of the sanctuaries of the neighbourhood.
Yet there can be no doubt of her having often visited the Dominican
church, now crumbling to ruins, but then enjoying a certain renown
as having been recently the scene of the canonisation of St. Thomas.*
In this church, too, Catherine would have found the tomb of a
distinguished fellow-citizen. Simon Memmi, the Sienese painter, had
been summoned to Avignon by Benedict XII., to decorate some of
the halls of the Papal palace ; he died while still employed on these
works ; and he whose pencil had left in the church of Sta. Maria
Novella those many scenes from the life of St. Dominic, which
Catherine, during her residence at Florence, must daily have con-
1 The powerful influence exercised over Gregory by his family had not escaped
the eyes of Catherine, nor had she failed in her intercourse with him to combat it
vigorously. Writing to the Nuncio in Tuscany she says, " I assure you the Pope's
excessive tenderness towards his relatives is rapidly diminishing, thanks to the
goodness of God and the prayers and exhortations of His servants." (Letter 41.)
2 This narrative is given in the deposition of F. Bartholomew Dominic (Process,
1325). The fact of Gregory having really taken such a vow is corroborated by
Baluze (Vita Greg. XL, 949), and by Pius II. in the Bull of St. Catherine's
canonisation. 3 Process, 1337.
4 A few years since the hall where this event took place was still preserved,
bearing over its door this inscription : " Aula canonisAtionis s. thom^e."

334 Gregory leaves Avignon.
templated, found the fitting hospitality of a last resting-place among
the holy Father's white-robed children at Avignon. We need no
assurance that Catherine prayed at that tomb, and that the name
of the artist of her native city brought back grateful thoughts of
home during these weary weeks of exile. At last the welcome day of
departure arrived. Gregory, profiting by the Saint's advice, had
caused his galleys to be secretly got ready,1 and on the 13th of
September 1376 he left the palace, intending to journey by land to
Marseilles, and thence to embark for Rome. Up to the last moment
the courtiers had refused to believe in the possibility of such a
disaster ; and the Pope's aged father had the desperate courage to
try the effect of one last impassioned appeal. Throwing himself
across the threshold of the palace gate he there awaited a final
interview with his son ; and on his approach, raising a cry of bitter
anguish, " How ! " he exclaimed, " can my son so coldly forsake
not only his country, but even his old father ? Well, then, before he
departs, he shall pass over my body ! " But at that supreme moment
Gregory silenced in his own heart the cry of nature ; and it was not
Peter de Beaufort-Turenne, but the Vicar of Jesus Christ, who, as
he passed the prostrate figure of the old man, spoke these solemn
words as his only reply : Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis : et
conatlcabis leonem et draconem (Ps. xc. 13).
If Catherine heard them she must have given thanks to God who
had put into the heart of His servant a courage the more sublime as
it was wholly supernatural. We shall not follow the journey of the
Pontiff and his reluctant attendants any farther, though it has been
thought worthy to be made the subject of a grand historical poem ;
the author of which was no less a personage than Pierre Amely
d'Alete, Bishop of Sinigaglia and the Pope's almoner.2 But turn
ing our backs on the towers of Avignon we will accompany the
little group of Italian pilgrims who set out the same day, taking the
road, not to Marseilles but to the port of Toulon.
1 Biondo, lib. ii., cap. x.
2 This very curious production, which is not without its interest both historical
and geographical, may be found in Ciaconius (Vitas Pont, et Card. , Tom. ii. p. 578).
In his pompous leonine verses the good Bishop spares us nothing, not even the
voracity with which the whole party ate a good dinner at Villafranca: Cum
hilaritate nimia Villam Francham seu Portum Olivoj intravimus, prandium
canamque Icete, abunde, quasi famelici avi.de suscepimus. The dinners, indeed, are
generally carefully chronicled. At one place they got a very poor dinner, with
excellent wine ; at another, to their intense disgust, they were required to eat pork

335 )

CHAPTER IX.
THE RETURN TO SIENA.
(Oct. 1376 to Jan. 1377.)
CATHERINE had received from the Pope a hundred florins for
the expenses of her homeward journey, to which sum the Duke
of Anjou added a hundred francs. Her motive for directing her
course to Toulon rather than to Marseilles was to avoid coming in
contact with the Papal cortege, and also because her own journey to
Genoa was to be performed by land. She must unavoidably have
passed in the near neighbourhood of La Sainte Baume, and it is
difficult to believe that she would not have turned aside to visit the
sanctuary of her beloved patron and mother St. Mary Magdalen.
If so, however, her biographers have neglected to record the fact, and
it is at Toulon that we come on the first traces of the travellers.
Having reached that city they stopped at an inn, and Catherine,
according to her custom, retired at once to her apartment; she
wished to observe the strictest privacy, and had charged her com
panions not to let it be known she was there. " But," says Raymund,
" the very stones appeared to announce her arrival. First women, and
then men, flocked to our residence, demanding to see the Saint who
had come from the Pontifical Court. The landlord having admitted
she was there, it became impossible to keep back the crowd, and we
were forced to let the women enter. One of them brought an infant
whose body was so swollen that it was piteous to behold, and some
of those present asked Catherine to hold the child for a moment in
her arms. At first she refused, desiring to shun the notice of men,
but at last overcome by compassion, she did as they asked her ; and
hardly was the infant placed in her arms than it was completely
restored. I was not present when this occurred ; but it was so well
certified that the Bishop of the city sent for me, and relating what had
happened, informed me that the child was nephew to his Vicar-
General ; and he requested me to obtain for him an interview with
Catherine."

336 Bordighera.
From Toulon it is generally agreed that she and her companions
travelled to Genoa by land. Nevertheless we learn from a letter
written by John of the Cells to William Flete that at one point their
land journey suffered a temporary interruption. " A certain prelate,"
says Don John, " worthy of all credit, related to me as follows : ' I was
at Nurcia the same day that Catherine went to the Pope, and such
a multitude of men and women ran to receive her blessing, that to
my knowledge the heavenly virgin rose by night, and, taking ship, fled
from the tumult' " On the whole sea-coast from Tuscany to Mar
seilles no place of' this name occurs, unless indeed we identify it
with Nice, which by the Italians is called Nizza;1 but the mention of
the Pope's presence there renders it almost certain that some town
on the Gulf of Genoa is here intended ; and a little experience in the
fatality which accompanies the record of names will suffice to explain
the fact that Nurcia finds no place in modern geography.
The road which Catherine followed must have been that known
as the Corniche or Cornice, being the remains of the ancient Roman
Emilian way. Running along the side of the rocks and in some
places overhanging the sea, its dangers were increased by the torrents
which rush down from the hills, sometimes rendering even the present
coast-road difficult of transit. Its beauties at least equalled its
dangers, each turn of that mountain path opening on some new bay
or headland, while the waters of the Mediterranean would be seen
breaking in jewelled spray on the rocks below. Then as now the
eyes of the travellers would have been gladdened with the sight of
orange and lemon groves, perfuming the air with their rich blossoms,
and mingling their foliage with that of the olives and the stone pines ;
and at Bordighera Catherine would probably have found a welcome
from the Brethren of her Order long established on that lovely spot,
sometimes called " the Jericho of Italy " from the abundance of palm
trees which still give so Oriental an aspect to the scenery, and which,
with other features in the landscape, irresistibly awaken in the heart
of the traveller memories of the Holy Land.2
1 The theory of their identity has this difficulty. The accurate Bishop ot
Sinigaglia, in his Itinerary, informs us that the Pope's flotilla passed Nice on the
9th of October. Now on the 4th of October St. Catherine had gone on to
Voragine, and would certainly not have retraced her steps to Nice. (Notale relative
ad alcune visioni avute da Sta. Caterina nella terra Ji Voragine, ed altrove. Cod.
T. iii. 7 a, carte 295.)
2 " The noble palm trees of Bordighera almost gird it round on the western and
northern sides, and grow in profusion in coppices and woods, of all sizes, from the

Catherine at Voragine. 337
Continuing her journey, then, along this road (in the course of
which one of her companions treacherously abandoned her, taking
with him the money which she had given him for their expenses),
she arrived on the 3rd of October at Voragine or Varezza, a town
on the sea-coast, not far from Genoa. She desired to visit this place in
order to pay her devotions at the shrine of Blessed James of Voragine,
of the Order of Preachers, who in his day was Archbishop of Genoa,
and author of that celebrated collection of Saints' Lives, known as
the "Golden Legend." Catherine naturally felt an interest in a spot
connected with that holy man, with whose book she was perfectly well
acquainted. In fact, the "Golden Legend" was the most popular
book of spiritual reading in the Middle Ages, and St. Catherine
makes allusions to it in several of her letters. This visit to Voragine
is not mentioned by Raymund in his Legend, although it was accom
panied by some sufficiently remarkable circumstances. Bartholomew
Dominic, however, speaks of it in his deposition ; and certain notes
regarding it have been preserved in manuscript in the Communal
Library at Siena, from an authentic copy of which I will proceed to
restore this missing page of St. Catherine's history.
"A certain Simon Mafei of Voragine, a man of credit, in a docu
ment written on parchment and dated in the year 1381, which agrees
with others preserved in the Convent of St. Maria Annunciata of the
Order of Preachers, declares, that in the year 1376 St. Catherine when
returning from Avignon, whither she had gone to transact important
affairs regarding the Holy Church with the Sovereign Pontiff, came
into the parts of Voragine, that she might visit the country of the
Blessed James, Archbishop of Genoa. She was accompanied by F.
Raymund of Capua, her confessor, and she found the place, through
the destruction caused by the plague, so utterly depopulated, that
there remained only a very few people alive. The houses were all
deserted, and the grass was growing even over the gates. It was
with difficulty she could find any person to take her in and give her
hospitality. At last, passing through one street where now stands the
hospital called (MS. defective), she met, behind the house, a woman
gnarled giants of one thousand years' reputed age to little suckers that may be
pulled up by hand. There are probably now more palms in Bordighera alone
than in the whole of the Holy Land " (Dean Alford). " The olives here
tell us of Olivet and the garden ; the lilies carry us to the Sermon on the Mount ;
the hillside tanks, waving streams, and water-brooks swollen by sudden rain,
all speak to us of Palestine " (/. A. Symonds).

338 Her Prophecy.
of the place, named Costa, who lodged her in her house, and re
lated to her the cause of the depopulation of the said town. And
she, horrified by the narrative, as well as by all she had seen in the
neighbouring country, was moved by pity to make a special prayer
for the people who survived, and for all the inhabitants of the place,
recommending them to the Most Holy Trinity and to the Blessed
Virgin Mary. Before she left the said town, she told the people who
were yet to be found in it, that they must set about building a chapel
in honour of the Most Holy Trinity, and that the place would never
more be molested by the plague, and that whoever having the plague
on him should bring it to the town, should also take it away. In
the morning she took the road towards Genoa, in company with the
said Raymund her confessor, and passed through another street
which led to the Church of our Lady of the Annunciation (called
now Our Lady of Graces), founded in the year 1189, which was then
under the care of a certain hermit, but is now in the hands of the
Friars Preachers ; and being accompanied by a few peasants, when
she had arrived within a short distance of the spot, she told them, as
well as the said F. Raymund, that the town having had a man so
illustrious as the Blessed James, their compatriot, they should build
a convent for the brethren of the Order of Preachers, which was
done many years afterwards by some persons devout to the Order,
and among others by the aforesaid Simon Mafei. Then the Saint
with her confessor entered into the church and prayed there ; which
ended, they took their leave, thanking all for the charity shown them ;
and giving them a blessing, they turned their steps towards the city
of Genoa."
To this account we must append that of the most accurate of all
the Saint's biographers, F. Bartholomew Dominic, who gives us these
additional particulars in his deposition. " Having reached Voragine
about the hour of Vespers," he says, " Catherine called F. Raymune
to her, and said to him, ' God has even now made known to me
that, after some years have passed, you will on this same day, the
vigil of St. Francis, with your own hand transfer my body from one
tomb to another.' Raymund repeated these words the same evening
to Bartholomew, and the prediction was verified by the event. The
promise made by the Saint to the unfortunate inhabitants of Voragine
has also been fulfilled to the letter, down even to our own times ; and
that in a manner too remarkable to be passed without notice. The
Commune of the town lost no time in carrying out her instructions.

She reaches Genoa. 339
They erected a chapel in honour of the Holy Trinity, of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, and of the Blessed James of Voragine; and after the
canonisation of St. Catherine, they included her name also in the dedi
cation. Never since that time has the plague visited the town, and its
immunity from every kind of pestilence is a thing so generally known,
that on various occasions, when other places in the neighbourhood have
been suffering from this scourge, the inhabitants have taken refuge
here ; and by so doing have rendered the literal accomplishment of
the Saint's words more evident : for coming hither with the infection
on them, they have themselves died, but never communicated the
disease to any of the citizens of Voragine ; and instances of this extra
ordinary protection enjoyed by them are recorded in the year 1579,
1630, and 1706, and even in the more recent visitations of the cholera.
The gratitude of the people to their great protectress is literally un
bounded. By a decree of the Magistrates she was declared chief
patroness of their city ; a mass was ordered to be daily celebrated in
her honour within the chapel already mentioned, and her feast is cele
brated by processions and other extraordinary devotions, at which
persons from all the surrounding districts are accustomed to attend.
No inhabitant of Voragine would think of adopting any other means
of preservation from pestilence, and they take a pride in showing
themselves above the inhabitants of any other place, her true and
loyal clients." (Relaz. del Passagio di S. Cath. in Voragine, MS.
Siena.) On leaving Voragine the little party pursued their way to Genoa,
where they were charitably entertained for more than a month in the
house of a noble lady named Orietta Scotta. Caffarini calls her " a
devout and noble matron." Her family was in fact one of the most
illustrious of the land, and is thought to have been Scottish in origin,
and to have first settled in Italy in the time of Charlemagne. The
two brothers Amico and Gabriel, sons of William Scott, came to
Genoa in 11 20, and were given the command of the Genoese troops.
From Baldwin, son of Amico, descended Barnabo, the husband of
our Saint's hostess. The Scotti afterwards assumed the name and
arms of the Centurioni, but they were so proud of the connection of
their ancestress with St. Catherine, that the name of Orietta was care
fully perpetuated in the family. One letter addressed by the Saint to
this lady is printed in the collection of her epistles (No. 334). The
original of this letter was preserved by the Centurioni for 300 years
as a most precious relic, but it was unfortunately lost in the last

340 Gregory stops at Genoa.
century, passing with other valuable property into the possession of
another family.
Orietta's house was in the Via Caneto, leading to San Giorgio,
and to a very ancient Dominican convent. The letter above spoken
of is addressed to " Madonna Orietta Scotta, at the Cross of Caneto?
so called because at this particular spot the streets cross. This
house was still preserved in Burlamacchi's time, though it had then
passed into the hands of certain merchants ; and in it was still to
be seen St. Catherine's room, converted into a chapel.
Raymund informs us in his Legend that having reached Genoa some
days before Gregory, " Catherine stopped there in order to wait for
him." These words imply, but do not actually inform us, that they
met again at Genoa ; but the interesting fact has been carefully re
corded by Caffarini in his Supplement. He gives it on the authority
of F. Severino of Savona, who related to him how Gregory, being
much fatigued by his disastrous sea-voyage, stopped some days at
Genoa to rest. How disastrous the voyage had been the Itinerary
of Peter d'Amely informs us. Not to speak of the abundant tears
shed by all on quitting France, we learn that they were once forced
to land on a desert and inhospitable shore to escape the violence of
the tempest. On the feast of St. Francis they encountered another
storm, and narrowly escaped shipwreck. Peter expresses himself as
perfectly astonished, at the inhospitable fury of the elements, but at
last hits on the happy explanation that it must have been caused by
the wickedness of those Romans, to whom, the excellent Pontiff was
being so barbarously transported.
They at length reached Genoa on the 18th of October, and
remained there ten days. During this time the most discouraging
rumours reached Lthem from Rome, where the popular leaders, who
had possessed themselves of the chief authority in the absence of the
Pope, by no means pleased at the prospect of having to resign their
power, were stirring up the people to insurrection. Florence, too,
was reported to be on the verge of some desperate measures, and
the French courtiers failednot to seize the opportunity of representing
to Gregory the madness of the enterprise he had undertaken, and to
urge him, while there was yet time, to bend back his steps to the more
hospitable shores of France. The question of a retreat to Avignon
was even debated in Consistory ; when learning that Catherine was
in Genoa, Gregory resolved to seek an interview with her, for the
purpose, as it would seem, of confirming his wavering resolution.

His Visit to Catherine. 341
He went, therefore, by night to the residence of Orietta. There
were two reasons for this singular arrangement. In the first place,
the Pope was unwilling to summon Catherine to come to him, lest
he might thereby arouse the watchful jealousy of those who sur
rounded him ; whilst it was equally impossible for him to repair to
her house in the daytime without exciting public notice : for, from
the dawn of day until the evening, a countless multitude of persons
of all ranks flocked to see and consult her, in such sort that she was
not left free for a moment. It did not appear suitable to Gregory's
dignity to appear in the midst of the crowd, nor did he think it
prudent to summon her to his presence, desiring that their interview
should be unknown to the members of his suite. He went therefore
to her house as a private individual, at an hour when she was less
beset by visitors. On seeing the Sovereign Pontiff enter her chamber,
Catherine humbly prostrated at his feet. He at once raised her and
spoke to her with much affection and kindness ; and after a long con
ference, begged her to grant him one favour before he departed : it
was that she would remember him every day in her prayers. It need
hardly be said that she promised to obey his wishes, adding with
simplicity and filial confidence, that she trusted he would also not
forget her when he offered the Holy Sacrifice. At last they separated,
and Gregory withdrew, much edified, after giving her his benediction.1
Caffarini, in his narrative of this interesting incident, has dropped
no hint that the courage of the Pontiff stood in need of reinforce
ment, or that Catherine employed her influence with him to counter
act that of his courtiers. Nevertheless, the fact is preserved in a note
affixed to the third of her Prayers, which runs as follows : " This
prayer was made at Genoa by the said virgin, to dissuade Pope Gre
gory from the project of returning back: things contrary to the journey
to Rome having been deliberated on in the Consistory." The prayer
itself reveals the circumstances that inspired it; possibly the words
flowed from her lips that same night during the anxious hours which
elapsed after Gregory had quitted her. " O Eternal God ! " she
exclaims, " permit not that Thy Vicar should yield to the counsels of
the flesh, nor judge according to the senses and self-love, nor that
he suffer himself to be terrified by any opposition. O Immortal
Love ! if Thou art offended by his hesitations and delays, punish
them on my body which I offer to thee to be tormented and
destroyed according to Thy will and pleasure ! " Her supplications
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. I, § i.

342 Neri s Illness and Recovery.
prevailed. On the 28th of October, Gregory left Genoa and directed
his course towards Leghorn. There was no more talk of a retreat ;
and thus for the second time had Catherine infused her own strength
into his heart, and braced him for his noble purpose. She was her
self detained at Genoa for more than a month in consequence of
sickness breaking out among her companions. The first who fell ill
was Neri di Landoccio, and the pain he suffered was so intense, that
unable either to lie in bed or stand upright, he crawled about the
room on his hands and knees. Catherine, compassionating his state,
desired that a physician should be sent for, and Raymund accord
ingly summoned two skilful leeches to prescribe for the sick man ;
but their prescriptions had no beneficial effect. "They told me
plainly," he says, "that they had no hopes of saving the patient. When
I announced this sad news to the others who were at table with me,
Stephen Maconi rose at once, full of sorrow, and hastened to Cathe
rine's room. Throwing himself at her feet, he begged her with tears
not to suffer his brother and companion who had undertaken this
journey for God's sake and hers, to die far from his home, and to be
buried in a strange land. Catherine, much moved, said to him with
a mother's tenderness, ' My son, why are you thus troubled ? If God
wishes now to crown your brother Neri's labours, you ought rather to
rejoice than to mourn.' But Stephen persisted in his prayer. 'Oh,
sweetest, dearest Mother,' he said, 'I conjure you to help him,
for I know well enough that you can, if only you will.' Then
Catherine, unable to resist his appeal and the movements of her own
tender heart, replied : ' I only wished to see you resigned to the
will of God; but since you will have it so, remind me of your request
before I receive Communion at Mass to-morrow, and I promise to
pray to God for him ; and you, too, must pray that I may be heard.'
Full of joy at having obtained this promise, Stephen failed not to
present himself to Catherine the next day as she was going to Mass,
and kneeling humbly, he said, 'Mother, do not disappoint me'
She gave him a look of comfort, and passed on to the chapel ; and
having communicated, remained a long time in ecstasy. At last she
returned from her abstraction, and observing Stephen who knelt by
her side, she gave him a comforting smile, and whispered, 'You
have obtained your grace' 'What, Mother?' said Stephen; 'will
Neri be cured? ' ' Yes,' she replied, ' God will assuredly restore him
to us.' At these words Stephen hastened to his friend with the
good news, and soon afterwards the physicians arrived, and having

Stephen falls ill. 343
questioned the patient, began to comment on his wonderful improve
ment, and to say that though they had given him up the day before,
they believed now that he would recover. And so, indeed, he did,
and before long was perfectly restored."
Stephen himself was the next to fall ill, worn-out with the sorrow
he had gone through, and the fatigue of nursing the others. Every
one had warned him that without care he would certainly be ill ; and
so it came to pass. "He kept his bed," says Raymund, "and we
did our best to assist and console him, for he was universally beloved."
Catherine hearing of his state came to see him, accompanied by her
confessor and companions. " She asked me," says Stephen, " what
I was suffering, and I, delighted at her sweet presence, answered
cheerfully, 'They tell me that I am suffering, hut I know not what'
Then with maternal tenderness she laid her hand an my forehead, and
said, shaking her head a little, ' Do you hear what that child says ?
" They tell me that I suffer, but I know not what," and all the time
he has a violent fever.' Then turning to me, She .added, ' I will not
allow you to follow the example of the others, but I command you
in virtue of holy obedience no longer to have this sickness. I will
have you completely restored, so that you may serve your companions
as before' Then she began to speak of God, as was her custom, and
while she conversed, I found myself perfectly cured. I interrupted
her discourse to declare my recovery to all who stood by, who were
lost in wonder ; and since that time I have enjoyed long years of
perfect health. Catherine spoke in the same tone of authority when
she cured the venerable John of Vallombrosa, as he affirmed to me
when he was in his last agony, at the Abbey of Passignano, near
Siena. I heard from the very lips of Catherine a similar order
given, in the absence of the same Monk, to two of his disciples whom
he had sent to her. She commanded him through them to be sick
no longer, and to come to her without delay, which he did immedi
ately. The holy religious wrote an admirable letter on this occasion,
which I carefully preserve in our convent." 1
The long delay, caused by the sickness of so many of the party, was
meanwhile exciting great complaints on the part of those who awaited
their return to Siena. Lapa, in particular, bitterly complained, and
seems to have written to her daughter in a tone of fretful reproach,
to which Catherine replied with her usual sweetness and moderation :
"Mydearest mother in our sweet Jesus" (so she writes), "I, your miser-
1 Letter of Stephen Maconi, forming part of the Process.

344 Letter to Lapa.
able and unworthy daughter Catherine, desire to comfort you in the
Precious Blood of the Son of God. I wish to see you not only the
mother of my body, but also of my soul, so that loving my soul more
than my body, all inordinate tenderness may die in you, and then you
will not suffer so much for the loss of my bodily presence, but be
ready for God's honour to endure something, seeing that what I am
doing is for His glory. . . You know that it was His will that I should
go, and I am sure you wish me to do His will. . . So, like a good and
sweet mother, you must be content, and not be so disconsolate.
Remember how you acted when your children left you on account
of temporal affairs, and now when it is a question of eternal life, you
say you shall certainly die, if I do not soon return. All this comes
because you love that part of me which I owe to you (my body)
better than the part I received from God. Raise your heart a little
to the most sweet and holy Cross, and you will find it assuage every
pain. Consent to endure a little passing suffering to avoid the end
less punishment which we deserve for our sins. Strengthen yourself
in the love of our crucified Jesus, and do not think that you will ever
be abandoned either by God or by me. You will presently be con
soled, and then the joy will be greater than the pain. We shall soon
return, please God ; and should have been back before this, had it
not been for the serious illness of Neri ; Master John and Brother
Bartholomew have also been ill. Adieu." (Letter 169.)
But it was not her own mother alone who waxed impatient at the
delay. Catherine had to appease the discontent, not unmingled with
jealousy, of a more important personage. This was Donna Giovanna
di Corrado Maconi, the mother of Stephen. She had parted with
her son, and reluctantly sanctioned his forming one of the company
who went to Avignon,1 but she began to be uneasy as month passed
after month, and still his return was deferred. Catherine wrote her
a letter, in which she exhorted her to use her wealth as the steward
of Christ, and to devote herself to the charge of bringing up her chil
dren ; mindful that they, no less than her worldly possessions, were lent
to her by Him, and must be given to His service. " Make the sacri
fice of yourself and of your children to God," she says, " and if you
see that God calls them, do not resist His sweet wilL If He takes
them from you with one hand, do you give them to Him with two,
like a good and true mother who loves their salvation. Do not choose
1 Reluctantly, as we find from Letter 354 ; where St. Catherine speaks of " the
pain and sorrow which the departure of Stephen caused you."

Letter to Stephens Mother. 345
their state in life for them; mothers in the world sometimes say, ' I
wish my children to please God, and I think they will serve Him as
well in the world as in any other state ; ' but how often it happens that
such poor mothers, by insisting on giving their children to the world,
keep them neither for the world nor for God." She concludes her
beautiful letter (No. 355) as follows : "Take courage, and have patience,
and do not be troubled because I have kept your Stephen so long :
I have taken good care of him and watched over him well, for the
affection between us makes of us two but one and the same thing,
and your interests, as you know, are mine. You, his mother, gave
him birth once, and I also desire to give to him, and you, and all your
family, a spiritual birth, in tears and anguish, offering my prayers to
God without ceasing for your salvation and that of all your family.
I will say no more ; remember me to Corrado, and bless for me all
your family, specially my new little plant, just planted in the garden
of the Church. x Take good care of her, and bring her up in all
virtue, that she may shed forth perfume among the other flowers.
May God keep you in His holy grace ! Adieu."
During their stay at Genoa, Catherine effected much for the salva
tion of souls. Caffarini, in the chapter of his Supplement already
quoted, gives some interesting particulars, communicated to him by
Fra Severino, the eyewitness of all he relates. " Fra Severino," he
says, " told me that during the long stay which Catherine made at
Genoa, many men of letters, doctors, and masters in theology came
to discourse with her. All who heard her with admiration and
respect were visibly favoured by God; but, on the contrary, the proud
who contemned and sought to discredit her were severely punished.
Among other examples we may name that of a certain doctor of great
reputation and eloquence, but of no less presumption and vanity.
He audaciously sneered at Catherine, and spoke with contempt of
her profound wisdom. But he did not go long without punishment,
for the Divine vengeance struck him with a sudden and terrible death.
In the same city of Genoa, professors of letters, sacred and profane,
lawyers, the chief senators, and other persons of authority and credit
were not ashamed to ask and receive her wise counsels. It was
observed that all who spoke with her, quitted her agitated, and full
of a certain kind of terror, as though something extraordinary had
happened to them. She exhorted all to penance with much sweet
ness, and attracted their esteem by the holiness of her life."
1 A new-born daughter.

346 They leave Genoa.
Genoa long retained the memory of St. Catherine's visit, and
cherished the traces of her presence with jealous care. The Ligurian
Academy, addressing its congratulations to Jerome Gigli on his
publication of her works in 1707, dwells with pardonable pride on the
fact, that next to Siena and Rome no city is richer in its associations
with her name. " The streets she went through, the places where
she lived, the apartments she occupied, may still be distinctly pointed
out. From Capo di Monte towards the east is seen the ancient and
solitary monastery of St. Fruttuoso, which gave her shelter both on
her way from Tuscany to Avignon, and on her return. Towards the
west lies the town of Voragine, which she visited. The rural district
that leads to the Croce di Caneto was more than any other sanctified
by her footsteps. The house of Orietta Scotta still belongs to the
descendants of that lady, and in it is the very chamber chosen by the
Saint as her place of retirement and prayer." 1
' After remaining at Genoa rather more than a month, the travellers
once more took ship and sailed for the coast of Tuscany. Their
passage was not unattended with danger, if the circumstances briefly
related in the deposition of Peter Ventura belong to this time. " It
chanced once," he says, " when the Saint was travelling by sea, that
she was overtaken by a violent tempest, so that the vessel in which
she was, suffered shipwreck and was broken to pieces, but she happily
reached the shore safe and sound with all her companions." It would
have been more satisfactory to have had fuller details regarding this
adventure, but the biographers of the Saint too often observe the
rule of retrenching from their narrative the names of places, persons,
and the dates of time. We know of no other occasion when Catherine
was exposed to the perils of the sea except her short trip to Gorgona,
which was certainly attended by no such disaster to her and her
party ; though it is barely possible that an incorrect report of the
accident which happened to her escort on their return to the island
may have furnished ground for the above narrative. Certain it is,
that neither Raymund nor any of the other companions of the Saint
on the voyage from Genoa have alluded to the shipwreck, though
Raymund in his Legend lets us know that they were in real peril.
He tells the story, however, more by way of illustrating Catherine's
confidence in God, than with any view of describing the incidents of
their journey. He does not even inform us in so many words that
the circumstances of which he speaks happened at this particular
1 Vocabolario Cateriniano, p. 395.

Peril at Sea. 347
time, though we know it must have been so, this being the only sea-
voyage in which he was her companion. " I remember," he says,1
" that being on board of a ship with her and many other persons,
the wind lowered into a dead calm towards midnight, and the pilot
became extremely anxious : we were in a dangerous channel ; if the
wind had taken us sideways, we might have been thrown on some
neighbouring islands or floated into the open sea. I gave notice to
Catherine of our danger. She answered in her ordinary tone : ' Why
does that trouble you, what have you to do of yourselves ? ' This
was her ordinary expression in time of trouble. She considered that
a soul which has fixed its thoughts on God should allow no anxiety
or distraction to cause it disquiet ; for God knows all, and can do all,
and He will watch and provide for the necessities of such as meditate
on Him. Hence, whenever we entertained any fear for ourselves or
our brethren, she would often say, ' What have you to do of yourselves]
let God act. His eye is over you ; and He will protect you.' When,-
therefore, I heard her say these words, I took comfort and was
somewhat reassured ; but presently the wind changed, and blew in
the direction dreaded by the pilot. I mentioned it to Catherine :
' Let him change the helm, in the name of God,' she said, ' and
follow the wind that Heaven shall send him.' The pilot obeyed,
while she, meantime, bowed down her head and made her prayer to
God. And we had not kept on that course so far as a man would
shoot an arrow, but that there came a gracious wind that brought us
to the haven that we desired, where we arrived to our great wonder
and gladness about the hour of Matins, singing all, with a joyful voice,
Te Deum laudamus."2 This "desired haven" was the Port of
Leghorn, where they once more set foot on the dear old soil of
Tuscany, and where they were met by Lapa, her impatience to
embrace her beloved child not suffering her to await her coming to
Siena ; for, before returning thither, Catherine was to pay a short
visit to Pisa. Stephen's joy was a little damped on finding that
an arrangement had been made on his behalf, in virtue of which he
was to precede the rest of the party, and travel with one companion
to Siena, charged with sundry letters and commissions, and feeling
1 Legend, Part I, ch. ix.
2 In the above passage two paragraphs have been transposed for the sake of clear
ness, and a few of the picturesque phrases adopted which occur in Father Fen's
translation, though his narrative as a whole is less intelligible than the original
Legend.

348 Letter from Stephen to Neri.
not unlike a truant schoolboy to whom the unwelcome hour has
come for returning home.1
He lost no time in reporting himself on his arrival at Siena, and
consoled himself for the separation by despatching a grumbling sort
of epistle to Neri, written half in jest and half in earnest. It is
dated from Siena, Nov. 29th, 1376, and runs as follows : —
" Dearest Brother, — You must know that last Friday we reached
Siena safe and sound, though we had many alarms on the road, for the
route we took by Peccioli is very dangerous by reason of bandits, and
all kinds of wicked things are being committed there just now, which
had I known, I should never have come that way. But certainly it
is manifest that the prayers of our dearest Mother have had much to
do both with our journey and our safe arrival here. I have given
Sano 2 the letters and the other things you sent, and all the sons and
daughters of our dearest Mother have had the greatest consolation
from them ; and they are now impatiently awaiting your return, and
I with them, for it seems to me that you delay much too long. Do
beg all you can that your return may be soon, otherwise I shall
repent having come back, and shall perhaps make up my mind to
be the bearer of this letter myself. I will say no more at present,
only asking you to salute our dearest Mother for me, and to recom
mend me to F. Raymund, F. Maestro, F. Thomas, F. Bartholomew,
and Fra Felice ; embrace Monna Lapa, and recommend me to my
mothers, Monna Cecca, Monna Alessia, and Monna Lisa, begging
them to pray for poor miserable me. God knows what I should do
with myself, if the hope of the time being short did not keep me up.
" To Neri Landoccio at the Dominican Convent of Sta. Caterina,
in Pisa."
His next letter is dated the 8th of December, and from it we find
he had written two others which are not preserved. Stephen was
certainly a famous correspondent, and as much disposed to rattle in
1 The reader will understand that these details, not given in any of the Lives of
St. Catherine hitherto published, are not imaginary ; they are furnished by the
very interesting collection of " Letters of St. Catherine's Disciples," preserved in
MS. at Siena, and published by Signor Grottanelli in 1868, at the end of the
Leggenda Minore. From them we learn the fact of the Saint's second visit to
Pisa, which has hitherto been overlooked.
2 This, of course, was Sano di Maco, Catherine's trustworthy old family
friend.

Visit to Pisa. 349
a charming kind of way with his pen as with his tongue. He informs
Neri that these two letters (which seem to have miscarried) were
pretty long, yet nothing at all in comparison of what he would like
to have written. " I do beg of you," he says, " by the sincere love I
bear you, and which I know you return, reply as soon as you can
and tell me how matters stand ; whether they are accomplished or
about to be accomplished ; you can easily write in such a way as that
no one but myself will understand. Recommend me to our dearest
Mother a thousand times and more, tell her that at last I have obeyed
her injunctions in the matter of the ridotto?- Recommend me to all
the good ladies one by one, and tell Monna Alessia that her pretty
little cell is waiting for her ; and remember me in a special way to
Monna Lapa. Also to my fathers, Master John and F. Raymund,
and the others, each of them, one by one ; and beg of them to have
compassion on us poor disconsolate wretches, and to make haste
home ; and tell them all to pray for wicked me."
We have nothing to show what the business was which took Cathe
rine to Pisa at this time, but it must be remembered that the affairs
of Florence were as yet by no means settled, and she was doubtless
anxious to secure the fidelity of Pisa and the adherence of Peter
Gambacorta to the cause of the Church. In fact, the influence of
Florence was so powerful over the other Tuscan republics that though
far from desirous of quarrelling with the Pope, both Pisa and Lucca
had involved themselves in difficulties, in consequence of their keep
ing up a friendly intercourse with the rebellious city which lay under
the interdict When Gregory stopped at Leghorn on his way to
Corneto, ambassadors from Pisa and Lucca came to meet him bearing
magnificent presents. Pierre d'Amely records the fact, and at the same
time reveals the lurking distrust felt by the Pontiff and his court of
these fair professions. " Beware, O Pontiff ! " he says, " be not seduced
by their flattering words ! If they had not abjured their fidelity to
the Church, would they not have come with their armies to have
delivered thee from the Florentines ? Yet instead of that, they have
contracted an alliance with the guilty city ! " We must not, however,
judge this conduct too harshly. It was an embarrassing position for
the less powerful Tuscan cities, who had to choose their line of con.
duct between the cross-fire of a double danger. If they took an open
part against Florence, she was strong enough to extinguish their
1 Grottanelli explains in a note that in Siena this word is applied to the
entrance-hall of a house ; but it appears to have many meanings.

350 Return to Siena.
independence ; and if they kept on terms with her, they ran the risk
of being included in the censures of the Church, which were directed
against her and all who should take any part in her misdeeds.
Questions connected with these circumstances were doubtless the
cause of Catherine's journey to Pisa at the present time. They must
indeed have been pressing affairs that could prolong her absence
from Siena, which had already lasted eight months. Her return took
place towards the end of December, or the beginning of January,
when she once more found herself in her old home of the Fullonica.
How fair must its humble walls have appeared to her after the gaudy
splendour of Avignon ! Who can doubt that Stephen was waiting
there to welcome them home, to exhibit the ridotto and Monna
Alessia's charming little cell, and everything on which he had
expended his superfluous energies during that weary month of sus
pense ? But all this must be left to our imagination, for no traces of
such scenes have been preserved by Catherine's biographers. What
ever may have been the joys of that happy moment of reunion, they
did not prevent Catherine from following in her heart the progress of
Gregory towards his capital. He was then at Corneto, where he
arrived on the 5th of December, and before departing for Rome on
the 13th of January,1 Catherine addressed him a letter which reads
like a mother's last charge to her son before sending him forth to
some glorious and difficult enterprise.
After reminding him that no man can be the servant of God unless
he be firm, constant, and patient, and that sensuality and love of
ease deprive the soul of constancy, and render our hearts narrow
and pusillanimous, she continues thus :
" O most Holy Father, and my own sweet Father, open the eye of
your understanding, and you will see that if virtue is needed by every
man in order that he may save his soul, it is doubly needed by you,
who have to feed and govern the mystical body of the Church, which
is your Spouse. What need you have of constancy, of fortitude,
and of patience ! Remember you were still young when you were
planted in the garden of the Church, and you have to combat against
our threefold enemies — the world, the flesh, and the devil. I trust in
God's goodness you will resist them all, and fulfil the end for which
God created you, namely, to render honour and glory to His Holy
1 This date enables us to fix that of Catherine's return to Siena ; for, as will be
seen, her letter to him was written from her own city, and addressed to him while
slill at Corneto,

Letter to Gregory. 351
Name, and enjoy His goodness hereafter in the beatific vision. Now
that you are the Vicar of Christ, Who has chosen you to labour for
His honour, for the salvation of souls, and for the reform of Holy
Church, labours and sufferings are specially destined for you, over
and above the ordinary combats which all souls must undergo who
would serve God.
" The heavier is your burden, the stronger and more courageous
should be your heart, fearless of all that may chance to befall you.
You know that in taking the Church to be your Spouse, you pledged
yourself to suffer for her sake all contradictions and tribulations.
Well, then, go forward, like a brave man, and meet the tempest with
strength, patience, and perseverance. Never let suffering make you
look back through fear or surprise ; but press on and rejoice in the
midst of perils and battles, because through all these things you will
see the work of God accomplished. It is ever so : the persecutions
of the Church, like the tribulations of the just soul, always end in
peace, purchased and merited by patience and perseverance, for
which is reserved the crown of everlasting glory. I desire then to
see your heart firm and unshaken, protected by holy patience : then
you will find in suffering peace and consolation, and by suffering out
of love for Jesus crucified, you will see this great war end in a great
peace. " Yes, peace, peace, Holy Father ! Be pleased to receive back your
children who have offended you ; your goodness will conquer their
malice and pride. It is no shame to stoop in order to raise a
repentant child, but rather a thing glorious before God and man.
No more war then, Holy Father, but give us peace, and turn the war
upon the infidels. My soul desires nothing more in this life save
God's honour, your peace, the reform of the Church, and the life of
grace for every living soul. Courage then ; as far as I can judge, the
general disposition is to regard you as a father, specially in this poor
little city which has always been the cherished daughter of your
Holiness, though circumstances have forced her citizens to do some
things that have displeased you. They see now that they acted
under constraint, and your Holiness will do well to excuse them; for
you may easily draw them with the bait of love. And now I entreat
you, go as speedily as possible to the city of the holy Apostles. Go
forward in full trust that God on His part will give all that is necessary
for you, and for the Church your Spouse. Only have courage, and
reckon confidently on the prayers of all true servants of God, and,

35 2 Stephen is sent to Florence.
together with all your other children, I humbly ask your benedic
tion." l
Catherine had hardly re-established herself in Siena before
messengers arrived from Florence, urging her return to that city, in
order that she might make one more effort in the cause of peace-
These messengers were Nicolas Soderini, Peter Canigiani, and Bindo
Altovito, brave and loyal men, who desired nothing but the good of
their country and reconciliation with the Church. Catherine's strong
good sense, however, led her to decline their invitation. She saw
clearly enough that Florence in the seething effervescence of revolution
was no place for a woman. Yet, as it was necessary to communicate
to the Magistrates the result of her mission to Avignon, she resolved
to send Stephen Maconi back with the three envoys, that he might
act in her name. They left Siena, therefore, in the April or May of
1377, and proceeded to lay before the Magistrates of Florence the
terms proposed by his Holiness, and to urge their compliance.
Stephen used his utmost eloquence in support of peace, but entirely
without success. His arguments, instead of convincing his hearers,
only irritated them the more. A rumour was spread through the
city that one of the " be-Catherined fools of Siena " had been sent,
by his "blessed Catherine," to try and wheedle the Eight of War into
surrendering the republic to the court of Rome ; and the result was
such a tumult that Stephen had to return to Siena with precipitation
in order to save his head.
So for the present there were no hopes of peace ; and Catherine,
seeing the fruitlessness of her efforts in that direction, applied her
whole attention to affairs nearer home.
1 Letter it.

( 353 )

CHAPTER X.
BELCARO, 1377.
F'ROM the course of our history it will have been seen that
Catherine took no part in the solemn entrance of Gregory
XL into the holy city, which took place on the 17th of January
1377. In the great picture of the Sala Regia at the Vatican, and again
on the bas-relief which adorns the Pontiff's tomb in the Church of
Santa Francesca Romana, she appears walking beside his horse as he
rides through the streets in triumphant procession ; a representation
as false historically, as it is true in a poetical sense. Yet in her little
chamber in the Fullonica, she listened with a glad heart to the
tidings, that his galleys had at last ascended the Tiber from Ostia to
Rome ; that his feet had first touched the sacred soil at the Basilica
of St. Paul; and that from thence he had ridden to St. Peter's amidst
demonstrations of welcome that seem fairly to have taken him and
his attendants by surprise. The people preceded him not merely
shouting, but dancing for joy; the senators and nobles appeared
clad in such gorgeous silken vestments, that even the Avignon
courtiers admitted they had never seen the like ; while women
mounted to the roofs of the houses to get a better view of the scene,
and more conveniently to throw down sweetmeats and winter flowers
on the procession. They did not reach St. Peter's until evening, and
found the whole Piazza illuminated with torches, and the church
blazing with 800 lamps. Whatever doubts had been raised as to the
welcome which Rome would bestow upon her Pontiff were set at rest
that day. "The people," says Peter d'Amely, "were delirious with
joy ; never in my life did I witness such extravagant transports." 1
In the meantime Catherine had found one great anxiety awaiting
her. Her native city that she loved so well, and that up to this time
1 Speaking of the progress from one Basilica to the other, he lets us know, how
ever, that it was terribly fatiguing. " We were dying of hunger, and our throats
were quite dry from singing the praises of God the entire day ; we were delighted,
therefore, to recruit our exhausted bodies with an abundant and delicious supper."
Z

354 Embassy to Rome.
had adhered so faithfully to the cause of Gregory, had through its
close alliance with Florence got involved in the interdict. In fact,
the case of Siena was one of peculiar difficulty, for during the quarrel
between her nobles and citizens, the intervention of the Floren
tines had restored peace to the republic ; and hence the obligations
of the Sienese to their powerful neighbour were both great and
recent. However, though bound to Florence by ties of gratitude,
they had no wish to break with the Pope; and the question of
despatching an embassy to Rome in order to arrange terms of recon
ciliation was already under discussion. Catherine approved of this
proposal, and addressed a letter to Gregory, which she sent by the
hands of the ambassadors,1 supporting the petition of her countrymen.
After again urging him to make peace at any cost, and so to cast
coals of fire on the heads of his revolted children, she continues,
"You know, holy Father, that all reasonable creatures are more
easily led by love and goodness than by any other means, and this is
particularly true of us Italians of these parts (Specialmenle questi
nostri Italiani di qua) . . . The ambassadors of Siena are about to
present themselves to your Holiness; there are no people in the
world more easily won by kindness, and I conjure you to make use
of that bait to catch them. Be so indulgent as to listen to the
excuses they will offer for their fault ; they repent of it, but know
pot what to do. Be pleased then, Holy Father, to inform them
what course they must take which will be most agreeable to you,
without obliging them to go to war with those to whom they are
bound ... I humbly ask your blessing, and would recommend to
you the ambassadors of Siena." 2
Tommasi in his history tells us that " Gregory received the ambas
sadors with much kindness, for the sake of Sister Catherine Benin
casa, who had sent him a letter by them." The exact object of the
embassy was twofold : to make their own submission to the Pope,
and to get released from censures ; and also to obtain the restitution
of certain important fortresses of which they had been deprived.3 If
1 Much difference of opinion exists as to who these ambassadors were. One
was certainly Andrea Piccolomini,. and, according to the Aldine edition of St.
Catherine's letters, another was Thomas Guelfaccio, her own disciple, and the
convert of St John Colombini.
2 Letter 14. St. Bernardine gives much the same testimony to the character
of his countrymen in one of his sermons, in which he says, " II sangue Sanest i
un sangue dolce. "
3 S?e Part I, chap, xvi., p. 205.

Talamon. 355
any traveller of classical predilections should chance to journey from
Leghorn to Civita Vecchia by the line of railway which runs along
the desolate coast of the Tuscan Maremma, and stopping on his
way at the Talamon station, should observe some barren rocks
covered with ruins, he may be roused to a momentary interest by
being reminded that they mark the site of the ancient Telamon,
where Marius landed on his return from Africa, and where Lucius
Emilius defeated the Gauls. But the votary of St. Catherine, if
hitherwards journeying, will examine those rocks with a keener
curiosity. Whether she ever visited the spot in person we cannot
tell, but it occupied a good many of her thoughts at the particular
time of which we are speaking. Talamon is a town of the Maremma
district, which in old time belonged to a Benedictine Abbey, but in
1303 was sold to the republic of Siena. The fortified rock formed
an important frontier stronghold, and we have seen its possession
demanded in 1368 by the Emperor Charles IV, who was well aware
of its strategical value. In 1375 it was seized by one of the Priors
of the Order of St. John, commonly called " the Prior of Pisa." He
was a certain Messer Nicolas, to whom Catherine had some time
before written a very stirring letter, which we have already quoted,
moving him to join the Crusade. His seizure of Talamon was an
unwarrantable act of injustice, but having seized it, he held, or pro
fessed to hold it, for the Church, and Peter Gambacorta, we grieve to
say, is reported to have favoured the transaction. The ambassadors,
therefore, were instructed to demand the restoration of Talamon, and
Catherine took a particular interest in the success of their application.
From what cause does not appear, but in spite of the good recep
tion given them by Gregory, no success attended their mission.
Probably more active measures against Florence were demanded of
them as a condition of their pardon than they dared agree to ; and
they returned to Siena without having obtained either the removal
of the interdict, or the restitution of the fortress, the recovery of
which was at last due, as we shall hereafter see, to the exertions of
St. Catherine.
Meanwhile she was engaged in a rather important undertaking of
a more private character. The reader, we hope, has not forgotten
Master Nanni di Ser Vanni, who had by her means been induced
to make peace with his enemies, and who, in token of gratitude, had
riiade over to her his castle of Belcaro, to be converted by her into
a convent. The various journeys in which she^had for. the last two

356 Petition to the Lords Defenders.
years been engaged had deferred the accomplishment of this purpose,
though in many of her letters allusions occur which show that the
proposed plan was not forgotten. To carry it out, however, two
authorisations were required ; one for the foundation of the convent
from the Sovereign Pontiff, and another from the Magistrates of
Siena to sanction the dismantling, or rather decastellating of one of
the fortresses of the republic. Gregory had given the Saint his
sanction to the foundation during the time of her stay at Avignon ;
and the Bull to that effect was preserved with some other privileges
granted her by the Pontiff in the convent of SS. John and Paul at
Venice, where it was seen by Caffarini, as he tells us in his deposition.
But there existed in Siena a statute forbidding the alienation of
strong places without the consent of the Magistrates. Catherine,
therefore, had to present her petition to the Magnificent Lords
Defenders of the Republic, and the document is still preserved in
the State Archives, and bears date January 25th 1376, that is, in our
style 1377. x In it " Catherine, the daughter of Monna Lapa of the
Contrada of Fontebranda," declares to the Magnificent Lords that
Nanni de Ser Vanni, knowing how the said Catherine desired, for
her soul's health, to build and construct a monastery, has determined
to make over to her the site of his castle of Belcaro ; that she has
procured the necessary powers from the Sovereign Pontiff, and that
although the place cannot be called a fortress, inasmuch as it is
dismantled and decayed, nevertheless she desires not to begin to
build without the licence of the Commune. She reminds them that
their decree against the alienation of strong places was not intended
to forbid the construction of churches or monasteries, but only to
prevent evil men from possessing themselves of such places to the
danger of the State ; but that in the monastery she intended to erect,
there would be received only religious women who would continually
pray for the city and inhabitants of Siena ; and that the citizens would
be partakers of all their good works. Her petition was put to the
vote and granted by 333 white beans against 65 black.
The new monastery was therefore begun, and though we have
no particulars left us regarding the subsequent establishment of
the Community, yet it is quite certain from various notices in the
Legend, in St. Catherine's letters, and in the depositions of more
1 In Siena at that time the year was not reckoned as beginning until March
25th. The document above referred to is extracted from the Consigli della Cam-
pana, vol., cxci. fols. 8, 9.

Foundation at Belcaro. 357
than one witness in the Process, that Catherine occupied herself
seriously in its establishment, and that it was the scene of several
interesting incidents of her life.
Belcaro became a real fortress once more in 1554, when, during
the siege of Siena by Cosmo I., it was occupied by troops, and still
exhibits cannon-balls embedded in its walls. After that it became
the property of Crescenzio Turamini, a rich banker of Siena, who
turned it into a magnificent villa which he caused to be decorated
in fresco by Baldassare Peruzzi. It no longer, therefore, presents
the same aspect as in St. Catherine's time, yet the site is unchanged,
and much of the original castellated edifice is still left standing.
Situated about three miles north-west of the city and approached by
charming country lanes, it occupies a little hill which, as you draw
near, has the appearance of a green mound with a tower just peeping
out of the centre. " The hill," says a modern traveller,1 " is entirely
covered with ancient ilexes, which are shorn at the top so as to give
the appearance of a leve'l carpet ; but on ascending through them
by a winding path and entering the gate, what looked like a small
tower turns out to be a palace." x
Catherine chose for her new foundation the title of " St. Mary of
the Angels." Writing to Sano di Maco she says, " I recommend to
you the monastery of St. Mary of the Angels. Do not be surprised
if I do not come there ; good sons do more when their mother is
absent than when she is present, wishing thus to show their love for
her." She did come there, however, and that pretty often. " I was
present at the commencement of the place," says Raymund,2 "to
gether with all her spiritual sons and daughters. The Commissary
appointed by the Pope on this occasion was Fra Giovanni (di Gano
of Orvieto), abbot of the monastery of St. Anthimo of the Order of
Williamites." This abbot of St. Anthimo was a very holy man, and
one of the Saint's great friends and disciples. In him more than in
any other person she had confidence in all that regarded the religious
life, and to him accordingly she generally referred those who con
sulted her on the subject of a religious vocation. " Go to the Abbot
of St. Anthimo," she says in one of her letters, " he is an earthly
angel" He is numbered by Caffarini among those who sometimes
acted as her confessor. With him Catherine, as it would seem, had
often conferred on the foundation of a convent of strict observance.
In one of her letters to him she writes as follows : " The bearer of this
1 Hare's Cities of Central Italy. 2 Leg., Part 2, ch. vii.

358 Cure of Pietro Ventura.
will speak to you of Madonna Miranda, wife to Francis of Montal-
cino. She has in her hands a young girl who wishes to give herself
to God, and she wants to put her into a convent which I do not
much like. I wish you would see her about it ; and when you can
find a place suitable for a real and true monastery, then put two
good heads into it, for we have plenty of subjects. I am sure it
would be for God's glory." In these words we see the germ of St.
Mary of the Angels, and it explains the selection of the abbot for
the office of Papal Commissary. It was probably the journey of
Catherine and all her spiritual family to Belcaro on this particular
occasion which is described in the deposition of Mino da Giovanni
di Mino Sozzini. " She set out very early one morning," he says,
"in company with F. Raymund and several of her spiritual sons
and daughters, F. William Flete being of the number. When the
party reached the torrent of the Tressa, several of them applied
themselves attentively to see how Catherine would cross the stream,
which at that time was full of water. According to her usual custom
she was walking with her eyes closed and her hands joined; and in
this way, even while they had their eyes fixed on her and were
carefully watching her movements, they saw her already passed over
the stream without their being able to say how. Stupefied with
what they had seen they continued their way, and as they approached
Belcaro, Pietro di Giovanni Ventura, with some other youths,
ran on before the rest, wishing to be the first to cross the ditch, and
enter the castle. This ditch was dry and overgrown with bushes
and brambles, and as Pietro scrambled along he was wounded by a
sharp thorn which entered one of his eyes. Blinded and in great
pain he cried out with tears, heedless of all the efforts made by his
companions to console him. When Catherine and the rest of the
party came up to the spot, Pietro, hearing her voice (for he could
not see her), cried out, ' O Mamma (for so she was familiarly
called by all her disciples), one of my eyes is blinded ! ' But she;
smiling sweetly, comforted him ; and touching the eye with her
hand, it was at once healed, and his sight perfectly restored. This
incident filled them with joy, and they all entered the castle together,
praising God. Mass was then celebrated by F. William Flete ; and
as he was in the act of giving Communion to the Saint, the same Pietro
Ventura saw the consecrated Host fly, as it were, out of the hands of
the priest into her mouth. After Mass, Pietro took F. Raymund
aside and told him what he had seen ; and Raymund replied that it

Progress of the War. 359
was perfectly true, and that he had seen it also." l Possibly it was on
the occasion of this same visit that another incident took place
related by F. Francesco of St. Pietro, a brother of the Hospital of
La Scala, to F. Angelo of Siena, a Franciscan friar, one of the
witnesses in the Process. Francesco declared to him that as he was
saying Mass in the castle of Belcaro, he saw the holy virgin raised
from the ground in ecstasy, so that between the ground and the
border of her garments there was a free space of some distance, to
the great wonder of those who saw it. " On this account," says F,
Angelo, " I began from that time manfully to resist the detractors of
the holy virgin, and to commend myself devoutly to her prayers."
Many years later he related what he had heard from F. Francesco
to Stephen Maconi, then a Carthusian monk. Stephen listened to
him with a smile, and said that the same thing had been witnessed
by himself and others not once merely, but oftener than he could
attempt to say.
It was from Belcaro, and some time early in 1377, that Catherine
addressed another letter to Gregory, which is remarkable for its
unusual tone of sadness. The sorrows of the time weighed heavily
on her heart, and it pierced her with anguish to see month after
month pass by and still no prospects of peace. She could not hope
to see that restoration to the Church of the beauty of holiness, for
which her soul longed with the blessed hunger after justice which
is the heritage of the saints, or to behold the standard of the Cross
displayed, and Christendom united in a noble cause, so long as no
measures were taken for putting a stop to the war between the
Father and his children. And what a war it was ! We are thank
ful that the course of our history does not oblige us to inflict on our
readers the narrative of the massacre of Cesena, when Count
Robert of Geneva2 led his mercenary troops to the slaughter of
unarmed citizens. If in our own days of boasted civilisation the
actual facts which attend any war are too shocking to be presented
to us in their bare reality, what must it have been in a contest when
the combatants on either side were hired brigands, for the time let
loose to give full vent to their worst passions ? But if we spare our
readers the revolting details, they were not spared to St Catherine.
She knew them in all their grim deformity, and the tales of violence
and sacrilege that met her ears did not reach her as they come to us
from the far regions of Bulgaria or the Caucasus — so softened by
1 Process, fol. 313. 2 Afterwards the Anti-pope Clement VII.

360 Catherine's Appeal to Gregory.
distance that we listen with comparative indifference to tales that
would freeze the blood in our veins with horror if the scene were
laid in a neighbouring town or village. To her they were close at
hand, and any day the bloody tempest might come still closer, and
sweep over the villages which she gazed at from her castle walls,
and fill the streets of her beloved city with far worse desolation than
the most awful pestilence. Well then might she take the pen with a
heavy heart ; what more could she say to move the heart of the
Pontiff than she had already said ? and perhaps there is no thought
more sorrowful than that we have done all that is possible for us to
do, and all with no result. Catherine was not one, however, who
would cease her efforts to remedy a gigantic evil merely because no
success had hitherto attended them ; so once more she set herself to
conjure the holy Father in grave, tender, and most moving words to
let his goodness triumph over the malice of his enemies; not to
regard temporal interests or political honour, but to think of nothing
but souls. " O Pastor and guardian of the Blood of the Lamb ! "
she cries, " forget the affronts and injuries you have received, heed
not the arguments of the devil who desires to keep up war and
disorder. Imitate Christ whose Vicar you are, and bear everything
for the salvation of your children. Hunger for that, and consider
the evils caused by this horrible war, and the blessings that would
flow from peace. Alas ! beloved Father, woe be to my unhappy
soul, for my sins, perhaps, are the cause of all this misery ! 1 It
seems to me as if the demon had verily just now taken possession of
the world, not in his own person, indeed, but in that of us who obey
him. On whatever side I turn, I see every one making use of his
free-will in such a way as to render it a perverse will ; all, whether
secular, religious, or ecclesiastics, going after pleasures and worldly
honours, in the midst of disorder and corruption. And what afflicts
me more than all, is to see those who should be flowers planted in
the garden of the Church to give forth a sweet odour, shedding
abroad nothing but the infection of sin. . . . We are at war with
God, and the rebellious children are at war both with Him and with
your Holiness. God requires you, as far as you can, to snatch the
power out of the hands of the devil. Labour then to reform the
corruptions of which I speak ; root up those infected flowers, and
1 The tenderness of the original cannot be rendered in English. Ohime '
Babbo mio, disavventurata I'anima mia che le mie iniquita sono cagione d'ogni
male !

She is detained at Siena. 361
plant such as will give forth a sweet odour, even just men who fear
God. I implore you, then, to agree to peace, and agree to such
terms as are possible to be obtained; respecting always the rights of
the Church and your own conscience. You must think more of
souls than of things temporal. Act generously, and God will be
with you, and even if you foresee troubles, fear nothing, but fortify
yourself in our Sweet Jesus. It is in the midst of thorns that the
rose blossoms, and it will be in the midst of persecutions that the
holy Church will be reformed. You are our instrument. Do what
you have to do, then, fearlessly and in love.
" I have a great desire once more to find myself in the presence
of your Holiness, and should have many things to say, but I am
prevented by pressing affairs. Peace, peace, and no war, that is the
only thing we want. I write to you from our new monastery that
you have granted me under the title of Our Lady of the Angels. I
humbly ask your benediction. Your negligent sons F. Raymund
and Master John recommend themselves to your Holiness." 1
It is probable that Gregory had himself proposed her coming to
Rome, and that the concluding sentence in Catherine's letter contains
her reply to this proposal. What the particular affairs were, to which
she here alludes, we do not know. Raymund with his habitual
vagueness says that after their return from Avignon to Siena they
" visited in the environs some servants of God to console themselves
with them in the Lord, and returned to the city on the feast of St.
Mark the Evangelist." This may probably be understood of a visit
to Lecceto, which is at an easy distance from Belcaro. It would
seem, however, that Catherine found on her return much on which
to employ her charity in the reconciliation of feuds among her fellow-
citizens. A great undertaking of this nature was to engage her atten
tion during the ensuing autumn, and it was probably the negotiations
which had to be gone through in preparation for that important affair
which detained her at Siena, and obliged her to defer all present
thought of visiting Rome. She was, therefore, unable to support the
arguments in her letter by the more powerful influence of her presence;
yet, as will be seen in the sequel, they were not forgotten by Gregory,
and it was to her at last that he turned in his perplexity, conferring
on her the sublime though perilous office of mediatrix of peace.
1 Letter 12.

( 362 )

CHAPTER XI.
THE BREAD OF LIFE.
BEFORE Catherine left Avignon she had received from the hands
of the Pope several most important privileges, which were
secured to her by formal briefs, some of which are still in existence.
By one of these his Holiness appointed three confessors to attend
her in her journeys and hear the confessions of such persons as
might be won to God by her pious words and exhortations; and
to these confessors he granted the fullest powers. Two were
named by him in the document; they were F. Raymund of Capua,
and F. John Tantucci, the Augustinian. The third was left to
her own selection, and she appears to have named F. Bartholomew
Dominic, and in his absence, F. Thomas della Fonte.
By another Brief, permission was given her wherever she might be,
to have a chapel with a portable altar in her house, for Mass to be
celebrated there, if need be, before daybreak, and for her to com
municate at the Mass without requiring leave from any other person
whatsoever, the same permission being extended to all those who
assisted at it. This privilege, which in St. Catherine's time was a
very unusual one to be enjoyed by any private individual, was granted
to her in order to release her from the difficulties made to her frequent
Communions, and also to obviate the inconveniences attending those
wonderful and habitual ecstasies which rendered it impossible for her
to pay her devotions in the public churches without drawing on
herself an amount of notice both friendly and adverse. At Avignon,
as we have seen, the kindly consideration of Gregory had provided
her with a private chapel ; and from the time of her return thence
she possessed the same boon at Siena. One of her first cares on
finding herself once more at home was to select a suitable room in
the house for the purpose ; and with her own hands to prepare the
necessary vestments and altar furniture. The room which served as
St. Catherine's private chapel is still shown in the Fullonica. You

Catherine's Private Chapel. 363
ascend to it by the stairs, those same stairs up which according to
the beautiful old legend, the angels so often carried her as a child ;
the altar is still there, together with a number of objects formerly
used by the Saint, and now preserved as relics. The altar furniture
is preserved, not here, but in the Sacristy of San Domenico, where
are shown the corporal, pall, towel, and chalice cover ; also the pax
and the altar stone, which last is formed of a piece of the stone
on which* St. Thomas of Canterbury was martyred, and is said by
Burlamacchi (in his MS. notes to the Legend) to have been given to
her by her English disciple, F. William Flete. There too is the
original Brief of Pope Gregory XL of which we have just spoken, the
whole being preserved in a box covered with velvet.1
It need not be said that the possession of this chapel was a
blessing most highly prized by Catherine. The first notice which
occurs of its use was on that 25th of April when, as we have said,
after some visits paid in the environs of the city, she returned to
Siena in company with F. Raymund of Capua, who gives the narra
tive as follows : —
" When we arrived at Catherine's house, the hour of Tierce had
already passed. She turned towards me and said, ' O Father, did
you but know how hungry my poor soul is ! ' I understood her
meaning, and rejoined, 'The hour of saying Mass is nearly elapsed,
and I am so fatigued that it is very difficult for me to prepare myself
for it' She remained silent a moment ; but soon, unable to prevent
expressing her desire, she said to me again, 'I am very hungry.' I
then consented to her request, and repairing to the chapel in her
house which had been granted her by the Holy Father, I heard her
confession, clothed myself in my sacerdotal vestments, and celebrated
the Mass of the day; I consecrated one small Host for her, and
when I had communicated, turning to give her the ordinary absolu
tion, I beheld her face as it had been the face of an angel, sending
forth rays of light, and so transfigured that it seemed not to be the
same. I thought within myself, ' That is not the face of Catherine ! '
Then presently I said, ' Yet, certainly, O Lord, this is Thy faithful
and beloved spouse ! ' Considering these things I turned to the
altar, and said, not with my lips, but as it were in my mind only,
1 Succinto Ragguaglio della Sacra Testa ed allre reliquie di S. Caterina. (Lucca.
1713.) This little book was drawn up by P. Angiolo Carapelli, then Sacristan
of San Domenico. Signor Grottanelli testifies to having seen these objects in' the
year 1867.

364 Catherine s Communions.
' Come, O Lord, to Thy spouse ! ' And the thought had hardly
been formed in my mind when, lo ! the sacred Host, before I had
touched it, moved and came towards me (as I could plainly see) for
the space of three fingers or more, till it reached the paten which I
held in my hand."
And here seems the right place to speak of those stupendous
wonders which marked the intercourse of Catherine with her Lord
arid Spouse in Holy Communion, and which were, we may say, daily
witnessed and attested by Raymund and others no less conscientious
and worthy of credit.
No one can read the Legend without being struck with the singular
love of truth which seems the characteristic of the writer. It bears
on its pages the proofs of being the testimony of one timid rather
than over ready in accepting the marvellous ; of one who sifted the
evidence of others, and was disposed to doubt and test that of his
own senses, and who, far from magnifying the statements he receives,
or repeating them merely as he hears them, often qualifies them in
minute particulars in a way which reveals the delicacy of his sense
of truth.
We may therefore safely trust his narrative, corroborated as it is
by the overwhelming testimony of those who knew Catherine longer
than he, and who had watched and noted down what they saw day
by day as it occurred. Holy Communion was then to Catherine,
literally, the bread of life. It was very generally believed and
reported that she communicated daily, but, says Raymund, that was
not strictly true ; "she did not communicate daily, but very often;"
or, as he elsewhere expresses it, "she communicated daily, when
not hindered by bodily infirmity, or the necessity of her neighbours ;
and if deprived of it for any notable time, she suffered visibly, so
as to seem in danger of death." She never approached the altar
without beholding things above the senses, specially when receiving
Holy Communion. Thus she frequently saw in the hands of the
priest the figure of an infant or a beautiful child ; at other times she
beheld a furnace of fire, into which the priest seemed to enter at
the moment when he consumed the sacred species. She commonly
perceived a delicious and extraordinary odour when communicating ;
and an ineffable joy took possession of her soul, which caused her
heart to beat so as to be even audible to those who were near
her. Father Thomas della Fonte, her first confessor, carefully verified
this fact, and declares that the noise occasioned by this beating of

Supernatural Favours. 365
the heart was unlike anything ordinary ; it was of a wholly super
natural character, the jubilee of a heart exulting in the living God.
Caffarini collected in his Supplement many other facts which had
come to his own knowledge, or which he quotes from the notes of
F. Thomas ; for the sake of brevity we will give the summary which
he makes of them in the Leggenda Minore : " Sometimes she saw
the holy angels serving around the altar at which the Mass was
celebrated, holding in their hands a golden veil, or in company
with the saints, praising and blessing God. Sometimes she saw three
Faces in one substance, or the altar and the priest wrapt in a flame
of fire. At other times a great and marvellous splendour seemed
to shine forth from the altar ; or again, when the priest divided the
sacred Host, it was manifestly shown how all was in each part ; and
often she beheld the Holy Trinity under various appearances and
signs. Sometimes the sacred Host was transformed into the likeness
of Jesus Christ Himself, at various ages, or she beheld It con
secrated under the appearances of fire, flesh, or blood. Often also
she saw above the altar the Queen of Heaven who reverently adored
the Blessed Sacrament; besides which, on many occasions, she
discerned a consecrated from an unconsecrated Host"1
In his Supplement he adds a remark that must not be omitted
in this place. " It must be observed," he says, " that none of the
things above mentioned were seen by her with ihe material eyes
of her body, but with those of the mind, supernaturally illuminated
by God : for she could not so much as raise her eyes to look at and
adore the Divine Sacrament without being rapt and abstracted from
her corporal senses : whence it sometimes happened that at the
moment when the Priest raised the holy Body of Christ for the
adoration of the faithful,, she neither beheld It, nor heard the sound
of the bell, and so failed to give those exterior demonstrations of
worship which are customary with the faithful. There were not
wanting those who wondered and took scandal at this, persuading
themselves and others that during the time of the Holy Sacrifice
she was indevout and distracted. Others, who better understood her
habit of praying in profound ecstasy of mind, would approach and
kiss with tenderness the place where she had knelt, which was
generally some remote corner of the church where she might as far
as possible avoid observation." 2
1 Leg. Min., Part 2, chap, xii , p. 142.
2 Sup., Part 2, Trat 6, § 1.

366 The Kiss of the Spouse.
The irrepressible sentiments of love and tenderness which the
sight of the Blessed Sacrament, or even proximity to the altar or
tabernacle, excited in Catherine's heart were often the occasion of
her receiving humiliations and reproofs. The priests who celebrated
complained that they were disturbed by the sound of her sighs and
weeping ; and F. Thomas della Fonte, aware of this, begged her one
feast of St. Lawrence to command and suppress these exterior signs
as much as possible, or else to keep at a distance from the altar.
Catherine obeyed, and remained at a distance ; but she besought
God to make known to her confessor that the exterior tokens of
Divine love cannot always be thus repressed ; and her prayer was so
perfectly heard and answered, that he never again made her the like
admonition. " I presume," says Raymund, who tells this story,
" that it was out of humility he would say no more ; and that he
had learnt by a happy experience how impossible it is for a soul
smitten with the love of God entirely to repress its transports."
If with some the exterior effects which were thus produced formed
matter of complaint, others, and by far the greater number, drew
from what they heard and beheld at such moments an increase in
their own souls of faith and devotion. Caffarini tells us that he
himself saw the Saint on the day when she received that mysterious
purification in the Precious Blood of her Divine Spouse, which has
been related in a former chapter. " Her face," he says, " was resplen
dent and bathed in tears ; and so she always appeared after Holy Com
munion, nor is it possible to convey the sentiment which the spectacle
inspired. On a certain feast of the Circumcision, sacred to the
memory of the first effusion of that Price of our salvation, she
assisted at Mass in the chapel of the Sisters of Penance, though at
the time so weak that without assistance she was unable to kneel or
raise her head. Having communicated, she remained for several
hours wholly immersed in God, and at length, rising to return home,
she left the church ; when at the door she beheld the glorious vision
of Him, from Whom her heart was never separated, and Who, cast
ing on her a look of ineffable tenderness, addressed her with these
words, ' Come to me, beloved daughter ! ' She reverently ap
proached, and received from Him that Sacred Kiss of which the
Spouse speaks in the Canticles; and for many days afterwards a
wonderful and extraordinary fragrance was perceptible, not to herself
only, but to all who approached her." F. Bartholomew Dominic tells
us in his deposition, that he frequently gave her Holy Communion,

Vidi Arcana Dei. 367
and that often at the moment of doing so he felt the Sacred Host
agitated, as it were, in his fingers, and escape from them of Itself.
" This at first troubled me," he says, " for I feared lest the Sacred
Host should fall to the ground ; but It seemed to fly into her mouth.
Several persons have told me that the like happened to them, when
giving her Holy Communion."
Of her condition after Communion, Bartholomew likewise speaks :
" Having received the Sacred Host, her mind was immediately rapt
in God, so that she lost the use of her exterior senses, and the
members of her body became so rigid that you might have broken,
but you could not have bent them. Every day she remained thus,
for three hours or more, perfectly abstracted and insensible. Often
when in such ecstasies, she would speak to God, uttering prayers
and profound meditations in a distinct voice, which was audible to
those who were present, and moved them to devout and tender tears.
These prayers were many of them collected, and written down word
for word, some by me, and some by others. None of her words at
such times seemed those of a woman, but they were full of the
wisdom of learned doctors. For truly it was not she who spoke, but
the Holy Spirit who spoke in her." 1
What passed at such times between her soul and God was known
to none but herself, and when she sought to declare it even to her
confessor, the power of language failed.. " One day," says Raymund,
" I saw her ravished out of her senses, and I heard her speaking in
an undertone; I approached, and distinctly heard her say in Latin,
Vidi arcana Dei — 'T have seen the secrets of God.' She added
nothing to this phrase, but continually repeated, ' I have seen the
secrets of God.' Long after, when she was restored to herself, she
still repeated the same words. I wished to know the reason.
' Mother,' I said to her, ' why, pray, do you constantly repeat the
same words, and not explain them by speaking to us as usual ? ' 'It
is impossible for me,' said she, ' to say anything else, or to say other
wise' ' But why ? you are accustomed to tell us what God has
revealed to you when we do not interrogate you, why do you decline
answering when we inquire of you ? ' ' Were I to try and express to
you what I saw,' she replied, ' I should reproach myself as guilty
of vain words : it seems to me that I should blaspheme God and
dishonour Him by my language. The distance is so vast between
what my spirit contemplated, when ravished in God, and everything
1 Process, 1346. -¦•

368 Raymund' s Narrative.
I could describe to you, that I feel I should be deceiving you in
speaking of these things. I must therefore not attempt their
description ; all that I can say is, that I saw ineffable things ! ' "
To these , statements we must add one narrative which is given
at length by Raymund. He gives no date, but the occurrence
evidently belongs to the earlier period of his acquaintance with the
Saint It chanced one morning that Catherine having expressed a
great desire to communicate, he went to the church to prepare for
Mass, but in the meanwhile, being overwhelmed with an unusual
increase in the pain in her side and other infirmities, she sent one of
her companions to beg him as a charity to defer doing so for a little
while, when she hoped to be sufficiently well to be able to come to
the church. " I cheerfully consented," he says, " and went to the
choir, where, after reciting my office, I continued to wait. Mean
while Catherine had come to the church unknown to me, about the
hour of Tierce ; but her companions seeing that it was late, persuaded
her not to communicate that day, for they knew that after Com
munion she would remain some hours in ecstasy and so cause
murmurs, and a great trouble to the brethren who must wait so long
a time to shut the church doors. With her usual humility and
readiness to obey the will of others, she did not presume to oppose
their wishes ; nevertheless, she took refuge in prayer, and kneeling
at a bench placed at the further end of the church, she entreated her
Divine Spouse that since men could not accomplish the desire He
had put into her heart, He would Himself in some measure be
pleased to satisfy it. Almighty God, Who never despises the prayer
of His servants, deigned to hear her in a wonderful manner. I was
ignorant of what had passed, and believed her to be at home, when
one of the Sisters came to me and told me that Sister Catherine
begged me not to delay any longer saying my Mass, as it had been
agreed that she should not communicate that day.
" I went at once, therefore, to vest in the Sacristy, and said Mass at
the altar of St. Paul at the upper end of the church. Catherine was
thus separated from me the whole length of the building, and I was
entirely ignorant of her being there. After the consecration and the
Pater Noster I proceeded, according to the rubrics, to divide the
Host. At the first fraction, the sacred Host, instead of separating
into two portions, divided into three, two large and one small, which
seemed to me about the length of a bean, but not so wide. This
particle which I attentively observed, appeared to fall on the

The Lost Particle. 369
corporal by the side of the chalice above which I had broken the
Host ; I clearly saw it descend towards the altar, but I could not
afterwards distinguish it on the corporaL Presuming that it was the
whiteness of the corporal which prevented my discerning this particle,
I broke off another, and after saying the Agnus Dei, consumed the
Sacred Host. As soon as my right hand was at liberty, I felt on the
corporal for the particle on the spot where it had fallen ; but I found
nothing. Much troubled, I went on with the Mass, and having
finished the Communion, I renewed my search, examining the
corporal in every possible way, but could discover nothing either by
sight or touch. This afflicted me even to tears ; but on account of
those present, I resolved to finish the Mass, and afterwards carefully
to examine the altar. So when every one had withdrawn I minutely
examined, not only the corporal, but every part of the altar, but
could discover nothing. As I stood before a large picture, it seemed
impossible that the particle could have fallen behind the altar ;
nevertheless, for greater certainty, I looked on both sides and on the
floor, but still with no result. I then determined to go and consult
the Prior of the convent, and covering the altar, desired the Sacristan
to allow no one to approach it till my return.
" I retired to the Sacristy, but had scarcely taken off my vestments
when F. Christopher, Prior of the Carthusians, arrived. I knew
him well, and had a great esteem for him : his object in coming
was to beg me to obtain an interview for him with Catherine. I
entreated him to wait a minute while I went and spoke with the
Prior, but he replied, ' To-day is a solemn feast with us, and I must
absolutely return at once to the monastery which is, as you know,
some distance from the city : I beg of you, therefore, do not detain
me, for I must speak with Catherine.' So I bade the Sacristan stay
and watch the altar till my return, and went with the good Prior as
far as Catherine's house. There, to my surprise, they told me that
she had gone to our church, and had not yet returned. We at once
went back, and I found Catherine and her companions kneeling at
the far end of the church. I asked one of them where she was ;
they replied that she was kneeling on one of the benches in an
ecstasy, and as I was still troubled at the accident that had occurred,
I begged of them to do what they could to rouse her, as we were in
great haste. They obeyed, and when we were seated with the Prior,
I told her my anxiety in a low voice and in few words. She smiled
gently, and replied, just as if she had known all the particulars,

370 Catherine' s Explanation.
' Did you not search for it diligently ? ' On my answering that I
had done so ; ' Why, then, are you so troubled ? ' she said, and again
she smiled. I already felt more tranquil, and said, ' Mother, I
verily believe it was you who took that consecrated particle.' ' Nay,
Father,' she replied, ' do not accuse me of that ; it was not me, but
Another; all I can tell you is, you will never find it again.' Then I
pressed her to explain what had happened. 'Father,' she said,
' trouble yourself no more about that particle ; I will tell you the truth
as to my spiritual father ; it was brought to me by our Divine Lord
Himself. My companions urged me not to communicate this
morning in order to avoid certain murmurs. I was unwilling to be
troublesome to any one, but I had recourse to our Lord; and He
deigned to appear, and gave me with His own Sacred Hands that
particle which you had consecrated. Rejoice, therefore, with me,
for I have this day received a grace for which I can never sufficiently
thank Him ! ' Her words did indeed turn my sadness into joy, and
I no longer experienced the slightest anxiety." 1
It is perhaps desirable to give a passage from the Saint's own
writings, in which she speaks of some of these supernatural favours ;
as it will greatly assist us in rightly comprehending matters most
difficult to render into ordinary language, yet regarding which her
own utterances are as exact as they are sublime. It occurs in her
Dialogue, and the words are spoken as in the Person of the Eternal
Father :
"Beloved daughter, open the eye of your intellect, and behold
the benefit which you receive in this Sacrament. With what eye
can you behold and touch this mystery? Not with mere bodily
sight and touch ; for here the bodily senses fail. For the eye indeed
beholds only the whiteness of the Bread, the hand touches, and the
taste discerns nothing else but Bread ; so that the grosser senses of
the body are deceived, but the senses of the soul cannot be deceived.
It is those senses which taste and see and touch the Blessed Sacra
ment. What is the eye that sees? The eye of the Intellect, the
pupil of which is Holy Faith. That eye beholds under the white
ness of the Bread, all God and all Man; the Divine Nature
united to the Human Nature, the Body, the Blood, and the Soul of
Christ ; the Soul united to the Body, and the Body and the Soul
united to My Divine Nature, not apart from Me ; as you may
remember, in the beginning of your life I manifested to you, not
1 Legend, Part 2, ch. xii.

Extract from the Dialogue. 3 7 1
only to the eye of your intellect only, but also to that of your body : 1
although by reason of the great light the bodily eye lost its powers
of vision, and the sight of the intellect alone remained. I showed
it to you to deliver you from the attack which the enemy brought
against you on the matter of this Sacrament, and to make you
increase in love for It, in the light of Holy Faith. For you remember
how, going one morning to the church at break of day to hear Mass,
having been before much tormented by the enemy, you placed your
self before the altar of the Crucifix, and the priest came to the altar
of Mary. And reflecting on your sins, you feared lest you had
offended Me by reason of the trouble which the demon had caused
you ; and you thought of My charity whereby you had been counted
worthy to hear that Mass, whereas you reputed yourself as unworthy
so much as to enter My Temple. When the priest was about to
consecrate, you raised your eyes, and as he pronounced the sacred
words, I manifested Myself to you. And you saw coming forth
from My Breast a light like the rays of the sun which proceed from
the body of the sun, yet without separating from its disc ; and in the
Light a Dove, all united one with the other, and It smote into the
Host 2 in virtue of the words of Consecration. Then, because your
bodily eye could not sustain that light, the eye of your intellect alone
remained able to gaze on it, and with it you saw and tasted the
Abyss of the Holy Trinity ; all God and all Man, hidden and veiled
under the whiteness of the bread. And you saw that neither the
Light, nor the presence of the Word which intellectually you beheld
there, took away the whiteness of the bread ; the one did not prevent
or interfere with the other ; neither the beholding of God and Man
in the bread, nor the beholding of the Bread, which lost nothing
either of its whiteness, or its touch, or its savour." 3
In another place, after saying that " the soul must make the place
of its abode in Christ Crucified, dwelling and hiding itself in ihe
Cavern of His Side; and finding in His opened Heart the love of God
and of our neighbour" she goes on to speak of an occasion when the
1 These words may seem a contradiction to those previously quoted from
Caffarini. But as will be seen, she presently adds that the corporal sight failed
before these stupendous revelations, and that that of the intellect alone remained.
If any would argue from this that visions unseen by the bodily eye are no visions
at all, we must refer them to St. Theresa for the explanation of a subject which
cannot be measured by the perceptions of flesh and blood.
2 E percuoteva sopra dell' Ostia.
3 Dialogo, chap. cxi.

372 Other Miraculous Favours.
sweet odour of the Blessed Sacrament remained sensible to her for
many days after receiving.1
She also relates how on one of those many occasions when, having
asked to communicate, she had been refused by the priest who was
about to celebrate, his heart was touched with compunction, and
before the end of the Mass he bade her approach. On another
occasion, of which she speaks, her longing desires for the Bread of
life were satisfied, not by man, but by God. It was on the feast of
the Conversion of St. Paul ; and having a great desire to communicate
on that day in honour of the Apostle so specially dear to her, she
was refused in succession by every priest who came to celebrate,
God so permitting it that she might know that if men failed her He
would not. When the last Mass came, she humbly made known
her wish to the server, but he would not so much as tell the priest
So when the Mass was over and she remained with the hunger of
her soul unsatisfied, Almighty God drew her to Himself in an ineffable
manner, so that her soul being united and drawn to Him, her body
remained suspended in the air; and in this ecstasy she was com
municated in a miraculous manner; and in token of. the fact she
was conscious of the same delicious savour which she so often
experienced after Communion, and which was continued for several
days.2 If the reluctance exhibited by so many priests to give Communion
to the Saint appears amazing, it must be borne in mind that the
practice of frequent Communion had at that time become rare;
even devout persons often contented themselves with approaching
the altar once a year, or, at most, at those festivals called in Tuscany
" Pasque," for the term Pasqua was applied not to Easter alone, but
to all the great festivals of our Lord, such as Christmas, the Epiphany,
and the Ascension.3 The custom of frequent Communion, as we
understand the term, was not generally revived until the sixteenth
century ; nevertheless, it is not to be doubted that the practice which
was in use among St. Catherine's disciples of weekly Communion,4
did much to render that devout and salutary habit more common in
the Church.
She wearied not of warning her disciples against the delusive
1 Dialogo, chap, cxxiv. 2 Ibid., chap, clxii.
3 See Burlamacchi's notes on Letter 228.
4 See Letter 281, addressed to Neri Landoccio : " Be not negligent in prayer,
and go to Communion every Sunday."

Her Teaching on frequent Communion. 373
humility that would excuse itself from Communion through pre
tended un worthiness, instead of seeking to render itself worthy. " I
say rather," she writes to Ristoro Canigiani, " that we must receive
that sweet Sacrament because it is the food of our souls, for without
that food we cannot preserve the life of grace. A man should do
what he can to remove such things as would hinder his approach ;
and that when he has done all he can, it is enough. It may seem
to him that he has not perfect contrition or other dispositions, but
he is not to stay away on that account, for his good-will is sufficient
and that is the real disposition required of him. I will not there
fore have you act like those who neglect to fulfil the precepts of the
Church because, as they say, they are not worthy. And so they pass
years in mortal sin, and never receive the food of their souls. Oh,
what a foolish sort of humility is this ! Who does not see that you
are not worthy? And when do you expect to become so? You
will not be more fit at the end than at the beginning. All the good
we could do would never in that sense render us worthy. God
alone is worthy of Himself, and He can render us worthy by His
own worthiness which never diminishes." x
To the same effect she writes to her disciple, Andrea Vanni, in a
letter, wherein she speaks not only of the necessity of actual, but of
the benefit of spiritual, Communion. The passage is every way
remarkable, and may be quoted as a fair specimen of her vigorous
style of practical instruction. " You should often wash your soul
from every stain of sin by a good and holy confession, feeding it on
the Bread of Angels, that is, the sweet Sacrament of the Body and
Blood of Jesus Christ, all God and all Man ; which every faithful
Christian is bound to receive at least once a year. He who desires
It oftener may receive It oftener, but not less often ; and for no cause
may any man entirely neglect it, be he just or a sinner ; for if the
sinner be not fitly disposed for it, he must make himself fit. If he
be just, he must not abstain out of humility, saying, " I am not worthy
of so high a mystery; when I am worthy I will communicate." Not
so, for of his own merits he will never be worthy, and if he thought
himself so, that would suffice to make him unworthy, for pride would
conceal itself under the mantle of humility. God alone is capable
of making us worthy, and it is clad in His worthiness that we
must receive Him. And observe that there are two ways in which
we may communicate— actually and spiritually. To communicate
1 Letter 229.

374 Her generous Self-Sacrifice.
spiritually is to do so by true and ardent desire, and this desire
ought not to exist only at the moment of Communion, but at all
times and in all places ; for it is a question of feeding the soul with
the food which sustains the life of grace."
These clear and simple instructions, and the profound and admir
able chapters in her Dialogue which treat of the Holy Mystery of
the Eucharist, were the fruit of that interior light which she had
received from God for the illumination of other souls. Caffarini
tells us that the many visions and mysterious signs which were granted
to her on this subject filled her with confusion and holy fear. Her
own grand and unquestioning faith demanded no such support ; and
in her prayers she was wont lovingly to remonstrate with our Lord,
saying, " O Lord, dost Thou then doubt the firmness of my faith ?
Knowest Thou not that I believe, without doubting, all, however
incomprehensible, that Thou hast revealed to Thy Church, and
through her manifested to Thy faithful children? Why then dost
Thou, as it were, daily bestow on me these signs and repeated as
surances, as though my faith were weak and vacillating ? " And He
replied in order to console her and make her understand the object
of these supernatural favours : " Not for thy sake, O My spouse
and daughter ! do I manifest to thee- by these prodigious signs the
truth of the high mystery of My Sacrament ; but for the sake of
others, that they, by thy means, may be confirmed in faith."
Catherine understood from these words what God demanded of
her ; and in all her dealings with the souls of others, there was no
one thing that was nearer her heart than to cherish and increase
their faith and devotion towards this tremendous Mystery. Hence
the anguish of her soul when she beheld priests, " the Ministers of
the Blood," living in a manner unworthy of their sacred calling.
Those who are familiar with her Dialogue will have no difficulty in
recalling her words on that subject.. But her apostolate was one not
merely of words, but of self-sacrifice, and one instance must here be
given of her astonishing generosity, in offering herself to suffer in
order to procure the deliverance of another soul from temptation.
"There was a certain priest," says Caffarini,1 "who in the act of
celebrating was accustomed to feel such trouble and sadness, that
he had resolved to. abstain in future from offering the Holy Sacrifice.
Catherine became aware of his unhappy and foolish resolution, so
she contrived that he should come to her, and addressed him, saying,
1 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 6, § 2.

Her Spiritual Communions. 375
' I beg of you on no account to give up celebrating the Holy Mass ;
do not think any more of your troubles, but throw all the weight of
them on my shoulders.' From that time the afflicted priest found
himself entirely free from his interior disquietude, and resumed his
former habit of celebrating with perfect tranquillity of mind. But
at the very same moment that he felt himself relieved of his trial,
Catherine experienced within herself the same sentiments of weari
ness and disgust for all things connected with the Divine service ;
but she accepted these sufferings with heroic charity, and with invin
cible vigour of soul endured and overcame them, gaining a glorious
victory ; and she often repeated, in thanksgiving for her own delivery
as for that of the soul to whose rescue she had come, ' Oh, how loving
and merciful is God to those who hope in Him ! ' "
It will have been observed that in her instructions to her disciples,
Catherine does not omit to recommend the practice of spiritual Com
munion. She knew its value, and the immense graces which it may
be the means of conveying to the soul, by her own experience ; for
at times when she was hindered from actually approaching the
Holy Table, she often made use of this means to satisfy her desires ;
and not unfrequently these spiritual Communions were attended by
circumstances no less wonderful than her actual Communions. On
one occasion when the extreme weakness to which she was reduced
rendered it impossible for her to set her foot outside her chamber,
being thus prevented from going to the church, she resigned herself
to the will of God, and began instead to pray in her cell ; but she
had hardly recollected herself for that purpose, when she seemed to
be carried to some place, disposed like a lofty and beautiful sanc
tuary. She beheld assembled there a great multitude of the saints,
who seemed to be assisting at a majestic function, wherein the Holy
Sacrifice was offered by one clad like a Bishop, at an altar brilliant
with light and magnificent in its adornments, while all around was to
be heard the melody of a heavenly chant. When the moment for
Communion came, the Celebrant seemed to administer to her the
Sacred Host. She understood that this Communion was only
spiritual, not actual ; nevertheless, as she afterwards declared, she
experienced the same interior sweetness of grace, neither more nor
less, as she was accustomed to receive in her other Communions.
These are but a few out of the abundant notices which we possess
of that which was the heart and centre of St. Catherine's spiritual
life ; her daily, or all but daily, reception of the Body of her Lord.

376 She revives frequent Communion.
To her as to all the saints, the Divine Sacrament was the Life of
her life ; in her history more remarkably made evident from the fact
that she lived in times when, if the faith of men remained unclouded,
their charity had grown cold, and the greatest privilege of the Chris
tian soul was for the most part neglected. Among her own disciples,
and those whom they in their turn influenced and directed, she may
be said to have revived the custom of frequent Communion, and this is
perhaps not the least title which she possesses to our gratitude and
veneration.1 1 Father Dalgairns, after saying of St. Catherine of Siena that "she had more
influence with her contemporaries than any woman since the beginning of Chris
tianity," notices some of the facts above referred to, and adds, "no one promoted
frequent Communion like that great Saint" (Holy Communion, p. 180).

( 377 )

CHAPTER XII.
ROCCA D'ORCIA.
August to December, 1377.
IN various parts of the Legend we find allusions to a visit paid by
Catherine to the castle of Rocca d'Orcia, one of the strong
holds of the Salimbeni family, whose name has so often recurred in
the foregoing pages. But whilst relating some of the incidents of
this visit, Raymund gives us no information either as to its causes,
or the time when it took place. Happily ample materials are to be
found in the Process, and in the letters of the Saint, which enable us
to set before the reader in a complete form what is undoubtedly one
of the most interesting episodes in her life ; but to render the story,
and the letters which illustrate it more intelligible, we must begin by
saying a few words on the family whose members were brought into
such close contact with Catherine.
The Salimbeni ranked from very early times among the most
powerful lords of Tuscany. The Sienese Chroniclers are never
weary of extolling their valour, their prudence, and their noble
ancestry. A Salimbeni was found in the ranks of those crusaders
who fought with Boemond under the walls of Antioch. Agnolino
Avolo Salimbeni was reckoned the richest noble in Italy, and was
chosen Captain, or chief ruler of Orvieto. His son, John Agnolino
v Salimbeni, was head of the Ghibelline, or Imperial party in Siena ;
"A great and illustrious man," says Malevolti, "who served his
country well." Of the part taken by the family during the Revolu
tion of 1368, we have already spoken; nor would it be fair to allow
the fact of their acting as heads of the Ghibelline faction in Siena to
prejudice us against them, as though this necessarily implied that
they were disloyal to the Holy See. It implied merely that they
were opposed to the democracy which had seized exclusive posses
sion of the government, and that they sought, under the protection
of the Emperor, to regain for the aristocratic class a certain share of
political power. As chiefs of this faction there existed a strong

378 The Salimbeni Family.
rivalry between them and the Tolomei, who were regarded as the
leaders of the Guelphs ; and the feud between the two families was
promoted in every possible way by the Heads of the republican
government, who trusted by this unworthy policy to paralyse the
power of both great families. In the petty wars which followed the
Revolution, the Salimbeni incurred immense losses ; but after peace
had been restored through the mediation of the Florentines, they
succeeded in winning back a considerable degree of popular con
fidence, and resumed something of their former footing in the State.
Catherine, as we have seen, devoted herself energetically to the
extinction of the party feuds which had either grown out of these
unhappy contentions, or been fostered by them to yet more dangerous
proportions ; and it was probably in the course of such charitable
labours that she became introduced to the Salimbeni, though the
particulars of their first acquaintance have not been preserved.
However it originated, it soon ripened into a friendship in which
every member of the family had a share. John Agnolino Salimbeni,
of whom mention has been made above, died the year previous to
the Revolution, in consequence of a fall from his horse, as he was
riding from Siena to Rocca d'Orcia. He left behind him his widow,
the Countess Bianchina (a member of the noble house of the Trinci,
lords of Foligno), and three children ; Agnolino, who succeeded him,
and two daughters, Benedetta and Isa. Isa was the widow of Paul
Trinci of Foligno : Benedetta had likewise been twice espoused ; her
first husband dying shortly after their marriage, while the second did
not live to complete his nuptials. Agnolino showed himself a wise
and valiant man, and took part in many affairs of importance; but
besides having suffered much during the troubles of the Revolution
and in his feud with the Tolomei, he had to defend himself against
his own kinsman Cione Salimbeni, whose restless ambition was
always causing trouble. The immediate cause of their present
quarrel was the fact that Agnolino, desirous of reconciling himself
with the government of the republic, had caused himself to be
enrolled among the plebeian families, and had favoured the popular
cause; receiving from the Magistrates in token of their restored
confidence the castles of Monte Giovi, Montorio, Castiglione di
Val d'Orcia, Rocca Federighi, and some others. This aroused the
jealousy of Cione, and threatened to cause the outbreak of a fresh
feud between the two kinsmen. In Catherine's correspondence with
the different members of the family, references are made to all these

Catherine s Letters to them. 379
circumstances. To the Countess Bianchina she writes as to a dear
friend and disciple, while the two daughters looked to her for advice
and support in their home difficulties. Isa in her widowhood
desired to take the habit of Penance, and Benedetta wished to leave
the world altogether and retire to a convent. Both proposals were
exceedingly distasteful to their brother, with whom Catherine under
took to plead their cause, encouraging them meanwhile to persevere
in their holy purposes. She seems to have been successful in
clearing away the obstacles which opposed themselves to Isa's
design ; for in a Brief of Urban VI. granting a Plenary Indulgence
in the hour of death to fifty Tertiaries of St. Dominic, and dated
March 29th 1380, the name of "Isa, daughter of John Agnolino,"
heads the list. Two of the Saint's letters to Benedetta are preserved,
in which she refers in a very touching manner to the profound ex
perience of the nothingness of earthly joys which had been brought
home to the young Countess by her successive bereavements. " The
soul that loves and serves the world," she says, "is like a leaf tossed
about with the wind ; it is made subject to things that are infinitely
beneath it. I would not have you subject to such a slavery, but
would rather desire to see you the servant of Jesus Crucified, Whose
service is perfect sweetness. Oh, love this sweet and glorious Spouse
Who can never die ! Other spouses die and pass away like the
wind. You know the truth of what I say, for in a brief space of
time the world has struck you two terrible blows ; and God in His
goodness permitted it to be so, that you might fly from the world,
and take refuge in Him." She concludes by encouraging her to
respond to the call of God, and lets us know that Benedetta's design
was to enter the Community that was to be established at Belcaro.
" The buildings are already begun, and they are hurrying on the
works. It is to be called the Monastery of Our Lady of Angels ; if
you come thither you will enter the promised land."
She next addresses herself to " her son Agnolino," as she calls
him, whom ¦ she bids to combat with his spiritual foes like a gallant
knight who does not fear hard blows. And she warns him that the
door by which the enemy will be most apt to enter his soul is the
love of the world and its honours. This was probably the exact
truth; for Agnolino had it greatly at heart to revive the former
splendour and prosperity of his family, and was struggling hard to
retrieve its misfortunes, and win back the favour of his countrymen.
Catherine did not condemn the course he was taking in public

380 Letter to Agnolino.
affairs, which seems to have been honourable and worthy of praise ;
but she saw the danger to his soul which lurked in all these things,
and did not fail to give him an affectionate word of warning.
" When the enemy would enter by the love of the world and its
honours," she says, " open your understanding, and see that there is
neither stability nor duration in anything that the world can give.
You know it well ; you have seen it, you have proved it. Oh, how
I long that you should understand that it is not by giving ourselves
up to these passing and perishable things that we attain to glory, but
often rather to disgrace. For they are all less than we ; and if we
would attain true honour and greatness, we must love and serve
something greater than ourselves. God alone, our Father, the
Sovereign and Eternal Goodness, deserves to be so loved and served ;.
all things else are less than man. To despise the world is to be
truly rich and honourable, though men think just the contrary. I
know all that is being said ; and that the Countess (Benedetta) is
well tormented on all sides because she wishes to be the servant of
the servants of Jesus Christ. Worldly persons seek to persuade her
and you to regard that as base and disgraceful which is the greatest
honour you can receive ; an honour not for time, but for eternity.
Before God and men your glory will surpass that of all your
ancestors. Fools that we are to set our love and hope on a little heap
of straw ! There was a great blaze at her first espousals, but it soon
disappeared, and nothing remained but the smoke of sorrow. Then
it seemed as though the fire was about to be rekindled, but it was
again extinguished by the cold blast of death. Far better for her
and for you that she should obey the call of the Holy Spirit. For
you see, the world rejects her, and casts her on Christ Crucified. I
do hope, then, that you will not let yourself be influenced by its
judgments : impose silence on your vassals ; forbid their murmurs,
and show yourself firm. To act otherwise would be cowardice
unworthy of a brave cavalier. This is why I said I hoped I should
see you fight bravely in this new combat that you have to
sustain on the subject of the Countess. The devil sees that he is
going to lose her, and so he stirs up creatures to torment you. But
have courage ; despise the opinion of the world, and God will be
with you." (Letter 267.) Only one letter is preserved addressed to
the Countess Bianchina ; it breathes the same spirit, and is written
in much the same style. After warning her friend that we cannot
serve two masters, and that the heart that desires to be full of God must

Letter to the Countess Bianchina. 381
necessarily first empty itself of the world, Catherine continues : "We
go on always forming new attachments ; if God cuts off one branch,
we make another. We fear to lose perishing creatures more than
to lose God. And so keeping them and possessing them against the
will of God, we taste even in this life the foretaste of hell : for God
so permits that a soul which loves itself with irregular love should
become insupportable to itself. It suffers from everything that it
possesses because it fears to lose it ; and to preserve what it possesses,
there is anxiety and fatigue day and night. And it suffers from
what it does not possess, because it desires what it cannot get.
And so the soul is never at rest in the midst of the things of this
world, for they are all less than us ; they were made for us, we were
not made for them. We were made for God alone, to enjoy His
Eternal and Sovereign happiness.
" God alone, then, can satisfy the soul ; and all that it can desire it
will find in Him. The soul in Him finds peace, for He is He who
is, the Supreme Riches, the Supreme Power, the Supreme Goodness,
the Supreme Beauty, an Ineffable Good which none can rightly
appreciate; He alone can comprehend and value Himself. He
both can and will satisfy all the holy desires of a soul that desires to
strip itself of the world, and to' be clothed with Him. Shake off
your slumber then, my dearest mother, for the hour of death
approaches nearer and nearer. I would have you use all these
passing and temporal things as something lent, but not really
belonging to you. The way to attain to this, is by detaching your
heart from them, and this we must do if we would be sharers in the
fruit of the Blood of Jesus." (Letter 331.)
These extracts are sufficient to show on what terms Catherine
stood with the family of Salimbeni. We will now proceed to
unravel the narrative of her visit to Rocca in the autumn of 1377,
though it appears probable that this was by no means the only
occasion on which she was their guest. In that year a quarrel
had broken out, as has been already stated, between Agnolino and
Cione Salimbeni. Cione resided at Castiglioncello del Trinoro ;
and Agnolino at Rocca di Tentennano, now called Rocca d' Orcia.
Stricca, the wife of Cione, was also a friend and correspondent of
Catherine's, who thus had influence with both the contending parties.
The castles of the two kinsmen were about ten miles apart; and
(as it would seem), at the request of the noble ladies of the family,
Catherine undertook to negotiate the terms of their reconciliation.

382 She revisits Montepttlciano.
For greater convenience she first took up her residence at Monte
pulciano, as being a spot equidistant from both castles, the three
places forming a kind of triangle.
Catherine, as we know, was no new guest at Montepulciano. On
this occasion she was accompanied by a considerable number of her
disciples, both men and women ; among others by Raymund of
Capua, F. Thomas della Fonte, F. Bartholomew Dominic, Stephen
Maconi, and Don Francis Malevolti ; F. Thomas Caffarini afterwards
joined them, coming from Orvieto. There were also F. Matthew
Tolomei, the hermit Fra Santi, and several of the Saint's female
companions, such as Alexia, Lisa, Cecca, and others. It seems to
have been at this time that in the midst of her hard and troublesome
negotiations, the peace and tranquillity of the convent enclosure
almost gained her heart. " Do you know," she says, writing to
Agnes, Donna Malevolti, who after her husband's death had entered
among the Sisters of Penance, " I feel half disposed to say, ' Let us
make here three tabernacles,' for it seems to me a real paradise to be
with these holy religious. They all love us so much, they are hardly
willing to let us depart. As to Cecca, she is already half a nun, for
she begins to say the office well, in choir with the nuns." (Letter
183.) However, very different duties awaited her from the sweet
chanting of the office, and the charms of regular life which she knew
so well how to appreciate. Her first expedition was to Castiglion
cello, where she was well received by Cione Salimbeni, and found
no difficulty in inducing him to come to terms of peace. The next
matter was to obtain the like compliance from Agnolino ; and for that
purpose Catherine set out for Rocca d'Orcia. "The spot so called,"
writes Jerome Gigli, in his Preface to the Saint's letters, "stands above
the valley of the Orcia, about twenty-three miles distant from Siena,
and may be seen by travellers from the Roman road, standing on
a sharp and steep rock projecting from the mountain side. The
olives flourish here better than anything else that is cultivated.
Fitly might a column be erected on this mountain path warning
pilgrims to salute that rugged rock where the Dove of Siena brought
the olive of peace ! Truly was that rock terrible to Lucifer, discom
fited there by the saintly virgin who drove him from the bodies and
souls he had so long possessed ! "
The river Orcia, from which the valley takes its name, is one of
those many mountain streams which flow into the Ombrone, and
divides the hill on which Montalcino stands from the loftier group

Scenery of Motde A miata. 383
of Cetona, Radicofani, and Monte Amiata. These are the three
highest mountains in the vicinity of Siena, and the scenery among
their savage ravines is exceedingly grand. From their summit, and
specially from that of Monte Amiata, may be seen the long range of
the Apennines, and the whole extent of the Tuscan Maremma. The
Roman Campagna also appears in the southern distance ; while to
the west is the blue expanse of the Mediterranean, studded with its
islands. Even in our own day it is a wild and savage region, and
only a century ago, when the celebrated botanist, Peter Antonio
Micheli, undertook his scientific journey through the territory of
Siena, he found no small difficulty in forcing a way over these
mountains ; the thickets of beeches which grow out of the fissures of
the rocks on Monte S. Fiora preventing the passage of his horse. It
may well be imagined, therefore, that in St. Catherine's time these
rocky fastnesses were still more difficult of access, and the prospect of
a residence in the stronghold of a mountain chieftain might not have
been without its terrors to a less fearless soul. The wild soldiery
who gathered around the castles of these chieftains, and formed their
garrisons, were little better than banditti, and had spent their lives in
murderous feuds, which scarcely deserved the name of civil wars.
Among these rude warriors the holy maiden of Siena now came to
speak of peace and brotherly love ; strange words which sounded in
their ears like an unknown tongue, for the comprehension of which
they needed, as it were, new faculties. Long habits of ruthless
violence, long years spent without prayer or sacraments, had hardened
their hearts and obscured their understandings. The Evil One had
indeed laid his grasp on these poor souls, and seemed to claim their
wild and desolate region as his own ; and he was to be dispossessed,
and rudely put to flight by her, whose fragile form might have been
seen one August evening ascending the mountain path that led to
the castle, mounted on her little ass,1 and surrounded by her faithful
disciples. She was affectionately received both by Agnolino and his mother,
who is described as " a lady of great virtue and talent, and most
devout to the Saint." Through her influence Catherine found no
difficulty in effecting the chief object of her mission ; and the recon
ciliation of the two kinsmen was happily secured. Such an example
was not lost on their neighbours, and other lords and chieftains were
led to lay down their quarrels at Catherine's feet, so that she was
1 Secondo Ui, sopra un asinello. (Leg., Part 3, ch. vi.)

384 7^<? Demoniac of Rocca Strada.
detained for more than four months in these parts, appeasing discords,
and restoring peace to many an unhappy family. At the mere sight
of her the fiercest hearts were pacified, and the influence of her
sanctity and eloquence was greatly increased by the wonders God
was pleased to work through her means.
Of some of these a very exact and interesting account has been
left by Don Francesco Malevolti, and as his narrative has never yet
been published, certain portions of it shall be here extracted, which
are the more valuable as being the testimony of an eyewitness. After
relating the circumstances which led to Catherine's coming into these
parts, and the extraordinary success of her mission, he continues :
" The Countess Bianchina bore so great a reverence for the holy
virgin that she took care to keep near her day and night. And as
her fame for holiness spread far and near, it happened one day that
there came a crowd of men, twelve or fourteen in number, from a
certain village called Rocca Strada. They had with them a mare,
on which was a man bound with many ropes, and with iron shackles
on his hands and feet. He was so full of rage and fury, that no one
dared approach him, for he tore with his teeth any person who came
near him, and his screams and bellowings were rather infernal than
human. So these men brought him thus bound to Agnolino's
fortress, that they might lay him at the feet of Catherine. When
they had entered the court of the castle they laid down the demoniac
bound as he was, with no small fear ; which being done, two of those
who had brought him went to the place where the Lady Bianchina
was in company with Catherine, and drawing the Countess apart,
they spoke to her in secret. Then she returned, and addressing
Catherine in coaxing words, ' My sweetest Mamma,' she said (for
by this name of Mamma they all called her), ' let us go away from
hence' 'Mother,' replied Catherine, with great humility, 'I know
very well that this is not the hour when y ou wish to depart hence ;
nevertheless, when the hour comes, I will obey your commands." In
fact, she knew perfectly well what the noble lady wished her to do. But
after the Countess had, on various pretences, urged her to come, and
Catherine, on the other hand, had as repeatedly declined, overcome
at last by so many entreaties, as one who knew not how to refuse
anything that was ordered her, she bowed her head, and left the
room with the Lady Bianchina, and we others followed them, to the
number of more than sixteen persons. We all went out into the
court where the demoniac lay, still bound ; who, when he saw the

He is delivered. 385
holy virgin Catherine, uttered such terrific yells that we all remained
terrified. Then he rolled on the ground, making unspeakably
hideous gestures ; and if he had not been bound with many cords,
some of the bystanders would have been in no small danger. When
the holy virgin beheld him so behaving, she turned to the Countess,
saying, 'O lady, what has this poor man done that they have so
bound him ? For the love of God, bid them loose him, that he may
not be thus tortured.' But the Countess replied, ' These men are
greatly afraid of him ; for with his teeth, and in every way that he
can, he attacks those who come near him. Command, however, what
you will regarding him, and they will at once do it' So with many
sweet words the holy virgin entreated the men, saying, ' My dearest
brothers, do not suffer this creature of God to be thus put to pain ;
loose him, for there is nothing at all the matter with him, and then,
for the love of God, give him some refreshment.' Then they replied,
' O lady, we have hitherto greatly feared him, for he has shockingly
maltreated some of our people ; nevertheless, we are ready to obey
your commands, provided you will engage on no account to
depart from us.' So Catherine not only remained there, but drew
several paces nearer to the prisoner, and desired them to loose him
in the name of Jesus Christ. When she had thus spoken, the man
who before seemed like a fierce wild beast, became quite quiet, and
stretched himself on the ground like one dead. The men approached,
not without fear, and loosed him from his bonds ; they also drew
the shackles from his hands and feet, and still he made not the
smallest movement. Then said the virgin, ' Now, raise him up and
give him some food, for he is suffering from nothing but weakness ;
and you will see that when he is refreshed with food, he will no
longer appear the same man. ' So they raised him up, and gave him
food and drink ; and having fully returned to his senses, he was utterly
astonished to find himself in that place, and remembered nothing of all
that had passed. Humbly commending himself to Catherine, there
fore, she made over him the sign of the Cross, and he departed on
foot with all the company who had brought him thither, in perfect
health, and was never more troubled in the same manner."
"Another man was brought to the same castle from one of the
other fortresses of Agnolino. He was possessed by many wicked
spirits, and those who brought him feigned that they were taking him
in another direction. But the evil spirits perceiving that they were
being conducted into the presence of their great adversary, as soon
2 B

386 Deliverance of Others possessed.
as they drew near the castle caused him to speak with great rage and
violence, saying, ' You want to take me to that cruel enemy of mine
who is always persecuting me wherever I go. But I promise you
this journey shall cost every one of you dear.' Then as he was
still crying out in this way, they entered the castle court. Now the
Countess Bianchina was in a certain chamber of the castle with
Catherine and others of both sexes, of whom I was. one. The
demoniac, therefore, was . brought into our presence bellowing with
fury, and entered the room in a very terrible manner ; — nevertheless,
as soon as he was there, he sprang out of the hands of those who
held him, and fell prostrate at the feet of Catherine, who, according
to her custom, was sitting on the ground. From that moment he
spake no word, small or great, but lay as if dead. Then the holy
virgin compassionating him in her heart, began to weep, and taking
his head, she supported it on her bosom, whilst we stood round silent
and attentive to watch the end. But after the holy virgin had lifted
her eyes to heaven, her face became all shining and radiant, whilst
she silently conversed with her Eternal Spouse. Then we suddenly
beheld coming forth from the form of the demoniac, as he lay on her
lap, such a vast multitude of lice that it was a marvel to behold, and
they went hither and thither over her garments. We, beholding the
exterior but not the interior, began to say, ' O mother ! remove
this man from us ; see you not he is covering us with lice ? ' But
gently and devoutly smiling, she replied, ' Be not uneasy, they will
not stay long ; ' and indeed after a short space they all disappeared,
so that not so much as one of them was to be seen. Then Catherine
addressing him who still lay on her lap, said, ' Arise, dear brother,
and be comforted, thou shalt suffer no evil, but only a little bodily
weakness.' So, causing a loaf to be brought to her, and wine, she
with her own holy hands made sop in the wine, and gave it to him
to eat. And so being strengthened and fully delivered, he returned
home on foot with his companions, praising God."
To these narratives of Don Francesco we must add the one given
by Raymund in his Legend, which becomes more intelligible when we
understand the circumstances which brought Catherine into these
parts, and the affairs in which she was engaged. It happened that
during her stay at Rocca, one of the women of the castle was
suddenly seized and tormented by the Evil Spirit, whose rage was
excited in a very special manner against all those who took part with
Catherine in her charitable mission. The Countess, knowing how

The Woman of the Castle. 387
greatly averse she was to have any such cases brought to her, took
counsel with the Saint's companions, and by their advice had the poor
woman brought unexpectedly into her presence, trusting that the
pitiful sight would suffice to move her to compassion. Catherine
was just on the point of starting for a place where she had appointed
to meet two persons whom she was engaged in reconciling.
"When she beheld the wretched woman, and saw that she could
by no means escape, she turned to the Lady Bianchina, and said,
' Ah ! Madam, God forgive you. Know you what you have done ?
Know you not that I am disturbed enough by these wicked spirits,
that from time to time molest mine own person ; wherefore, then,
do you increase my trouble by presenting others before me who are
vexed with these foul fiends ? ' With that she turned to the woman
that was possessed, and said to the wicked spirit : ' Thou malicious
enemy of mankind, I charge thee, lay down thine head in this
man's lap, and abide there till I come again.' She had no sooner
spoken these words than the woman that was vexed laid down
her head in the lap of the hermit, Fra Santi, who chanced to be
present, and never moved till she came again. In the meantime,
while Catherine was gone to make peace between two nobles that
were at variance (whose dwelling was not far from that place), the
spirit cried out by the mouth of the miserable woman, leaning her
head in the hermit's lap, and said : ' Why do you hold me here ?
I pray you let me go, for I am very hard holden.' They that stood
by made answer, saying : ' And why dost thou not go thy way ?
Who holdeth thee ? Is not the door open ? ' ' Oh ! ' said he,
'that cursed woman hath bound me here. She holdeth me that
I may not depart' 'What woman?' said they. 'That cursed
woman ! ' said he ; and would not, or peradventure could not, name
her, but after a raging manner cried ont : ' That cursed creature, that
cursed woman, mine enemy ! ' Then the hermit asked him whether
he took her for his great enemy or no? 'Yea,' said he, 'the
greatest that I have this day in the world.' Then those that were
there present, being much disquieted with his outrageous crying, said
to him : ' Hold thy peace, Catherine cometh ; ' meaning thereby to
put him in fear, and so to cause him to cease his crying. ' No, no,'
said he, ' she cometh not yet ; she is in such a place ; ' where she
was indeed. They asked him what she did there. 'What doth
she ? ' said he ; ' she is now doing a thing (as she is at all times)
wherein I take small pleasure.' And with that he cried out

3S8 Her Deliverance.
again very sore, and said, 'Ah! why am I thus holden here?'
And it was evidently seen that he never moved from that place where
the holy maid charged him to abide till her coming again. At the
last he said, 'Now is that cursed woman coming.' They demanded
of him where she was. ' She is now,' said he, ' in such a place, and
now she is gone from thence, and goeth towards such a place' And
so declared, from time to time, how she passed from place to place,
until at length, when she was come to the gate of the house where
they were, he said, ' Now, she is come' When she had entered the
house, and began to come towards the chamber wherein they awaited
her return, he cried out with a loud voice and said, ' Ah ! why hold
ye me here by force ?' The holy maid made answer and said,
' Arise, wretch, and get thee hence, and leave this creature of God,
and from this hour forward see that thou never be so hardy as once
to molest her again.' And with that it was seen that the wicked
fiend forsook all the other parts of that woman's body, and gathered
himself into her throat, where he made such a horrible swelling that
it moved as many as were present to great compassion. Then the
holy maid made the sign of the Cross over the place that was swollen,
and forthwith he departed from the woman, and went his way, and
left the woman safe and sound, in the presence of a great many that
were there, who saw this evident miracle with their eyes. Now when
she was fully come to herself again, and knew the place and persons
that were about her, she had great marvel, and asked some of her
acquaintance what she did there and how she came thither. They
made her answer, and declared unto her in what case she had been,
and what had been done by the holy maid about her delivery. When
she heard that, she was astonished, and said that in truth she could
remember no such thing. Only this she confessed, that her body
was very sore shaken and bruised, as if it had been beaten with a club.
Of this evident miracle were witnesses the Lady Bianchina, the holy
hermit Santi, in whose lap it was done, and more than thirty other
persons." x
From Rocca, the Saint proceeded to the abbey of St. Anthimo, the
abbot of which place, F. Giovanni di Ser Gano di Orvieto,, was, as
we have seen, the Commissary for the foundation of our Lady of
Angels, and one of Catherine's greatest friends. St. Anthimo was
about five miles from Montalcino, which town had formerly been
subject to the abbots, but had long before this date been made over
. , ' Fen., Part 2, ch. xxxv.

Catherine at St. Anthimo. 389
to the republic of Siena. In Catherine's time, not only was the
temporal anthority of the abbots lost, but their spiritual jurisdiction
likewise was attacked by the Archpriests of Montalcino. The
troubles arising out of these disputes appear to have had some share
in bringing the Saint to St. Anthimo, and she took up her residence
at the grand old abbey which then stood, with its church with three
naves, in a valley between two mountains. A little later it fell into decay,
and was finally suppressed by Pius II., so that as Carapelli writes in
his Corso Cronotastico, a few shepherds only now inhabit the spot
formerly peopled with monks. Catherine remained here some weeks,
and it was from hence that she addressed a letter to the Magistrates
of Siena (Letter 201), from which we gather that murmurs had
already arisen in the city in consequence of her journey. " I hear,"
she says, " from the Archpriest of Montalcino and others, that you
have passed an unfavourable judgment on the Abbot of St. Anthimo,
a great servant of God. He has been here a long time, and if you
knew him better you would not suspect him. I beg of you, there
fore, not to torment him, but rather, if necessary, to assist him. You
complain that priests and clerics are not corrected, and yet when
you find some one willing to do it, you complain of him and raise
obstacles. As to my return with my spiritual family, I am told that
there are murmurs and suspicions on that score also, but I do not
know if I ought to believe it. If you took as much interest in your
own affairs as we do for you, you and all the citizens of Siena would
close your ears to such things. We are incessantly labouring for
your good, sparing ourselves no fatigue. I have so little virtue that
I do nothing perfectly, but others who are better than I are doing
their utmost, and the ignorance and ingratitude of our fellow-
citizens will not prevent them from persevering even unto death. I
love you all better than you love yourselves, and desire nothing so
much as your peace and welfare ; do not suppose that I, or any of
my companions, can feel differently. I see that the devil is very
angry at the loss of souls which he will suffer by this journey. I
have come here only to feed on souls, and withdraw them out of his
hands ; and for that I would sacrifice a thousand lives if I had
them. I shall go, therefore, where, and act in whatever way the
Holy Spirit may inspire me. You must not be weary of reading my
letters, but bear with me patiently."
Catherine was as good as her word ; in spite of the narrow-
minded jealousies and reports to her disadvantage which were

390 Immense Fruit of Souls.
propagated in Siena, and which from time to time reached her ears,
she remained at St. Anthimo for several weeks, and at no period of
her life was the fruit of her prayers and exhortations more abundant.
Such was the concourse of those who came to see and hear her, and
who flocked from all the country round, that no one who had not
seen it (say the witnesses) could have believed it. Every day they
poured over the mountains, not by hundreds, but by thousands.
Raymund, in his Legend (Bk. 2, ch. vii.), has described the extraor
dinary scenes at which he was present, although he has omitted to tell
us when and where they took place ; but the omission is supplied
by the agreement of his account with that of other witnesses who have
been more exact as to the time and locality. " Often," he says, " I
have seen thousands of men and women hastening over the summit
of the mountains and all the neighbouring country, as though
summoned by the sound of some mysterious trumpet. They came
to see and hear her : her words were not required, her presence
alone sufficed to convert souls and inspire them with contrition.
All wept over their sins, and accused themselves of them in the
sacred tribunal of penance. I was witness to the sincerity of their
repentance, and it was evident that an extraordinary and abundant
grace acted on their hearts." The news of these things reaching the
ears of Gregory XL, he granted to Raymund and his companions all
the powers usually reserved to bishops for absolving those who pre
sented themselves. Besides F. Raymund, F. Bartholomew Dominic,
and F. Thomas della Fonte, four other confessors were employed,
and several other priests were afterwards called to assist ; but
even so, they could not supply the necessities of the people. For
many continuous days they were occupied from dawn till nightfall,
not having, like the Apostles, time, so much as to eat. " I confess,
to my shame," says Raymund, "that I was often tired and dis
couraged. But Catherine never interrupted her prayers, rejoicing in
gaining so many souls to God, and only charging those who were
with her to have a care for us who held the nets she knew so well
how to fill. It is impossible to depict her joy ; and what we saw in
her replenished us with such consolation that we forgot our fatigue."
From St. Anthimo she returned to Rocca, where they were joined
by F. Thomas, Caffarini. Here the same scenes continued, as he
testifies in his deposition. " I came," he says, " from Orvieto to a
certain castle of the Salimbeni near Siena, where the virgin then was,
and spent some time with her, witnessing the wonderful fruit both

Complaints of her Disciples. 391
of souls and bodies which our Lord wrought by her. I saw how
great a number were brought by her to salutary penance, some of
whom had spent forty years or more without confession, others
brought to make peace, and others delivered from the power of the
devil. The lady of the castle, Donna Bianchina, of the noble house
of Foligno, was accustomed to say that never had she conversed
with any one like her. In my journey thither I had been threatened
by many dangers from thieves and other things, all which I and my
companions escaped in a manner altogether miraculous, so that we
doubted not we must attribute our safety to her prayers."
Peter Ventura in his deposition tells us of one instance in which
her exhortations to penance were without success. "While still at
Rocca," he says, "she warned a certain man that unless he repented
and confessed, he would that night find himself in a place whence
he would not be able to get out and return to her. The man went
that night to Montalcino, where he was seized and taken to Siena,
and there shortly after beheaded."
Meanwhile Catherine's unusually long absence from Siena was excit
ing complaints among those of her disciples whom she left behind, and
in addition to her other labours she had to appease their unreason
able discontent. She writes to Catherine of the Hospital and Jane di
Capo, two of her familiar disciples whom she had left in charge of her
spiritual family : " I know, my dearest daughters, that you are afflicted
at my absence, but love and obedience will dissipate your grief . . .
What you have not yet done, do now, otherwise you will seriously
afflict me. We must do, as the Apostles did when they had received
the Holy Spirit; they separated from each other, and from their
sweet Mother Mary. We may well believe that their only happiness
was to live all together, and yet they renounced that happiness, in
order to seek the honour of God and the salvation of souls ; and
when Mary their Mother left them, they did not think her love for
them had diminished, or that they were forgotten by her. This
must be the rule for us to follow. I know my presence is a consola
tion to you, but for God's honour and the salvation of souls you
ought not to seek your own consolation, and so give an advantage to
the devil, who will try and make you believe you have lost my affec
tion. I assure you, I only love you all for God; why, then, feel
such unreasonable pain at what cannot be helped ? How shall we
behave on great occasions, if we are so weak in little ones ? God
unites us, and He separates us, as He sees fit. He wills just now

392 Departure of Raymund.
that we should all be separated for His honour. See now ; you are at
Siena, Cecca and Nonna at Montepulciano ; F. Bartholomew and F.
Matthew have gone to join you, and will stay at Siena; Alexia and
Sister Bruno are at Monte Giove, about eighteen miles from Monte
pulciano — they are staying there with the Countess and Donna Isa;
F. Raymund, F. Thomas, Sister Thomma, Lisa, and myself are here
at Rocca among the brigands ; and we have so many incarnate
demons to eat,1 that F. Thomas pretends it gives him the stomach
ache, and nevertheless you cannot satisfy him ; they relish it more
and more, and are well rewarded for all their trouble. Pray God in
His goodness to give them good morsels, very sweet, and very bitter.
What more could you desire ? Courage then, my daughters ; make
the sacrifice of your wills to God, and do not always be crying for the
milk of babes when you ought, with the teeth of holy desire, to be
chewing hard bread. Courage ! we shall return as soon as we can,
according to God's good pleasure."
Catherine was not teaching more than she herself was called on
to practise. At this very time, the service of the Church was demand
ing of her a sacrifice than which none could be more costly. Ray
mund of Capua was summoned to Rome by Gregory XL, and while
there, was for the second time elected Prior of the Minerva ; in con
sequence of which lie was unable to rejoin the Saint, and though he
retained the title of her confessor, and directed her conscience by
letter, they never met again in this world save for ten brief days. A
letter written by her to Alexia at this time reveals something of
what was passing in her soul, and contrasts singularly with the joyous
playfulness of the one just quoted. Alexia, as we have just seen, was
at Monte Giove, for the Saint seems to have sent her disciples in
various directions, to complete and carry out the different missions
of peace in which she was engaged. After giving Alexia some good
advice as to her conduct, she says, "Try particularly to accustom
your tongue to silence ; I think I have observed that your companion
does not keep it very well, and that is a great grief to me. . . . You
ask if I am suffering, and if I feel my usual infirmities. God
provides for all, both as to the soul and body, and He has
provided very well during this Advent, assuaging my suffering by
letters. It is true I have suffered more than usual, but, on the other
hand, Lisa was cured at the same time as Fra Santi, who seemed at
1 St. Catherine's favourite expression of " eating souls," on the table of the
Holy Cross signifies, of course, their conversion.

Letter to Lapa. 393
the point of death. It seems as if our Sweet Spouse wished to give
me experience both as to the interior and exterior, as to things that
are seen, and things that are not seen ... I am content that pain
should be my food, and tears my drink, and sweat my perfume.
Yes, let pain be my food, let pain be my medicine, let pain give me
light, let pain strip me of all self-love, temporal and spiritual. The
suffering I have experienced from the loss of all consolation from
creatures has reminded me of my want of virtue, and made me know
my own imperfection. He has not withdrawn His mercy from me,
in spite of my ingratitude . . . Rejoice, then, on the Cross with me,
for the Cross is the bed and the table of the soul, whereon she rests
and takes her nourishment, even the fruit of patience in peace and
repose ... I am here on an island where the wind blows from all
quarters. Rejoice in our Jesus ; it is He who keeps us far, one from
the other." (Letter 178.) The "island" she here speaks of is the
" Isola della Rocca," so called apparently from its detached position.
It is evident that the cross which here appears to be weighing on the
Saint, by her so generously embraced, and the loss of consolation
from creatures, was none other than her separation from Raymund.
But other crosses had to be borne, and among them the one
most heavily felt from its injustice, namely, fresh murmurs and
suspicions on the part of her fellow-citizens, who began to entertain
unworthy doubts of her motives in remaining so many months in the
territories of the Salimbeni. Lapa also had set out to join her
daughter, but had not got farther than Montepulciano, from whence
she despatched her complaints to Catherine, who writes a letter con
jointly to her and .Cecca, who was still a guest of the Community ;
and who seems in some degree to have shared in the impatience
of her companion. "My dear mother and daughter," writes
Catherine, " I wish I could see you both on fire with charity, other
wise you will always be suffering, and make me suffer likewise.
Dearest mother, your miserable child is in this world only for one
thing, and that is to do the will of her Creator. I do beg of you, if
I remain here longer than you like, do not be vexed. I really cannot
do otherwise, and I am persuaded if you knew the whole business,
you would be the first to tell me to remain. I am here to remedy a
great scandal, if I can : it is no fault of the Countess. Pray to
God and Our Lady that we may succeed. And as to you, Cecca and
Justina,1 this is the moment to show your virtue. Adieu." Catherine
1 Justina was Cecca's daughter, and a nun at Montepulciano.

394 Letter to the Citizens of Siena.
replied in a different strain to the citizens of Siena. It is thus that
she expresses herself in writing to Salvi, a goldsmith, and a person of
civic authority. " It seems that some who call themselves the sons of
God, have taken scandal, being deluded by the devil, who is always
prowling about, seeking how he can tear up the good grain sown by
the Holy Spirit. The imprudent have not resisted, and under pre
text of virtue have communicated what they felt to others. Now,
then, I declare to you that it is the will of God I should remain here.
I had a great desire not to offend Him by remaining, on account of
the murmurs and suspicions of which I am the object, as well as my
spiritual Father, F. Raymund. But He Who is Truth itself, reassured
me saying, ' Continue to take thy food at the table where I have
placed thee. I have placed thee at the table of the Cross, that in
the midst of murmurs and sufferings thou mightest work for the
salvation of souls ; and I have confided to thee souls in this place,
that they might be delivered out of the hands of the devil, and
reconciled with Me, and with their neighbour. Finish, therefore,
what thou hast begun. It is to hinder so much good that the
enemy stirs up so much evil, but go on and fear nothing, for I will
be on thy side.' These words restored my peace, and I applied
myself with the more zeal to work for God's honour, the salva
tion of souls, and the good of our city. Negligently as I do it, yet
I rejoice to follow the footsteps of my Creator. I do my fellow-
citizens good, and they return me evil ; I labour for their honour,
and they cover me with reproaches ; I desire their life, they desire
my death : but death is our life, and shame our true glory ; the
real shame is for them who offend; where there .is no fault, there
need be no shame. I trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, and not in
man. I shall continue therefore, and if they heap on me abuse and
persecution, I shall repay them with tears and prayers, if God give
me grace. Whether the devil likes it or not, I shall spend my life
for God's honour and the salvation of souls, for the entire world,
and above all, for my country. What a shame for the citizens of
Siena to believe and imagine that we are occupied with affairs of
State, either on the lands of the Salimbeni or elsewhere ! My fellow-
citizens are like Caiphas who prophesied that one should die for the
people, not knowing what he said. They believe that I and my
companions are busy with plots, and they say truly, and prophesy as
he did, not knowing what they say. We are plotting ; we seek to
triumph over the devil and take away his power, to root hatred out

Donna Rabes. 395
of all hearts, and reconcile them with God and their neighbours.
These are our plots, into which I drag every one who is with me. I
only complain of their negligence ; we work too lazily at our business ;
pray to God that we may have greater zeal. For the rest, the disciple
is not greater than his Master. Brother Raymund, poor calumniated
Brother Raymund, recommends himself to you, and asks you to pray
for him, that he may be good and patient.1 Adieu."
But even this was not all. In the letter to Catherine of the Hos
pital, quoted a few pages back, it will be remembered that she speaks
of F. Matthew having gone back to Siena. This was Matthew
Tolomei, a Friar Preacher, the younger brother to Francesco and
Ghinocchia, and to that " Master James " who, through his young
brother's persuasion, visited Catherine, and was by her converted.
Their mother, Donna Rabes Tolomei, was a noble and virtuous lady,
and a great friend and disciple of Catherine's. But even good persons
are not always proof against the spirit of the world, and in the fourteenth
century family feuds carried away many a soul otherwise eminently
virtuous. The Tolomei, as we know, had long been the mortal
enemies of the Salimbeni. The two families headed the rival fac
tions of the republic, and were the Capulets and Montagues of Siena.
It is therefore easy to understand how it came about that Donna
Rabes lost both patience and common-sense when she saw her son
borne away with the other disciples of Catherine, and abiding for
four long months in the territory of their hereditary enemy. She
therefore addressed a letter to the Saint, which is not preserved, but
we can gather its tenor from Catherine's reply. (Letter 344.)
" My dearest daughter, I wish you would conquer your sensitive
self-love which takes from you the light of reason, and makes you
love the world and your children beyond measure. I wish I could
see you dead to yourself; but it seems to me that you are very much
alive, and I see by the letter you have written that your blind love
makes you quite depart from the order of God. You tell me that
Francesca is ill, and that you must have Matthew return at once,
spite of every obstacle ; and that if he does not return, you will give
him your malediction ; and that if there is no other way for him to
return, he is to take a peasant to accompany him. You cannot
surely excuse such foolish impatience. Let us judge the matter
not merely according to religious rules, but simply according to
common-sense, such as we may get from nature ; if you had any,
1 This letter was evidently written before Raymund's departure.

396 Her Communions.
you would not act as you do. If it be necessary, in order to satisfy
you and your daughter, that Matthew must return, you must ask for
two friars to be sent, one to go back with him, and the other to stay
here, for you know very well they can none of them come or go
alone. But passion blinds you, and your ears are filled with mur
murs. You should have closed your ears, both you and the others,
and held your tongues, so as not to hear what was said, and not to
repeat it. Let there be an end of it all, and encourage Francesca
to abide in the sweet love of God." Rabes, however, had her will,
and Catherine, to content her, was forced to send back Matthew in
company with F. Bartholomew, thus parting from one of her chief
supports at a very difficult crisis.
The simplicity and natural style of the letters above quoted will
be manifest to every reader. They might be written by one of our
selves, and apply as aptly to any of our own wants or infirmities as
they did to those of Cecca, or Rabes Tolomei. We see by them that our
Seraphic Mother was not merely the inspired prophetess raised into
a region of ecstasy and vision, far above out of the reach of our sym
pathies and comprehension. She was a woman of like nature and
passions with ourselves : she could speak our language and think
our thoughts. Over her great soul there passed the same lights and
shadows which chequer our little lives ; and the playful gaiety of to
day is exchanged to-morrow for the sadder tone of suffering or of
reproof. And yet that other life of miraculous power and of Divine
favours went on all the while ; never for one moment was it inter
rupted; never was her power with God exhibited on a more mar
vellous scale. It was at Rocca, as we have seen, that those many
cases occurred when the devil was cast out of those whom he tor
mented by the word and presence of the Saint ; it was at Rocca
that Francesco Malevolti and many other witnesses beheld the
wonders that attended her daily Communions. " I often saw her
communicate," says Malevolti, "and always in ecstasy; and I be
held how, when the priest was about to give her the Body of our
Lord, before he had drawn more than a palm's length near her, the
Sacred Host would depart out of his hands, and, like an arrow, shoot
into the mouth of the holy virgin. A wise man named Anastasius
of Monte Altino, also took notice of this wonderful circumstance,
and introduced it into certain rhythmical verses which he composed
on things appertaining to her, which he had heard and personally
seen." It was at Rocca that the same witness beheld her " times

She learns to write. 397
innumerable " raised from the ground in ecstasy as she prayed, and
remaining thus suspended in the air more than a cubit above the
ground. "I, and some others," he says, "wished to make proof of
this ; wherefore, passing our hands between her and the floor, we
satisfied ourselves that it was true, and that she was altogether lifted
up from the ground. Moreover, so long as I remained with her at
that time, 1 saw that she lived on Holy Communion alone, and that
no bodily food of any sort would remain within her. ... I was with
her during the whole of that time, both at Montepulciano and St.
Anthimo, and in the territories of the Salimbeni, and never did I
hear a vain or idle word proceed forth out of her lips."
But one great event of Catherine's residence at Rocca yet remains
to be told. It was here, as we know from her own words in a letter
written to Raymund, which shall presently be quoted, that she was
miraculously taught to write. " It chanced by some accident," says
Caffarini,1 " that there fell into her hands one day a certain vessel
filled with cinnabar, or minium, which a writer had made use of to
write in red, or rather to illuminate the initial letters of a book,
according to the custom of the time. The Saint, moved by Divine
inspiration, sat down, and taking the artist's pen in hand, though she
had never learnt to form letters, or to compose words in regular
metre, she wrote, in clear and distinct characters, the following
verses : ' Spirito Santo, vieni nel mio cuore,
Per la tua potenza tiralo a te Dio,
Concedemi carita e timore ;
Custodiscimi Cristo da ogni mal pensiero,
Infiammami, e riscaldami del tuo dulcissimo amore,
Accii ogni travaglio mi sembri leggiero ;
Assistenza chiedo, ed ajuto nelle necessita.
Cristo Amore. Cristo Amore.' "
He testifies to the same fact in his deposition, and affirms that he
had seen the paper written in cinnabar, which was kept as a precious
relic by F. Jerome of Siena (of the Hermits of St. Augustine), and
which was given by him after the Saint's death as a gift of inestimable
value to Leonard Pisani, who generously bestowed it on Caffarini ;
and by him it was laid up with other relics of the Saint in the con
vent of the Sisters of Penance at Venice. Gigli made every search
for the precious original, but unhappily without success. Caffarini
concludes his narrative with these words, " In one of her letters to
1 Sup., Part I, Trat. I, § 10.

398 Letters to Raymund.
Master Raymund she tells him of the manner in which she learnt to
write, which was altogether beyond the course of nature, St. John
and St. Thomas Aquinas being her masters, as she attests."
We will now turn to two of the Saint's letters to Raymund, both,
as we gather, written by her own hand. The first is No. 89 in Gigli's
collection. It is of singular beauty, overflowing with a strain of
exquisite poetry. "The soul," she says, "cannot see herself in
herself, she can only see herself in God. She finds in Him the
image of the creature, and Him in His image. She desires to love
herself in God, and God in herself, as one who sees his image
reflected in a fountain, and rejoices to see it ; but if he is wise, loves
the fountain better than the image reflected there. We can never
see ourselves and the faults which disfigure the beauty of our souls
unless we look into the peaceful mirror of the Divine Essence where
we are represented. . . . Let us not separate, then, from our Crucified
Jesus ; He is the wall over which we must lean in order to gaze at
our reflection in the fountain." And as we read the words, we
almost seem to guess that in one of her expeditions along those
mountain paths watered by the streams that descend into the Orcia,
Catherine must so have stood, leaning over a wall, and gazing at
her reflection in the crystal waters ; and that the image thus im
printed on her memory associated itself with the thought of her
Lord, never absent from her mind, and reproduced itself in the
page before her. She continues: "You tell me to rejoice and be
glad, and you have sent me good news, which has indeed filled me
with joy. The day after you left me the Sweet Truth wished to do
for me what the father does for his child, and the spouse for the
spouse ; he cannot bear that she should have any sorrow, but always
finds some new way of filling her with joy." Then she speaks of
certain wonderful things that had passed in her soul, and of the
assaults of the enemy. " I rose, desiring to make confession to you,
but the Divine Goodness no longer gave me what I asked. / asked
for you, and God gave me Himself, granting me absolution of all my
sins, and reminding me of all the lessons He had given me in other
days." . . . She concludes this letter in a less exalted strain. "I
must give you news of my good Father Thomas,1 whose virtue, thank
God, has triumphed over the enemy. He has become quite another
man to what he was. I beg of you, write to him sometimes. Rejoice
with me, for all my lost children have been found and restored to
1 After Raymund's departure, F. Thomas again acted as her confessor.

Her first written Letter. 399
the sheepfold ; they have quitted the darkness, and now nothing
hinders the fulfilment of my wishes." In this letter nothing is said
of the Saint's newly-acquired gift, but it is evidently written just afte
Raymund's departure, to which it refers. The next letter (Letter 90)
is a long spiritual treatise, as it were the first rough draft of the
Dialogue she shortly after composed. It concludes thus : " This
letter and another T have sent you (i.e., the one last quoted) I have
written with my own hand in the Island of Rocca, in the midst of
sighs and so many tears, that I could not see out of my eyes. But
I was full of admiration at the goodness of God and the marvels of
His Providence in my regard. As my ignorance deprived me of
the comfort of trusting any one, He gave me the faculty of being
able to write, so that on returning from my ecstasy I might relieve my
heart a little, and so prevent its bursting. He would not yet take
me out of this life, and He has miraculously given me this power,
as a master teaches the child for whom he sets a copy. As soon as
he left me with St. John and St. Thomas Aquinas, I began to learn
like one asleep. Pardon me for writing at such length, but my hand
and my tongue would needs agree with my heart."
Neither of these two letters, however, was actually the first that
she wrote. That was addressed to Stephen Maconi, and has un
happily been lost. Caffarini tells us this in his deposition, and also
in the Supplement. "The Saint," he says, "learnt to write miracu
lously. One day, coming out of prayer, she wrote to Stephen Maconi
a letter which ended thus, ' Know, my dear son, that this is the first
letter I have written with my own hand.' Stephen assured me that
she afterwards wrote several others, and that many pages of her book
which she composed were written by her. Many of her autographs
are preserved in the Chartreuse of Pontignano, near Siena."
Before leaving Rocca we must notice one other subject which has
left its traces in the records of this time. We have said that Neri di
Landoccio was one of those who accompanied Catherine to the
castle of the Salimbeni. While there, he received two sad and terrible
letters, the contents of which could not but make a profound im
pression on his sensitive heart. In order to explain these letters we
must unfold a melancholy page in the history of St. Catherine and
her spiritual family. In the midst of that group of chosen and
innocent souls there was, as there had been in the company of the
Apostles, an apostate — we do not know his name, for it has been
carefully effaced from all records. Raymund, indeed, has told us in

400 Letters from an Apostate.
the Legend, the miserable story of one unhappy man who, moved by
a strange malice against the holy virgin, had kicked her, cast her
out of the church doors, and even attempted her life, and who a few
days later was seized with frenzy and tried to commit suicide. His
friends, believing his senses were gone, watched him carefully, but as
he grew calmer, released their vigilance ; when, escaping from their
hands, he hung himself like a second Judas. This story simply reads
like the account of a maniac, and we should so regard it but for the
precise narrative given at length by the author of the Miracoli, which
reveals the fact that the unhappy man was one of the Friars, who first
resorted to Catherine, attracted by her holy conversation, but in pro
cess of time conceived for her a profane affection. " But she per
severing in her holy life, and showing herself an utter stranger to all
such 'sentiments, his love turned to hatred, and in his mad passion
he tried to kill her in the public church, when her life was saved by
a man who chanced to be present. Wherefore a few days later this
man left the Order, cast off the habit of religion, and returning to his
home in a village near Siena, lived there almost in despair. Catherine
knew of his departure out of the Order, and always prayed God to
have mercy on his soul. But at last the unhappy man, persevering
in his despair, hanged himself."
The two accounts differ in several important particulars ; neverthe
less, it would seem most probable that they refer to the same person.
And there can be little doubt that the miserable apostate, " living in
his own home, almost in despair," after having once been numbered
among those who listened with innocent admiration to the teaching
of the Saint, must have been the writer of the two letters addressed
to Neri, which he, received at Rocca, and which we are now about to
quote' i.^—Erom F. S. to Neri di Landoccio de' Paglierest.
Dearest Brother,. — I heard how you were from Gabriel, who
came to me and gave me many messages of comfort from you ; for
which cause and because of youi extreme importunity I write ; not
that I had any wish to do so, yet I am moved to write in reply to
your many salutations. I marvel how you can so much as remem
ber a wretch like me, for God knows I am become a vessel of con
tumely, no longer exhaling the sweet odour on which in old times I
was nourished : but now I am cast out of every good way. But
know that if it were with me now as in the happy. old times we once

Our Lord's Promise. 401
had together, I could not refrain from often writing to you. But
as it is, I am ashamed to write either to you or to any friend or
servant of God, considering my utter misery. God preserve you in
His grace, you and your Mother. F. S.
"To Neri di Landoccio, at Rocca."
2. — From the Same to the Same.
"To Neri, my dearest Brother, of all the friends and servants of
God—
" Although you have many times sent to me, saluting and trying to
comfort me, who was once your brother, both in the common life
we led together and in the bonds of charity, yet now for a long
time past I have been cut off, and extinguished, and blotted out of
the book where once I dwelt so sweetly ; for which cause I no
longer number myself as a brother among you and your dear friends
and brethren. Wonder not, therefore, that I have not written, or if
I never write again, until I return to gather the fruit of obedience
and patience and humility. But I have wandered so far out of the
right way that I count it almost a thing impossible that I should ever
return and feed in the old pastures, and find a place of rest. And
this has come upon me, because I shut fast in darkness the eye of
my understanding, and cast the light out of my soul. So I am
driven from the table, and I know myself to be clothed in darkness.
No hunger or desire of good is left in me any more. I make
neither beginning nor end to this letter, for there is none in me.
Neither will I put my name to it, for I know not if I have a name.
God grant you perseverance, and a good end."1
These are indeed terrible letters, and give us a glimpse into
a melancholy history. It was probably the one dark spot in
Catherine's memory ; and if, as we can hardly doubt, she read these
letters, they must have had their part in the sadness which clouded
the last days of her stay at Rocca. If the writer had really at one
time been of the number of Catherine's disciples, how are we to
reconcile this fact with the promise which we are told she had
received from our Lord, that all her spiritual children should
persevere to the end? The probable answer to this difficulty is, that
the promise was given after, or even on the occasion of this one
apostacy. Or again, we may understand it by recalling our Lord's
words in the Gospels : " Of them whom Thou hast given Me I have
lost none," as compared with those other words : " None of them is
1 Lettere dei discepoli di Santo Caterina, No. 7 and 8. 2 C

402 Catheri7ie 's Letter to Neri.
lost, save the son of perdition." " She always prayed for him," says
the author just quoted. But did she ever allude to his fall, or make
any personal effort to reclaim him ? In reply to the first inquiry we
may turn to one of her letters to Neri, in which she is striving to
rouse him from the sadness and discouragement which so often
beset him. " My dearest son," she says, " I write to you in the
Precious Blood, desiring to see you grow in virtue until you reach
the ocean of peace where you may never more fear to be separated
from God. Then the evil law of corruption which is ever fighting
against the spirit will be destroyed, and the debt will be paid. So
long as you are in this world, my sweet son, you must try and live
dead to self-will, and so you will conquer the law of our evil will.
You need not fear that God will permit that to happen to you which
He has permitted to happen to others ; and you will not afflict your
self any more because you are for a short time separated from me
and from the others. Courage, and remember what the Truth has said,
that not one shall be snatched out of His hands. I say His hands,
for all belong to Him, and I know you will understand me without
many words. Adieu."
We know from Christofano di Gano that Catherine had received
the promise from our Lord that none of her disciples should perish ;
but in her exquisite humility whilst referring to it here, she so expresses
herself as to speak of them as rather His disciples than hers : " not
one shall be snatched out of His hands, for all belong to Him."
The idea suggests itself that this promise was probably given her
at a time when she was mourning the fall of this one soul ; that she
had been given to understand that none of the others who called
her mother should ever be separated from the bond of charity, and
that, therefore, having received such a promise, she was able to assure
Neri that what had happened to this one soul should never happen
to him. The fact of this passage occurring in a letter to Neri, rather
than to any of her other spiritual children, increases the probability
that she is here alluding to the unhappy apostate, towards whom he
had shown so persevering a charity, and who even in his gloomy
despair still kept up some intercourse with him. That she
herself held any communication with him is extremely doubtful,
though among her letters is one addressed " To a religious who had
quitted his Order ; '' and it is barely possible that this may have been
the person in question.
Catherine returned to Siena some time in the winter ; probably in

She returns to Siena. 403
the January of 1378, for as we have seen by her letter to Alexia she
had spent the whole of Advent at Rocca. She did not long enjoy the
quiet of home, for circumstances were already preparing the way for
that second mission to Florence, in the course of which she showed
herself ready to lay down her life, in very deed, for the cause of
peace and reconciliation. But of this we shall have to speak in
another chapter.

( 4°4 )

CHAPTER XIII.
CATHERINE'S SECOND EMBASSY TO FLORENCE.
January to August, 1378.
RAYMUND of Capua's presence in Rome, whither we have seen
him summoned whilst Catherine was still at Rocca, was des
tined to produce some important and unexpected results. He has
related all the pircumstances in his Legend with that unpretentious
simplicity which characterises his entire narrative.
"Before quitting Tuscany," he says, "I held an interview with
Nicolas Soderini, a citizen of Florence, a man most faithful to God
and the Church, and strongly attached to Catherine ; we spoke of
the affairs of the republic, and in particular of the ill-will of those
who pretended to desire reconciliation with the Church, but who did
all they could to prevent peace. As I complained of this course of
conduct, that excellent man answered me thus • ' Be convinced that
the people of Florence and every honest man in the town desire
peace : it is only a few obstinate men by whom we are governed
who offer obstacles.' I said: 'Could no remedy be applied to this
evil ? ' He rejoined :. ' Yes, it could be done, if some respectable
citizens took to heart the cause of God, and had an understanding
with the Guelphs, in order to deprive those intermeddlers of their
power, for they are enemies of the public good, and it would be
sufficient to remove four or five of them.' When I went to fulfil
my commission to the Sovereign Pontiff, I related to him the conversa
tion which I had held with Nicolas Soderini.
" I had been occupied several months in fulfilling my charge of
Prior, and announcing the Word of God, when one Sunday morning
a messenger from the Pope came to inform me that his Holiness
awaited my presence at dinner. I obeyed this command, and after
the repast the Holy Father said to me, ' I am told that if Catherine
of Siena repairs to Florence, peace will be concluded.' I replied,
Not only Catherine, but all of us are ready to obey your Holiness,

Gregory s Displeasure. 405
and, if need be, to suffer martyrdom.' The Holy Father said to me :
' I do not wish that you should go to Florence, because they would
maltreat you ; but for her, she is a woman, and they have a great
veneration for her; I do not think she would incur any danger.
Consider the matter over, and what powers she would require ; then
bring them to-morrow morning for my signature, so that the business
may be concluded at once' I obeyed, and forwarded the letters to
the Saint, who submitted, and set out without delay." Never was an
important affair more rapidly decided, and never has such an affair
been more briefly chronicled. We are even disposed to think that
on this as on other occasions, Raymund's memory failed him in the
details, and that Catherine's departure for Florence did not take
place as immediately as he represents. That a letter was sent by
Gregory to Catherine while she was still at Rocca, may be gathered
from one of her own to Raymund. (Letter 90.) In it she expresses
her grief at all the miseries under which the Church was then groan
ing. " However," she continues, " after sorrow will come sweetness ;
that is the consolation I felt on receiving your letter and that of our
sweet Father ; for I had suffered much since St. Francis' day, and
your letter drew me out of my sad thoughts." Whether in this letter
Gregory had expressed his wish that the Saint should return to
Florence, and whether her engagements at Rocca prevented her im
mediate compliance with this desire we cannot say ; but it is certain
that there was something in her conduct at this time which displeased
him, and drew from him a sharp rebuke. Possessing as we do only
one side of the correspondence, and that but imperfectly preserved,
it is impossible to decide either the exact cause of his displeasure, or
the terms in which he expressed it ; but whatever they were, they _
pierced deep into Catherine's heart. In fact, Gregory at Rome was
not the same man he had been at Avignon. The discontent of his
French courtiers, the strangeness of the language, and the melan
choly of the half-ruined city, which contrasted unfavourably enough
with the brilliant capital he had left on the shores of the Rhone,
weighed on his spirits, and made him feel daily more and more the
difficulties of his position, while he lacked the brave heart that could
have made head against them. Add to this his failing health and
the disappointment he felt at the rejection by the Florentines of all
his overtures for peace, and we shall understand that tinge of fretful-
ness which was apparent in his words towards the close of his life.
Though ignorant of the cause of his displeasure with Catherine we

406 Catherine 's humble Reply.
have her reply ; and we do not know our holy Mother — the sensitive
ness of her heart, or the depth of her humility — until we have read
that touching page in her correspondence. Let us remember who
it is that writes ; she whose dauntless courage had sustained the
timidity of the Pontiff in more than one moment of trial, and to
whose energy his return to Rome was mainly to be attributed. She
does not address her letter to him, but to Raymund, whom she
charges to stand by the Pope and support him loyally to the last.
" If you chance to find yourself in the presence of his Holiness, our
sweet Father," she continues, " recommend me humbly to him and
ask his pardon on my part for the many faults which I have com
mitted by my ignorance and negligence. I fear it is my sins that
are the cause of the persecution he suffers, and all the woes of the
Church may justly be attributed to me. He has therefore good
reason to complain of me, and to punish me for my faults ; but tell
him I will use every effort to correct myself and to obey him better.
May God give him the grace to be courageous and never to turn
back on account of any difficulty, or any persecution raised against
him by his rebellious children ; may he be firm and constant, not
fearing labour, but casting himself like a lamb into the , midst of
those wolves, hungering only for God and for souls, and not troubling
himself about temporal losses. If he acts thus, the lamb will become
the master of the wolves, and! the wolves will turn into lambs, and
we shall see peace, and the good estate of holy Church restored."
Then changing her style, and addressing herself directly to Gregory,
she adds, " Ah ! Holy Father, it was so you acted the first day you
returned to your post ; and now all these miseries have arisen because
of me, from my lack of virtue, and my many faults of disobedience.
But, Holy Father, see in the light of reason and truth what you have
to reproach me with, not to punish, but to pity me. To whom can
I turn if you abandon me ? Who will help me, where will be my
refuge, if you drive me away ? My persecutors pursue me, and I take
refuge with you, and with the other servants and children of God ;
and if you abandon me, and are irritated and angry with me, I can
but hide myself in the Wounds of Jesus Crucified, Whose Vicar you
are ; and I know that He will receive me, because He desires not
the death of a sinner. And when He has received me, surely you
will not drive me away, and we shall still remain at our post,
fighting generously for the Sweet Spouse of Christ. It is so that I
desire to end my life in tears and sighs, giving my blood, if need be,

She sets out for Florence. 407
yea, and the very marrow of my bones for her. And if all the
world drive me away, I will not torment myself, but will repose,
weeping and suffering, on the bosom of the Sweet Spouse. Most
Holy Father, pardon my ignorance and the many offences I commit
against God and your Holiness. It is the Eternal Truth Who excuses
me and reassures me whilst I humbly ask your benediction." And
these, so far as we know, were her last written words to him who in
old time she had addressed with a child's fondness as Babbo mio
dolce. She concludes with a word to Raymund : " Dear Father,
stand by his Holiness and be full of courage, and have no dis
quietude or servile fear. Be faithful to your cell, in presence of
Mary and of the holy Cross ; persevere in prayer and self-knowledge ;
be firm in faith, and willing to suffer, and then go on confidently
and do all you can for God and for sauls, until death." But
Catherine's relations with Gregory XL were not so to end.
Perhaps she overrated the tenor of his words ; and as often enough
happens, the reproof which was felt so keenly by her who received
it, had been forgotten by him who gave it almost before it reached
her. Anyhow, Gregory still leant on her aid, and was impatient to
employ it ; and the necessary powers and instructions having been
sent to her, she prepared to depart on the gravest and most difficult
mission that had yet been entrusted to her.
Before leaving Siena, however, she prepared the way for her
coming by a letter addressed to the Signoria of Florence (Letter
181), in which she goes over all the old arguments for peace and
submission, and thus concludes : " Rise, then, and cast yourself into
the arms of your Father, and he will receive you with goodness. If
you do this you will have peace, both spiritual and temporal, and all
Tuscany with you. The war will be turned against the infidels, and
all will follow the standard of the holy Cross. But if you will not
conclude peace, you and all Tuscany will have to suffer what none
of your ancestors have ever yet suffered. I should greatly prefer
speaking to writing to you. Believe me, I am ready to lay down
my life itself if that were needed, and if thereby I could advance
God's glory, or obtain your reconciliation with Holy Church." The
event proved that these, were not empty words, and that in accepting
this mission, she was in reality risking her life.
Catherine set out for Florence some time early in the year 1378. J
1 Not certainly in October 1377, as M. Cartier supposes, for we know from her
letters that she was then at Rocca, and that she remained there till the end of
Advent.

40 8 Violation of the Interdict.
She travelled with several companions, among whom were Stephen
Maconi, Christofano di Gano, Jane di Capo, and her mother Lapa.
They found the city in a truly miserable state. For seventeen
months the interdict had weighed on the inhabitants, nor can we in
these days of cold faith fitly realise in what way the deprivation of
all religious rites was then regarded by a believing population. And
though Florence had exhibited a spirit of profanity and contempt of
ecclesiastical authority, which seems to imply that the instincts of
faith were not very keen among her citizens, the sentiments of the
whole body must not be judged by the revolutionary excesses of a
minority which had seized on the executive power. When first the
terrible sentence had been fulminated, the intrepid Archbishop,
Angelo di Ricasoli, quitted the city in order not to be compelled by
violence to disobey the commands of the Pope. He thereby earned
a word of sympathy and encouragement from Catherine. " I have
heard," she writes, " of your firmness and noble conduct, and I beg
of you, persevere in it to the end." But the Government seeing the
great discontent felt by the people at the closing of the churches,
and the suspension of all holy offices, feared lest in consequence
they should insist on a policy of submission to the Holy See, which
was of course the result aimed at by the infliction of the sentence.
They therefore issued a decree setting the Pope's authority at
defiance, and commanding all ecclesiastics to return to the city
under penalty of a fine of 10,000 florins. Their intention was to
enforce the nonobservance of the interdict, and in fact it was openly
violated in many places, an extremity of contempt which their own
historian, Scipio Ammirato, is foremost to condemn.1
On her arrival, Catherine was received, not as before in Soderini's
own house, but in one which he had caused to be built expressly for
her. Scipio Ammirato informs us of this fact. "Soderini," he says
" partly at his own expense, partly helped by the contributions of
friends, built her a little house at the foot of St. George's (hill),2 where
she retired. Afterwards when his own house was burnt in the in
surrection he took this house for his own residence." Some writers
represent this house as built by Peter Canigiani, which probably
1 Although an ardent partisan of Florence, this writer attributes all the mis
fortunes endured by the people to the crime " by which on frivolous pretexts they
had taken up arms against the Holy See, and had despised the censures of a
Pontiff whose rank was as exalted as his conduct was irreproachable."— Scip.
Am. Lib. xii., p. 710.
¦ Now occupied by the fortress.

Catherine causes it to be observed. 409
means that he was one of those who contributed towards the
expense. A few days after her arrival at Florence, Catherine wrote to the
Cardinal Peter de Luna, whom she had known at Avignon, and from
whom better things might have been hoped than that he should even
tually become the abettor of the schism, and accept the miserable
dignity of Antipope. Catherine, who had quickly discerned the
superior qualities of his mind, had trusted that he would prove a
firm support to Gregory, who so greatly needed able councillors.
"Things go badly here," she writes (Letter 25), "not to speak of
seculars of whom there are many bad and few good, even priests and
religious, specially among the Friars Minors, are found who outrage
the truth even from their pulpits, saying that the interdict may be
violated, and the offices celebrated with a free conscience, and that
seculars who assist at them commit no sin. They have thus thrown
the people into a confusion dreadful to think of." In fact, in the
very month she came to Florence, the Government had obliged the
priests to say Mass on the feast of St. Reparata, the patron Saint of
the Cathedral, and not a few were found who did so willingly, and
defended this act of contempt. Before this, the offices had been
celebrated, but with closed doors ; but after the return from Rome
of the last envoys, sent thither to treat for peace, the Magistrates were
so enraged at the rejection of their terms, that they determined on
breaking with the Pope altogether, and ordered the churches to be
thrown open, and all priests to take part in the violation of the
interdict under severe penalties.1
The first thing, then, that Catherine had to do, was to put a stop to
this grave disorder. It was to little purpose to talk of making peace
with the Pope so long as his lawful commands were being thus
flagrantly disobeyed. She therefore lost no time, and on the very
day of her arrival met the chiefs of the republic, in the halls of the
Palazzo Vecchio, and made them three orations, no doubt to three
distinct bodies of Magistrates. We learn this fact from Stephen
Maconi, in some valuable notes which he left in MS., and which
were preserved in the monastery of Pontignano. " By the grace of
God," he says, " such was her success that although before that they
had broken the interdict and shown great contempt towards the
Apostolic See, yet after hearing the exhortation of this holy virgin,
they once more obeyed and observed it."
1 Scipio Am., Quoted by Burlamacchi in notes to Letter 25.

4 1 o Influence of her Disciples.
Here we may properly notice an interesting circumstance which
illustrates the kind of effects which flowed from St. Catherine's
influence and teaching. It has been said above that all the
Florentines were certainly not partakers in the guilt of their rulers,
and many exposed themselves to great obloquy on the part of the
faction which was in power, in consequence of their firmness in
adhering to the Pope's authority. In this they were supported and
encouraged by St. Catherine's disciples who were numerous in
Florence, and who devised means for keeping up the piety of the
people at the same time that they held them back from frequenting
the forbidden Church offices. In the ancient Chronicles of Manni
we read that " the Florentines, being unable during the interdict to
assist at the Church offices like good Catholics, began to make
processions of secular persons, who went about singing lauds, and
litanies, and other prayers ; and with them went the Companies of
the Disciplinati. Many other such Companies were also formed, of
men, boys and children ; and other Companies for the express
purpose of singing lauds and hymns at eventide in the churches of
Florence, to do honour to God." The " lauds " here spoken of
were not any part of the Divine Office, which could not be celebrated
publicly, but certain devout hymns in the vernacular ; and it is not
a random conjecture that attributes the origin of these pious practices
to Catherine's disciples, for some of these identical lauds have been
preserved, and have lately been printed, their author being Giannozzo
Sachetti, one of her devout followers, and a great friend of Peter and
Ristoro Canigiani, as well as of Buonacorso di Lapo, and Nicolas
Soderini ; and his verses, which are of high merit in a literary point
of view, express in a poetical form the doctrine he had heard from
the lips of the Saint.1
Stephen Maconi's words, which we have quoted above, were the
testimony of an eyewitness. He accompanied the Saint into the
halls of the Palazzo Vecchio, and stood by her side while she
addressed the very men on whom, in the year previous, he had spent
his own eloquence with so little fruit. What a scene was that !
One woman facing with unconscious heroism the leaders of a revolu
tion ! We should have been glad to have known more of her
1 The lauds of Sachetti were published at Naples in 1862 by Francesco Palermo,
from a Florentine manuscript. The learned editor has enriched the publication
with notes, showing the exact correspondence between the doctrine and language
of his author and those of St. Catherine in various passages of the Dialogo. The
identity of ideas and expression could hardly be more complete.

The Aurora. 411
"orations," and of the manner in which they were received, but
nothing more is told us. However, we have two of her own letters
of this date addressed to F. William Flete and to Alexia, who had
not this time accompanied her to Florence.1 To the first she says,
" I think the first dawn of the Aurora is appearing, and that our
Lord is enlightening these people, and withdrawing them from the
guilty darkness into which they had fallen, by enforcing the celebra
tion of the Holy Mysteries. Now, thank God, they observe the interdict,
and are beginning to return to the obedience of their Father. I beg
of you, and of the Master (Tantucci), Brother Anthony, Brother
Felix, and the rest, to pray earnestly that the Divine Goodness
will send them the full sun of His mercy, that so peace may be
made; that indeed would be a sweet and blessed Sun." Here
she names the two objects of her mission — the observance of the
interdict, and the restoration of peace. One brief hour of her
inspired eloquence had already gained the first of these objects, and
opened the way to the second ; yet not a word in her announce
ment of the fact refers the success to herself. To Alexia she speaks
in the same terms ; you can see that the two letters were written on
the same day. " Now is the time to pray, for the dawn is appearing,
and the sun will soon arise. The Aurora is come, and the darkness
pf mortal sin is being chased away. Those who celebrated and
assisted at the holy offices do so no longer; and the interdict is
observed in spite of those who seek to prevent it. Pray then that
God may soon send peace, so that He may be glorified, and all evils
cease, and that we may soon he together again to relate the wonderful
works of God. Get special prayers said in all the monasteries, and
ask our Prioress2 to make all her daughters pray for peace, for 1
shall not come back till that is gained. Ask her also to pray for
me, her poor daughter, that God may teach me to love Him, and
that I may always be ready to speak the truth, and to die for it."
The interdict was then enforced, and this point being gained,
Catherine next concentrated her efforts on the great question of
peace. But here she encountered graver difficulties. We have
already spoken of the extraordinary constitution of the Florentine
government, made up of several distinct bodies of Magistrates, whose
1 Letters 126 and 181.
2 Our Prioress, that is the Prioress of the Sisters of Penance in Siena.
Catherine addressed a letter to her during her residence at Rocca. She was
called Sister Nera di Gano, and her name is to be found in the Register.

4 i 2 The Captains of the Guelphs.
views and interests were often opposed. The " Eight of War,"
whose political existence depended on the maintenance of hostilities,
were supported by the powerful family of the Ricci. On the other
hand, there was another body called " the Captains of the Guelphs,"
the singular nature of whose authority requires a word of explanation.
Florence, it must be remembered, was pre-eminently a Guelph city.
She had somewhat departed from her Guelph traditions in declaring
war against the Sovereign Pontiff, yet the dominant party still gloried
in the name, and detested every Ghibelline as a kind of outcast:
The Guelph party-spirit in Florence was one of actual fanaticism.
When about to raise the great Palazzo of the republic, it was
discovered that the architect had planned to place a portion of the
edifice on the site formerly occupied by the Uberti palace. But the
Uberti had been Ghibellines, and after their banishment from the
city, the ground on which their palace stood was declared accursed.
" Never shall our Palazzo stand on that unholy ground ! " exclaimed
the citizens ; and in spite of the remonstrances of the architect, the
plans were altered, and the palace deprived of its symmetrical pro
portions. The same uncompromising hatred to Ghibellines in every
form or shape had led to the establishment of a body of officials,
who were invested by a republic, jealous of its liberties, with powers
which in their odious tyranny set all principles of freedom at defiance.
" The Captains of the Guelphs " were chosen for the express purpose
of excluding from every public office or employment any person
suspected of entertaining Ghibelline opinions,, or tainted in the most
distant degree with Ghibelline blood. These formidable powers were,
for the most part, entrusted to the hands of good and honest men —
for example, Soderini and Peter Canigiani were of the number of
those who had filled this office. They were naturally the advocates
of peace, being of the party most attached to the Church, and
opposed therefore to the policy of the " Eight of War." Catherine
was introduced by Soderini to these Captains, and to many other
good citizens, with whom she held long conferences, and soon
succeeded in convincing them of the necessity of putting a stop to
the existing state of things. "The chiefs of the Guelphs," says
Raymund, "and a great many good citizens yielded to her per
suasions, and demanded of the governors .of the city that they should
labour for peace, not by their words only, but also by deeds."
In the November of the previous year it had been agreed that a
Congress for the pacification of Italy should meet at Sarzana, a city

Death of Gregory XI. 4 1 3
on the northern boundary of Tuscany, whither deputies should be sent
from all the states united in the league against the Church, as well
as from the Pope and the King of France, Bernabb Visconti acting as
arbitrator, This important step was most unwelcome to the war
party, and though they could not hinder the assembly of the
Congress, they used every endeavour to render its deliberations
fruitless. Their factious intrigues at last became so troublesome,
that the necessity of some decisive measure to check them was
evident to all. Catherine pressed this on the Captains of the
Guelphs, who had it in their power to restrain the excesses of the
eight, owing to the singular nature of their official privileges. They
were able to " warn," as it was called, those appointed to any public
office ; and if their warnings were neglected, they could proscribe
the Ammoniti (or persons who had received the warnings), as con
victed Ghibellines. It was an odious kind of Ostracism, and had
often been used as a mere pretext for crushing personal enemies.
Soderini, in his conversation with Raymund, already quoted, had
first suggested the removal from office of some of the war party,
as affording the only reasonable hope of obtaining peace; and
Catherine, following up this idea, endeavoured to persuade the
Captains that instead of using their powers in order to punish
suspected Ghibellines, they would do better to exclude those real
enemies of the State who sought for selfish purposes to keep up the
breach between the Father and his children. This advice appeared
so valuable, that the Guelph Captains at once determined to put it in
practice ; nor was their determination to check the tyranny of the
" Eight " at all weakened by the news which reached them towards
the end of March 1378, of the death of Gregory XL It is remark
able that no reference to this event is to be found in any of the
letters of Catherine that are preserved. And although it broke up
the Congress of Sarzana, and appeared therefore to ruin all the hopes
of peace that had been built on that assembly, it in no way affected
Catherine's mission at Florence. She had come with the firm
resolution of staying until peace should have been made, and this
resolution she kept, in spite of every discouragement.
Meanwhile the Captains of the Guelphs, supported by a great
number of the citizens, had gone to the Priors of the city to demand
that the peace negotiations should not be abandoned ; and a little
later, ventured on the bold step of using their powers to put out of
office John Dino, one of the most conspicuous members of the

414 Excesses of the Guelphs.
" Eight of War." This first success emboldened them to follow up
the blow with other " admonitions," and in doing so, they unhappily
suffered themselves to be guided, less by the patriotic desire of
serving their country, than by that of satisfying their private
resentments. An immense number of unoffending citizens found
themselves made the victims of this proceeding, the whole odium of
which was thrown on Catherine ; for such was the prestige attaching
to her name, that the Guelph Captains took pains to have it pro
claimed as less the fruit of their councils than of her exhortations.
The city was therefore in great agitation when, in the month of May,
Silvestro de Medicis was elected Gonfalonier of Justice. He was a
man of firmness and good repute, and he at once set himself to oppose
the excesses of the Guelph party. They themselves hastened to
make terms with him, and it was agreed, first, that no one should in
future be " admonished " unless he were a notorious Ghibelline ; and,
secondly, that no one, whoever he might be, should have his name
put to the vote for exclusion more than three times. Catherine had
exerted herself actively to keep the Guelphs within bounds ; so far was
it from being true that she had exhorted them to make these reckless
" admonitions," that she had severely blamed them, and we have
the written evidence of Stephen Maconi to prove the fact. In one
of the MS. notes left by him at Pontignano we read as follows : " I,
Stephen Maconi, the unworthy writer, was at Florence at this time
with Catherine, who ordered me, as well as others, to speak against:"
the scandals which arose out of the ' admonitions,' in order that they
might be remedied without delay. And I was actively occupied in
this business, but without success." It is surmised that Catherine
had exerted her influence over Silvestro to obtain his support in the
cause of peace, and he certainly adhered to her policy in despatch
ing fresh ambassadors to the newly-elected Pontiff, Urban VI., to
reopen the negotiations.
Meanwhile, new elections had to be made of the Guelph Captains,
for none of these offices were held for a longer term than two
months at a time. The newly-elected captains were none of them
disciples of the Saint. Capelcelatro gives the names of all eight
(from Marchione dei Stefani), and not one on the list was in any
way associated with her. They were some of the most fanatical
members of their party, and instead of keeping to the rules that had
been agreed on with the Gonfalonier, they recommenced the
" admonitions," and not being able to obtain the exclusion of two

Insurrection of the Ammoniti. 415
citizens against whom they had a special grudge, after three scrutinies,
they closed the palace doors, forbade any to quit the chamber, and
continued to the twenty-third scrutiny, until they had obtained
the vote they desired. This lawless proceeding put the whole city
in a ferment; and on the 22nd of June, Silvestro, not finding
himself strong enough to withstand the Captains alone, in a fatal
moment excited the populace to rise in insurrection against them.
The Popolani obeyed his invitation only too willingly, and the city
was for some days in their hands, while scenes of frightful disorder
were perpetrated. Naturally enough, the storm chiefly broke over
the heads of the Guelph party and their Captains. Nicolas Soderini
and Peter Canigiani were no longer in office, and had no part in the
transactions which immediately led to this insurrection. But they
had formerly been captains, and as such had "warned" many
citizens; and they were therefore included among those against
whom the fury of the Popolani was directed. Raymund says that
many of the Guelphs and of their leaders had been already
massacred, and their houses given up to pillage, when the cry arose
to attack " the false traitor and hypocrite, Soderini, who thought of
nothing but building a house for his blessed Catherine."1 Soderini
escaped, but his house was burnt and sacked, as was also that of
Ristoro Canigiani, the son of Peter, and one of Catherine's most
devoted disciples. .Then the crowd, glutted with blood and pillage,
and joined by a number of the lowest ruffians from the other side
of the Arno, proposed to seek out Catherine herself, whom they
represented as the author of the whole business, and against whom
their leaders sought to direct their utmost violence. For it must be
remembered the senseless and irrational passions of the multitude
were being guided by the party headed by the " Eight of War," who
were perfectly well aware that they had no firmer adversary to the
continuance of their tyranny than the holy maid who was come to
Florence exclusively on a mission of peace. We will relate the
well-known story of what followed in the words of Raymund : " The
leaders (of the revolt) pointed her out to the people, and everywhere
was heard the cry, ' Let us take that wicked woman and burn her ;
let us cut her in pieces ! ' Then those who had given her shelter in
their houses were afraid, and sent her away with all her companions.
Catherine, conscious of her innocence, was perfectly tranquil, rejoic
ing to suffer in the cause of the Church. She encouraged those who
1 Scip. Am. Lib., 14, p. 719.

41 6 Catherine s Life is threatened.
were with her, and made them an exhortation, and then after the
example of her Spouse, retired to a place where there was a garden,
and began to pray.
" As she was praying in this garden, the followers of Satan came in
great tumult, armed with swords and sticks, and crying, ' Where is
that cursed woman, where is she?' Catherine heard them, and
prepared for martyrdom as for a joyous feast. She rose, and went to
meet one furious man who carried a sword, and cried louder than
the rest, 'Where is Catherine?' Then kneeling humbly and joy
fully before him, she said, ' I am Catherine ; in God's Name do to
me whatever He may permit ; but I charge you, do not touch any of
my companions.' At these words the man appeared troubled, and
so lost all power, that he could not so much as endure her presence ;
he wished her to depart, and said to her, ' Fly, I say, fly ! ' But she
replied, ' I am very well where I am ; where would you have me
go ? I am ready and willing to suffer for God and the Church, and
I desire nothing better. If, therefore, you are charged to kill me,
do so; I shall not resist, but let these go unharmed.'1 The man,
however, withdrew confused, with all his companions. Catherine's
children surrounded her, congratulating her on having escaped the
hands of the ruffians ; but she, full of sorrow, only wept, saying,
' Alas, how unhappy I am ! I thought to-day that God would place
the crown on my happiness. In His mercy He has granted me the
white rose of virginity, and I had hoped He would add to it the red
rose of martyrdom ; but I am disappointed of my hope, and doubt
less it is my innumerable sins that are the cause ! " (Legend, Part
3, chap. viii.).
" Although the tumult was appeased, Catherine and her companions
were not yet safe from danger. The terror which reigned in the
city was so great that no one would receive her into their houses.
Her friends advised her to return to Siena, but Catherine's lofty
spirit refused so much as to entertain the thought. ' I have received
the command of God to remain here,' she said, ' and never will I
quit the territory of Florence until peace is restored between the
Father and the children.' They dared not contradict her, and at last
found an honest man who feared none but God, and who concealed
her in his house.2 Some days later the excitement calmed down.
1 In the chapel of the Fullonica is a fine painting of this sublime scene by
Ventura Salimbeni.
2 This seems to have been the tailor, Francis Pepin, to whom some of her
letters are addressed.

She retires to Vallombrosa. 417
Catherine was then taken out of the city, but not out of the territory
of Florence, and retired with her disciples to a solitary place inhabited
by hermits."
It is thus that Raymund relates this story in the sixth chapter of
the third part of his Legend. In a former chapter (part 2, chap, iii.)
he says that Catherine refused to leave the territory of Florence,
because God had forbidden her" to do so until peace was concluded
between Florence and the Sovereign Pontiff. He does not name
more particularly where the " solitary place inhabited by hermits "
was, but it is always understood to have been Vallombrosa, where
she had many friends. As she prepared to set out, Jane di Capo,
one of the Mantellate who accompanied her, was found to be seriously
'unwelL Her foot was much swollen, and she had a violent fever,
so that she was quite unfit to move. Catherine, not choosing to
leave her alone, exposed to the ill treatment of the populace if she
should chance to be recognised, had recourse to prayer ; and very
soon the invalid fell into a quiet sleep, from which she awoke
perfectly cured, and able to set out with the rest
It appears to have been from Vallombrosa that Catherine wrote
the letter to Raymund in which she gives her own account of these
events (Letter 96) : " To-day," she says, " I wish to begin a new life,
for I see clearly it has been through my fault that I have been
deprived of the happiness of giving my life for Jesus Crucified. I
was consumed with the desire of suffering, and my heart was bursting
with this desire, at once so sweet and so painful ; sweet, because I
was united to the Word ; and painful, because I saw God offended,
and a multitude of demons that obscured all the city and darkened
the minds of the people ; and it seemed as if God had permitted
them to do as they willed in order to punish sinners. I feared lest
something might happen which would hinder the peace ; but God
and our sweet Lady have protected us, and in this tumult the only
harm done has been to those who were executed by the hand of
justice. " But the desire I had to give my life for Christ was not heard.
The Eternal Spouse of my soul has well disappointed me, as Christo
fano will tell you by word of mouth. And so I weep because my
sins have prevented me giving my blood to obtain light for these
blind souls ; my blood has not reconciled the Father with His
children ; my blood has not cemented the stones of the mystical
Body of the Church. It seemed as if the hands of him who wished

41 8 • Letters from Vallombrosa.
to strike were bound. I said, ' Here I am, strike me, but let the
others go their way ; ' and my words seemed to pierce their hearts
like a dagger. Never could I tell you the happiness I felt at that
moment. I felt so clearly what I owed to my Creator, that if I
could have delivered my body to the flames, it seemed to me I
should not sufficiently have acknowledged all the graces that I and
my children have received. Oh, how happy I should have been if
I could have given my blood for the love of the Blood, and for the
salvation of souls. I will say no more on the subject, Christofano
will tell you all about it. Only beg the Christ on earth (Urban VI.)
not to delay the peace on account of what has happened. On the
contrary, let him make all the more haste, that he may occupy him
self with the great designs he has for the reformation of holy Church ;
for these events have changed nothing, and now the city is quite
quiet. Ask him to release me soon out of my prison, for until peace
is made it is impossible for me to go away from here, and yet I long
to go and taste the blood of the martyrs, and to visit his Holiness,
and to see you once more, that I may tell you all the wonderful
things God has wrought in these past days, and that we all may
rejoice together."
Here we see the visit to Rome already projected. One sentence
above quoted deserves remark. Raymund in his narrative says that
some of the Guelph party were slain by the mob. Catherine says
no harm was done to any, except those chi fece la Giustizia, and
Scipio Ammirato's history confirms the accuracy of her statement.
The Magistrates sent soldiers into each quarter of the town with
orders to hang the first five rioters who should fall into their hands,
but to choose foreigners by preference ; " and those who suffered," he
adds, " were mostly Flemings."
Three other letters seem to have been written by Catherine
from Vallombrosa. Nicolas Soderini accompanied her to that
retreat, as did also Christofano di Gano ; but the former returned to
Florence, where he found his house burnt and pillaged. Catherine
wrote to him to console him for his losses. " It seems to me," she
says, " that God in His great goodness is showing you His love of
predilection by rendering you worthy of suffering something for
Him; do not be impatient, therefore, or faint under His mighty
hand. Later we shall receive in heaven the reward for all our losses,
but only if we are patient. Be confirmed, then, in patience, that
when you enter the holy city of Jerusalem you may, in the vision of

First Letter to Urban VI. 419
peace, receive all that you have merited in this time of pilgrimage.
Strengthen Donna Constanza in the name of Jesus; tell- her to
examine who has suffered most, and she will see that God will
bring back calm by means of this tempest." Her letters to Peter
Canigiani and his son Ristoro are in the same strain ; to the latter
she says, " Rejoice at what has happened, for it is the life of your
soul. If sensuality and the language of the world says otherwise, do
not listen to them, but be firm and courageous, and remember that
worldly men cannot answer for you before the Supreme Judge at
the moment of death, and that then your only help will be a good
conscience." In fact, both Soderini and the Canigiani incurred severe penalties
for their share, real or supposed, in the late troubles. Soderini was
exiled fifty miles from the city, Peter Canigiani was fined 2000 gold
florins, and his son Ristoro, who had been enrolled among the
Popolani, was declared a Grandee, and even a High Grandee (Sopra-
grando), and as such, altogether ineligible to any office in the
republic. As soon as calm was restored, Catherine returned to the city,
and thence addressed her first letter to Urban VI. The month of
June was coming to a close, and Catherine had already heard of his
projects of reform ; perhaps also she had received hints to the effect
that the zeal of the new Pontiff was not always tempered with
discretion. Her letter begins by touching, in the gentlest possible
manner, on the necessity of uniting justice with mercy. Then she
says, " Most Holy Father, God has established you Pastor of His
sheep throughout Christendom, and He has chosen you to dispense
the Blood of Jesus, Whose Vicar you are, at a time when the
iniquities of the faithful abound more than they ever did before,
whether in the clergy or the whole body ; therefore it is most
necessary that you should be established in charity and justice. Be
not disturbed at what the world may say ; like a good Pastor reform
with courage, root out vice, plant virtue, and be ready, if need be, to
give your life. Most Holy Father, I see no other way of succeeding
than by entirely renewing the garden of the holy Church, and
surrounding yourself with holy persons who will not fear death. Do
not look to birth, provided they are good pastors. Create a college
of good Cardinals, who will be as firm columns, and with God's
grace will help you to support your burden." Then she passes on
to the affairs of Florence. "I recommend to you all these poor

420 She disputes with the Fraticelli.
sheep who are out of the sheepfold, doubtless because of my sins.
For the sake of the Blood of which you are the minister, do not
delay receiving them to mercy. Let your Holiness triumph over
their hardness of heart, and bring them back to the sheepfold. If
they do not ask it with perfect humility, yet supply for their weak
ness, and do not ask more of them than they have strength to
perform. Have pity on the souls that perish ; do not think of the
scandals that have lately taken place in this city, where it seemed for
a moment as if all the demons of hell had done their utmost to
hinder peace : but, through God's goodness, no great harm has come
of it ; and now all is quiet again, and your children ask of you the
oil of mercy. We will grant that they do not ask it with all the
suitable forms and sorrow of heart that you might desire; yet do
not refuse them. Alas, Babbo mio, I do not wish to remain here
any longer, nevertheless, do with me what you like, only grant me
the favour that I ask of you, miserable as I am. Do not refuse me
this little sweetmeat." (Letter 15.)
Whilst the result of this appeal was still uncertain, St. Catherine
found a new object on which to expend her zeal. Florence was at
that time the headquarters of the heretical sect of the Fraticelli,
against whose errors and misdeeds it had often fallen to her lot to
warn her disciples. They were pretended pietists, who under the
cloak of devotion concealed an abandoned life, and endeavoured to
propagate their false doctrines chiefly by insinuating themselves into
the confidence of nuns, through the appearance of a sanctimonious
rigour. They were particularly addicted to the profession of poverty,
and on this account many other religious societies that embraced
poverty had, in their beginnings (like the Gesuati), fallen under the
suspicion of being tainted with their errors. We learn from Nicolas
Manerbio in his addition to the Legend, and in the Proemio affixed
to Gigli's second volume, that Catherine, when at Florence, publicly
disputed with these heretics, and put them to silence, but no further
particulars on this interesting subject have been preserved.
At last the object of her long prayers and labours was granted,
and in the beginning of July the terms of peace between Florence
and the Holy See were definitively agreed to. The city was to pay
150,000 gold florins, and everything was to return to the condition
in which it was before the war. Even Talamon was not forgotten ;
it was to be restored to Siena, though considerable delays attended
the fulfilment of this condition, due at last to Catherine's personal

Peace is signed. 42 1
exertions. This peace was signed at Florence towards the end of
July 1378, and ratified at Rome in the October following. As one
happy result, the city of Florence was released from the interdict, the
Bishop of Volterra and F. Francis Orvieto, an Augustinian hermit,
being deputed by the Pope to absolve the citizens.1 This joyful
event filled the heart of Catherine with inexpressible joy, and she
thus announces the happy news to her children at Siena. She
writes to Sano di Maco : " Oh, my dear son ! God has heard the
prayers of His servants who have so long cried to Him, and the long
groanings they have uttered over His dead children ! Now they
have risen again, and returned from death to life, and from darkness
to light. Yes, my dear sons, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the
blind see, the dumb speak, and cry in a loud voice, ' Peace,
peace ! ' Oh, what immense joy to see them return to the obedience
of their Father ! As those who begin to see, they say, ' Thanks be
to Thee, O Lord, Who hast reconciled us with our Holy Father ! '
Yes, he is now called holy, the sweet Lamb, the Christ on earth, the
same whom awhile ago they called heretic and patarin ; 2 now they
accept him for their Father whom hitherto they rejected. The clouds
are dispersed, and the sky is once more serene. Rejoice then, my
beloved children, rejoice, and shed sweet tears of gratitude before our
Eternal Father ; but do not yet be satisfied until the standard of the
holy Cross is displayed, and that right soon. Rejoice, and be trans
ported with joy in our Lord Jesus. Peace is made at last in spite
of those who sought to hinder it. It was on Saturday evening that
the Olive arrived, at one in the night, and to-day at vespers the other
also came ... I send you some of the Olive of peace."
Catherine's allusion to the " Olive of peace," is not a mere meta
phor ; in those days, at any rate in Italy, as Dante tells us, ambassadors
of peace really carried it as the symbol of their mission ; and it was
a real substantial olive branch which had gladdened her eyes that
Saturday evening, and of which, it would seem, she sent a leaf as a
welcome present to her Sienese children. Raymund, in relating the
close of these events, dwells on the courageous firmness which St.
Catherine displayed to the very end. When at last the peace was
1 This absolution, however, was not actually given until October, when we read
that " the two Penitentiaries came on the Piazza dei Signori to absolve every one
for all that had passed, and there was great rejoicing and bonfires." (Buonsegni,
quoted in Notes to Letter 246.)
2 Patarin, a kind of heretic ; equivalent to Vaudois.

422 Barduccio Canigiani.
signed, she said to her spiritual children, "Now, we may quit Flor
ence, for, by the grace of my Saviour Jesus Christ, I have followed
His commands and those of His Vicar ; those whom I found revolted
against the Church I leave subject to that sweet and tender Mother.
Now, therefore, let us return to Siena."
She returned about the end of July or the beginning of August,
for we have a letter written by her to Louisa di Grannello, dated
"Siena, August 27, 1378." She brought with her from Florence
one new disciple, who from that time until the day of her death
never quitted her : it was Barduccio Canigiani, the younger brother
of Ristoro, who had been a spiritual son of Don John of Vallom
brosa, and who with the other followers of that holy man had adhered
to Catherine throughout the whole of her troublesome residence at
Florence. He now joined her "family," and acted as one of her
secretaries. Raymund speaks of him as " a young Florentine, who
had enriched his youth with the wisdom of age, and adorned it with
all the virtues. They called him Barduccio. He left his parents,
his brethren, and his country, to follow Catherine, and remained with
her till her death. I have learnt since that the Saint had a special
affection for him, and I think it was on account of his angelic purity,
nor is it wonderful that a virgin soul should be dear to a virgin."
Here then we close this heroic chapter in the life of St. Catherine.
To few women has such a moment been granted as that which saw
her calmly facing the maddened mob who thirsted for her blood,
more ready to give her life for the cause of God and the Church
than they were to take it. To her deep sorrow she was denied " the
red rose of martyrdom;" yet if ever there was one who merited to
be regarded as a martyr in desire it was she, before whose kneeling
form the cowardly ruffians shrank with terror, and who wept that she
had not been counted worthy to die for the honour of her Lord.
But she had gained the palm, if not of martyrdom, yet of victory.
She had achieved the difficult mission entrusted to her, and made
peace between the Father and the children, and there was no cloud
to shadow the joy with which, for the last time in her life, she returned
to her old home in her native city.

( 423 )

CHAPTER XIV.
THE MONKS OF VALLOMBROSA AND MONTE OLIVETO.
IN the foregoing chapters the name of Don John of the Cells of
Vallombrosa has more than once occurred in connection with
various affairs in which St. Catherine took part ; and it will be
remembered that in our account of her last mission to Florence she
is spoken of as having taken refuge in that celebrated sanctuary,
when her life was threatened during the insurrection of the
" Ammoniti." Not to interrupt the thread of our narrative we have
abstained from many a tempting episode, but some account of this
remarkable man must now be given, and of his valorous champion
ship of her whom he was proud of denominating his spiritual
Mother. There is, perhaps, no example in the history of great penitents
more remarkable than that of Don John of the Cells, who during
the latter portion of his life was deservedly regarded as the Socrates
of his country and a great luminary of the Church; yet whose
earlier career was only remarkable for its extraordinary depravity.
He was a Florentine of noble birth, and entering when young into
the Order of Vallombrosa, he greatly distinguished himself as a man
of letters, and became Superior of the Convent of the Holy Trinity,
then existing within the city walls. But whilst still filling that office,
he came to lead a life of the utmost iniquity, the long catalogue of
his crimes including the practice of magic. The General of his
Order caused him to be deposed and imprisoned for a year in a
darksome dungeon. There, by a wonderful stroke of Divine grace,
his heart became touched with true penance; and on his release,
refusing to be reinstated in his charge, he retired to a hermitage in
the holy solitude of Vallombrosa. He did not take up his residence
in the larger monastery, but in a small building which still stands on
an isolated rock overlooking the deep wooded ravine, and bears the
name of the Paradisino, or of "the Cells ;" from which last John

424 Don fohn of the Cells.
received the surname by which he has become known to posterity.
Here, then, he gave himself up to a life of prayer, study, and penance,
and was soon as renowned for his austere sanctity as he had before
been for his grievous excesses. He was not content with burying
himself in his hermitage, and letting his name become effaced from
the memory of men ; he had the courage to expose himself to the
notice of those who knew his history, and to endure their scorn and
reproach, while devoting his great gifts to the cause of truth, and the
salvation of souls. In the last chapter we have spoken of the
Fraticelli, that pestilent sect of hypocrites whom Catherine, among
her other good deeds, defeated and put to confusion. Don John
also opposed a manful opposition to their errors, and succeeded in
delivering many young mem from their dangerous influence. Those
who followed his direction he formed into a kind of devout society,
not very unlike that which gathered around St. Catherine, and whom
she called " her family." Living in the world, they withdrew from
its follies and occupied themselves in good works ; and people
called them the Spiritualu Some persons were to be found who,
confounding them with the very Fraticelli to whom they were
opposed, came to regard them as hypocrites, and tainted with the
same' errors ; but this was a gross calumny. Barduccio Canigiani, as
has been already stated, began by being one of these disciples of
John of the Cells; but after forming the acquaintance of St.
Catherine, he enrolled himself among her spiritual sons, together
with most of his companions, and headed by their venerable
director himself.
When Catherine left Florence after her first visit, she wrote to
Don John in affectionate confidence, begging him to have a watchful
care over these young souls so dear to both of them. " I entreat
you," she says, " take good care of your children and mine ; provide
for the needs of each one ; and make them all as perfect as you
can." She also wrote a joint letter to the youths themselves, which
is addressed, "To some young men of Florence, the adopted sons
of Don John " (Letter 308), which reads as if written in reply to one
asking her advice as to the choice of a state of life. She answers
them with great tenderness and moderation, dwelling on the virtue
of obedience, which she calls "the soul's best friend." "It is most
easily practised," she says, "in some approved Order; and though
it is true we see many relaxed religious who do not keep their rule,
yet the rule itself is not the less good on that account, being inspired

His Letter to Domitilla. 425
by the Holy Spirit. So if you think yourselves called by God to
this state, answer His call, and do not be hindered by the considera
tion of those Orders which have fallen into tepidity and scandals.
There are many monasteries where these abuses have been reformed.
Among them I will specially recommend that of St. Anthimo ; the
abbot, as Don John will tell you, is the model of humility, charity,
and poverty. May God guide you as is best for His glory and your
own sanctification. Meanwhile, my children, be united together in
the bonds of charity. Bear with each other's faults, for you know
that was the sign which our Lord gave whereby we should know His
true disciples. It will be a real consolation to me to hear that you
are all united ; let me be able to say with St. Paul that ' you are my
joy and my crown.' "
How much Don John loved and reverenced St. Catherine will be
apparent both from the open-hearted way in which he allowed his
" adopted sons " to rank themselves as her disciples, and by the
terms in which he wrote and spoke of her, both whilst living and
after her death. Nevertheless, busy tongues did their best to cause
a breach between them, and did actually raise a storm which is
among the most curious episodes of St. Catherine's life. It has been
said that at the time of her first introduction to Don John she was
much taken up with the project of the Crusade. The letters she
wrote, and the exhortations which she addressed to her friends on
this subject, not only had the effect of gaining many to take the
Cross, and promise effectual aid in men and money, but were like
wise laid hold of by certain weak heads among her female hearers,
who loudly declared their intention of joining the Crusaders, and
going across the seas, whether to fight the infidels or to convert
them, does not very clearly appear. However, they made them
selves ridiculous, and thought fit to quote the authority of Catherine
in justification of their folly. The matter reached the ears of John
of the Cells, and he addressed a letter to one of these devout ladies
named Domitilla, in which he read her a lesson of common sense.1
" I hear," he says, " that you, with many other virgins and youths,
wish to go across the seas. A pious desire in the husk, no doubt,
but the kernel is altogether bad,, and proceeds from the enemy of
the human race who deceived Eve by an appearance of good, and
drove her out of Paradise. Perhaps you will tell me that the holy
virgin Catherine preaches that you should go across the seas. I
1 The letter is printed in the Lettere di Santi e Beati Fiorentini, No. xx.

426 Correspondence with F. William Flete.
reply, that if she advises you to do such a thing, because there you
will find Christ, I deny it, with all the saints. In the first place, our
Lord said that the kingdom of God is within." And after further
expostulations with her, he continues, " If you are more disposed to
trust your St. Catherine than the holy doctors, go to her, and ask her
by what road she reached such perfection ; she will tell you it was
by the road of prayer and silence, for according to what is said of
her, she kept silence three years, and always remained shut up in her
room, praying. Do that first of all, and when you have attained a
sanctity like hers, I will certainly give you permission to cross the
seas." It is evident that Don John had no intention by this letter to
blame Catherine, but only to check the indiscretion of those who
quoted her in support of the excesses of their own pious enthusiasm.
But the rumour got abroad that he had severely condemned her,
and reaching Lecceto, F. William Flete, of all persons in the world,
took fire at the supposed affront to his venerated Mother, and
addressed a most lively remonstrance to his brother solitary, which
unfortunately is not preserved. However, we may judge of its
character from Don John's replies, which are printed by Gigli at the
end of the first volume of St. Catherine's letters. If F. William's
contemplative soul was roused to indignation by the bare thought
of Catherine having been calumniated, Don John was no less
troubled at being supposed capable of uttering a word of blame
against one whom he regarded with so much veneration. Monks
were in those days prodigious letter-writers ; they spared neither
their words nor their figures of speech, and on this occasion the
hermit of Vallombrosa condemned the hermit of Lecceto to the
penance of reading two extremely long letters, of which we shall
inflict on our readers no more than a few short extracts.
" To the Venerable Father, Brother William ; Don John the sinner
wishes health in Christ to your charity at the Oak of Mambre. O
happy fault, to which such a corrector was granted, whom I have
deserved to hear admonishing me after having so long desired to see
him ! I beg you to understand, my father, that I have never written
any letter to the venerable Catherine of Siena, nor have I ever been
foolish enough to use rash or jesting language concerning the Spouse
of Christ. I only wrote to a certain damsel at Florence, fearing she
might expose herself to danger in her endeavours to convert the Sara
cens, and knowing how easily a weak woman may fall, I desired her

fohn of Salerno. 427
to ask the blessed Catherine if she had found Christ by praying, or
by gadding about. I hear that you have no great knowledge of our
vulgar tongue, whence this error may easily have arisen. As to
Catherine, I will make known to your piety what I feel about her
in the innermost recesses of my heart. I consider her to be that
angel who sounded the sixth trumpet" Then after some very
singular adaptations of Holy Scripture, he continues : " I say all
this that you may understand how much I love her, and everywhere
praise her; and I beg of you to receive me as your son, since I
understand that your will is her will, and her will yours. Now, I
will tell you a secret. When she was in Florence,1 it happened that
being in an ecstasy she was seen by a certain virgin, who, quite
beside herself with wonder, ran to her, and cutting off some of her
hair wrapt it in a piece of silk which she had in her hand. I went to
Florence about that time for certain business, and the damsel seeing
my devotion to Catherine, gave me some of this hair as a precious
treasure. I received it with joy, and placed it among my choicest
relics, kissing it reverently, as if it belonged to a saint of Paradise."
Father William answered this letter in so friendly a way as to call
forth from Don John a second, yet fuller of Scriptural quotations
and protestations of fidelity to Catherine. In it he alludes to having
received a letter from her, which is not preserved ; but we gather
that the Saint, hearing of the dispute which had arisen between her
two good friends, had interfered to adjust their differences. Don
John's second letter has the rare merit of bearing a date. It was
written on the 10th of October 1376, just at the time when, as we
have seen, Catherine was returning to Italy after her visit to Avignon.
But if the rumours which had so roused the indignation of F. William
had entailed some little annoyance on John of the Cells, Providence
so ordered it that he had his revenge. Will it be believed that even
among the Oaks of Lecceto a traitor could be found to asperse
Catherine's reputation, and to circulate injurious criticisms of her
conduct ? We know nothing of him but his name and the castiga
tion which he received : he was called John of Salerno ; and
Landucci, the historian of the Augustinian hermits, has very prudently
told us nothing at all about him, whence it may be concluded he
was not very eminent among his brethren. Still he had a tongue
and a pen, and he seems to have used both for the purpose of
representing Catherine as altogether unworthy of the praises so
1 That is, on the occasion of her first embassy.

428 Don fohn defends Catherine.
lavishly bestowed on her by the public. One would have thought
he might safely have been trusted to the tender mercies of Prior
John III. and Father William Flete. But Don John did not think
so, or perhaps he was not sorry of the opportunity thus afforded him
of turning the tables on his brother hermits. Lecceto had taken
Vallombrosa to task for the very same misdemeanour, and it was
now the time for Vallombrosa to return the debt with interest. So
once more did John of the Cells draw his pen ; and this time we are
very glad he did so ; for however contemptible an adversary John of
Salerno may have been, the letter in which Don John demolished
him has preserved some very interesting facts regarding Catherine,
which would not otherwise have come to our knowledge. We will.
quote the letter, therefore, with certain merciful abridgments. He
begins by repudiating several most unjust charges brought against
him by Brother John of Salerno, to the effect that he encouraged and
corresponded with some of the heretical and excommunicated
Fraticelli. After having defended himself at considerable length
on this head, he goes on to notice the different points of the attack
against Catherine. They were briefly, that she offered to do penance
for the sins of others, that she allowed people to kiss her hands and
feet, and that before she had been approved as a saint by the Church
she ought not to be so extolled. Don John replies to each and all
of these objections, and then bursts forth in a strain of that peculiar
kind of eloquence fashionable in the fourteenth century. " But who
am I who dare to touch this mountain of the Lord? Montem
coagulatum, Montem pinguem, Montem in quo beneplacitum est Deo
habitare, the burning mountain of Sinai, of which it is written, ' And
if a beast touch this mountain, let him be stoned with stones ! ' x
Far from me be such stones ! . . . You say that we ought not to
venerate her till she has been approved by the Church. This I
dispute not; yet only lately the Pope having sent for her, caused
her to be prudently examined, and finding her just and holy, sent
her back with many gifts and graces, so that we have not believed
every spirit, but one that has been tried. You say that the city of
Florence abounds in fools, and the city of Siena in fantastical
persons. Pray, why do you leave out Pisa, Lucca, Genoa, and many
other cities, in all which men have been seized with such admiration
for her, and such innumerable crowds have run for her blessing, that
1 I fear that in this application of the sacred text there is no doubt but that
Brother John of Salerno was intended to figure as the beast,

The Monks of Vallombrosa. 429
she could only go through these cities secretly, and by night ?" Then
follows the narrative of her visit to Nurcia, already quoted, and he
concludes with a eulogy on her admirable doctrine, declaring that
the spirit of Paul seems verily to dwell in the body of Catherine.
John of the Cells was twice cured of dangerous sickness by the
command, so to speak, of Catherine. He himself related all the
circumstances of his cure to Stephen Maconi, when lying in his agony
at the Abbey of Passignano, near the lake of Thrasimene, about
thirteen miles from Siena. This monastery was only second in repute
to that of Vallombrosa, for it was the burial-place of the founder of
the Order, St John Gualbert, who died here in 1073. St. Catherine
often visited this abbey, and had many disciples among its hermits.
She corresponded in particular with Don Martin, the abbot, a great
friend of John of the Cells. The manner of life followed by the
religious did not greatly differ from that of the Carthusians. Each
hermit occupied his own cell and cultivated his own little garden.
So when Catherine writes to the Abbot Martin, she talks to him of
the best way of cultivating the garden of our soul ; how we must
turn up the soil, and clear away the briars, and plant the virtues,
and bring forth sweet flowers. " Fulfil my desires," she says, " and
be a good gardener to your own soul and those of your brethren."
In another letter she bids him graft himself on the Tree of the Cross.
We must not be barren trees, grafted on the dead stock of this world,
but living trees, grafted into the one fertile Tree, Jesus Christ. She
writes as one to whom the woody solitudes of Vallombrosa and
Passignano were familiar spots. And, indeed, she had seen with
her own eyes the deep shadowy vale down which pours the torrent
of the Ellero. She had walked under those dark pines, and listened
to the music of the wind among their branches. She had beheld
the same scenes which entranced the eyes of Milton — the mountains
clothed to their summit with beech trees, the lawns and meadows
which preserve a perpetual green from the countless streams with
which they are watered, and the blossoms of a thousand hues which
could not fail to delight the eye of such a lover of flowers as she was.
Like him, too, she had watched the fall of those
' ' Autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arched, embower."
But whilst he retained the image in his mind, to liken it to the fallen
host of rebel angels, she carried away a memory of the gardens, and

430 The Cross of Vallombrosa.
meadows, the brooks and the luxuriant foliage, to weave it all into
a beautiful picture — a parable of the order and loveliness of a faithful
religious soul.
One other thing she had also, in all probability seen, namely,
the miraculous beech tree of Vallombrosa growing over the little
cabin which served St. John Gualbert as his first place of retreat
This beech begins to put forth its leaves before all the others in
the forest, and retains them long after the foliage has fallen from
every other bough. And the good monks (when there were such
things at Vallombrosa, for in the late Revolution all have been swept
a~way) used to make crosses out of the wood of this tree, which they
distributed as objects of pitt}'. Catherine had one of these crosses,
which was given her by Abbot Martin of Passignano, and it was
thus she thanked him for it : " You have sent me a cross, reverend
Father ; I shall value it more than any I have, and I am greatly
touched by your having had the thought of sending it to me. You
offer to the eyes of my body that which I ought ever to have present
to the eyes of my soul, but, unhappily, I do not do it. I earnestly
beg you to pray to our sweet Lord that I may be entirely changed.
I will return you cross for cross, inviting you to suffer that of holy
desire and bodily suffering for the love of God and the salvation of
souls." She wrote a very beautiful letter to the monks of Passignano
in common, exhorting them to strict observance of their rule.
" You know, my beloved sons," she says, " what sort of persons those
monks are who do not follow their rule, but their own irregular
desires, and who are weary of their obligations, and seek after the
pleasures of the world, desiring its honours, riches, and distinctions
which are the death of the soul, and should be the shame and dis
grace of a religious. These are stinking flowers which shed forth no
perfume, but an odour of infection. . . . The soul that loves prayer
is a perfumed flower, and such a soul enjoys all the treasures which
can be enjoyed in this life. My dear sons, look on yourselves as
novices who have just entered the Order, that you may keep the
rule with devotion. Since God has placed you among angels, do
not you seek to remain among men ; I mean, by men, seculars who
are called only to the common way ; but you are called to the perfect
slate, and if in it you are not perfect, you will be less than men, and
you will descend to the level of irrational brutes. So be faithful to
your cell, love the choir, be obedient, fly conversation, and apply
yourselves to watching and prayer." (Letter 69.) John of the Cells

Monte Olive to. 431
survived St. Catherine, and lived to extreme old age. He died, at
length, worn out by his penances even more than by his years. The
chroniclers of his Order speak of them as " something incredible,
whereby his body was, as it were, broken to pieces." He is called by
them "a second Socrates," " a beautiful soul," and he was honoured
among his brethren, after death, with the title of " the Blessed."
Another religious body with whose members Catherine had
very close relations was the Congregation of the Olivetan monks.
The Olivetans might indeed be called a Sienese Order, having been
founded in 131 9 by the Blessed Bernard Tolomei and the Blessed
Ambrose Piccolomini, members of the two illustrious families of
Siena already often mentioned. Bernard was a learned doctor in
the university, who, having become blind, was miraculously cured,
and thenceforth renouncing the world retired to a wild desert about
sixteen miles to the south of the city called Monte di Accona ; and
there building a little clay hut, he lived for a time with two friends ;
until the vision of a silver ladder reaching from earth to heaven, up
which he saw the angels leading a company of white-robed monks,
put it into his heart to found a religious Congregation. His design
being approved by Pope John XXII,, they took the Benedictine
rule, and founded their first monastery in the same desert tract
of country above spoken of. This monastery was erected on the
hill of Monte di Accona, which thenceforth received the name of
Monte Oliveto. Three other houses of the same Congregation were
founded in the Sienese territory, which were all in a state of
excellent discipline in St. Catherine's time, in this respect
presenting a great and favourable contrast to other religious
institutes.1 During the plague of 1348, Bernard and a considerable
number of his monks left their solitude and came into Siena to serve
the .plague-stricken, himself and eighty of his religious children
falling victims to their ' devoted charity. Catherine was well
acquainted both with the Olivetan monks and with their convents,
specially with the Mother-house of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, spoken
of above,2 and with that of St. Benedict, situated nearer to the city,
1 Pope Urban V., in one of his Briefs, calls this Congregation, Speculum et
exemplum observantio: regularis, et vitce.
2 " Scarcely do we pass the rose-hung walls which encircle the fortifications (of
Siena) than we are in an upland desert piteously bleak in winter, but most lovely
when spring has come to clothe it. The volcanic nature of the soil gives a softer
tint to the colouring. Miles upon miles of open grey-green country — treeless,
hedgeless, and houseless, — swoop towards one another with the strangest sinuosities

432 Catherine 's Letters to the Olivetans.
outside the Porta Tufi, where lay the body of the holy founder.
No fewer than twelve Of her letters are preserved, addressed, some to
the General, some to the other superiors, and some to the novices, of
whom several would seem to have been directed in their choice of
this Congregation by her advice.1 Among these there appears to
have been a son of her friend Nanni di Ser Vanni, and a certain
Nicolas di Ghida, a famous physician of Siena, who, joining
himself to the company of the Saint's disciples, was led to renounce
the world and all its attractions, and by her advice took the white
habit of the Olivetans. Her letters to all these religious are remark
able for their appreciation of the duties of a monastic life, and
specially for their admirable instructions on that virtue of religious
obedience on which depends the preservation of true observance.
In one of these she develops the thought (so truly Dominican) that
he who observes the vow of obedience, virtually observes all the
other vows. " His bark," she says, " sails straight to the port of
Eternal Life, without striking on any rock. For many rocks are to
be found in the stormy sea of this life, and we shall make shipwreck
on them unless we are directed by the safe wind of obedience. The
malice of the enemy seeks nothing so much as to disgust us with
prayer and holy obedience, and to make us believe it impossible to
persevere, or to support the obligations of our rule. He persuades
us to take a straw for a beam, and a hasty word for the blow of a
dagger. Again, there is the rock of the world, ever presenting
of volcanic earth, till at last they sink away in pink and blue distances, so far off,
so pale and aerial, that they can scarcely be distinguished from the atmosphere
itself. Only here and there a lonely convent with a few black cypresses around
it, cuts the pellucid sky. Here, in these great uplands where all is so immense
that the very sky itself seems more full of space than elsewhere, it looks as if it were
the very heaven itself, only far away. The steep ascent leads to Monte Oliveto
through a barren desert, but about half a mile from the gates the scene changes,
' and the desert becomes an oasis. The immense depths below the buildings are
covered with wood, while the road is fringed with cypresses and the ancient olive
trees which gave the place its name." — (Hare's Cities of Italy, vol. iii. p. 300).
iEneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., visited this spot and speaks of the figs
and almonds, pears and apples, and the groves of cypresses ; vineyards, too, and
walks in the shade of vine leaves, a perennial spring of water with tanks and
wells, and fine groves of oak and juniper ; and a number of walks winding about
the hill with borders of vines, roses, and rosemary.
1 Writing to the Prior of St. Benedict's, she says : " I send you two more
sheep ; give them the repose of their cells and of study. They are two whom
you will have no difficulty in feeding, and they will give you much joy and con
solation."

Letter on Obedience. 433
itself to us decked in the fair show of riches, honours, and pleasures.
And yet in reality it affords nothing but bitter regrets. It has no
solidity, no duration, and all its seeming joys quickly vanish. Their
beauty is like that of flowers ; when we behold them in the meadows
they rejoice the eye and the smell, but as soon as they are gathered,
their beauty and their sweet smell disappear. And so the things of
this world attract and deceive us ; they look beautiful ; but the soul
which gathers them out of an irregular love finds them empty,
without colour, and without perfume : for the perfume of earthly
things comes from the holy thought of God, from Whom they
proceed ; but it is lost to "him who would gather and possess them
unlawfully. Is it not the fault of the things themselves, or of their
Creator ; but only of him who has gathered them, and would not
leave them where he found them growing, and where they ought to
remain : I mean, who has not loved them only for the sake of God."
Then she shows how this irregular love of earthly things is destroyed
by the practice of poverty ; and poverty is only truly practised by
him who is obedient to his rule. " He cares for no sensible loss or
suffering, because self-will is dead in him, and to him who has no
will of his own, pain is a pleasure, and tears a delicious drink.
Yes, obedience is truly a queen crowned as with a royal diadem !
She holds the sceptre of perseverance, and bears on her bosom the
flowers of all the virtues ; and she gives to mortal men the foretaste
of heaven, so that a man becomes an earthly angel ! " 1
1 Letter 77.

( 434 )

CHAPTER XV.
THE DIALOGUE AND THE LETTERS.
EVERY life has its brief seasons of repose and consolation. For
the most part such moments intervene between more troubled
periods, as though granted to recruit the soul exhausted by past trials,
and to prepare her for yet harder ones. Yet, brief as they are, such
times have an unspeakable sweetness ; we dare not trust them, for
we know too well their fleeting nature, but they come to us like a
momentary foretaste of our blessed rest hereafter.
Such a season there was in the life of St. Catherine ; a lull granted
to her between the stormy scenes of her Florentine mission, and the
rising of another tempest of which she did not live to see the end.
She returned to Siena towards the close of the summer of 1378, with
her heart full of joy and gratitude, rejoicing to be the bearer of good
tidings, and singing with the angels, " Peace on earth to men of
good-will ! " And she chose the season of comparative leisure
which at last she was able to command, in order to put into' writing
some of those secrets of the Spiritual Life which she had learnt
in her long hours of communing with God.
" As soon as Urban VI. had concluded peace with Florence," says
Raymund, " Catherine returned home and occupied herself actively in
the composition of a book which she dictated under the inspiration of
the Holy Ghost. She recommended her secretaries to be present
during her ecstasies, and carefully to write down whatever she might
then dictate : they did it faithfully, and collected a book full of.great
and useful truths. She dictated this work while her soul was
abstracted from her bodily senses, so that she neither saw, nor
heard, nor was sensible to touch ; God desiring to make known that
this work did not resemble that of man, but was inspired by the
Holy Spirit." x The book here spoken of is the Dialogue, and we
1 Leg., Part 3, chap. i. Our readers will, of course, understand that the term
" inspired" as here applied to the writings of St. Catherine, must not be inter-

The Dialogue. 435
feel a desire to know some more particulars of its composition than
are here given — Where was it dictated ? Who were the secretaries ?
Were any pages written by her own hand ?
It is stated in the Process that it was written " at different times
and in different places ; " but we have indisputable evidence as to
the place where, at least, a great portion of it was composed, and
where it was undoubtedly finished. Our readers will remember the
good hermit Fra Santi, whom Catherine twice restored to health,
once at Siena, and once at Rocca, at which last place he was present
at the exorcism of the possessed woman. In company with some of
her disciples, Catherine often visited him in his hermitage, attached
to which was a little chapel, where she loved to retire out of the
noise and bustle of the city. In particular she often came there
between the months of July and October 1378, accompanied by
one or other of her secretaries and sisters. Here in this oratory or
chapel, as Caffarini informs us in the Third Part of his Supplement,
a good part of the Dialogue was written ; and here it was finished
on the 13th October of that same year. He attests this fact as an
ocular witness, and says he often saw how, when she retired to that
spot and began to pray, she was rapt in ecstasy, and began to speak
with God as in a dialogue. No vestige now remains of this little
oratory, nor does any certain tradition exist as to where it was
situated ; a matter to be regretted, for, had it been preserved, it would
have been justly regarded as one of the most venerable sanctuaries
consecrated by the presence of the Saint.
The secretaries who wrote the Dialogue from her dictation were
Neri Landoccio, Stephen Maconi, and Barduccio Canigiani, to whose
number was sometimes added the faithful Christofano. Caffarini,
in his deposition, has very exactly described the manner in which she
dictated it. " Sometimes she held her hands clasped on her breast,
sometimes she walked about the room, or knelt down for a while,
always however keeping her eyes turned towards heaven. And if,
from, accidental interruptions, she allowed some days to pass without
having dictated anything, she would take up the subject as exactly
as if she had only just left off, and had everything in her mind."
Stephen speaks for himself in his " Letter to Caffarini," which forms
part of the Process. Referring to Catherine's ecstasies, which he had
preted in its rigorous sense. Raymund's real meaning is probably identical with
that expressed by Pius II. in the Bull of Canonisation ; Doctrina ejus infusa, non
acquisita fuit.

436 Original Copies.
often witnessed, he says, " She gives the explanation of these things
in her Book, great part of which I wrote from her dictation." But was
all written by the hand of her secretaries ? for by this time she had
herself acquired the art of writing. Caffarini assures us that far from
its being true that, as Raymund expresses it, " her body was all the
time in a complete state of insensibility," she wrote several pages of
the Book with her own hand. After relating the story of the verses
written in cinnabar at Rocca, he says that this was not a faculty
granted for the moment only, but permanently. "The Venerable
Don Stephen Maconi, who among others served as her secretary, and
was one of those most dear to her, has assured me that she wrote
him a letter in the vulgar tongue, as a sign of her partial affection
to a most dear son ; for it was the first letter she ever wrote. He
also assured me that he had seen her write with her own hands (besides
not a few important letters) many sheets of the Book by her composed
in the vulgar tongue. And he freely confesses out of love and devo
tion ' having gathered up some of those sheets ; and in order to
preserve them in a safe place, he deposited them in the Carthusian
Monastery of Pontignano, two miles from Siena, which was the house
of his profession" (Sup., Part 1, Trat. 1, § 10).
Gigli, when editing the Saint's works in 1707, made every inquiry
to ascertain if these precious autographs were yet in existence, but
without success ; and he could only suppose that they had been con
veyed to the great Chartreuse a few years previously, at a time when
all the smaller Carthusian houses were required to send thither their
most valuable manuscripts.1 But if these pages have been lost, a
happier fate has awaited some of the original copies of the Dialogue,
written by the hands of her secretaries. One of these which still
exists formed the text which Gigli edited. It was at that time
preserved in the private chapel of Signor Silvio Gori Pannellini of
Siena, and an exact description of the manuscript will probably be
interesting to the reader. It is written on parchment, and in the
margin appear certain Latin notes, set down by the disciples to whom
the Saint dictated. It runs on continuously; the division into
chapters, however, being noted in the margin, and, as it would seem,
at a later period. Gigli supposes this copy to be in the handwriting
of Stephen Maconi. For at the end of the manuscript appear the
1 Whilst the present work has been in compilation, application has been made
to the Superior of the Grande Chartreuse, to ascertain what had become of these
inestimable relics of our holy Mother : but nothing was there known about them.

Latin Translation of the Dialogue. 437
identical words which Stephen was in the habit of putting at the con
clusion of his letters, " Pray for your useless and sinful brother."
The same disciple has also added some of her letters, and the Tran-
sito, or account of her death, to which he prefixes the following
introduction ; " I will now write part of the order of the happy and
glorious end of this most sweet Virgin, according as our base intellects
can understand the same, preoccupied as they are with immense
grief." Whence it appears that the writer was one of her faithful
followers, and as Gigli supposes, none other than Stephen Maconi
himself. The Dialogue was translated into Latin by Christofano di Gano,
who gives the following account of the matter in his Memoirs :
" This servant of Christ," he says, " made a notable thing, namely, a
book about the size of a missal. She composed it all being in ecstasy,
abstracted from the use of all her senses, except her tongue. God
the Father spoke to her,1 and she replied and made her demands of
Him ; and she repeated His words and her own likewise, and all in
the vulgar tongue. She dictated, and another wrote, sometimes
Barduccio, sometimes Don Stephen, and sometimes Neri di
Landoccio. This is a thing difficult to believe, but to those who
heard and wrote it, it does not seem so, and I was one of these. Then
as the book was in the vulgar tongue, and as those who know
grammar or have any learning do not so much care to read things
thus written, as they do to read Latin, I, for my own satisfaction and
that of my neighbours, translated it into Latin, according to the text,
adding nothing ; and I tried to do it as well as ever I could, and
spent several years over it as a matter of pleasure, now on one part,
now on another. And when by the grace of God I had finished it,
I sent it to Don Stephen, then at Pontignano, that he might correct
it, for it was he who wrote down the greater part of it at Catherine's
dictation. And when it was corrected, I caused it to be copied by a
good writer, and bound. And it was hardly finished when a certain
Bishop, of the Order of Preachers belonging to France, who had seen
and spoken with Catherine at Avignon, came to Siena with Master
Raymund, then General of the Order. I had not had the book in my
house one night before I carried it to the Bishop, who was so pleased
1 We must again remind the reader not to attach too rigorous a sense to these
expressions. Christofano's addiction to matter of fact led him to make no dis
tinction between the literal and the mystic ; and the extreme simplicity of his lan
guage must not be measured by rules of theological exactitude.

438 Catherine's Love of Truth.
with it that he would not let it go out of his hands. And he begged
me to give it him, which I did. He assured me that he found some
things set forth in that Book better than in any of the Doctors, and
declared that he should preach its doctrine in his own country, and
gain great fruit of souls."
We cannot attempt in this place anything like an analysis of this
celebrated work. Those who would desire to know something of
St. Catherine's doctrine must study it in her own pages ; nor would it
be easy to name any writings which combine in equal proportions
the practical with the sublime. In whatever qualified sense we
understand the expressions used by her disciples, when speaking of
the source whence she derived her doctrine, no one can read the
Dialogue without feeling that she who dictated those words, uttered
them with her own soul absorbed in the presence and the sense of
God. This, in fact, was the special grace and privilege which she
enjoyed through life ; she was never for one moment separated from
the Divine Presence ; and it was a grace which has stamped its
character on every page of her book. Hence it would be difficult
for any one to imbibe her teaching without a certain sensible increase
in the virtue of faith. Not that she treats of the different revealed
doctrines by way of controversy, but with her own soul filled to over
flowing with the perfection of that fundamental virtue, she ever sets
before us the rock on which it rests, namely, the Truth of God.
We might say that she worshipped the very name of truth, as was
befitting a daughter of the glorious Order which bears the word
Veritas as its motto. Did we possess such a thing as a concord
ance of St. Catherine, it would be a marvel to see how often and
how lovingly she uttered it.1 Her understanding was illuminated
by that divine light, of which she discourses so wonderfully and in so
many places, — the Light of Faith— which communicates to a finite
mortal intellect the whole Truth of God.2 Although, then, St.
1 We will give but one example from her twelfth Prayer : O Verith, Verith,
e chi son' io, che Tu dai a me la Verith tua ? La Verita tua e quella che porge la
Verita, e con la Verita tua dico la Verith. Non i separata da Te la Verita tua, anco
tu sei essa Verith. Tu Deith Eterna, Figliuolo di Dio, venisti di Dio per adem-
pire la Verith del Padre Eterno, e neuno pub avere Verith, se non da Te Verith."
2 Mrs. Josephine Butler, in her recent (non-Catholic) Biography of St. Cathe
rine, has hazarded the assertion that iii her writings the Saint makes little or no
allusion to points of doctrine, specially those "rejected by the reformed churches."
If by doctrine is meant controversy, the remark is true ; the reformers not having
yet arisen, she could hardly be expected to enter the' lists against them. But if

Her Doctrine. 439
Catherine's language is never that of controversy, yet it is worthy of
remark, how naturally some of her phrases seem almost to anticipate
certain expressions in our "Abridgment of Christian Doctrine;" as
when she reminds a man of the world to whom she is writing that
" the end of our creation is to love and serve God here, and to enjoy
Him hereafter," or speaks of the likeness which our soul bears to
the Blessed Trinity in its three powers, namely, the memory, the
understanding, and the will.1
Nevertheless, it is doubtless true that in speaking of the doctrine of
St. Catherine we generally have in our mind something distinct from
theological teaching. We understand rather her idea of the spiritual
Ufe as a path, a bridge by which the soul reaches God by union
with Jesus Christ, by the surrender of self will, by the practice of
obedience, and by perseverance in prayer. She tells us nothing new
on all these subjects, but she tells us the old truths in words so strong
and massive, that they seem like huge columns supporting our puny
conceptions. While her own spirit of adoring reverence builds up
our faith and our sense of God, she teaches us also to understand
the value of our own immortal souls. When, indeed, she speaks on
that subject, her language may fitly be termed inspired. "The soul
in which God dwells by grace," she says, "is a heaven" (p. 49),
" when united to Him by charity, it is another Christ " (p. 38); " it can
not live without love, for it was created for love and by love " (p. 76).
" Herein is its amazing dignity, that it is able to love God " (p. 77).
"It lives to God in proportion as it dies to self2 (p. 333). She truly
writes as one to whom the gift was given of seeing souls. And next
to her magnificent utterances on God and the soul, we should be
disposed to single out the passages in her writings which treat of the
intended to convey the idea that St. Catherine's teaching is vague on those points
of revealed truth, on which the reformers have since differed from the teaching of
the Church, its inaccuracy is amazing. We will notice only her words on Faith
as first infused into the soul in Holy Baptism (pp. 44, 52, 154). Of the three kinds
of Baptism (p. III). On the necessity of the Holy Sacraments (p. 184,) the
virtue of which is not diminished by the sins of the ministers (pp. 25, 37). On
Sacramental Confession (p. Ill ; also Prayer vii.). On Sacramental and Spiritual
Communion (p. 96). On the Holy Eucharist (p. 175-178). On the Dignity and
Office of the Pope, as successor of St. Peter, and Vicar of Christ (p. 183). On Free
will (p. 62 ; also Prayer vii.). On the Foreknowledge of God (ibid.) On the
Blessed Virgin, who co-operated by her Dolours in the redemption of the world
(Prayer II) ; and who obtains from God eternal life for those who are her faithful
clients (p. 251).
1 Dialo"-., chap. xiii. p. 23. 2 Tanto -vivo in Te, quanta muojo in me.

440 Passages on Will.
Will as among those most remarkable and most useful in these our
days. One of the weapons with which she combated the powers of
evil was the earnest warning she gave to her disciples, that their wills,
when made strong by grace in the Blood of Christ, are fortresses
which cannot be stormed unless we basely open the gates to the
enemy. In these weak days when men are hardly willing to believe
in their own possession of a faculty which they have no heart to use,
her exhortations on this subject are a true spiritual tonic. "Your
will," she writes, " strengthened by the Blood of Christ, is given you
by God. You can keep, or you can lose, that fortress, as you please.
It is a weapon, which if you choose to make over into the hands of
the devil is a knife that will slay you. We call our wills weak; well,
they are weak when they are opposed to God's will; united to His,
they are strong." For, far from her was the thought that our human
wills have any strength in themselves ! Let us hear her own beautiful
words : " Thou seest, O Lord, the law of our perverse nature, ever
apt to rebel against Thy will. Thou seest how weak, and frail, and
miserable it is. But in all things Thou providest for Thy creature,
and hast found a remedy for all. Thou givest him the rock and
fortress of Thy Will, to make his strong ; for Thou permittest the
will of thy creature to share in the strength of Thy will ; and hence
we see that our will is strong in proportion as it is conformed to
Thine, and weak in proportion as it is opposed to Thine : for Thou
hast created our wills in the likeness of Thy Will, and abiding in Thee,
they are strong."1
The subject is of sufficient interest to excuse our adding a few
extracts from her letters in which the same teaching is conveyed in a
more familiar style. "We may be sure of this that God permits us
trials only to exercise us in patience, strength, and perseverance.
These virtues all spring out of self-knowledge, for it is in the hour of
combat that we learn our own nothingness. If I were anything, I
should be able to deliver myself, but of myself I am powerless alike
over the tempests of the soul, or the maladies of the body. We can
only conquer by a will that knows how to resist ; and such a will we
must seek in the goodness of God." (Letter 56.) "You will say to
me, ' I lack the weapons with which to fight, how am I to procure
them ? ' I answer, Every reasonable creature may have them, if he
chooses, by divine grace. Both good and evil are effected by the
will ; it is the consent alone which makes a thing to be either vice or
1 Prayer 7.

Parallel Passages from her Letters. 441
virtue ; for without the will, sin would not be sin, or virtue, virtue.
And this will is so strong that nothing has power to move it
without its own consent. Hear St. Paul, who says, ' Neither hunger
nor thirst, nor persecution, nor the sword, nor things present, nor
things to come, can separate me from the charity of God.' In these
words he shows us what is the strength of that will which God in
His mercy has given us. Let no one, therefore, say I cannot, for
no person can be excused from wilful sin." (Letter 85.) Again she
presses home the truth that the disordered will is the only source of
all our sufferings. "To have what we would not have, is indeed
the source of suffering ; but when we are clothed with the eternal will
of God, and not our own, we become one with Him, and judge
all things in love, according to His most holy Will." (Letter 53.)
" The servant is not greater than his Lord ; he suffers in love,
bathing himself in the Blood of Jesus, and there his self-will dies.
And when once the will is dead, all suffering disappears, for it is our
self-will alone that makes our tribulations painful ; when that is dead,
and we are clothed with God's will, suffering is a pleasure, and
sensual pleasure becomes a pain. This is the way by which the
saints travelled ; they knew that the eternal kingdom was not to be
bought with pleasure ; but when our will is one with God's will, then,
indeed, we enjoy the foretaste of eternal life." (Letter 55.)
But this sensitive self-will is always in rebellion, how then are we
to master and kill it, and bring it into subjection? Here is her
recipe, strong and heroic teaching indeed, and, as we know, one she
had made trial of by her own experience. " Let reason sit on the
tribunal of your conscience, and pass over not so much as the
least thought opposed to God. Let a man know how to distinguish
between his reason and his sensuality, and let reason take a two-
edged knife and put sensuality to death. Let him reduce it to slavery
by never giving it what it cries for. If it asks to sleep, let him watch ;
if it would eat, let him fast ; if it seek any other indulgence, let him
take the discipline ; if it would give way to sloth and negligence, let him
persevere in holy exercises ; if it would yield to imaginations inspired
by the devil, let him terrify it with the thought of death." (Letter 296.)
The Dialogue, as we at present possess it, is divided into four
Treatises, namely, those on Discretion, Prayer, Divine Providence,
and Obedience. We would venture the surmise that although the
work forms one whole, yet not only were these divisions made from
the first, but that certain other portions also, which treat on particular

44 2 Her Manner of Dictating.
subjects, were written separately, and received distinct titles. This
at least seems to explain the Saint's own allusion (in a letter to
Francis Tebaldi) to her " Treatise on Tears," by which we under
stand the 87th to the 97th chapters of the Dialogue. The Treatise
on Obedience contains some of the finest passages of the whole com
position; as, when she comes to speak of the different religious
Orders in the Church and their distinct object and spirit, unable to
restrain the enthusiasm of a loyal daughter of St. Dominic, she
describes the glorious Father guiding the ship of his Order, and
" desiring that his sons should seek no other thing than the glory of
God and the salvation of souls . . . And he made his Order a royal
Order, large, joyous, and odoriferous, as a delightful garden." 1
We cannot close this chapter without saying a little more on the
subject of the Saint's letters, which in style and variety are not
inferior to the Dialogue.
And first, it may be of interest to compare with the account which
Caffarini has given of her method of dictating the Dialogue, another
description which is given by Francesco Malevolti in his deposi
tion, of what he himself witnessed when writing her letters ; for he
frequently acted as her secretary : " I saw her dictate many letters
at the same time to several writers," he says, " and particularly to
three at once, and this not once only, but innumerable times, and
during the course of many years . . . When she so dictated, her
dictation never required correction, addition, or retrenchment, unless
from some fault on our part. Once we were all three writing at the
same time, one was engaged on a letter to be sent to Pope Gregory
XL, another on one to be sent to the Lord Bernabb Visconti, and
the third to another great personage, whose name I now forget.
She dictated now to one and now to another; now with 'her face
covered, now looking to heaven with her hands crossed, and many
times in ecstasy, yet in that state still continuing to dictate. It
happened as she did so, that as she said some words only to one of
us, we each wrote down the same words, each one believing they had
been spoken to himself. When we perceived this, we supposed we
had committed an error, so asked her to which of us she had spoken
those words, because each of us had written them down. But she
answered kindly ; ' Do not be uneasy, you have done right ; we shall
see when the letters are finished that the words will answer the
1 La sua religione, tutta larga, tutta gioconda, tutta odorifera, e uno giardino
dilettissimo in si. Dial., chap, clviii.

Passage on Variety. 443
purpose of all.' And wonderful to say, although the letters were
addressed on various subjects and to persons so different, yet when
we read over these words, they were so much to the point of each of
the three letters, that not one of them could have done well without
the words in question."1
The many extracts which have been already given of these wonder
ful compositions may have furnished the reader with some idea of
their general character ; but it is only after a close and long perusal,
assisted by a study of the circumstances under which they were
written, and the persons to whom they were addressed, that we can
gain a real insight into the mind and heart of St. Catherine, a mind
illuminated by its continual contemplation of the Eternal Truth ; a
heart made one with the Heart of Christ. Setting aside their value
as a. body of spiritual instructions, how unspeakable is their beauty !
the freshness of their illustrations, the vigour of their style ! Open
them at hazard where you will, and you are sure to light on some
passage flooded with intellectual splendour. " God manifests Himself
in many ways," she says, writing to a Carthusian of Pontignano, " for
has not the Blessed Christ told us that in His Father's house there are
many mansions? Who could number up the diversity of gifts and graces
which are to be found, not merely in all creatures, but in one soul !
For though all must have the virtue of charity, and without it all the
other virtues are nothing, yet each has some one virtue which pre
dominates over the rest, and this makes up the differences of life.
The saints who have attained eternal life did not all attain it in the
same way. They do not all resemble one another ; and there is the
same difference among the Angels ; they are not all equal. One of
the great joys of the soul in eternity will be to contemplate the great
ness of God in the variety of rewards which He dispenses to His
saints. We find the same variety in created things, which all differ
one from another, yet were all created for the same end ; for God
created them all for love. He who would know God's glory and
greatness may find it in the contemplation of all these things, whether
visible or invisible." (Letter 55.)
Let us hear her addressing Rainaldo of Capua, of whom we are
told that he was " a man of subtle genius and a great investigator of
the mysteries of God and of the Holy Scriptures." Proud of his
intellect, he considered himself to be thereby an enlightened man ;
and Catherine, without presuming to rebuke him for his conceit,
1 Dep. Fran. Mai., chap. vii.

444 Letter to Rainaldo of Capua.
endeavours to set before him the grand truth that the real light of
the soul is not knowledge, but Faith ; and that without it we walk in
darkness. " If we consider by what means we may lose the eye of
the body," she says, " we find that it may be lost by the blow of a
sword or a stone, or by dust which enters and injures it, or by heat,
as happens to those who are blinded by the glare of a red-hot
vessel, which destroys the pupil ; 1 by all these ways we lose our
bodily sight. And the eye of our understanding is in like manner
destroyed by the sword of vice, or the dust of earthly pleasure ; by
the glare of vainglory, or the scorching heat of pride. . . . Yet a
man may recover his sight by somewhat the same means as that
which caused, its loss. What is that burning vessel which, placed
before the eyes of our intelligence, will restore their sight? even
Jesus, who entering the vessel of our Humanity, displayed there the
burning fire of God's ineffable charity, and the splendour of the
Divine nature united to the nature of man. That is the object on
which if our eye be fixed, it will dry up our self-love, and dissipate
our darkness, and diffuse a supernatural light into our under
standing." Then she goes on patiently unfolding the idea that is in
her mind, how when the supernatural illumination of Faith is
substituted for the natural light of our own purblind intellect, it
produces all the virtues ; first, love, because we cannot love until we
know ; and then humility, and the desire to be like what we love,
and therefore the desire of suffering. And thus at last the soul
attains the sublime virtue of Patience, understanding that God gives
us tribulations and temptations only that we may be sanctified in
Him ; and accepting them sweetly " because it cannot complain of
that which is its good." Having got thus far, it is not difficult for
her to remind Rainaldo that the humble believer seeks not to
penetrate the secret mysteries of God, but rather to know himself,
to see in all things God's will, and to taste the fire of His charity.
" But unlike Him, the proud and presumptuous man before he will
enter the valley of humility pretends to examine the conduct of God
and to ask, 'Why does He act thus? Why does He give to me
what He has not given to another?' As though he would lay
down laws to God instead of adoring His goodness.
1 She is here alluding to a cruel method of blinding criminals by compelling
them to fix their eyes on brazen vessels, made red hot.' This punishment was
practised in the Middle Ages at Constantinople. The eyes of the victims were
thereby destroyed without disfigurement.

Passage on Hope. 445
"And there are some who, destitute alike of humility and self-
knowledge, would subtilise, and with the darkened eye of their own
understanding would seek to understand and explain the Holy
Scriptures and the Apocalypse, and so draw death out of life, and out
of light, darkness. The soul that should be full of God, is full of
vain phantoms, and all because, instead of descending, it has sought
to exalt itself. What folly ! I do not know myself, and I presume
to investigate the secrets of God ! But if we would see the stars of
His mysteries, we must first descend into the deep well of humility y1
for the humble soul casts herself upon the earth in acknowledg
ment of her own baseness, and then God raises her up." Then she
goes on to speak of prayer, as the means by which the soul may
unceasingly gaze upon the Truth ; and all this is the work of Faith
which inspires humility and sorrow for sin, and chases awaydespair, and
establishes us in Hope. Then at the sound of that word, like one on
whose ears there bursts a sudden strain of exquisite music, she breaks
forth into one of those passages to which it is hard to refuse the name
of poetry, only because not written in the metre of versification : —
" O Hope ! Sweet Sister of Faith ! 'tis thou that with the Key of
the Blood dost open the portals of Life Eternal ! Thou guardest the
city of the soul against the enemy of confusion : thou slackenest not
thy steps when the demon would seek to trouble the soul with the
thought of her sins, and so to cast her into despair ; but generously
pressing on in the path of virtue, and putting in the balance the
Price of the Blood, thou placest the crown of victory on the brow of
perseverance!" (Letter 236.)
It is difficult in looking over the large collection of St.
Catherine's letters to know which to select as best worthy of our
study. Those addressed to the religious houses of various Orders
with which she was connected are wonderfully solid in their instruc
tions. No less solid, though written from a totally different point of
view, are her letters of direction to persons living in the world ; and
of these we would choose the five addressed to Ristoro Canigiani as
models of prudence and persuasive eloquence. Ristoro, the son of
1 This exquisite illustration is founded on a fact well known to men of science,
even in St. Catherine's days, namely, that even at noon the stars may be discerned
from the bottom of a deep well, or the shaft of a mine. Such excavations have
been made for the purpose of astronomical observations at various times and
places ; one of the most famous was to be seen in the Paris observatory built by
Louis XIV.

446 Letters to Ristoro Canigiani.
Peter, and the elder brother of Barduccio Canigiani, was a man of
uncommon gifts and endowments. He was a skilful advocate, and
cultivated a taste for literature, showing himself no mean poet, if we
may judge from his poem of the " Ristorato," which is still preserved.1
He had incurred great losses in the insurrection of the "Ammoniti,"
but his intercourse with Catherine during her residence in Florence
had inspired him with a certain indifference to worldly prosperity,
and after her departure he wrote to her to say that he forgave those
who had injured him in the late troubles, and that he felt a desire
in his soul to spend the remainder of his life more entirely for God.
But here was his difficulty. His place was in the world, for he was
married and the father of a young family ; and his profession obliged
him to mix with public affairs ; and how was all this to be harmonised
with a devout life ? Then in the matter of his worldly property ;
did the Gospel rule require him not to demand what was justly his,
but to abandon his lawful rights ? and was his profession of advocate
really one in which a man could serve God ? In fact, he laid before
her exactly the ordinary perplexities which are continually arising
in the consciences of those whose vocation is to sanctify themselves
in a secular state of life.
Catherine replies with a discretion and moderation which exacted
from him no more than he was able to perform, while at the same
time she leads him gradually on to perfection, in proportion as his
firmness of purpose becomes strengthened, and his spiritual instincts
have grown keener. He may certainly claim what is justly due to
him ; for no man is required to renounce what justly belongs to him.
If he feels inspired to keep away from the Palazzo and other places
of public resort, that is well. It is best to fly occasions of disturbance
and temptation, and to remain in the quiet of his own home. "Never
theless," she says, " I make one exception ; if the poor have need of
some one to plead their cause, you will greatly please God by exert
ing yourself for them out of charity, as St. Ivo did in his time, and
so earned the title of the advocate of the poor." Then if he wants
some easy way of sanctifying his every-day duties, let him take the
1 This poem was published in 1847 by the Abbate Luigi Razzolini from a MS.
in the Ricasoli Library at Florence. It was written in 1367, by way of employing
his idle time when driven by the plague to take refuge at Bologna : for not
having brought his law books with him, as he tells us in the preface, he had nothing
to study, so took to rhyming, in order to have something to do. The poem is a
versified form of his prose treatise entitled, // Fior di Virtii.

Advice to a Man of the World. 447
exercise of the presence of God. "Think that the eye of God is
ever on you and that you must die, and you know not when. Labour
for the peace and happiness of your soul, that is your first duty.
Relieve your conscience of everything that can burden it, forgiving
injuries and repairing wrongs. Sell some of your superfluities, your
sumptuous clothing for instance, which is of no use, but rather danger
ous, for it puffs up the soul with foolish pride. Nevertheless, I would
have you dress becomingly, only with less expense, and, as far as you
can, persuade your wife and children to observe the same rule, for a
father is in duty bound to bring up his children according to the
laws of reason and virtue. I think you are right in refusing State
offices, for the experience you have had of them shows their danger."
Then she passes to his religious duties, and recommends monthly
confession ; if more often, so much the better, but not less. Com
munion on great feasts, or at least once in the year; and if he
possibly can, let him hear Mass daily. Then prayer, and at certain
times in the day a few moments of recollection ; so as to recall the
thought of our sins and God's goodness, and to remind ourselves
how much He loves us. "Say every day the Office of our Lady, if
you do not do so already,1 that she may be your refuge and advocate
before God ; and fast in her honour on Saturdays, as well as on the
other days prescribed by the Church. And at all times live simply,
and renounce excessive banqueting, for no man can long preserve
innocence if he does not know how to mortify himself in eating and
drinking." Then from the level of this ordinary rule of life, she
leads him on, step by step, to higher things, till in her last letter we
plainly see that he and his wife have generously embraced a life of
perfection. There is no longer question of Communion " once a
year," but frequently ; he has come to understand what is meant by
the "continual prayer of holy thoughts and desires," and to "love
often to find himself with God in actual prayer ; " and his eyes have
opened to that interior light which draws him powerfully to the love
of virtue "in all times and places and positions wherever God places
us, conforming ourselves in all things to the sweet will of Him Who
desires nothing but our sanctification. Oh, what immense joy
fills my heart ! " she exclaims, " when I think of your salvation ; for
I see by your letter that this light has not been obscured in your
1 It will be remembered that down to the time of the Reformation this was the
ordinary and almost universal devotion among seculars who knew how to read.
The Book of Hours was every educated person's Prayer Book.

448 The Lion and its Cubs.
soul. Otherwise you could not see so clearly the misery and incon
stancy of the world, or despise it so truly, and so earnestly follow
after perfection. Oh, how happy I shall be to see you advancing
still from virtue to virtue, spite of the attacks of the enemy who will
not fail to surround you with snares ; and to cherish and augment
that light, I would have you ever keep before your mind four things.
First, remember how much God loves you ; secondly, reflect how
generously we ought to love God ; in the third place, consider how
detestable sin is to God and man ; and fourthly, think of that ever
lasting reward of which St. Paul says, "that the sufferings of this
life are not to be compared to the eternal weight of glory which God
has prepared for those who love Him." 1 " Courage, then," she says
in conclusion, " courage in the Precious Blood ! It is ever near
you. Love to be alone with God in prayer, and repeat all these
things to your wife. Quit the common way, and embrace the life
of angels ; God calls you to it. Respond generously to His call,
and you will indeed, even in this world, be a family of Angels."
Occasionally there fall from her pen expressions of amazing
beauty, which show how richly her mind was stored with graceful
images. Writing to the Cardinal del Porto, she says,' " I said
just now that you must be a lamb in order to follow the true
Lamb. But you must be a lion also, and utter your roar over the
Holy Church, to the end that you may raise to life again the children
who lie dead in her bosom.2 If you ask, ' Where am I to learn that
cry ? ' I answer, From the Immaculate Lamb, Who though in His
Humanity He uttered no cry, but remained meek and silent, yet in
His Divinity He gave forth the cry of His measureless compassion,
For in the power of that love which united God and man the
Lamb became a Lion; and from the Cross He sent forth His
cry over His dead child — humanity ; — a cry which destroyed death,
and restored life to the whole human race." Writing to another
Cardinal, James Orsini, she speaks of the folly of pride, a fault into
which men fall through lack of self-knowledge. " For if men knew
their own nothingness, they could not be proud. The being we have,
1 In the original these four points are considerably expanded ; I only here give
the skeleton of her direction to this soul. It was like St. Catherine to bid him
remember God's love for him, before every other consideration ; as the first prin
ciple from which alone he could get a true appreciation of sin, and of the eternal
rewards and punishments.
2 It was a poetical notion of the Middle Ages that the lion could raise its dead
cubs to life again by roaring over them.

Her familiar Letters. 449
we received from God. We did not ask Him to create us : He was
moved to do it out of the love which He had for His creature, whom
regarding in Himself, He became enamoured of its beauty. The
soul that looks within sees there God's goodness. She sees that
she was the real rock in which His Cross was fastened ; for neither
the rock nor the nails would have kept it there without the force of
love. I remember what was once said to a certain servant of God,1
who cried out in fervour of spirit, saying : ' O Lord, would that I
had been the stones, and the earth in which your Cross was planted !
What grace should I not have received when your Precious Blood
flowed down from the Cross ! ' And the Sweet and Sovereign Truth
replied : 'My daughter, thou and all reasonable creatures were indeed
the stones that held Me fast ; for it could only be My love for you
that so held me ; nothing else was capable of holding the Incarnate
God ! '"
Of her more familiar letters the many quotations already given
in different parts of the present volume may perhaps suffice as speci
mens. It is difficult, if not impossible, however, to render the beauties
of her style in a translation, and particularly the tenderness which,
like a true woman, she usually reserves for those of her disciples
who gave her most trouble. Thus in writing to Francesco Malevolti,
whose complete conversion was not effected until some time after
her death, and who was always making good resolutions and as often
breaking them, she addresses him as Carissimo e sopra carissimo
figlio ; and adds, "I may well call you dear, for you have cost me
many tears and much anguish ; but console my soul, and do not
refuse to come to me." Brother Simon of Cortona was a novice,
and as such comes in for the youngest child's portion in the shape
of messages such as a mother sends to her nursery, "Bless my son
Simon for me, and tell him to open his mouth for some milk which
his mother is going to send him." x " Bless my dear son Simon for
me, and tell him he must learn to run with the stick of good desires."
Messages of this sort often occur in her letters to F. Bartholomew
Dominic, with whom she was completely at her ease. When at
Asciano he wrote to her, begging her to come there and take part
in the good work that was going on. " I would come willingly," she
replies, " were it only to please you ; but the weather does nothing
1 Herself.
2 " Ditegli che disponga la bocca a ricevere la latte, perocche la Mamma ne li
mandarh." 2 F

4 SO Letters to Stephen.
but rain, and I have been so weak for ten days past, that I have
scarce been able to get to the church except on Sunday. Father
Thomas feels compassion for me, and does not think me fit to come
so far. ... I must therefore help you invisibly by praying for
you and all the people, though, had it been possible, I would gladly
have helped you visibly also. Tell Brother Simon, my son in Jesus
Christ, that a son should never be afraid of coming to his mother,
and that he should run to her, specially when he has been hurt.
Then his mother opens her arms and takes him to her bosom ; and
though I admit that I am but a bad mother,1 yet I will always carry
him on the bosom of charity. So now remember, no negligence but
zeal, and then my soul will be joyful before God." As was natural, one
who could be so tender in encouragement, could equally use a mother's
familiarity when it was necessary to give a rebuke. " Respond, negli
gent son, respond to God's grace," she writes to Stephen Maconi ;
"it is a shame to see God always standing at the door of your soul,
and you not opening it to Him." In fact, she generally contrives to
give Stephen a little motherly admonition even in the titles of her
letters, which are addressed to " Stephen, my worthless and ungrate
ful son ;" or to "Stephen, poor in all virtue." Writing to Neri, she
says, " Encourage and bless my son Simon from me a thousand and
a thousand times ; tell him to pray for all his brothers, who send
him their compliments, specially that negligent Stephen." Probably
Stephen himself was acting on this occasion as secretary.
Our limits warn us to stop, though to do so we must close the
volumes that solicit us to linger over their pages. We will but add
that both the Dialogue and the Letters are accepted by all critics
as models of pure Italian ; that the most learned academies have
ranged them amongst their Testi di Lingua; and that the dyer's
daughter of Siena has taken her place in the literature of her native
land by the side of Petrarch and Bocaccio.
1 Poniamo che io gatliva Madre sia, nondimeno sempre el portarb al petto di
carith. (Letters 112, 113.)

fart HI.
THE GREA T SCHISM.

THIS CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO, ROME.

CHAPTER I.

URBAN VI., 1378.

GREGORY XL died at Rome on the 27th of March, 1378.
The College of Cardinals, dn whom devolved the duty of
electing his successor, consisted of twenty-three members, of whom
one was a Spaniard, four were Italians, and the remaining nineteen
were Frenchmen. Only sixteen Cardinals were present in Rome, six
remaining at Avignon, and one being absent at Sarzana, where the
Congress was then sitting. They entered the conclave immediately
after the funeral obsequies of the late Pope had been concluded,
and had hardly commenced their proceedings when a tremendous
uproar was raised in the city by the populace, who demanded that
a Roman, or at least an Italian Pope should be given to them. The
Cardinals themselves were divided in their wishes ; seven of the
French Cardinals desired a Limousin; the others were as hotly
opposed to this proposal ; till, seeing the impossibility of carrying the
election according to their own views, they determined on fixing their

454 Election of Urban VI.
choice on some Italian prelate, renowned for virtue, who should
be equally independent of either party among the electors. Their
choice fell on Bartholomew Prignano, Archbishop of Bari, and a
Neapolitan by birth. This latter circumstance seemed to secure his
favourable acceptance by the Roman people, as well as the support
of the Queen of Naples, whose close alliance with France would also,
it was hoped, secure the good-will of the French nation. The
election was unanimous, with the exception of Cardinal Orsini, who
contented himself with declaring that he gave his vote to whoever
should be elected by the majority. The Archbishop was therefore
admitted into the conclave ; and his election being made known to
him, he was declared Pope in the usual manner, taking the name of
Urban VI. Knowing the turbulence of the populace, however, the
Cardinals hesitated at once to publish the election, lest they should
provoke a riot when it was known that they had not elected a Roman.
They were considering how best to act, when some report of what
had passed having transpired, the mob surrounded the conclave with
cries and threats of violence. To gain time until they should be able
to effect their retreat to a place of safety, the Cardinals allowed the
rumour to be put in circulation that Tebaldeschi, the old Cardinal
of St. Peter's, had been elected Pope, but that he had declined the
dignity ; and in fact, his name had been proposed by Cardinal Orsini,
and rejected on account of his great age. At the mention of his
name the excited crowds at once rushed to his house, and according
to what was considered their privilege in such cases, began to pillage
it ; others forced their way into the conclave, as though to compel
Tebaldeschi to accept the papal dignity. The terrified Cardinals
implored him not to undeceive the excited people until they should
have had time to effect their escape ; and the poor old man found
himself against his will clad with pontifical vestments, and half suffo
cated by the crowds of citizens who came to kiss his hands and feet
with every boisterous demonstration of delight. At last he succeeded
in delivering himself from their hands, and made known to them the
fact that it was not he, but the Archbishop of Bari who was elected
Pope ; on hearing which, there was a burst of indignation. ' " We
will not have him !" they cried, " we will have none but a Roman ! "
The tocsin was sounded, and the whole city was thrown into a state
of excitement and alarm.
Next day, however, calm was restored; and the Cardinals re
assembled to confirm their election of Urban. This was done, and

His Election is publicly announced. 455
the customary acts of homage were paid him with all possible
solemnity. On Easter Day he was crowned at St. John Lateran's with
great pomp, after which he despatched letters to all the reigning
sovereigns of Europe, announcing his election -,1 and received in return
their respectful acknowledgments and congratulations. As to the
part taken by the Cardinals, a few facts will suffice to show how
entirely the election was recognised to be their own free act.
Cardinal Robert of Geneva had been one of the first to offer his
spontaneous act of homage; Cardinal Gerard of Amiens, on his
return from Sarzana, followed the example of his colleagues. They
all addressed letters to the Emperor and other sovereigns, declaring
the election they had made ; Robert of Geneva himself writing other
letters to the same effect to the Emperor, the Count of Flanders,
and the Duke of Brittany. Finally, all the members of the Sacred
College present in Rome addressed a joint letter to the six Cardinals
at Avignon, in which, after declaring Urban VI. to have been lawfully
and canonically elected, they use the following words : " At the
hour when the Divine Paraclete descended into the hearts of the
Apostles at Jerusalem, we freely, and by common consent, united our
votes on the person of the most reverend Father in Christ, Bartho
lomew, Archbishop of Bari ; a man eminent for his great merits,
whose virtues shine like the lamp of the Sanctuary. . . . We an
nounce these things to you, that if the death of Pope Gregory has
filled you with sadness, the gift which God has given to us of such
a Father may inspire you with joy." 2 We may add to this the
significant facts that the same Cardinals officiated with the Pope at
all the great feasts of Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost, and Corpus
Christi ; that they took part in many of his official acts, such as the
conclusion of peace with Florence ; and that they applied to him for
not a few dispensations and favours for themselves or their friends ;
Robert of Geneva, in particular, petitioning for, and receiving several
special graces ; and we gather from the whole narrative, variously as
it is related by various historians, three conclusive facts in which
all agree. First, that the election of Urban was unanimous.
Secondly, that so far from its having been made through fear of the
turbulent people, the violence of the populace had been excited by
hearing that their demands of a Roman Pope had not been granted.
Thirdly, that after making the election, the Cardinals confirmed it ;
1 The letters addressed to the English clergy are dated April 19th (Wilkins'
Concil. Brit., Tom. 3, p. 127). 2 Rinaldi, An. 1378.

456 Character of Urban.
and again and again declared by act and in writing that it had been
truly and lawfully made.
The character of the new Pope differed greatly from that of his
predecessor. He was a man of great learning and equally great
austerity of life, well known as holding in detestation both the habits
of luxury and the simoniacal practices too common at that time
among ecclesiastics. Maimbourg, whose authority may certainly be
trusted as that of an adverse partisan, says of him in his " History of
the Great Schism," that before his elevation to the Chair of St. Peter
he appeared to be humble, modest, the friend of good and learned
men, pious and mortified, given to practices of penance, and very
zealous for the glory of God and the good of the Church. That the
severity of his temper was also well known is apparent from a letter
written to St. Catherine by Dom Bartholomew, Prior of Gorgona,
and dated April 27th, 1378. It seems that the Cardinal of Amiens
was at Pisa on his way to Sarzana, when he was summoned back to
Rome by the death of Gregory, being escorted thither by Andrew
Gambacorta. "Know," writes Dom Bartholomew, "that Master
Andrew Gambacorta returned to Pisa last Sunday. According to
what he says, this Holy Father of ours is a terrible man, and greatly
frightens people by his acts and words : he says he will have peace,
but with the honour of the holy Church ; that he does not care for
money, and that the Florentines must come to him with truth, and
not with lies. . . . He shows great confidence in God ; and on that
account fears no man in the world, and openly proclaims his resolve
to banish the simonies and pomps that reign in the Church of God ;
and himself shows the example by living moderately with all his
Court." This letter fairly represents the character which Urban then
bore, and justifies St. Catherine, when writing to her friends at
Lecceto, in speaking of him as " a good and just Pastor, who is
resolved to purge and root up vices, and to plant virtues ; fearing no
one, but acting justly and bravely." (Letter 127.)
And, in fact, Urban deserved these commendations ; he was a
man of unspotted virtue, and had resolved on devoting himself to
the difficult task of reform ; but he had a stern and inflexible temper,
and pursued his purpose with more determination than prudence.
Catherine, who had first made his aquaintance at Avignon, and with
whom he had since then kept up his relations by correspondence,
had early discerned the one defect in his character ; and in the first
letter she addressed him after his elevation, she drops a few gentle

His severe Temper. 457
words on the prudence of. mingling mercy with justice, which else
would rather become injustice. (Letter 15.) Writing at the same time
to Cardinal Peter de Luna, she urges him to support the Pope in his
measures of reform, but to advise him to employ methods of gentle
ness and sweetness. (Letter 25.) A little later, when perhaps the
rumour had reached her that the first steps taken by the new Pontiff
were of a character likely to estrange from him the hearts of his
Cardinals, she ventures to address him in yet plainer language.
" Act with benevolence and a tranquil heart," she says, " and for the
love of Jesus, restrain a little those too quick movements with which
nature inspires you. God has given you by nature a great heart ; I
beg of you act so that it may become great supernaturally, and that
full of zeal for virtue and the reform of holy Church, you may also
acquire a manly heart, founded in true humility ; then you will
have both the natural and the supernatural ; for without that, mere
nature will accomplish but little ; it will rather be apt to find ex
pression in movements of pride and anger, and then, perhaps, when
there is question of correcting those near to us, it will relax and
become cowardly. But joined to the hunger for virtue, whereby a
man seeks nothing but the honour of God without thought of self,
it will acquire a light, a strength, a constancy, and a perseverance
which are above nature, and which will never relax, but will always
remain firm and courageous." (Letter 21.)
Happy would it have been for Urban, and for the Church at large,
had he listened to the wise counsel suggested by the words above
quoted. But following the dictates of a zeal untempered by discre
tion, he had already begun by making enemies of those whom he
sought to reform. On the very day that followed his coronation,
after the termination of solemn Vespers, he reprimanded several
bishops who were present, reproaching them as guilty of perjury in
having left their bishoprics in order to reside in Rome. The severity
of his language provoked a haughty reply from the Bishop of
Pampeluna, which might have shown Urban how little was to be
gained by this method of procedure; However, some days later,
having assembled the Cardinals in Consistory, he made them an
address on the text, " I am the good Pastor," in which he denounced
their vices in terrific language, which struck dismay into the hearts of
his hearers. When the Cardinal of Amiens presented himself at
Court, Urban reproached him with fomenting the hostilities between
the kings of France and England for his own private ends ; adding

458 Breach with the Cardinals.
other injurious accusations, to which the Cardinal responded by a
gesture of indignation, exclaiming at the same time, " Archbishop of
Bari, thou liest ! " after which he abruptly quitted the council
chamber.1 Nor was this all. The new Pope showed himself equally
insensible to the necessity of conciliating the good-will of temporal
sovereigns. The news of his election had been received with every
demonstration of joy at Naples, and the queen had despatched to
Rome her husband, Otho of Brunswick, to offer her congratulations
as an extraordinary mark of respect. He found himself received at
Court, however, with scanty courtesy; while at the same time the
Pope is said to have opposed certain negotiations which were in
progress for a marriage between the heiress of the king of Sicily, and
a relative of queen Joanna's ; and the result was deeply to offend
that powerful princess, who thenceforward became his bitter enemy.
Nor was he more happy in his dealings with the susceptibilities of
his French Cardinals ; for in the zeal which he expressed (in
common with all his predecessors) for the conclusion of peace
between France and England, he was careful to declare his resolution,
that "the king of England should have justice shown hhri," in terms
which were too readily interpreted in a sense hostile to France.
The immediate cause which led to the breach between Urban and
the Cardinals is differently related by different historians. Theodoric
of Niem, his secretary, says that he made certain constitutions for
reforming the Sacred College, and obliging them to a more canonical
manner of life. Thomas Petra, Pro-notary of the Apostolic See, and
a fervent disciple of St. Catherine, writes to the following effect :
" At the time of the disputes between the Cardinals and Pope
Urban, I went to the latter, and humbly besought him to tell me the
real cause of the quarrel. He replied, ' Indeed, my son, it has not
been my fault. They pressed me to restore the Court to Avignon,
but we excused ourselves, saying that we neither could nor would do
this, seeing that both Urban V. and our predecessor Gregory had
come hither to restore the sanctuaries of this city, to revive the
devotion of the people towards the Church, and to pacify Italy,
which was not yet done ; and that, moreover, even if we wished it,
we had neither galleys nor other requisite means. To which they
replied that Italy had never been ruled by the See Apostolic ; and
they proposed that we should sell the possessions of the Order of St.
John of Jerusalem all over the world, which would furnish us with
1 Rinaldi, An. 1378, No. 45; Baluze, p. 1159.

They retire to Anagni. 459
means ample for all purposes. Hearing which we shuddered, and
said we would die a thousand deaths sooner than so destroy the right
arm of Christendom ; and this was the real ground of quarrel." 1
It can hardly be matter of surprise that no great tie of sympathy
should have existed between Urban and his Cardinals. Independent
of the fact that they had elected him rather with the view of exclud
ing other parties in the conclave to whom they were hostile, than out
of any decided preference for himself, the fact that he was not a
member of the Sacred College considerably diminished his prestige,
and rendered it more imperative that he should have sought to win
their confidence ; or„failmg that, that he should have counterbalanced
their influence by the creation of other Cardinals, eminent for their
merits, and devoted to his person. This latter policy was repeatedly
pressed by St. Catherine 2 both on Gregory and Urban, but by both
it had hitherto been neglected ; and to this neglect must mainly be
attributed the misfortunes which afterwards ensued.
The month of June had now arrived, a season notoriously
unhealthy in Rome; and the French Cardinals seized the pretext
for leaving the city and retiring to Anagni. They appear already to
have concerted their measures, and began by attempting to draw the
Pope thither also, with the intention, had he come, of extorting from
him an abdication. Disappointed of this hope, they next began to
set afloat doubts as to the validity of his election, and engaged
Honorius Gaetano, Count of Fondi a and governor of the province,
to take into their pay certain Companies of the Breton Free Lances ;
at the same time securing to their side Peter de Rostaing, the French
Commandant of the Castle of St. Angelo. On the 26th of June,
Urban, who by this time had become aware of his danger, repaired
to Tivoli, whence negotiations were opened between him and the
French Cardinals with a view to reconciliation, but without success.
Catherine in her retirement heard rumours of what was going on,
and at once addressed herself to those who seemed to have it most
in their power to avert the threatened calamity. In her letters to
the two Cardinals Orsini and Peter de Luna, she urges them to
1 Thomas Petra, Tom. 4 De Schism : Rinaldi, 1378, No. 25.
2 " Surround yourself with a number of holy prelates full of virtue who will not
fear death; have no regard to birth, provided they are faithful pastors. And
choose good Cardinals who may be as columns to assist you, with God's help, in
supporting your heavy burdens." (Letter 15.)
3 Honorius had become Urban's enemy in consequence of the resolution formed
by the Pope to supersede him in his government.

460 Urban creates new Cardinals.
fidelity to their Head. " I hear," she says, " that discord has broken
out between the Christ on earth and his followers. I feel an
inexpressible pain, through the fear I have of its producing a heresy.
I conjure you, by the Precious Blood that has redeemed you, do
not separate from your Head. . . . Alas what misery ! all the
rest seems but a straw, a mere shadow, compared to the danger of
schism."1 But Peter de Luna had already suffered himself to be gained over
to the party of the rebellious Cardinals, and, as cannot be doubted,
through a motive of ambition. In fact, the French Cardinals, to
whom the adhesion of their Spanish and Italian colleagues was of
the utmost consequence, scrupled not to write separately to each
one, promising him the tiara if he would desert the party of Urban,
and join them at Anagni. At first their intrigues were unsuccessful ;
the Italian Cardinals remained with the Pope, and took part in
several of his official acts ; they also endeavoured to mediate between
the two parties, and proposed submitting the question in dispute to
a general council. Urban would have consented to this proposal,
which was, however, scornfully rejected by the French Cardinals ; 2
and one by one, the Cardinals Peter de Luna with the three Italians,
James Orsini, Simon de Borzano, and Peter di Porto, joined the rest
of the deserters at Anagni, and thence proceeded with them to
Fondi. One Italian Cardinal, and one only, remained faithful to
Urban ; it was Tebaldeschi, the aged Cardinal of St. Peter's, who,
then lying on his death-bed, solemnly called God to witness that the
election of the reigning Pontiff had been made lawfully and freely.
The act by which he did this was dated the 22nd of August;3
shortly after which he expired, and Urban was left alone and
unsupported. Finding himself thus deserted, Urban resolved on filling up the
ranks of the Sacred College with men of his own choice ; and on the
1 8th of September nominated twenty-six new Cardinals, of whom
two were Frenchmen, and the rest Italians. Possibly this step
1 Letters 28, 29. The Saint here uses the words heresy and schism as equivalents.
But in speaking to Raymund in 1375, when she predicted these events, she accurately
distinguished the difference, and declared that the scandal that would fall on the
Church would in reality be, not a heresy but a schism.
2 For the sophistical reasons they assigned for their refusal, see Rinaldi, An.
1378 ; ex. Tom. 10. De Schis. Their argument came to this: that it was useless
calling a council to decide a point which they had already themselves decided.
3 Rinaldi, An. 1378; Nos. 40, 41.

Election of the Antipope. 461
hastened the action of the rebellious party, as convincing them that
there was no alternative between submission and an entire breach.
They decided on the latter course, and having assembled at Fondi>
under the protection of Count Honorius Gaetano, they proceeded to
consummate the crime on which they had resolved, urged on by the
triple motives of fear, resentment, and ambition.
They began by citing Urban to appear before them, and on his
non-appearance, drew up a manifesto, in which they declared him
to have unlawfully intruded into the Holy See, to which they had
elected him, urged solely by their fears of the populace, and in the
conviction that as soon as the tumult was over, he would have been
moved by his own conscience to have declined the papal dignity ;
that they had, it is true, enthroned and crowned him, but still through
the sole motive of fear ; wherefore he was no true Pope, but deserving
rather of the titles of Apostate and Antichrist. This extraordinary
statement they embodied in an Encyclical letter, which was sent to
the reigning European sovereigns, and otherwise circulated among
the faithful. Finally, on the 20th of September, they proceeded to
the election of an anti-Pope. Their choice was as disgraceful as the
act itself was criminal ; they selected one whose name was notorious
throughout Europe as " a man of blood," and who, in Italy particu
larly, had earned himself an unenviable reputation as leader of those
Breton troops by whom had been perpetrated the massacre of Cesena.
This was Cardinal Count Robert of Geneva, a man not without some
princely qualities, for he was possessed of graceful manners and a
taste for magnificence ; but one who seemed to embody all the faults
which were charged against the ecclesiastics of the day ; and whose
achievements up to that time had been exclusively military. He
took the name of Clement VII. ; and his election was at once
notified to the various courts of Christendom. And thus was in
augurated that guilty and unhappy Schism which was destined for
forty years to rend the seamless robe of Christ. This atrocious
proceeding seems partly to have opened the eyes of the three Italian
Cardinals, who perceived, too late, that they had been duped by
their French colleagues. Nothing could have been more foreign to
their wishes and intentions than the election of another French Pope,
specially of such a Pope as Robert of Geneva. They therefore at
once withdrew from Fondi to a castle belonging to the Orsini, and
there remained to watch the course of events, and hold a neutral
position between the two parties.

462 Catherine is called to Rome.
Such was the terrible intelligence which fell on the ears of Cathe
rine at the close of that brief interval of tranquillity which she had
enjoyed at Siena after her last return from Florence. Although she
had long ago foreseen the event in the spirit of prophecy, it did not
on that account cause her a less lively grief. She did not, however,
give way to discouragement, but at once addressing herself to Urban,
she exhorted him to stand fast in courage and confidence ; to re
member that nothing great in this world is accomplished without
suffering ; to cast himself fearlessly into the midst of the thorns, clad
in the armour of charity ; and to be ready, if need be, to lay down
his life for the flock of Christ. "I hear," she says, "that those
incarnate demons have elected an anti-Christ, whom they have
exalted against you, the Christ on earth, for I confess, and deny not,
that you are the Vicar of Christ." Then she set herself to expostu
late with those who supported the schism, among whom there was
reason to fear that Joanna of Naples was likely to be foremost. On
the 7th of October, therefore, Catherine addressed her a letter (Letter
315), in which she admirably sums up the whole question at issue,
and shows how false were the pretences put forth by the rebellious
Cardinals, that they had acted out of fear in making their election ;
concluding by an apostrophe to the Cardinals themselves, as vigorous
as it is touching.
But while thus engaged, she herself received commands from
Urban, summoning her to Rome. He communicated them to her
through Raymund of Capua, who throughout this difficult time gave
him his firm and loyal support. On this subject we have Raymund's
own precise statement. " The Sovereign Pontiff, Urban VI.," he
says, " who had seen Catherine at Avignon, and had there formed
a high idea of her wisdom and virtue, desired me to write to her,
and bid her come to Rome. I obeyed, but with her usual prudence
she replied to me as follows : ' My Father, many persons at Siena,
and some even of the Sisters of my Order consider that I travel
about too much ; they are scandalised at it, and say that a religious
ought not to be always thus on the road. I do not think that these
reproaches ought to trouble me, for indeed I have never undertaken
any journey except at the command of God and His Vicar, and for
the salvation of souls ; but to avoid all cause of scandal, I had no
purpose of again leaving home. Nevertheless, if the Vicar of Christ
desires it, it must be as he wishes. Only in that case be so good as
to send me his commands in writing, that those who complain may

She proceeds thither. 463
see and understand that I do not undertake this journey of myself.'
Having received this answer," continues Raymund, " I went to the
Pope and humbly communicated it to him. Lie charged me to
desire Catherine to come, in the name of holy obedience, and
Catherine, as an obedient daughter, did so without delay." On this
occasion, as on all those that preceded it, we see that Catherine only
left the retirement of her home at the call of obedience, and with
manifest reluctance. But when once the Will of God and of His
Vicar was made manifest to her, her own wishes were laid aside.
And thus it was that she once more left her native place and directed
her steps to the capital of Christendom, which was to be illuminated
with the last setting rays of her earthly existence.

( 464 )

CHAPTER II.
CATHERINE IN ROME, NOVEMBER 1378.
WE do not know the precise date of Catherine's departure
from Siena, but it must have been during the latter part
of November 1378, as on the 28th of that month she reached the
Holy City. She set out with a sorrowful heart, for the woes of the
Church, and the coming calamities which three years previously she
had so clearly foreseen and predicted, weighed heavily on her spirits.
Nor can we doubt that her last farewell to her own home cost her
<;some natural tears," as she passed with her little company out of
the Porta Romana, and took the well-known road so often traversed
on former missions of peace and charity. That road is easy to be
traced, as it carried her past Asciano, and the great convent of Monte
Oliveto, among whose brethren she numbered so many faithful
disciples. It led her to the mountain district through the valley of
the Orcia, marked by a thousand recollections most sweet and con
soling to her heart. And as she climbed the steep ascent of Radico-
fani, there must have been some spot, some turning-point on that
wild and desolate road, whence looking back over the intervening
hills she would have caught the last distant view of the towers of
Siena. Did she stop and give them her parting blessing and her
last farewell ? Those who understand how fully all kind and noble
affections survive in the heart of a Saint, will not hesitate what answer
to give, and they will easily realise how that heart must have swelled
with womanly emotion, mastered nevertheless and sacrificed as she
turned away, and with self-devoted courage directed her course
towards Rome.
She reached that city on the first Sunday in Advent,1 which that
year fell on the 28th of November. Her suite was numerous, and
would have been yet more so, but for her express prohibition. We
1 "As I wrote on the first of this month to all my children, we arrived here
safely on the first Sunday in Advent." (Letter 255 to Stephen Maconi.)

Catherine arrives in Rome. 465
know, however, that she was accompanied by at least seven Sisters of
Penance, among whom were Lisa, Alexia, Cecca, and Jane di Capo ; x
and that the entire party numbered about twenty-five persons. It
included among others her two secretaries, Neri di Landoccio and
Barduccio Canigiani. Stephen Maconi was detained at Siena by
family affairs, to his own bitter regret, but greatly to our gain, as the
correspondence between him and the rest of his fellow disciples
furnishes us with much interesting information which would other
wise have been lost. F. Bartholomew Dominic seems to have
escorted her to Rome and then returned to Siena, where he was at
that time Prior. Fra Santi, Alphonso di Vadaterra, and Master John
the Third were certainly also of the party. Catherine lodged first in
the Rione di Colonna, removing thence to a house between the
Church of the Minerva and the Campo di Fiore in the Via di Papa.2
The whole company of pilgrims seem to have formed one community,
and to have lived on alms. "They voluntarily made themselves
the poor of Divine Providence," says Raymund, " choosing rather to
beg alms with the Saint, than to enjoy an abundance of all things at
home, deprived of her sweet and pious company." A letter is pre
served from Lando Ungaro, a citizen of Siena who had been de
spatched to Rome by the Magistrates of the Republic to conclude
the negotiations for the restoration of Talamon. It is dated the 30th
of November, two days after the arrival of the Saint in Rome, an
event he does not fail to notice. " Catherine of Monna Lapa has
arrived here," he says, " and our Lord the Pope has seen and spoken
with her ; I do not know what he has said to her, but only that he
was much pleased to see her." He adds : " Everything goes on as
before at the castle of St. Angelo; they are battering it all daylong."
In fact, almost immediately on Catherine's arrival she was summoned
to the presence of the Holy Father, where, says Raymund, "he
willed that in the presence of the Cardinals 3 she should deliver an
1 At the time that Catherine left Siena, her mother Lapa was at Florence.
She did not therefore accompany, though she afterwards joined her daughter in
Rome. Lapa had, it seems, about this time taken the Habit of Penance. " Tell
the Prior to do as he thinks best about Sister Lapa," writes Catherine to Stephen,
" if she comes to Siena, I recommend her to you." (Letter 256.)
2 Caffarini, Leg. Min., p. 131. It is the second of these residences which is
shown as Catherine's house, being now converted into a chapel used by the Con
fraternity of the Nunziatelle.
8 That is, of course, of those newly created, for none others were then in Rome.
Urban was at this time residing at Santa Maria in Trastevere ; he was unable to
2 G

466 Her Address to the Pope and Cardinals.
address, and particularly that she should speak to them concerning
the schism, then just beginning. She did this with much wisdom
and at some length, exhorting them all to courage and constancy,
showing that Divine Providence watches over all, but specially over
those who suffer for the Church, and concluding by saying that none
ought to lose heart because of these untoward events, but that they
should all do God's work and fear nothing. When she had finished,
Urban, much encouraged, exclaimed to the Cardinals, ' Behold, my
brethren, how contemptible we are before God when we give way to
fear. This poor woman (Donnicciuola) puts us to shame ; whom I
call so, not out of contempt, but by reason of the weakness of her
sex, which should make her timid even if we were confident ; whereas,
on the contrary, it is she who now encourages us. Is not this matter
of confusion to us ? ' and he added, ' What need the Vicar of Christ
fear, even if the entire world be against him ? Is not Christ more
powerful than the world ? and He can never abandon His Church.'
It was thus the Sovereign Pontiff spoke, encouraging his brethren ;
after which he praised Catherine much in the Lord, and granted
many spiritual favours both to her and to her disciples." 1 In
the advice which Catherine offered to Urban at this juncture, she
adhered faithfully to the same policy of which she had been the
unflinching advocate during the quarrel with the Florentines. To
him, as to Gregory, she constantly represented that the Vicar of
Christ should seek to conquer his enemies by no other weapons save
those of patience and charity. Her admiration for the pure intentions
of the Pontiff and his freedom from all human respect, and her
hearty sympathy with his zeal for the reformation of abuses, did not
prevent her seeing and lamenting that asperity of temper which often
rendered his best efforts fruitless ; and perceiving that the gentle
hints she had from time to time dropped on the subject had not
produced much practical result, she hit on a graceful and ingenious
method of suggesting to him the necessity of somewhat sweetening
the bitterness of his zeal. About Christmas time she sent him a
little regalo, namely, five oranges preserved in sugar and gilded,
which she had prepared with her own hands ; accompanied with a
letter in which she expresses the profound concern she feels at the
bitter sorrows which overwhelm his soul, and draws a distinction
live at the Vatican, owing to the vicinity of the castle of St. Angelo, then in the
hands of a hostile French garrison.
1 Leg., Part 3, chap. i.

She sends Urban some Oranges, 467
between two kinds of sorrow ; that which darkens and clouds the
soul, and that which, even while it afflicts us, has yet a sweetness
about it which supports and consoles. " Those who feel this sweet
sorrow," she says, " are careful to drive from them all bitterness,
because they seek not themselves, but God. It seems to me, Holy
Father, that Jesus the Eternal Truth wishes to make you entirely like
Himself. You are His Vicar, and He wishes that in bitterness and
suffering you should reform His Spouse the Church. He would
make you His instrument, that by a patient endurance of persecution
His Church may be perfectly renewed, and come forth pure as a new
born child. All that is old must be renewed in the new man. Give
yourself up then to this sweet bitterness, which will be followed by
consolation full of sweetness ; and be a tree of love grafted on the
Tree of life. The love of virtue shall be the flower of that tree ;
and its ripe fruit, a prayer for God's honour and the salvation of
your flock.
" That fruit seems bitter when first we taste it ; but when the soul
is resolved to suffer until death for Jesus crucified, it becomes truly
sweet. I have often remarked this in the orange, which seems to
taste so bitter ; but when its pulp is taken out, and it is preserved
after being steeped in water, the bitterness disappears. Then you
fill it within with strengthening things, whilst you gild its exterior.
Where has all the bitterness gone which at first was so disagreeable to
the taste ? Into the water and the fire. And so it is with the soul
that loves virtue. The beginnings are bitter, so long as the soul is'
imperfect, but the water of grace will draw out the bitterness of self-
love, that bitterness which is the only cause of suffering. And so
the bitterness is all taken away, and it is filled with the strength of
perseverance, whilst it is preserved in the honey of patience mingled
with humility. Then when the fruit is finished and prepared, it is
gilded outside with the gold of an ardent charity ; I say outside, for
this charity appears exteriorly in the patience with which the soul
serves its neighbour, bearing with him with great tenderness, and
steeping us in that sweet bitterness which we cannot but feel when
we see God offended and souls perishing. And so, holy Father,
we shall come to produce fruits free from all bitterness, and shall
overcome that which has been caused by the late mischance, brought
about by guilty men who have afflicted your Holiness by the offences
they have committed against God." (Letter 19.)
The " mischance " to which she here refers, was the lamentable

468 First Bloodshed.
commencement of bloodshed Sylvester de Budes, Captain of the
Breton Free Lances whom Clement had taken into his pay, had
made his appearance under the walls of Rome ; and finding the gate
of St. John Lateran badly guarded, he entered the city and pene
trated as far as the Capitol. The principal nobles and Magistrates
were assembled, unarmed, in the Piazza outside the palace ; Sylvester
fell upon them and slaughtered two hundred defenceless citizens,
among whom were seven bannerets, or chiefs of the city quarters.
After this atrocious and cowardly massacre, he withdrew to a place
of security outside the walls. But the enraged populace took up
arms, and unable to wreak their vengeance on the Breton assassins,
they attacked the houses of all the foreigners then in Rome, and slew
a great number without distinction of sex, age, or condition : directing
their violence particularly against some English priests who were
living at the Pontifical Court, and who, in common with all their
countrymen, remained faithful to Urban.
It will be seen, then, that the first blood spilt in this unhappy
quarrel was shed by the brutal followers of the Antipope; and
Catherine's solicitude was directed to prevent the miserable policy
of retaliation. She would not hear of an appeal to arms until every
other means had been tried and exhausted : and deeply convinced
of the fact that what the rulers of the church most needed at this
crisis was the counsel and support of all true servants of God, she
suggested to Urban the plan of summoning to Rome a number of
men of known piety and virtue, that he might strengthen himself by
their holy presence, and infuse into his Court more and more of the
spirit Of Christ. The proposal was most acceptable to the Pontiff,
who issued a Brief, dated December 13th, 1378,1 summoning to
Rome, amongst other persons, Dom Bartholomew Serafini, Prior of
Gorgona, Dom John of the Cells, three hermits of Spoleto renowned
for sanctity, and the Augustinian hermits, Brother Anthony of
Nizza, and Father William Flete. Catherine supported the summons
of the Pope by her own letters, in which she called on all these good
men, after the example of the ancient hermits, to make the sacrifice
of their peaceful solitude, and to come to the assistance of the suf
fering Church of God.
Wonderful to say, she met with resistance where we might have
supposed she would least have expected it. F. William and Brother
1 This Brief is printed by Gigli in his edition of the Saint's Letters, Vol. II.
pp. 367-37°-

The Hermits summoned to Rome. 469
Anthony, her two disciples of Lecceto, refused to leave their her
mitages ; and Catherine, learning the fact, at once wrote two letters,
one addressed to them conjointly, which is dated December 15th,
1378, the other to Brother Anthony only, who seems to have been
the least refractory of the two. " My dear sons," she says, " I desire
to see you lose yourselves and seek no repose save in the salvation
of souls and the reform of the Church. At this moment she is in
such urgent need that in order to help her you must quit your
solitude, and abandon yourselves. If you would do any good it
will not do for you to stand still and say, ' I shall lose my peace'
God has given us a good and holy Pastor who loves his servants and
summons them to his side ; we ought then to hasten to his aid.
Follow the call of God and of His Vicar ; quit your solitude and
run to the field of battle. I beg of you not to hesitate, and do not
be afraid of losing your solitude, for here you will find plenty of
woods." This first letter producing no effect, she despatched a
second, addressed to Brother Anthony. " My dear Brother," she
says, " we have two wills, one sensitive and the other spiritual ;
but sometimes this last, under the appearance of virtue, holds to its
own sense, and likes to choose times and places, and says, ' I like
this way best, because in it I can best enjoy God.' It is a great
mistake and a delusion of the enemy, who not being able to deceive
the servants of God in the first-named will, because they have mor
tified it, tries to do so in the second, and tempts them by means of
spiritual things. This is the time for all true servants of God to
show their fidelity, and for us to see the difference between those
who love God for Himself, and those who only love Him for their
own consolation. When the true servant of God is called on to
give up his solitude and labour for God's service, he does it, and
appears in public like the glorious St. Anthony, who certainly loved
solitude as well as you do, but who, nevertheless, quitted it in order
to strengthen those who were weak in the faith. ... It seems from
the letter which F. William has sent me, that neither he nor you
intend to come. I shall not answer that letter ; but I groan from
my heart at his simplicity, and to see how little he cares for God's
honour or the good of his neighbour. If it is out of humility and
the fear of losing his peace, he should ask permission of the Vicar
of Christ, and beg him to be so good as to leave him undisturbed
in his solitude, and then leave the decision in his hands. But your
devotion cannot be very solid, or you would not lose it by a change

470 F. William refuses to come.
of place. Father Andrew of Lucca, and Father Paulinus, have not
acted so ; they are old and infirm, but they set out at once. They
are come ; they have obeyed, and though they wish very much to
return to their cells, yet they will not cast off the yoke of obedience :
they have come to suffer, and to perfect themselves in the midst
of prayers and tears. This, is the right way of acting." (Letters
127, 130.)
Landucci tells us1 that Brother Anthony obeyed the Saint's
injunctions, and came to Rome, where he suffered much for the
Church, and died in 1392. But we do not find that F. William
followed his example. In fact he retired to the yet more solitary
convent called the Selva di Lago, his favourite retreat, which is
separated from Lecceto by the forest It must be believed that he
obtained the Pope's excuses for his non-appearance at Rome ; and
Urban was probably persuaded that the good hermit would do more
for his cause by his prayers and writings, than by more active
exertions in public, as indeed proved to be the case. Nor are we
to suppose that Catherine was very seriously displeased with " the
Bachelor," in spite of the scolding she administered to him, for, as
we shall see, it was to his care that she recommended her spiritual
children as she lay on her bed of death.
In answer to Urban's letters, a considerable number of excellent
religious hastened to Rome, and it would seem that Catherine's
house became their rendezvous. She was not unfrequently called
upon to provide even for their temporal wants, a thing which seems
a little unreasonable when we remember that she and her own little
company were living on alms. "At the time when she was living at
Rome in the Rione di Colonna," says Raymund, " she had with her
a great number of her spiritual sons and daughters. They had
followed her from Tuscany almost against her will, some to make
the pilgrimage and visit the holy places, others to petition the Pope
for spiritual graces,, but all in order to enjoy the sweet conversation
of Catherine. Moreover, the Holy Father, at her instance, had called
to the city of Rome a number of other servants of God, all of whom
she received at her house out of her great love of hospitality. For
though she possessed neither lands, nor gold, nor silver, and lived
with all her family on daily alms, yet was she as ready to receive
and entertain a hundred pilgrims as if they had been but one,
confiding with all her heart in God, and never doubting but that His
1 Syl. Hie, p. 99.

Catherine multiplies the Bread. 47 1
liberality would provide. So that the very least number who dwelt
in her house at that time was sixteen men and eight women ; sometimes
even they amounted to as many as thirty, or even forty. Neverthe
less, she had established such good order in her household, that each
of the Sisters took it by turns, week by week, to provide and dispense
for the rest, so that they might give themselves to God and to the
pilgrimages or other affairs for which they had come to the city.
"Now it happened one week that it fell to Jane di Capo to
discharge this office. But as the bread which they ate was procured
by daily alms, Catherine had desired the Sister who should be in
charge always to let her know a day in advance if the bread were
failing, in order that she might either send some one out on the
quest, or else go herself. But this week (God so permitting it) Jane
forgot this order, and so when the dinner hour came, it was found
that there was no more bread left in the house than would barely
suffice for four persons. Jane, perceiving her negligence, went, full of
shame and sorrow, to Catherine, and told her trouble. ' God pardon
you, my Sister,' she replied, ' for bringing us into this embarrassment
in spite of the directions I gave you. You see all our family are
hungry, for the hour is late ; where shall we now find bread enough
for all who want it ? ' Jane could only lament over her forgetfulness,
and own that she deserved a good penance; so Catherine said,
'Tell the servants of God to sit down to table,' and when her
companion represented that there was so little bread to place before
them, that if they divided it no one would have sufficient, Catherine
only replied, 'Tell them to begin with that little, and God will
provide the rest,' and so saying she began to pray.
"Jane did as she was ordered, and divided her small stock of
bread among the guests. Hungry and exhausted by the long fasts
which for the most part they observed, they found their portions
very small, and expected them soon to disappear ; but though they
ate, and that with a good appetite, they did not come to the end of
their provisions, but something was still left on the table. Nor is
this surprising, seeing it was the work of Him Who fed 5000 men in
the desert with only five loaves. Everybody, however, was astonished ;
they asked one another what Catherine was then doing ; and hearing
she was in prayer, the sixteen persons who were at table said with
one voice, ' It is her prayer that has brought us bread from heaven ;
for we are all satisfied, and the little that has been served to us is
rather increased than diminished.' After dinner there remained

47 2 The Martyrs of Rome.
bread enough on the table to supply the Sisters that were in the
house, who all ate abundantly, and they were able also to give a
large alms of it to the poor. Lisa and Jane, both of whom were
witnesses of this miracle, related to me a similar one which God
worked by the hands of Catherine in the same house, and the same
year during Lent,1 in the week when Cecca was in charge."
It is evident that Catherine's grand spirit of faith awoke to a sense
of devout exaltation during her residence within the walls of the
Holy City. To her, as to all the faithful when first they tread that
consecrated soil, it seemed like home She saw herself surrounded by
the memorials of those whom for years she had most loved and
venerated ; of St. Paul, the standard-bearer of Christ, whose name
was so often on her lips, Paoloccio mio, as she sweetly and familiarly
called him ; of " that sweet virgin St. Lucy of Rome," 2 her devotion
to whom has been noticed by one of her poetical biographers ; and
of all the countless virgin martyrs in whose steps she longed to tread,
and whose glories she reckoned as her own. In fact, it was as the
City of Martyrs that Rome was so dear to her who truly inherited
the martyr spirit. Cornelius a Lapide tells us that whilst in Rome
she was accustomed to perform the devotion of the Stations, going
to all the holy sanctuaries in turn,, and exclaiming as she did so, " I
tread on the blood of the martyrs !"3 In one of her first letters to
Stephen Maconi she gives utterance to something of this pious
enthusiasm : " The blood of the glorious martyrs who have died here
in Rome, who gave their lives for the love of the Life, and whose
bodies here lie buried, seems to live again,4 and to invite you and
the others to come here and suffer for God's glory and for His holy
Church ; to come and practise virtue here, on this holy soil where
1 That is, during the Lent of 1379. The above miracle probably took place in
January of that year (Leg., Part 2, chap. xi.).
2 The history of this Saint was first published, says Gigli, in the fourteenth
century by Pietro de Natalibus. Catherine had probably read it, for in a letter
to the Abbess of St. Martha's Convent, she says, " I have just found a new and
beautiful light; it is the sweet virgin St. Lucy of Rome who gives it to us.''
(Letter 150.) This Saint (who is not to be confounded with St. Lucy of Syra->
cuse) is believed to have suffered martyrdom at Rome on the 25th of June. Neri
Landocci in his poem on the death of Catherine does not forget to name St. Lucy
among the saints most venerated by her :
Con Maria dolce hor hai riposo
E con la tua Lucia, luce romana.
3 Commentary on Isaias, chap. xxvi.
4 Literally, it seems to boil: tutta bolle, invitando te. (Letter 262.)

The Stations. 473
He displays all His greatness, and which He chooses as His ' garden,'
calling hither all His servants that He may try them as gold;" and
in all her future letters from the Holy City we find her speaking of
it under the name of the " Garden."
Although we possess no more distinct notice of the sanctuaries
which she visited, our knowledge of the fact that she performed the
devotion of the Stations gives us a very sufficient guide in following
her footsteps ; for, as the reader will remember, this devotion con
sists in visiting certain of the more ancient Basilicas and churches
of Rome, one of which is assigned to each day in Lent, and other
holy days in the course of the year ; we know, therefore, not only
the sanctuaries that she visited, but also the days on which she repaired
thither. On the Ash Wednesday of 1379 she would have ascended
the Aventine, and paid her devotions in the church of Santa Sabina,
still fragrant with the memory of St. Dominic. There we can picture
her spending an hour of ecstatic prayer on the stone where he spent
his nightly vigils, or in that chapel of the Rosary, where many years
later was to be placed the master-piece of Sassoferrato, which repre
sents her, in company with her glorious Father,1 kneeling at the foot
of the Madonna and receiving from the Divine Child the Crown of
Thorns. Not once only, but many times, as we cannot doubt, she
must have bent her steps to that spot so rich in sacred recollections,
as well as to the neighbouring sanctuary of St. Sixtus, which is the
church of the Station for Wednesday in the third week of Lent. St.
Sixtus in Catherine's time was still occupied by the community of
nuns first placed there by St. Dominic, and it even yet retains
evidence that she was known and venerated by its inmates. For on
one of the walls behind the choir is to be seen an ancient picture,
representing our Lord drawing out of the Wound in His side a
garment which He is bestowing on St. Catherine who kneels at His
feet, clad in the black mantle and white veil of her Order. Near to
her, in much smaller proportions, appears (as a votary) the figure of
a nun, who is supposed to be the Prioress of St. Sixtus, by whose
order this picture must have been executed shortly after the death
of the Saint; for she is represented, not with the aureole of a
canonised saint, but with her head surrounded simply with rays.2
1 In this celebrated picture St. Dominic is represented exactly in accordance
with the Saint's description of him, with auburn hair and beard. (See p. 100.)
2 This interesting painting was discovered in July 1852, by the Rev. Pere
Assaut, and is considered by experienced judges as certainly as old as the four-

474 Embassy to Naples proposed.
Catherine had not been long in Rome before the proposal was
made to despatch her on a fresh embassy of the greatest difficulty
and danger. Queen Joanna of Naples had by this time openly
joined the party of the schismatics, and her intrigues placed the
Pope in a position of much peril. Urban, however, hoped to con
ciliate her ; and the thought suggested itself to him of placing the
negotiations in the hands of Catherine and of another holy virgin
of the same name then present in Rome. This was St. Catherine
of Sweden, the daughter of St. Bridget, "who was personally well
known to Joanna. When our Saint heard what was proposed, she
declared herself ready to set out at once ; but Catherine of Sweden,
whose recollections of Naples were sad and recent, had no desire
to accept the mission to one whose treacherous and abandoned
character she knew too well by experience.1 Raymund of Capua,
too, discouraged the project, for he believed Joanna to be capable
of any crime, and he hesitated to trust the life and honour of two
unprotected women in her hands. He stated his objections to the
Holy Father, who, after a brief moment of reflection, replied, " You
are right ; it is better that they should not go." Raymund hastened
to communicate this decision to Catherine, who was then lying ill
at her house. It deeply disappointed her, nor could she enter into
the reasons of prudence whioh had dictated it. " If Agnes and
Margaret and so many other holy virgins had made all these
reasonings," she said, " they would never have obtained the crown
of martyrdom. Have we not a Spouse Who is willing and able
to protect us ? Believe me, such objections proceed from a want
of faith, rather than from real prudence." However, the proposal
was for the time laid aside, though we find from the letters of the
Saint's disciples that it was not entirely abandoned until the July of
the year following.

teenth century. We have the testimony of F. Thomas Caffarini that these
pictures of Catherine without the aureole were greatly multiplied almost immedi
ately after her death. " Her portrait," he says, " represented after the manner of
those Saints not yet solemnly canonised by the Church, is to be found multiplied
in every province. " (Process, 1291.)
1 St. Catherine of Sweden, celebrated for her extraordinary personal beauty,
as well as for her sanctity and wisdom, had been present in Rome at the time of
Urban's election, and was intimately acquainted with every incident attending it.
In 1379 she was examined on the subject before a regular tribunal, and gave
important evidence on matters which she had herself witnessed, and which the
Cardinals could not deny. See Rinaldi, 1379, No. 20.

Conversation with Raymund. 475
But there was another embassy, the accomplishment of which
was yet more urgent, and the carrying out of which was to impose
on Catherine a new sacrifice. In coming to Rome she had naturally
looked forward to a reunion with Raymund of Capua, whose separa
tion from her had been the greatest loss which, humanly, she was
capable of feeling. But it seemed as though this last portion of
the Saint's life was destined by Divine Providence to be rich in such
sacrifices, as though to teach us that it is from the sharp tool of
detachment that even the most exalted sanctity must receive its
perfect finish. Raymund and Catherine did indeed meet at Rome ;
and it was on the occasion of their meeting that Raymund, alluding
to the troubles of the Church which just then absorbed all minds,
reminded her of the words she had spoken some years previously
at Pisa, and owned that what they were now witnessing was the
realisation of that prophecy. She had not forgotten the circum
stance. " I told you," she said, " that what we were then enduring
was but honey and milk compared to what would follow ; and now
I will add that what you witness to-day is but child's play compared
to what will soon take place in some neighbouring countries." " She
was alluding," says Raymund, " to the dreadful woes which were so
soon to fall on the kingdom of Naples, and which perfectly realised
her words. Then I added, ' Dearest Mother, tell me what will
happen in the Church after all these miseries shall have passed
away?' She replied, 'When all these troubles have come to an end,
God will purify His Church in ways unknown by men. He will
rouse the souls of His elect, and the renewal of life in the Church
will be so perfect, that even to think of it thrills my soul with
exceeding joy. I have often deplored with you the wounds and
nakedness of the Spouse of Christ ; but then she will appear brilliant
in beauty, covered with precious jewels, and crowned with a diadem
of virtues ; all the faithful shall rejoice in the possession of good
and holy pastors ; and unbelievers, attracted by the good odour of
Jesus Christ, shall return to the true Fold, and yield themselves to
the Head and Bishop of their souls. Give thanks to God, then, for
the blessed peace which He will surely grant His Church when this
furious tempest is over.' She said no more ; and knowing that the
Most High is'more prodigal of His goodness than of His rigours,
I have a firm hope that after our present troubles those good things
will come which have been foretold to us by the blessed Catherine ;

476 Charles V. adheres to the Schism.
and that it will be made manifest to all men that she was truly a
prophetess of the Lord." 1
This remarkable conversation was one of the very last that ever
took place between Raymund and his saintly penitent. He quitted
Rome a fortnight after her arrival there ; and to explain the causes
of their fresh separation we must return to the history of the schism
which day by day was making an alarming progress. The man in
Europe who might have interfered to check it in its commencement
with the best chance of success was King Charles V. of France.
The promoters of the conspiracy were all Frenchmen by birth, and
the grand object at which they aimed was the re-establishment of the
Papacy on their native soil. They naturally felt that the support of
Charles was essential to the success of their design, and with this view
they are said, before making their election, to have offered him the tiara.
He had the good sense to decline this preposterous proposal, and he
did not at first promise them any active support. But the course he
determined on was one almost equally fatal to the interests of the
Church. He assembled his councillors, and agreed with them to
observe an absolute neutrality, neither approving nor rejecting the
election of Urban VI. The schismatics were not slow in interpret
ing this decision to their advantage, and found no great difficulty in
convincing the king and his councillors that the political interests of
France were on the side of the party which advocated a return to
Avignon. It was the old and fatal mistake which ignores the fact
that the real political interests of a country must ever be identical
with truth and justice. Charles listened to their plausible arguments,
and to the representations so busily set afloat, that Urban had resolved
to espouse the claims of the king of England ; and when, after the
election of the Antipope, he despatched envoys to Italy who should
report to him on the true state of the case, these envoys were easily
gained over to the side of Clement, and on their return laid before
the king a statement entirely in his favour. On this it was resolved,
in an assembly held at Vincennes, that the election of Robert of
Geneva should be received as lawful and canonical, and that
throughout the kingdom of France he should be obeyed as true
Pope. Yet even after this, with a singular inconsistency which
proves how little Charles was really satisfied in conscience on the
point in question, he directed that the whole matter should be laid
1 Leg., Part 2, chap. a.

Raymund is despatched to France. 477
before the University of Paris, and thoroughly examined by its most
learned doctors.
The manifest hesitation of the French king gave hopes at Rome
that he might even yet be held back from hopelessly committing
himself and his country to the cause of the schism. His known piety
and zeal for the faith rendered it difficult to regard him as one likely
to be the promoter of such a crime ; and Urban resolved to despatch
to him some trustworthy envoy who might succeed in putting the
real facts before him and gaining him to be the champion, and not
the enemy of the Holy See. For this office none seemed better
fitted than Raymund of Capua, who was perfectly well informed of
the whole case, and whose uprightness of character and zeal for
justice were united to a moderation and discretion which eminently
qualified him for gaining the goodwill of such a monarch as Charles
the Wise.
Raymund's narrative shall be given in his own words : " It seemed
good to the Sovereign Pontiff to send me into France, for he had
been told that it would be possible to detach Charles V., King of
France, from the cause of the schism which he had himself excited.
As soon as I heard of this project, I went to take counsel with
Catherine. In spite of the sorrow which the prospect of my
departure caused her, she urged me at once to comply with the
Holy Father's wishes. ' Be sure, my Father,' she said, ' that he is
truly the Vicar of Jesus Christ : therefore, I would have you expose
yourself in his defence as you would do in that of the Church herself.'
I myself felt no doubt on the subject ; but her words so encouraged
me to combat the schism, that from that time I entirely consecrated
myself to defend the right of the Sovereign Pontiff, and I often
recalled them to strengthen me in my trials and difficulties. I did
then what she advised, and bowed my head to the yoke of
obedience A few days before my departure, knowing what would
take place, she desired to confer with me on the subject of her
interior, and allowed no other person to be present during our
interview. Having spoken to me for several hours, she said at
length : ' Now, go where God calls you. I think in this life we shall
never again speak together as we have just now done' And it was,
indeed, even as she said, for I departed, and she remained behind ;
and before my return she had passed to heaven, and I never again
listened to her admirable exhortations. No doubt it was because
she knew it would be so that, desiring to bid me a last adieu, she

478 Raymund 's Departure.
came to the place where I embarked, and when we had set forth, she
knelt down in prayer and, weeping as she did so, made over us the
sign of the Cross, as though she had said, ' Go, my son, in all con
fidence under the protection of this sacred sign : but know that in
this life you will never more behold your Mother.' x The exact spot
where this touching parting took place is not indicated, but it was
evidently on the shores of the Tiber; for as we have seen in a
former chapter, the journey from the city to the seashore was then
performed by water, the river being still navigable. And thus in the
supreme moment of her life, Catherine was left, if not alone, yet
deprived of the society of the two persons who, each in their own
way, enjoyed her closest confidence, Raymund of Capua • and
Stephen Maconi. Moreover, as she well knew, Raymund's mission
was one of no small difficulty and danger, and on her would fall the
duty of encouraging him to brave the perils to which he was exposed.
Accordingly, they had hardly parted when she despatched a letter
for the purpose of cheering the hearts of him and his companions,
and inspiring them with a joyous confidence. ' Courage, my Father
and my beloved sons,' she writes ; ' go forth like the Apostles, poor,
yet bearing with you the riches of faith and hope, and the fortitude
of charity. Remember the words that were spoken by the Sweet
Word of Truth, " Send forth thy sons as sheep in the midst of wolves !
Let them go. with confidence for I will be with them, and if human
help fail, My help shall never fail."
" ' Oh, my Father and my children, what more help and consolation
can you wish for ? Who could fear ? He who. has no confidence
may do so ; but not he who hungers for God's honour and the
salvation of souls. Such an one will be consumed in the fire of
Divine charity ; bathed, annihilated, consumed, in the Blood of the
Lamb. Alas ! I die, and cannot die 1 My heart breaks because
the long-wished-for moment does not come. The Eternal Truth
' Raymund does not give the date of his leaving Rome, but we know that it
must have been between the 28th of November, on which day Catherine arrived,
and the 13th of December, the date of the Pope's Brief to Dom Bartholomew
Serafini and the others. For in her letter to the Prior of Gorgona, forwarding
this Brief, Catherine says, " F. Raymund has gone to labour elsewhere : the Pope
has sent him to the King of France. Pray for him that, if need be, he may give
his life for the Church." (Letter 54.) The two persons associated with Raymund
in this embassy were James Ceva, Marshal of the Pontifical Court, and William,
Bishop of Valencia. The Brief appointing them is preserved in the Archives of
S. Domenico, Siena.

Catherine' s Letter to him. 479
begins to produce flowers, but they do not satisfy me, for we cannot
live on flowers ; we want fruits. Help me then, my Father and my
children, and pray Him soon to send me these fruits.' (Letter 98.)
Another letter met the travellers at Pisa. ' It is no longer the time
to slumber,' she wrote, 'we must shake off the drowsiness of
negligence, and espouse the truth with the ring of fidelity. We
must declare the truth, and not keep silence out of fear, but be
ready generously to give our life for the holy Church. We see her
now dismembered ; but I hope in the Eternal and Sovereign good
ness of God that He will heal her infirmities, so that these members
may be reunited and renewed on the shoulders of God's saints.
Yes ! we shall be consoled for all our sufferings by the joy of behold
ing the renewal of that Sweet Spouse. But silence, my soul, and
say no more. I will not speak what is difficult either to say or to
write about, — you know all I mean. May you soon return to this
sweet garden, and help me to root out the thorns.' " (Letter 99.)

( 48o )

CHAPTER III.
PROGRESS OF THE SCHISM, ijyg.
IT is not our purpose to present the reader with anything like a
complete history of the Great Schism, but only to notice those
facts which are indissolubly connected with the history of St. Cathe
rine, and a clear comprehension of which is necessary, in order to
understand the affairs in which she was now engaged. There were
three distinct parties who, though at the moment hostile to Urban's
cause, appeared nevertheless to offer some hopes of being won over
by words of reason to take a better course. These were, the French
King, the Italian Cardinals, and the Queen of Naples. Raymund
having been despatched to the first of these, Catherine made it her
business to try what could be effected with the other two. With the
Queen of Naples she had long been in correspondence, and it is
evident that in spite of the vices of Joanna's character, Catherine
felt a singular interest in her and an ardent desire to gain her soul
to God.1 She had already written her a letter of expostulation
before leaving Siena for Rome ; she now reiterated her warnings in a
yet more solemn tone. " O my mother ! " she says, " for so I will
call you, if you still love truth and are subject to the holy Church,
otherwise I can no longer give you the name of mother ; I see a great
change in you. You have abandoned the counsels of the Holy
Spirit to listen to the Evil One ; you were a branch of the true Vine,
and you have cut yourself off with the knife of self-love. You were
the beloved daughter of your Father, the Vicar of Christ, and now
you have abandoned him. Alas ! we may weep over you as over
1 It must be remembered in judging of Joanna's conduct that she held her king
dom as a fief of the Holy See, and therefore, according to what was universally
recognised as the common law of the time, was bound to fidelity by a double
obligation. Nor did this obligation rest on any ancient or obsolete transaction of
the old Norman sovereigns, for the act had been solemnly renewed by Joanna
and her nobles at the beginning of her reign.

Letter to Queen foanna. 481
one that is dead, dead as to the soul, dead in the body too, if you
do not quit your error. And you will have no excuse ; you cannot say
when you come to die, ' I thought I was doing right,' for you knew
full well you were doing wrong. But I am persuaded this counsel
has not come from you. Try then, I conjure you, to know the
truth, and who those are who would deceive you by saying that Pope
Urban VI. is not the true Pope, and that the Antipope is the Christ
on earth, whereas in truth he is an Antichrist. What can these
perverse men say for themselves ? If it were true that Pope Urban
was not lawfully elected, they would deserve a thousand deaths, being
thus convicted out of their own mouths as impostors. For if they
elected him out of fear, and not by a valid election, and nevertheless
presented him to us as being the true and lawful Pope, they gave us a
lie in the place of the truth, and obliged us to do homage to one who
had no right to it. They had already acknowledged him, asked favours
from him, and accepted him as the Sovereign Pontiff; so that, if it
were true that they knew all the while he was not the lawful Pope, no
punishment could be too bad for them. Every one knows that the
person whom they named out of fear, after they had elected the Arch
bishop of Bari, was the Cardinal of St. Peter's, who, like a brave and
honest man, declared to the people that it was not he who had been
elected, but the Archbishop of Bari. And whom have they now chosen
in his place, if Pope Urban VI. be not the true Vicar of Christ ? Is it
a man of holy life ? No ; indeed, we may rather call him a demon,
for he is truly discharging the office of the demon. . . . They knew
well enough that any just man would have preferred to die a
thousand deaths rather than accept their proffered dignity ; but now,
demons have elected a demon. I say it with profound sorrow, for
I love your salvation with my whole soul ; but if you do not re
pent, the Sovereign Judge will punish you in a manner which will
terrify all who would revolt against His Church. Do not wait for
His blows, for it is hard to resist Divine justice. You must die, and
you know not when. Neither your riches, nor your power, nor your
worldly honours, nor the baroms and people subject to you, can defend
you against the Sovereign Judge, Who sometimes makes even these
very persons to be His executioners, in order to punish His enemies.
You are exciting against you your own people, who have found in
you not a manly, generous heart, but the heart of a mere woman, with
out strength or firmness, tossed about like a leaf by the wind. They
remember how, when Pope Urban VI. was first elected and crowned,
2 H

482 Letter to the Italian Cardinals.
you celebrated the event with great festivities, as a child does at the
exaltation of its father, and a mother at that of her son ; for indeed
he was both your father and your son, — your father, by the dignity to
which he was raised, and your son as being born the subject of your
realm ; and now all this is changed, and you command them to take
the opposite way. O unhappy passion ! The evil you have embraced
yourself, you wish to impart to them, and instead of truth, you would
give them a lie. Oh, do so no more, for the love of Jesus ! You
are calling down on you the Divine judgments, and I shudder to see
that you seek not to avoid the storm which threatens to fall on you.
But there is yet time, my most dear mother, to escape the vengeance
of God ; return to the obedience of Holy Church ; humble yourself
and acknowledge your fault, and God will show you mercy. I con
jure you, accomplish the will of God and my desire, for indeed I do
desire your salvation with all my heart, and soul, and strength ; and
gladly would I have come in person to tell you the truth with my
tongue, for your salvation and God's honour. It is the goodness of
God, Who loves you with an immense love, which urges me thus to
write to you in profound sorrow.1 . . . Alas, my mother, have you no
compassion for yourself? Willingly would I give my life to save you !
Oh, how happy should I be to go and give my life to restore to you
all the blessings of heaven and earth, and to take from you the weapon
with which you are killing yourself. Alas ! alas ! let not my eyes have
to shed torrents of tears over your poor soul and body ! I love your
soul as though it were my own, and I see that it is dead ; for it
strikes a blow, not at Pope Urban only, but at the truth, at our Holy
Faith ! — that faith which I once thought to see carried to the infidels
through your means ! " 2
In addressing the three Italian Cardinals, who, as we have seen, had
endeavoured to hold themselves neutral after the election of the
Antipope, Catherine used the same arguments as those which she
had laid before' the Queen. But in addition she set before them the
special duties which might have been expected from them in their
exceptional position. " When the others abandoned their Father,"
she says, "you, as his children, should have remained to be his
support. Even though he made you some few reproaches, you ought
not on that account to have given the example of revolt In the
eyes of God we are all equal, but to speak in the language of men,
the Christ on earth is an Italian, and you are Italians also. The
1 Letter 316. a Letters 316, 317.

The Count of Fondi. 483
love of country, then, did not lead you astray as it did the Ultra
montane Cardinals ; and I can see no other explanation of your
conduct but wounded self-love. You abandoned the truth out of
resentment ; you could not endure, — I will not say a just correction,
but not so much as one rough word. You lifted your heads on
high, and that was the cause of your revolt. Yes, we know and see
the truth ; before the Holy Father reproved you, you acknowledged
him and did him homage as the Vicar of Christ ; but your tree was
planted in pride and nourished by self-love ; and it is this that has
deprived you of the light of reason."
Among others whom Catherine was most anxious to gain was
Honorius Gaetano, Count of Fondi, whose adhesion to the cause of
the Antipope had been entirely caused by private pique and resent
ment. He was governor both of the province of Campania and the
city of Anagni, and Urban had deprived him of both offices, which
he conferred on the Count's bitterest enemy, Thomas Santa Severina.
This affront, offered to one of the most powerful nobles in Italy, had
borne disastrous fruits, and Catherine, while reproaching him for his
ungenerous way of seeking revenge, was careful to assure him of the
loving pardon which he would receive on his return to his allegiance.
" We know," she says, " that Urban VI. is the true Pope ; so that
were he the most cruel father possible, and had he chased us from
one end of the world to the other, we ought not to forget, or to
persecute the truth. But your self-love has conceived indignation and
brought forth wrath. Surely you must suffer in your conscience, for
you were once an obedient son and firm support of Holy Church. . . .
It is not only yourself on whom you inflict a deadly blow ; but think
of all the souls and bodies whose loss you will have to account for
to the Sovereign Judge ! For God's sake, do so no more ; to sin is
human, but to persevere in sin is the part of the devil. Be sure no
fault committed against the Holy Church will ever remain unpunished.
That is always clearly seen. Then I implore you, for the love of
the Blood shed for you, return to your Father who will await you
with open arms ; for indeed he desires to show mercy to you and to
all others who may seek for it." (Letter 192.)
Catherine's appeals to the Queen of Naples, to the Italian Car
dinals, and to Honorius Gaetano, were fruitless in their result, but
she was more successful in her efforts to hold to their allegiance the
cities of Florence, Siena, Bologna, Perugia, and Venice, to all whose
Magistrates she addressed letters as fervent as they were argumen-

484 The Company of St. George.
tative During the early months of 1379 she was, in fact, devoting all
her extraordinary energies to the support of Urban's cause, and when
not engaged in more active labours on his behalf, she poured forth
her soul in prayer, that God would defend his cause, and deliver the
Church from the new and terrible calamity that had fallen on it. If
we look at the collection of her Prayers printed at the end of the
Dialogue, we find no fewer than six dated in the months of February
and March of this year, and taken down from her lips by her
disciples. The increasing difficulties of Urban's position in Rome, and
the rapid spread of the dark cloud which overshadowed the Church,
wrung her heart with agony unspeakable, and drew from her these
ardent intercessions ; and, in truth, the aspect of affairs was daily
growing more and more alarming.
Whilst Catherine was using her influence with Urban to induce
him to hold back from all violent measures, the Antipope Clement
was busily engaged collecting troops and preparing for hostilities.
He had the talents and the ardent military spirit of a secular prince ;
and badly as such accomplishments suited his sacred profession, they
gained him favour among the wild soldiery whom he sought to
gather round his standard. Tall of stature, with a handsome coun
tenance and winning address, Robert of Geneva was just the man to
win popularity with the multitude ; and his openhanded prodigality
contrasted favourably enough in their eyes with the austere and
simple habits of Pope Urban. By the commencement of the year
1379, therefore, he had succeeded in gathering together a consider
able number of Gascon and Breton mercenaries, who audaciously
entered the Roman territories and encamped at Marino, at a short
distance from the city. Urban, on his part, had been fortunate
enough to secure the services, of Count Alheric di Balbiano, a man
of lo.w birth who had acquired the reputation of a skilful captain, and
whose not inglorious ambition it was to command none but native
Italians, and by their means to, drive out of his country those hordes
of foreign mercenaries who, preyed upon her vitals. His Company,
which bore the title o,f '¦' the Company of St George," numbered no
more than four thousand foot-soldiers^ and as many horse, but they
were all well-trained veterans, and being joined by Sir John Hawkwood,
they appeared fairly able to cope with their opponents. The Schis
matics, meanwhile,, were ravaging the whole surrounding country, and
driving before them the terrified inhabitants, who took refuge within
the city walls, thus increasing the alarm and confusion of the citizens.

The double Victory. 485
Catherine beheld it all in profound affliction, and tears became her
bread day and night, as she ceased not to cry to God that He would
restore peace to His Church. The danger was augmented by the
fact, that the Castle of St. Angelo was still in the hands of the
partisans of Clement ; but acting by Catherine's advice, John Cenci,
Senator of Rome, had already opened negotiations with Rostaing for
its surrender. Deeply as the Saint lamented the necessity of having
recourse to the sword in defence of the cause of God, yet, when war
like operations became inevitable, she did not withhold her words of
encouragement to the combatants. With Hawkwood she had already
had relations, and both by him and his wild comrades her name
was held in the utmost veneration. And she now addressed herself
to Alberic likewise, and promised him that she and the other servants
of God would not cease to offer their prayers for a blessing on his
arms. On the 29th of April a double attack on the Schismatic forces was
concerted. While the Roman citizens attempted an assault on the
Castle of St. Angelo, Alberic and his troops sallied forth from the
gates and fell on the Bretons encamped at Marino. Though far
outnumbered by their adversaries, the Urbanists gained a complete
victory ; and Alberic re-entering Rome in triumph, such con
sternation took possession of Rostaing and his garrison, that they
at once surrendered the fortress into the hands of the conqueror.
This double victory, gained on the same day, filled the hearts of
the Romans with inexpressible joy, nor did they hesitate to
ascribe their success as due to the prayers of St. Catherine.
Only a few hours previously they had been ready to abandon
themselves to despair, beholding the city surrounded on all sides
by their enemies ; and now they saw themselves delivered as by a
miracle, and the citadel, whence their peace and safety had so long
been threatened, restored to their own keeping. It was a success
which might well rouse the coldest hearts to gratitude, and Catherine
was resolved that the devotion of the people should be moved in the.
right direction. She saw in the late victory an occasion for raising
their hearts to God, of confirming them in sentiments of loyalty
to His Vicar, and of rendering to His Holy Name a tribute of
honour, in reparation for the thousand outrages it had endured
during this disastrous time. She therefore entreated the Pope to
order a special and solemn act of thanksgiving, and himself to
take part in it before the eyes of all the people. Urban was then

486 Procession to St. Peter's.
living at Santa Maria in Trastevere, and Catherine proposed that
he should make thence a solemn procession to the church of St.
Peter's, walking barefoot, and attended by a great number, both
of clergy and of the faithful. It was a touching spectacle, and
the populace failed not to remark that no Roman Pontiff had
been known to perform such an act of penance and devotion
since the time of Stephen IV. in the eighth century. And
whilst the pious were edified, the hearts of all were filled with
joyful satisfaction at seeing the Pontiff once more able to take up
his residence in his own palace, secure from the insults and attacks
of an intrusive foreign garrison. Catherine also was full of joy at
the accomplishment of this devout ceremony, and she expressed
her sentiments in a letter to the Pontiff, dated the 30th of May, in
which she says, "We have witnessed within the last four weeks
what admirable things have been worked by the power of God by
means of a vile creature ; and we have seen clearly that they were
wrought by Him, and not by the power of man. Let us give Him
glory, and testify our gratitude. And, indeed, I have been filled
with joy at beholding with my eyes that holy procession, the like
of which has not been performed since the most remote ages.
I rejoice that our sweet Mother Mary and St. Peter, the Prince
of the Apostles, have restored you to your rightful residence. May
the Eternal Truth grant you to make in your garden a garden of
the servants of God, who may have nothing else to do than to pray
for the prosperity of the Church and of your Holiness ; for these
are the soldiers who will obtain for you a complete victory."
She also exerted herself to obtain a proper acknowledgment from
the Roman Magistrates and people, of the services rendered both
by the troops and by John Cenci. "I desire," she says, "that
you should be grateful to the Company whose members have been
the instruments of Christ ; assist them in their wants, specially the
poor wounded. Be kind and charitable to them that you may
preserve their aid, and not give them occasion to turn against
you.1 You are bound to this as well from motives of gratitude as
of prudence. ... I think you have been a little ungrateful in respect
of John Cenci. I know with what zeal and generosity, merely to
1 These words contained a prophecy. Alberic, dissatisfied with his treatment,
was drawn over for a time to the side of the Antipope, and entering Tuscany,
was defeated by Count Everard di Lando, after which he returned to the service
of Urban.

Letter to Count Alberic. 487
please God and serve us, he abandoned everything in order to
deliver you from the danger that threatened you on the side of
the Castle of St. Angelo. He acted with great prudence; yet
now, not only does no one show him the least gratitude, but
there are envious calumnies raised against him. This is not right."
(Letter 196.)
At the same time, she addressed herself to Alberic and his
companions in a letter written on the 6th of May, which is one
of four which she is known to have dictated on that same day,
so marvellous was the activity of her mind, and her continual
application to the affairs to which she had devoted herself. Her
letter is addressed " To Count Alberic of Balbiano, Captain General
of the Company of St. George, and to the other Chiefs." After
expressing her hopes that they may be rewarded for their sufferings
in the good cause, she continues, " Who is the Master for whom
you went forth to the field of battle ? It was Christ crucified, the
Eternal Sovereign whose greatness none but Himself can under
stand. Oh, my sons, you came to the battle-field like good knights,
to give your life for the love of the Life, and to shed your blood
for love of the Blood of Christ. Behold a time of new martyrs !
You have been the first to shed your blood, and what will be your
reward? Even life eternal. Courage, then, you serve the Truth,
and the Truth will make you free ! and the better to call down
God's blessing on your holy enterprise, have a good intention ;
take for the motive of your actions God's honour, and the defence
of the faith of Holy Church ; and prepare yourselves by a good
confession, for you know sin calls down God's anger, and hinders
the success of our works. In your position as Chief, give your
followers an example of the fear of God. If all whom you command
have not time to go to confession, let them at least do so in desire.
Surround yourself with good advisers. Choose for your officers
brave men, as faithful and conscientious as you can find, for it
is good officers who make good soldiers. Be on your guard against
treason both within and without ; and the first thing morning and
evening, offer yourselves to our sweet Mother Mary, begging her
to be your advocate and defence, and to let no treason harm you,
for the love of her dear Son. Courage then in Christ Jesus !
Always have His Blood present to your minds ! Fight under
the banner of the Cross, and think that the blood of the martyrs
cries for you in the presence of God. Be grateful for the benefits

488 Failure of Raymund's fourney.
you have received from Him and from the glorious knight, St.
George, whose name you bear, and who will guard and defend you
till death ! We, on our part, will do as Moses did : whilst the
people fought, Moses prayed, and whilst he prayed, the people
triumphed over their enemies— we will do the same.1 Be pleased
to read this yourself, and also to the Captains." (Letter 219.)
It has been said above that this letter was one of four, written or
dictated by Catherine on the same day. The other three were ad
dressed to the Roman Magistrates, to the Queen of Naples, and to
King Charles of France. This last-named epistle is one of the most
remarkable of her compositions, and to explain the occasion on
which it was written, we must retrace our history a little, and see
what success had attended Raymund of Capua after his departure
from Rome. In spite of the numerous galleys of the Schismatics
and of the Queen of Naples which scoured the seas with the purpose
of intercepting any envoys who might be sent by Urban to the
king of France, he managed to get safely to Genoa, stopping on his
way at Pisa, where he received a letter of encouragement from
Catherine. From Genoa he got as far as Ventimiglia, where he
was warned by one of the Fathers of his own Order not to proceed
farther, as an ambuscade had been laid for him which it was im
possible for him to escape. Indeed, one of his companions did
actually fall into the hands of the enemy ; and on inquiry, it proved
that every road to France was so strictly guarded by troops, as to
exclude all hope of his being able to elude their vigilance ; for he
could not make his way into the French dominions without passing
through Provence, which at that time was subject to Joanna of
Naples, and filled with her spies and emissaries. In this perplexity
he determined on returning to Genoa ; whence he wrote to Urban,
stating the facts, and asking for further instructions. He also sent
a letter to Catherine, relating his adventures, and rejoicing with
great simplicity over his late providential escape. From Urban he
received a command to remain where he was for the present, and
1 The last paragraph in this letter is quoted by Rinaldi, in proof that the
victory of Marino was due to St. Catherine's prayers. He overlooked the cir
cumstance that it was written a whole week after that event. Maimbourg, the
partisan of the Schism, takes occasion from this blunder to cast discredit on the
authenticity of the letter altogether ; but it is evident that the Saint is not referring
to prayers offered before the battle of Marino, but to those with which she
promises to help Alberic in his future undertakings in defence of the Church.

Catherine 's Letter on the subject. 489
use his eloquence to keep the people of Genoa from joining the
Schism ; but Catherine's reply was not precisely a congratulation.
Had he been cut to pieces by the Schismatics, or cast into a dungeon,
she would have rejoiced over him with holy exultation. But that
he, a man, the envoy of the Christ on earth, should have cared for
his life in the cause of God, and turned his steps backward in order
to save it; and most of all, that he should have rejoiced, and asked
her to rejoice with him over his escape, was more than she could
endure or understand ; and she addressed a letter to the poor Father,
which must have greatly qualified his satisfaction. " God," she says,
" has desired to make you know your imperfection, and to show you
that you were a child at the breast, and not a man who feeds on
bread ; for if you had had teeth with which to eat that bread, He
would have given it to you, as He did to your companion. But you
were not found worthy of fighting on the field of battle, so you were
put aside like a child ; you fled of your own accord, and now you
rejoice at the escape which God has granted to your weakness. Oh,
my poor Father ! what a happiness it would have been for your soul
and for mine also, if with your blood you had consolidated but one
stone of the Holy Church ! Truly we have reason to groan and
lament that our want of virtue has deprived us of such a grace !
Ah, let us lose our milk teeth, and try to get the good strong teeth
of hatred and of love." (Letter 100.)
The failure of Raymund's attempt for a moment suggested the
thought that Catherine herself should undertake the journey to Paris.
Many things seemed to indicate that she was the most likely person
to gain a favourable hearing from Charles and his councillors. She
had already been invited to his Court ; and her words to him at the
very moment when she was using her influence to carry out a policy
to which he was strongly opposed, had been received with respect
and favour. The Duke of Anjou had professed himself her firm
friend and disciple, and as to the dangers to be apprehended on the
journey on the part of the Schismatics and their Neapolitan allies,
it is perhaps the truest statement to say that they attracted rather
than dismayed her. The chance they offered her of steeping her
white robe in the blood of martyrdom was in her eyes the most
glorious privilege to which any mortal could aspire, and she therefore
cheerfully placed herself at the disposal of the Sovereign Pontiff.
We are ignorant of the obstacles which opposed themselves to this

49° Catherine writes to the King of France.
project Probably Urban felt her presence necessary to him, but
however it was, Catherine submitted with her usual self-abandonment,
and set herself to supply by writing what she was unable to say by
word of mouth. She therefore addressed to King Charles the letter
of which we have spoken, and which has drawn from Papirio Mas-
sonio an eloquent word of admiration.1
The letter is of great length, and we shall give but a summary of
its contents. She endeavours to show first how self-love is the real
root of injustice, and the cause why men in power who seek human
interests persecute the Church. She expresses her wonder how a
prince so renowned for his Catholic piety could have suffered him
self to be guided by false councillors in a matter of such grave
importance. Then she sets before him the chain of arguments
which proved beyond the possibility of doubt that the election of
Urban had been true and valid. The ground on which they
pretended to call it invalid was that it had been made out of fear.
But the person whom, under the influence of fear, they had put forth
to the people as having been elected was the Cardinal of St. Peter's,
who himself declared that Urban had been lawfully elected. Then
for five motnhs afterwards they confirmed their election by repeated
public acts. They announced the elevation of Urban to the
Sovereigns ; they did him homage ; they crowned him, and asked
favours of him. If they did all this, knowing that he was not really
Pope, they convicted themselves of a prodigious crime. " How !
they, the columns of the Church, they who are established to spread
the faith ; they, out of fear of temporal death to drag us with them
to death eternal ! But the fact is, that they acknowledged him as
true Pope until he began to reprove their vices. As soon as he
showed that he was resolved to correct scandalous abuses, they
revolted and became renegades. If I speak thus of them," she
continues, " I speak not against their persons, but against the Schism
which they have brought into the world ; against their cruelty to
their own poor souls and the souls of those who will perish by their
means. Had they feared God, Pope Urban might have done more
than he did do, and they would have borne it patiently, and died a
thousand deaths rather than have rebelled against him. And you
may see that all the true servants of God remain obedient to him
and acknowledge him as Sovereign Pontiff. Call such persons to
1 Nihil gravius, nihil elegantius, aut concipi animo, aut scribi ab ullo illius
temporis viro certe po.'uisset {Annal ad. 1378: Lib. 4).

Decision of the University of Paris. 491
your councils to explain the truth to you and enlighten your
ignorance. Do not let yourself be moved by temporal interests ; if
you do, the result will be more fatal to you than to any one else.
Have compassion on the many souls whom you are delivering up to
error. Yet if you desire, you need not be deceived, for you have
near you the fountain of science ; 1 have recourse to it, and you know
what will become of your kingdom if you consult conscientious men,
free from servile fear, and caring only for the truth. Oh, my dear
Father, enter into yourself; you must die, and you know not how
soon, 2 think only of God and the truth, not of private passion or
national interests. Before God there is no distinction of nations, for
we all came forth from the same thought ; we were all created in His
image and likeness, and were all redeemed in the Precious Blood of
His Son. Pardon me if I have said too much ; I would far rather
speak than write to you, for the love that I have of your salva
tion." (Letter 187.)
Charles probably was never suffered to receive this letter. Almost
as the Saint was writing it, the royal Brief was sent to the University
of Paris, requiring them to consider and decide on the claims of the
rival Pontiffs in terms that could hardly be interpreted in any other
sense than a command to give their verdict in favour of the Anti-
pope. The too facile instruments of the royal will knew well what
was expected of them. The College of the Sorbonne indeed had
already pronounced in favour of Urban, but on the 30th of May,
pressed by fresh letters from the king, the majority declared that
Clement VII. was to be accepted as true and lawful Pontiff; the
English "nation" in the University, to their eternal honour, with
holding all part in the transaction. Had the decision been unani
mous, which it was far from being, it is obvious to observe that the
University was not a tribunal that could dictate laws to the Church.
But at that period immense weight attached to its decisions ; and
from the miserable day when this decree was promulgated, the Great
Schism of the West may be said to have been fairly accomplished.
There can be no doubt that had Charles from the first firmly opposed
the rebellious Cardinals, their scheme would have been nipped in
1 The University bf Paris.
2 Charles, in fact, died the next year, protesting on his death-bed that he had
adhered to the cause of Clement through the advice of the Cardinals, and that in
case he were mistaken, he desired to abide by the decision of the Universal
Church, as expressed by a general Council.

49 2 Louis of Hungary.
the bud. His vacillation in the first instance, followed by his actual
adherence to their party, gave them the most formidable support;
and hence, by most writers, he is represented as the chief promoter,
if not the actual author of the Schism. In any case, this defection
was so serious a blow to the cause of Urban, that it became neces
sary for him to seek among the other Christian princes for some
who would support his claims. There was one then reigning who
seemed by his chivalrous character and tried devotion to be
eminently fitted for being chosen as the champion of the Faith.
This was Louis, King of Hungary and Poland, great grandson of
Charles of Anjou, the brother of St. Louis of France. Thus he was
closely connected with the Queen of Naples, and was brother to that
Andrew of Hungary, the first husband of Joanna, whom she had
caused to be smothered in the Castle dell' Uovo ; while his cousin
Charles Durazzo had been declared heir to the kingdom of Naples
by the Queen and the States General ; though since then she had given
her preference to the Duke of Anjou. By his wisdom and valour-
Louis had earned the surname of the Great : he had been victorious
against the Tartars and other enemies of the faith, and had received
from Pope Innocent VI. the title of " Gonfalonier of Holy Church."
The Schismatic Cardinals had made every effort to gain him over to
their side, but without success ; he would never depart from the
obedience of Urban, and at the first outbreak of the Schism had
greatly exerted himself to stop its further progress. To him Urban
naturally turned for help. The sentence of excommunication was still
hanging suspended over the head of Joanna of Naples ; should she
by her obstinacy incur that sentence she would forfeit her kingdom,
which was a fief of the Holy See ; and Urban proposed to invest
Prince Charles at once with the royal dignity, and invited both him
and his cousin King Louis to come into Italy and act in defence of
the Church. Catherine likewise wrote to both these princes; and
whilst soliciting their support, it is worthy of notice that she seems to
deprecate extreme measures, and clings to the lingering hope that
even yet Joanna may be spared. " Much good," she says, writing to
fhe King, "will result from your coming hither; perhaps even the
truth will triumph without the necessity of using human force, and this
poor queen may be delivered from her obstinacy either by fear or love.
You well know how she has been spared by the Christ on earth, who
was unwilling to deprive her actually of what by her conduct she had
forfeited ; he awaited her repentance, and that out of consideration

The Antipope at Naples. 493
for you." (Letter 188.) To Charles Durazzo she also writes
inviting him to come to the aid of the Church, as was becoming one
in whose veins ran the blood of St. Louis ; but she makes no allusion
to the proposal for investing him with the forfeited kingdom ; and it
is probable that she yet hoped by her influence with Urban, and by
fresh appeals to Joanna, to avert so terrible a calamity as a warlike
invasion. In the meanwhile that princess was far from evincing any signs
of repentance ; on the contrary, she was acting as the open partisan
and protector of the Antipope. After the defeat of his troops at
Marino, Clement felt himself no longer safe in the Roman provinces,
and took refuge in the kingdom of Naples. His military spirit
deserted him in the hour of need, and he arrived at the Castle of
Spelonca half crazed with terror.1 Joanna received him with a
great display of respect, and conducted him to her famous Castle
delP Uovo, causing a bridge to be constructed in the sea, on the
spot where he was to disembark from his galley. He was treated
with royal pomp, and received the homage of the queen and her
brilliant court ; and amid a series of splendid and costly festivities,
consoled himself as well as he might for his late disaster.
But the Neapolitan people were far from sharing the sentiments
of their sovereign. They clung to the obedience of Urban, venerating
him as true Pope, and loving him as their own fellow-countryman ;
and they regarded the honours shown his rival as nothing short of
sacrilegious. Andrea Ravignano, one of the queen's courtiers, hear
ing an artisan giving vent to his indignation in no measured terms,
commanded him to be silent, and his command not being attended
to, he had the base cowardice to ride down the poor fellow, and
strike out one of his eyes. This was the signal for the people to
rise; they assembled in crowds, shouting, "Long live Pope-Urban!"
and in a few hours Naples was in their hands. The Archbishop
appointed by Urban, who had been thrust out of his see, was
brought back in triumph, and the schismatic intruder chased out of the
city. Clement, terrified at so unexpected a storm, again took flight,
and hurried first to Gaeta, and thence to the shores of Provence ;
where establishing himself at Avignon with the Cardinals of his party,
he felt at last in safety, and did not again return to Italy.
The revolt of the Neapolitans seemed to cause a momentary
hesitation in the mind of the unhappy Joanna. Civil war had
1 Fen: demensfaclus antipapa (Rinaldi, 1378, No. 26).

494 foanna feigns Repentance.
broken out in her dominions, and there were plenty of ambitious and
unscrupulous princes who would be likely to take advantage of such
a crisis to possess themselves of the territories of an heirless queen.
In her doubts and fears her thoughts turned towards Oatherine, to
whom she addressed several letters assuring her that "the words of
a Saint had not been lost on her, and that now she clearly recognised
Urban to be the lawful Pope." To satisfy her revolted subjects,
whose loyalty to the Holy See it was impossible to tamper with, she
even despatched ambassadors to Rome to negotiate her reconciliation,
and everywhere circulated the report that she had separated from the
party of the Antipope. Catherine's singular interest in this princess
made her receive the intelligence of her retractation with extraor
dinary joy. She wrote to some of her disciples, bidding them rejoice
with her, because " the heart of Pharaoh was at last softened, and
God was working admirable things in her regard." And with the
view of confirming her in her good resolutions she despatched to
Naples two of her most trustworthy disciples, the Abbot Lisolo, and
Neri di Landoccio, who seem to have reached their destination
in the August of 1379.
But it soon became apparent that Joanna's submission had been
feigned. With the detestable bad faith which marked her character,
she had only sought to gain time, while her husband Otho was
collecting a body of German troops in order to quell the insurgents.
She had equally deceived the Pope and her own subjects ; and so
soon as she believed herself secure against insurrection she threw off
the mask, recalled her ambassadors from Rome, where Urban had
given them the most gracious reception, and again declared herself
the partisan of Clement. Catherine saw with profound sorrow that
she could no longer interfere to save the unhappy queen from the
fate which she so blindly courted, yet she could not abandon her
without a last parting word. In this sublime letter Catherine's
entire heart appears unveiled. She is pleading with the queen for
her own soul ; and not for her own soul only, but for her subjects, on
whom her persistence in rebellion would entail all the horrors of a
bloody war. There is not a word of bitterness or reproach in the
whole letter; she still gives her the sweet name of mother, and
reminds her of the many years during which she had governed her
people wisely. " If you care not for your own salvation," she says,
" think of them who have enjoyed so many years of peace under your
wise rule, and who are now miserably divided, making war on each

She is Excommunicated. 495
other, and tearing each other like wild beasts. Does it not break
your heart to see such divisions? One holds for the White Rose,
and another for the Red,1 one for the truth, and the other for false
hood: yet all were created alike by the unspotted Rose of God's
Eternal Will, and all were regenerated to grace in the Red Rose of
the Blood of Christ. Neither you nor any one else can give them
those two glorious Roses ; none can do that but our Mother the
Holy Church and he who holds the keys of the Blood ; how then
can you consent to deprive them of that which you cannot give them ?
The second fault you committed after your repentance was worse
than the first, for you had acknowledged the truth and your error,
and you had sought as an obedient daughter the mercy and pardon
of your Father ; and after that you did even worse than before. Is it
that your heart was not sincere, and that you only dissimulated ?
for I received a letter from you in which you confessed that Pope
Urban was truly the Sovereign Pontiff, and that you desired to
submit to him. Oh, for the love of God, confess your fault sincerely ;
for confession to be good must be accompanied with contrition and
satisfaction. Where is the truth thai should always be found on the
lips of a Queen 2 2 Her word should be as sure and trustworthy as
the Gospel, and when she has made a promise to God, she should
not change." Then she assures her that the Pope is even yet
desirous to spare her and treat her with indulgence ; she reminds
her that she is no longer young, and that the world therefore must
soon pass away ; that death is not far off, and what kind of death ?
" Be not cruel to yourself, lest at the last moment you hear the terrible
words, ' Thou hast not remembered Me in life, and in death I
will not remember thee ; thou didst not answer to My call when
there was yet time, and now the time is past, and no hope remains.' "
(Letter 318.)
The sentence of excommunication was in fact pronounced against
Joanna, though not until the early part of 1380, a very short time
before the death of the Saint. Catherine's charitable advocacy, and
1 The White and Red Roses were the symbols of the Urbanists and Clementists
in the kingdom of Naples, and it is supposed that from thence these same symbols
were carried into England by some of Hawkwood's followers, and adopted in the
civil wars which broke out so soon afterwards in that country.
2 Catherine is here alluding to the famous words of King John of France, the
near relative of Joanna, that " if truth were banished from the rest of the world,
it should find refuge in the heart of princes."

496 Death of foanna.
Urban's own desire to give her every chance of repentance, delayed
the stroke of justice until, in the solemn words above quoted, " no
hope remained." Nor was it even then pronounced until Joanna
had actually conspired against the life of Urban, and despatched
Rinaldo Orsini to Rome at the head of an armed force to seize his
person. Raymund speaks of this in the Legend, and informs us
of the atrocious cruelties which were perpetrated by the queen's
emissaries on all the unoffending inhabitants who fell into their
hands. Some were fastened to trees, and left there to perish by
famine ; others loaded with chains and carried captives to the camp,
in hopes of obtaining a ransom.1 These facts must be taken into
consideration, as well as the peculiar relations of Naples with the
Holy See, before we can estimate the act by which Urban finally
declared the queen to have forfeited her kingdom, and bestowed it
on Charles Durazzo. The history of his expedition against Naples
does not properly belong to our present subject, for it took place
two years after Catherine's death, and is only here alluded to as
displaying the fulfilment of those repeated warnings which she had
urged on Joanna as to the terrible fate which most surely awaited
her, unless she repented while there was yet time. Charles was
received with enthusiasm by the people of Naples, and found himself
master of the kingdom almost without a blow. Joanna fell into the
hands of the conqueror, who, as a stern act of justice, became the
avenger of his brother's murder ; and in the very Castle' dell' Uovo,
where that crime had been committed, the guilty and unhappy
princess suffered the same ignominious death.
1 Leg., Part 3, ch. v. Raymund says that many of those thus tortured obtained
their deliverance in a miraculous manner after invoking the aid of St. Catherine.

( 497 )

CHAPTER IV.
ENGLAND AND THE SCHISM, 1378-7379.
WE have reserved for a separate chapter a brief notice of the
part taken by our own country in the affairs of the Schism,
which is not without some points of special interest, as connected,
in a certain way, with the history of St. Catherine : and we shall
set these facts before the reader with the more satisfaction, because
it is impossible to deny that, on this occasion at least, the King, the
Parliament, and the clergy of England, acted with a good faith and
clear-sighted justice which even in Catholic times did not always
distinguish our national dealings with the Apostolic See.
The Bull in which Pope Urban announced to the sovereign and
clergy of England his election (which he calls communis et concors
electio) is dated April 19th, 1378. Various documents in exercise of
his authority were issued by him during the following month, and
are to be found printed in the third volume ofWilkins' Concilia.
On the 9th of August in the same year the Encyclical letter ad
dressed to the faithful by the rebellious Cardinals was received in
England, declaring that they had elected Urban " to avoid peril of
death, which was imminent by reason of the fury of the people." In
the following October a Parliament was held at Gloucester, to which
there came envoys from the Pope, declaring the great straits he was
in, and the injuries he was suffering from the apostate Cardinals, and
beseeching the king and lords of England to succour him. There
likewise came thither other envoys from the Cardinals, bearing letters
sealed with ten seals ; making strong allegations on their side, and
also petitioning for succour. " By the favour of God who disposes
all things justly," says the monk of St. Alban's, "the apostate envoys
were refused admittance, and the Papal envoys were received, and
aid promised to the Pope in due time. Then the Archbishop of
Canterbury, considering the falsehoods made public through the
writings of the Cardinals, and the manifest errors into which they

498 Letter from Richard II.
had fallen, moved by the -Spirit of God, took up this theme, ' There
shall be one Shepherd' (Ezech. xxxvii. 24), and he so clearly declared
their error to the people as evidenced by their own words, that
their malice became evident to all, and their execrable crime un
veiled."1 Meanwhile a reply was despatched to the Cardinals written in the
king's name, and equally decisive in its terms. It runs as follows : 2
"Richard, King of England, and Lord of Ireland, &c, to such
Cardinals : not as you write to us, by the Divine mercy, Cardinals of the
Holy Roman Church, but rather by the Divine malediction thunder.
ing over you, who as ravenous wolves are attacking the whole flock
of Christ, and as crafty foxes who desire to destroy the vineyard of
the Lord of Hosts. The foolish tenor of your letters, which at the
instigation of the enemy you have rashly addressed to each and all
of the provinces of Christendom, wounding thereby our inmost souls,
has in no way injured our faith ; but has filled us with sorrow of
heart at so horrible a scandal, newly raised in the Church of God.
But woe to you by whom this scandal has been brought about ! For
the face of our Mother the Church has become pale ; and we believe
that this pallor, caused by trouble, is owing to your crime, a crime
unheard of in all past ages. For you who were regarded as the
teachers of the law, have not shown yourselves the true servants of
God, but sacrilegious men. The blush of your shame is spread
abroad, whilst the very confines of Christendom are set on fire by
your scandalous acts. Oh, that unhappy and detestable ambition of
yours, which seeks to rend the seamless garment of the Lord, which
has not fallen by lot to your disposal ; and to part that which suffers
no division, but rather rejoices in unity ! Wicked servants ! You
shall be judged out of your own mouths ! For you have declared to
us by your letters the manner in which the recent election of the
Sovereign Pontiff was celebrated ; saying that a lawless multitude of
armed men surrounded your conclave, uttering terrible and deadly
threats against you unless you elected an Italian or a Roman ; but
not limiting you to any person whom they compelled you to elect.
It is therefore manifest that the person whom you yourselves grant that
1 Chronicon Anglia, by a monk of St. Alban's, p. 212.
2 Walsingham, in Richard II., 1378, quoted by Rinaldi. The whole letter is
also printed by Baluze (Vila Paparum Avenionensium, Tom. i., p. 554), but with
the error of substituting for the name Richard that of Edward who had died a
year previously.

Letter from Richard II. 499
you elected, was elected freely and not under compulsion. And we
therefore firmly hold, and will hold, that his election was, and is
rightly and canonically celebrated ; and we firmly adhere to him who
was thus elected, enthroned, and crowned, as to the true Head of
Holy Church, and successor of St. Peter, and the true Vicar of
Christ on earth ; and we humbly promise to obey his words and
admonitions. And we detest your pernicious rebellion and sacri
legious and heretical contumacy, which led many to follow your
damnable example and share your disgrace ; for whereas you were
placed in the battle-array of the Church, as warriors and champions
of the orthodox Christian faith and of the liberty of the Church,
wearing red hats upon your heads in token of the constancy and
boldness wherewith you ought fearlessly to fight for justice even unto
death, how has the fear of death so suddenly come upon you and
conquered you, as that you should suffer justice to perish ? How is it
that you who call yourself pillars of the Church are become infirm
and weak, so that you cannot support the roof and prevent it from
falling ? . . . For the rest, let not your foolish blindness and blind
folly imagine that those words in your letters which seem to savour
of piety and zeal for the house of God will move or persuade us in
any way to take part with you. We have sufficiently understood
that ' those words are seasoned with the leaven of the Scribes and
Pharisees. You name to us the place which you have chosen as
suitable for your crime, clearly showing that you have left the true
Head of the Church, and have become members of the devil . . . More
over, you have blackened the fame of the Count of Fondi x by your
false praises, for, as the poet says, ' It is disgraceful to be praised by
the disgraceful, and for disgraceful things.' Give heed, then, O
Count of Fondi, who wert unknown in many Christian States -. thou
art now gaining for thyself, not a name, but ignominy, by following
the enemies of Christ, and by helping them in their detestable
perfidy ; so that thou seemest to have given them an asylum against
Christ and the Catholic people. Arise then, O Count, and cast
out the vermin from the rock; drive away the serpents from thy
tabernacle ; shake out the sulphurous coals from thy bosom, lest an
unquenchable flame burn thee ; and so thou shalt gain the favour
and blessing of God, and the praise of all Christian people ! "
Rinaldi, who quotes this letter from Walsingham, observes that
1 This is the same Honorius, Count of Fondi, to whom St. Catherine had
' addressed a letter of remonstrance. See p. 483.

500 Reasons of the English.
" the English burnt with pious zeal against the traitors to the Church,
the justice of Urban's election being made evident to them by clear
proofs drawn from the very testimony of the Schismatics, which we
adduce from their own records." He then proceeds to give a docu
ment which we shall quote, in spite of its length, as it furnishes a
notable and valuable contribution to our ecclesiastical history.
Reasons of the English.
i. Because the Romans did not press the Cardinals to elect any
person in particular; they demanded only what was reasonable —
that a Roman or an Italian should be given them. Therefore, as
regarded the person to be elected the Cardinals were free. Having
then elected the Archbishop of Bari, whom the Romans had not
demanded, it is clear that they elected him freely. He is then Pope.
It may be stated thus : the Cardinals were not forced by the
Romans to elect any one in particular, for they demanded no one
in particular. They elected Bartholomew of Bari, therefore they
elected him freely ; they were constrained as to the nation, but not as
to the person of him who was to be elected.
2. Because the Archbishop refused earnestly to accept the Papal
dignity, and only accepted it at last at the instance of the Cardinals.
Since then they prayed him to accept it, they did not elect him un
willingly ; therefore they elected him freely ; He is then Pope.
3. Because, according to the relation of the Archbishops, Bishops,
masters in theology, and other doctors then in Rome, the English
have learnt that even before entering the conclave they unanimously
named him Pope, not having been able to agree on any of the
Cardinals. 4. And because, after they had entered the conclave, they made a
triple election of him, in order that there might be no doubt on the
matter. His election was therefore perfectly free.
5. Because they also freely crowned him, as is manifest from the
fact that the Cardinals who were out of the city returned to be
present at his coronation.
6. Because, moreover, the Cardinals remained in peace with him
for several months, received Holy Communion from his hands, and
asked him for benefices and other favours for themselves and their
friends. Now, it is not likely that they would have done this if they
had known he was not Pope. He therefore is so truly.
7. Because the Roman populace did not certainly force the

Reasons of the English. 501
Cardinals to write letters commendatory of the said Archbishop.
Those which they wrote and sent to the princes and great person
ages, to announce that he had been elected Pope, and to declare his
praises, were written freely. Therefore he is truly Pope,
8. Because, for no earthly reason ought the Cardinals to deceive
the Church of God. Now, one of these two things must be true : either
the Cardinals knew that Bartholomew Prignano was Pope, or they
knew that he was not. If the first be true, we have proved our point ;
if the second, they have deceived the whole Church of God. The
consequence is manifest ; for there is no fear that can compel a man
of constancy to sin mortally. But to deceive the Holy Church of God
is to sin mortally. Therefore, they are no longer worthy of credit.
9. Because the Grand Penitentiary sealed the letters of his
tribunal with his seal, bearing the inscription : " Given at Rome, in
the first year of Pope Urban VI." He has thus given evidence with
all possible authority that Urban is Pope.
10. Because the Cardinal electors wrote unanimously to the
Parliament of the King of England that they had elected the Arch
bishop of Bari, saying, " We elected the Archbishop of Bari, only we
did it out of fear." Then they did elect him. Now such fear would
not vitiate their election, because it was not impressed upon them
with a view to their electing this particular person for whom the
Romans did not ask : for no one can be forced to elect ; election
being an act of free will to which no man can be forced ; 1 and even
before they incurred that fear, they had named the Archbishop as the
person they intended to elect.
n. Because the Romans did not demand that the Cardinals
should affirm, by their own seals, and by their public acts, that the
Archbishop Bartholomew was Pope. If they did this, they did it
freely. Therefore, the English people are obliged to believe him to
be Pope.
12. Because one of the canons says, " If any one be elected Pope,
either by money, or by a military or popular tumult, without the
unanimous consent of the clergy," &c. If, therefore, the consent be
unanimous, the election is made, even though there may have been
1 The meaning here seems to be that, in saying " we elected the Archbishop of
Bari," the Cardinals had unconsciously committed themselves. For they might have
been forced to name, but not to elect, i.e., not to make choice of any one, which is
an interior act of the mind to which they could not be compelled. Yet in saying
they had elected him, they implied that they had thus made choice of him.

502 Reasons of the English.
a popular or military tumult. We see this in the case of Gregory V. '
who was elected Pope at the instance of the Emperor, and acknow
ledged to be duly elected. We may equally say of the Archbishop of
Bari that, even though there was a popular tumult at the time of
his election, there was, nevertheless, the unanimous consent of the
Cardinals to his election.
13. Because, moreover, it was revealed to a certain holy hermit
of England, who dwells in the place where the Brother Hermits of
St. Augustine took their origin, that Bartholomew of Bari ought to
be received as Pope. For it is said that he wrote three letters to
England, urged by the Holy Spirit ; one for the government of the
kingdom, another for the reformation of his Order, and a third, in
which he relates that whilst he was celebrating Mass it was shown
him in the Sacred Host that Bartholomew of Bari was the true Pope;
and in that letter he exhorts all persons whom his letters shall reach,
to hold as true Pope the said Bartholomew of Bari, putting aside all
doubts, according to what has been divinely revealed to him.
14. Because, moreover, the common people say we ought to
believe as our prelates, the Archbishops and Bishops, masters in
theology, and doctors of the sacred canons inform us. But these
tell us that under pain of the greater excommunication, and pain
of deprivation of all our goods, spiritual and temporal, we are
bound to believe Bartholomew of Bari to be Pope. Therefore we
hold him to be Pope. Moreover he was the first elected ; therefore
he is Pope.
15. Because, if after having elected him, the Cardinals have now
separated from him, it is said to be for three causes. First, because
he was determined to maintain the rights of the King of England,
and to show him justice, and not unjustly to favour the King of
France against him. Secondly, because he desired that each Cardinal
should restore the title of his Cardinalate to Rome. Thirdly, because
he would prevent them from going about with excessive pomp, and
living dissolutely, irreligiously, and prodigally, as they had been
wont to do. Moved, therefore, by these things, the Cardinals with
drew themselves from so much holiness and justice.
16. Because, moreover, it is commonly said, that the Antipope
Clement lis a man of blood, having ordered many persons to be put
to death, and made himself a leader of armed men. Therefore it
seems to us that he ought not to have been elected Pope, according
to the 22nd chapter of the first Book of Paralipomenon, wherein it

Catherine's Letter to the King. 503
is said : "The word of the Lord came unto David, saying, thou hast
shed much blood and fought many battles; therefore thou canst
not build a house to My Name, after shedding so much blood."1
Rinaldi, who quotes these " Reasons '' at length, considers it
probable that the last five were added somewhat later than the rest.
If we take the first eleven and consider them simply in the light of
a logical argument, it is impossible not to be struck by their force
and lucidity. It is manifest that those who guided the English
councils of State had not drawn up these reasons without thoroughly
and accurately acquainting themselves with the history of the whole
transaction. Rohrbacher has observed that " the nation whose zeal
most resembled the zeal of St. Catherine of Siena, was undoubtedly
England." But they not only resembled her by their zeal ; they
exactly reproduced her line of argument. There is an identity in
the very language used, and the points taken notice of in this State
document of England, and in the letters of the Saint which, to say
the least, indicates some common source of information. This
similarity is also observable in the letter addressed to the Cardinals
by the King and Parliament of England, which has been quoted a
few pages back, in which we find the expression of " the face of the
Church growing pale," the Sovereign Pontiff spoken of as " Christ,"
and the Schismatics as "members of the devil," all which terms
recall, in a striking manner, the language of St. Catherine.
We have seen her addressing her closely-reasoned arguments to
kings and princes, magistrates and republics; and the question suggests
itself, did she despatch any such letters to England, and if she did,
may they not have had their influence, as in other quarters, so also
in the English Parliament ? The inquiry is one of great interest, and in
reply we are able to affirm positively that such a letter was despatched
to the King of England. The proof of this assertion is contained in a
letter addressed by Stephen Maconi, from Siena, to Neri di Landoccio,
then with St. Catherine in Rome. It is dated June 22, 1379, and
speaking of certain letters which he has asked his brother secretary
to send to him, he says : " That was the third letter ; the second
contained the news of the Emperor, of which you promised to send
me the copy ; but I never had it. I also wrote to Richard at Florence,
as you told me ; but that other letter, together with the copy of that
1 Rinaldi, 1378, No. 51, quoted from Tom. i. De Schis. p. 32. Rohrbacher has
cited this remarkable document (Vol. xxi. pp. 22, 23), omitting, however, four of
the "reasons," and considerably abridging the remainder.

504 F. William Flete.
which went to the King of England, I have never had. You tell me
to procure it, but I do not know from whom."1 Many researches
have been made among the English State papers with a view of
recovering this letter, but hitherto without success. But the fact
remains that St. Catherine did hold communication with Richard II.
or his councillors at this momentous crisis, nor is it to be supposed
that they who attached such weight to the authority of an anonymous
hermit as to adduce his testimony before the Parliament of the realm
in support of their arguments, should not have given due consideration
to the words of one who enjoyed so great a reputation as St. Catherine.
But the hermit, if anonymous in the Parliamentary document, is not
so to us. Our readers will at once have recognised in him our old
friend F. William Flete, who from his solitude at Lecceto ( " the
place where the Brother Hermits of St. Augustine took their origin " )
had sent his letters of admonition and warning to his countrymen ;
and whose fame for learning and sanctity had secured from them so
respectful a hearing. Here then is the link which unites this page
jn our national history with the story of St. Catherine. Her words,
and those of her most devoted disciple, were heard and listened to
in the Councils of England : they had their weight in keeping the
English steady in their loyalty to the See Apostolic ; and we hold it
as indisputable, that they communicated to those who drew up this
remarkable document, some of the arguments which are there put
forth in terms identical with those which we have seen used by StL
Catherine herself.
It is a little remarkable that the " Rationes Anglicorum," are not
to be found preserved in any of the English State records, and that
the originals exist only among the papers of the Schismatics. How
they came there is not difficult to explain ; for they were felt to be
so forcible, and so damaging to the cause of Clement, that the best
French legists were engaged to frame a reply. This reply, however,
was an utter failure. It was solely based on the testimony of
the Cardinals, and thus they were brought back to this terrible
dilemma; these Cardinals, the sole witnesses that Urban's election
was invalid, themselves, for five months, by act and deed had declared
it valid to every court and nation in Europe. Could such witnesses
be received as worthy of credit ?
But though we do not find the "Rationes" preserved in our State
records, we find reference made to them in one of the Statutes of the
1 Lettere dei discepoli di Sta. Caterina, No. 13.

Statute of the Realm. 505
realm. We shall give it verbatim, as it stands in the Rolls of Parlia
ment, wherein some words have been injured and effaced by time.
"Item, pur ce q nre Sf le Roi ad entenduz si bien par
certains Lettres patentes nouvellement venues, de certains car
dinal rebeulx contre nostre seint Pere Urban a ore Pape, come
autrement par coe fame, q division et discord etoit p entre nre
dit seint Pere et les ditz Cardinalx, lesqueux s'afforcent a toute
leur pouir a deposer nfe dit seint Pere de l'estat de Pape, et de
exciter et comoever par leur meins vraies sugestions les Rois,
Princes, et le poeple Christien encontre lui a grant peril de leurs
almes et a tres mal example : notre dit Sf le Roi fist moustre
les dees l?es ax Prelatz, Seignrs, et autres grantz et sages
esteantz au dit Parlement, et venes et entenduz les Lettres avant
dees, et ene meure deliberation sur la matiere, estoit par les ditz
Prelatz pnunciez et publiez par plusours grantz et notables resons
illocqs monstrez en plein parlement sibien par matire trovez en
dees lettres come autrement, q le dit Urban estoit duement esluz
en Pape, et q enzi il est et doit estre verraie pape et chef de
seinte Eglise, et Ten doit accepter et obeir. Et a ce. faire
s'accorderent toutz les Prelatz Seignrs et Coes en le parlement a
vaunt dit. Et en outtre est assentuz que toutes les Benefices et
autres possessions q les ditz cardinalx rebellautz et toux autres
leurs coadjutours, fautours, adherentz ou aucuns autres enemys
de nfe dit Sf le Roi et de son roialme ont denez leur pouir nfe
dit Sf le Roy Soient seisez es mains de mesme nre Sf le Roi et
q nfe Sf le Roi soit responduz des fruitz et profitz de mesmes
les Benefices et possessions tant come ils dem ront en ses meins
p la cause avant dit. Et auxent est ordenez q si aucun lege du
Roi ou autre deinz son Poair purchace provision, Benefice, ou
autre grce d'aucun autre par nonn de Pape q del dit nfe seint
Pere Urban ou soit obeisant a aucun autre persone come a pape
soit suis hors de la protection nfe Sf le Roi et ses biens et
chatexx seisez come for factes."1
1 The above is copied from the Rolls of Parliament. It is likewise to be found
printed with an English translation, in the "Statutes of the Realm," Vol. i.,
fol. ii. This English translation is likewise given in Myddleton's " Great Boke of
Statutes ;" but it appears there with one notable alteration, showing the trans
lation to have been made in the time of Henry VIII., and after the passing of
the Act against acknowledgment of the Pope's supremacy ; for wherever the word
Pope occurs in the original, the expression is exchanged for Bishop of Rome. So
far as we know, the document has not been inserted in any other printed edition or
translation of the Statutes.

506 England adheres to Urban.
In the last portion of this statute is embodied the answer to a
petition which the Commons presented in this same Parliament
to the effect that, whereas the realm had been greatly impoverished
by so many rich benefices being given to foreigners, and that those
who drew large sums out of these benefices, let the houses attached
to them go to ruin, &c, it will please our Lord the King to provide
some remedy. To this petition the following answer was returned :
" Ordeine est, et assentuz q tous les Benefices de Cardinalx et
autres rebelx au Pape Urban q'on est soient seisiz."
These proceedings took place in the second year of Richard II.,
that is in 1378, whence we see how prompt and vigorous was the
action taken by the English Legislature, and that it can in no way
be attributed, as Maimbourg represents, to the spiteful determination
to take a course opposite to that taken by France ; for France
delayed any decisive action until the following year. But England
at that time possessed great and patriotic statesmen, such as those
whose measures of justice had procured for the Parliment of 1376
its title of "the Good Parliament," at the head of which was
William of Wykeham, at that time Chancellor of the realm.
And though he and the other members of the Good Parliament
had suffered a temporary disgrace towards the close of the reign
of Edward III., yet the first act of the new sovereign had been to
restore him to favour; so that it is not to be doubted that his
voice was heard in the Parliament which rejected and condemned
the Schismatics ; possibly, even his hand may have been employed
in drawing up those "great and notable reasons" which have been
laid before the reader.
Nor were the English statesmen content with securing the
allegiance of their own country to the rightful Pontiff. They
exerted the powerful influence which England then possessed
throughout the States of Europe, to obtain the adhesion of other
potentates to the cause of Urban. There were two sovereigns in
particular, with whom England was closely allied, they were the
Emperor Wenceslaus, and Peter, king of Arragon. The Emperor's
decision in favour of Urban was announced to that Pontiff, together
with the intelligence that England and Hungary likewise remained
faithful; and Catherine, writing from Rome on the 1st of January
1379, to Stephen Maconi, who was still at Siena, refers to this
piece of good news, saying, " Holy Church and Pope Urban VI.,
by the sweet goodness of God, have received the best news during

Richard's Letter to Peter of Arragon. 507
the last few days, that they have had for a long time. I send with
this a letter for the Bachelor (W. Flete), in which you will see what
graces God is beginning to pour out on His Spouse, and I trust
through His mercy that they will go on multiplying" (Letter 264).
This " good news " was the fidelity of England and the other
northern nations ; and it is noteworthy that Catherine at once
communicated the intelligence to F. William Flete, who, as we
have seen, had his own share in the business. As to Peter of
Arragon, he had declared his intention of remaining neutral until
he should have taken counsel with other Christian kings. He
particularly consulted his English allies, with what result will appear
in the following letter, which we quote (abridged) from Rinaldi :
" To the august Prince the King of Arragon, and our well-beloved
Cousin.
" Cousin, beloved beyond that which we can express in writing, —
You are aware how two persons are now contending for the Papacy,
namely, the one who was first elected and who lives at Rome, named
Urban, and another elected afterwards, named Clement, who is living
at Avignon ; and though you have been solicited by both parties to
declare for one or the other, yet you would not do this, until you
were assured which of the two was the true Pontiff . . . You have
begged Us to acquaint you with what We have deliberated concerning
this matter, and of what mind We are . . . Be it known to you that
from many persons worthy of credit, who were present at the election
made at Rome of the aforesaid Lord Urban, We have learnt that he
was lawfully and canonically elected by the College of Cardinals then
in Rome, previous to any popular tumult alleged by the Cardinals
as having taken place. Therefore they afterwards enthroned and
crowned him, and obeyed him as true, canonical, Sovereign Pontiff,
and rendered him Pontifical honours. They also received Holy
Communion from his hands, asked and obtained various favours
from him, and for some considerable time acknowledged him as
true Pope ; until on account of certain things which he proposed to
do out of just and honourable zeal, the Cardinals themselves went
backwards, led astray by the malignant spirit, and rebelled mali
ciously against him. Having therefore maturely considered these
things, and held council with the bishops and clergy of Our
realm, and those skilled in the laws recently convoked in Parliament,
by their advice and that of the peers and nobles and commons of

508 The Schismatics excommunicated.
the realm assembled in Parliament, We have decided that We ought
to adhere to the said Lord Urban as true and Canonical Pope, and
We hope that you and all other Catholic princes will do the same
for justice's sake. And that you may know in what manner the
illustrious King of the Romans and Bohemia (Wenceslaus 1), as also
the King of Hungary, conduct themselves in this behalf, We transmit
to you a number of letters of the said King of the Romans and
Bohemia addressed to Us on this subject.
" May the Most High preserve your Majesty in prosperity unto
length of days.
" Given under Our private seal, at Our palace of Westminster, on
the 14th day of September (1378 2).
" Richard, by the grace of God,
" King of England and France."
From the position they had thus taken up, the King, Clergy, and
Parliament of England never swerved. In the March of 1379 a
process was instituted against the rebellious Cardinals, in form of a
Brief addressed by Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, to
the Bishop of London, communicating the copy of a letter received
from the Pope, in which the whole history of the Schism is carefully
drawn up. By this Brief all the Schismatics and those who support
them are excommunicated, and the letters ordered to be read in all
churches ;3 and when, after the calamitous death of Simon (who was
slaughtered in the Tower by the insurgents under Wat Tyler), Cour-
tenay, Bishop of London, was promoted to the Primacy, on receiving
the Pall he not only swore fidelity to the Holy See, but formally
abjured all connection with Robert of Geneva and his schismatical
adherents. When actual hostilities began between the two parties, the English
1 Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia elected Emperor, but not being yet crowned,
he as yet only assumed the title of King of the Romans. His daughter Anne of
Bohemia became the queen of Richard II. ; hence the strict alliance between
those two sovereigns. Urban VI. confirmed Wenceslaus in the Imperial dignity,
to which cause Maimbourg attributes his adherence to that Pontiff; though he
might more correctly have reversed the statement, and said that Urban's confir
mation was granted in acknowledgment of the fidelity shown by the King of the
Romans to the Apostolic See. Letters similar to the above were sent by Richard
to the Count of Flanders, another close ally of England.
2 Rinaldi, 1378, No. 42, quoting from torn. 18, De Schis., p. 152.
3 Wilkin's Cone, vol. iii.

Great English Prelates. 509
were no less forward with their aid, and Henry Knighton gives an
amusing account of the zeal which the devout ladies of England in
particular manifested in making collections for the Holy Father.
One lady gave as much as .£100, a large sum in those days. Others
contributed jewels, necklaces, rings, combs, and a variety of other
female ornaments in great abundance, so that, to use the words of
the historian, all the secret treasure of the kingdom, which was in the
hands of the women, was risked. This extraordinary liberality was in
no small degree due to the large indulgences granted by Urban to
those who should come to the aid of the See Apostolic, the preaching
of the so-called Crusade being committed to the care of the brave,
chivalrous, popular, and most able Henry de Spenser, Bishop of
Norwich.1 But we shall not be tempted to further digressions into the English
annals of the period, interesting as they are, and certainly more full
of edification at this particular juncture than those of the Continental
States. In England, as elsewhere, there were doubtless plenty of
abuses both among clergy and laity ; but we observe one marked
superiority which the Church in this country possessed at this time
over other lands. She could boast of many great, wise, and holy
prelates ; men who stood as bulwarks against both the spread of
heresy and the encroachments of the Crown. Looking over the
annals of other kingdoms we find as remarkable an absence of great
names among the bishops and prelates of the period. The history
of St. Catherine does not bring us in contact with a single French
or Italian bishop of any eminence in the Church. This quite ex
ceptional poverty in the Episcopal staff of that period seems to afford
an explanation of the otherwise incomprehensible enigma, how a
scandal so monstrous as that of the Great Schism could ever have
come about The Church was weak precisely in that point wherein
should lie her greatest strength ; she lacked " those faithful guardians
of the Lord's flock " who in other times of grievous trial stood forth
as Defenders of the Faith. Had it been otherwise, it would have
been impossible that the eyes of the faithful should have been scan
dalised by the spectacle of a clergy rebelling against their Head,
and rebelling on the distinct and unmistakable ground that he
desired to reform their abuses.
And this remark suggests another with which we will conclude
our imperfect sketch of this dark and sorrowful time. St. Catherine
1 Knighton's Chronicle, p. 2671.

510 St. Catherine's Prophecy.
did not only predict the Schism ; she likewise foretold a time of
renewal and consolation, when the Church, then covered, as it were,
with rags, should appear adorned with jewels, and all the faithful
should rejoice at seeing themselves governed by good and holy
pastors.1 Have not we been reserved to witness the fulfilment of
this prophecy, and do we not with our own eyes behold the accom
plishment of her further prediction of a time "when even unbelievers,
attracted by the good odour of Christ, shall return to the true fold, and
yield themselves to the true Bishop and Pastor of their souls ? "
" In truth," says Rohrbacher, " we are witnessing the very marvels,
the mere prophetic view of which thrilled the heart of St. Catherine
of Siena with. joy unutterable. We see the faithful in every land,
at home and abroad, rejoicing in the government of good and holy
bishops. We see God everywhere renewing His elect : on the Apos
tolic Chair we behold the spirit of St. Gregory and St. Leo ; in the
Episcopate we see the spirit of St Athanasius and St. Ambrose;
among priests and religious we see reviving the spirit of St. Jerome,
St. Benedict, St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Ignatius, and St Vin-
cint of Paul; we see the Church, beautiful as in the days of her
youth, adorned with a diadem of virtues, with the lilies of a countless
number of holy virgins, with the palms of a noble army of martyrs
of every age, sex, rank, and nation ; from those multitudes of
the faithful, seculars and ecclesiastics, who confessed the faith in
the last century on the scaffolds of France, to those of our brethren
and sisters who have confessed and are at this moment confessing
it in the prisons and torture-rooms of Tonquin, China, and Corea.
Holland, Scotland, England and Germany, countries which for so
many years persecuted the children of the Church, are beginning to
look towards her with revived tenderness, to grant her bishops liberty
of action, and often to second the efforts of her missionaries more
effectually than is done in France. The best heads of Protestant
England are labouring to justify the Roman Church and the Roman
Pontiff from national prejudices ; while the savages of America and
Oceania are crying to us for priests, to procure whom, the faithful
of all lands unite in contributing their prayers and their alms : new
Apostolic congregations are being formed, old ones are being revived,
and the chance of martyrdom only offers an additional attraction to
those who would emulate the glories of St. Francis Xavier ! " 2
1 Leg. Part 2, ch. x.
2 Rohrbacher. Hist, de l'eglise, Vol. xxi. pp. 26, 27.

Its Fulfilment. 5 1 1
To us in England who have witnessed the marvellous resurrection
of the faith in these latter days, these eloquent words, far from seem
ing excessive, fall short of the actual truth. It is impossible for us
to read St. Catherine's prediction, and not give thanks to God that
we have lived to behold and take part in that great revival of which
she spoke ; it is impossible for us not to see all around us the ful
filment of our glorious Mother's words, and not to rejoice in
acknowledging that among ourselves the days have truly come " when
unbelievers, attracted, by the good odour of Christ, have returned
by thousands to the true Fold," and submitting with loving joy to
the Chair of St. Peter, "have acknowledged their true Head, and
yielded themselves to the guidance of the Bishop and Pastor of
their souls."
Note. — The letters quoted in the above chapter as written by Richard II.
could scarcely have been his actual composition, he being then no more than
twelve years of age. They were, of course, drawn up by those ministers in
whose hands the government of the kingdom was vested during his minority ;
but he steadily adhered to the policy inaugurated by them. It may not be un
interesting to the reader to know that this Prince is supposed to have been him
self a Brother of the Third Order of St. Dominic ; and that so early as the year
*375 he obtained a Bull from Rome whereby the chaplains who accompanied him
on his journeys, and with whom he was accustomed to recite the Divine Office,
received permission to do so according to the Dominican Rite, and to use the
Breviary of the Order. (See Ascendencia Esclarecida de Santo Domingo, p. 546,
wherein the Bull is referred to under the title, Specialis et Sincera Devotio,
Bull. torn. 2, p. 352.)

( 512 )

CHAPTER V.
FAMILY LETTERS, 1379.
IN the preceding chapters we have endeavoured to give so much
of the history of the Schism as is needed for the understanding
of this latter portion of St. Catherine's public life ; and we shall now
gladly return to its more private records, and to the correspondence
kept up between her and her companions in Rome with their absent
friends at Genoa and Siena. The reader, it is hoped, has not for
gotten that Stephen Maconi was left at the latter place, detained by
business, and as it would seem, also, in compliance with the wishes of
his family. He would gladly have accompanied the Saint to Rome,
and failing that, desired speedily to have followed her ; but she would
not allow it. "As to your journey," she says, "it is not necessary
for the affairs in question, I do not therefore ask you to come. I
should have been very glad if you could have done so, and shall be
still more glad when you are able to come ; but it must be without
giving occasion of complaint to any one. You must not irritate or
trouble your parents more than can be helped. Avoid this as much
as possible ; I am sure that when God sees it best, He will put a
stop to all murmuring, and enable you to come in peace. So only
come if you can do so without giving offence " (Let 256). Barduccio,
to whom this letter was dictated, added a concluding paragraph on
his own account, to say that he wanted Stephen so badly about some
business on which he was engaged, that if his friend did not make
haste and come, he should go and fetch him. This was only another
way of saying that the little family terribly missed their gay and
charming comrade; and he, on his part, felt Siena equally dull with
out them. So, as they were mutually deprived of one another's society,
they made up for the loss by frequent letterwriting ; the absentees
in Rome charging Stephen with all sorts of messages and commis
sions, and he giving vent to his dissatisfaction at being left at home,
by characteristic grumbling. They kept him well employed : Cath-

Stephen's Commissions. 513
erine writes to him about a horse which she is supposed to have
ordered, and bids him see that the mistake is rectified, for she knows
nothing whatever about the animal. He is to send to the Countess
Bianchina for the copy of the Dialogue that had been lent her, and
not returned. " I have expected it daily, but it has never come. If
you go, be sure and tell her to send it to me as soon as possible, and
see that whoever goes does not forget it" He is also charged with
several missions of charity. If Lapa returns to Siena, he is to see after
her ; and he is to be very kind to Catherine (of the Hospital), who
is poor, alone, and friendless. Then there are messages to Master
Matthew, who as usual has been ill, and wants them to do some
commissions for him in Rome ; and to Peter Ventura, who is to join
them as soon as he possibly, can. And there are generally a number
of sealed letters enclosed for him to distribute to their respective
owners. In one of his replies Stephen has to communicate the unpleasant
intelligence that a certain person named Megliorino, would not
evacuate Catherine's house, in which he seems to have taken up his
abode uninvited, in the absence of its rightful owners. However he
may have got in, neither Father Thomas nor Stephen Maconi could
succeed in getting him out. " I wrote to our Mother to say that he
was going out," says Stephen, "and, indeed, he had solemnly pro
mised me to do so, in presence of Ser Christofano, saying that as
she was not willing he should remain there, he would leave by next
St. Agnes' feast. I spoke to him again to-day, in presence of Sano di
Bartholomew, reminding him of his promise, and telling him that,
as a man of honour, he was bound to keep his word, &c. And
although it seemed to me that he had made up his mind not to go,
it ended by my getting Sano to speak to him, and I think he will
manage, so that I may be satisfied. I think Sano wished I had
spoken to him about it, and I know he wants him to go." There
are also two allusions to a singular, and one would say a rather
troublesome, commission which Stephen had to discharge for his
friends in Rome. They wanted him to procure and send them a
capretto raso. That a whole kid, alive or dead, shaven or unshaven,
should have been sent from Siena to Rome for the use of Catherine
and her disciples, is difficult of belief ; and the probable explanation
seems to be, that not the kid itself, but its skin,1 stripped of the hair
1 Chevreau in French stands not merely for a kid, but a kid-skin, and we take
it for granted that the same latitude of interpretation may be used in Italian. 2 K

514 The ' Capretto Raso.'
and otherwise prepared, was sent to the little party ; possibly to
supply them with shoe-leather. Why they could not procure this
necessary article in Rome is a mystery, of which we can suggest no
explanation ; but that there was a difficulty in the case appears from
another of the letters, in which Master Thomas Petra, the Pope's
secretary, asks Neri to get some shoes made for him in Naples.
Catherine and her family lived on alms, and as poor persons, they
probably proposed to get their kid-skin from home, and convert
it into shoes and sandals with their own fingers.1 The obliging
Stephen at once set to work. " As to the capretto raso you asked
me for, I inquired of Paul in order to know what, and how much to
get, and he says that one will be sufficient for your purpose ; so we
are sending it to you by that wood-master of ours, a Sienese, and a
friend of Paul's, who is son to Master Francesco del Tonghio." The
wood-master ; a curious expression, but one which is not without its
interesting explanation, too ; for Master Francesco del Tonghio, father
to the " wood-master," was none other than the artist who carved the
wooden stalls in the choir of the Duomo, and presided over the
tarsia, or inlaid woodwork, then being executed in that building.
One sees that Stephen had plenty to do in quality of general agent
for the rest of the " family," and all these affairs kept him busy, and
were the trifles out of which he contrived to find matter for scribbling
his lengthy and amusing letters. Not less amusing in its way is the
contrast between these letters written in charming familiar Tuscan,
and a Latin epistle, the only one preserved, from Brother Simon of
Cortona, the young Dominican, whom as a novice Catherine had
treated somewhat like a pet child. He was evidently studying hard.
to acquire that peculiar epistolary style which in those days was
en regie between religious men ; and an extreme example of which
has been presented in the correspondence between William Flete
and John of the Cells. There is a theory current among some
persons, that the clergy of the Middle Ages were ignorant of the
Scriptures : the biographer of Luther has (I believe) represented that
historical personage as startled and overwhelmed, when at an advanced
age there for the first time fell into his hands an unknown book
called the Bible. But when one reads the compositions — historical,
epistolary, or hortatory — in which the religious men of those ages
endeavoured to convey their sentiments on the most ordinary sub-
1 One of St. Catherine's sandals is preserved in the Convent of Santa Cater
ina in Rome, together with a crucifix that belonged to her.

The Interdict. 5 1 5
jects by means of a string of Scripture texts ingeniously adapted to
the occasion, one is tempted to wish, I will not say that they had
been less familiar with the letter of Scripture, but at least that they
had been guided by better taste in its adaptation. However, Brother
Simon, no doubt, had no choice in the matter ; and he addresses
Neri a solemn little letter, in which, when he wants to express that
he does not forget his good friends, he quotes the Gospel precept,
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy
neighbour as thyself; " and is unable to say that he longs to see them
all again without referring to that of the Psalmist, "As the hart
desireth the water-brooks, so does my soul," &c, adding, " But woe
is me, that my sojourning is prolonged," by which, he means to say
that he cannot get leave of absence to pay them a visit.
Some of the correspondence is more serious, bearing reference to
the troubles of the times, and specially of their own city. Owing
to circumstances that are nowhere explained, Siena had not yet been
relieved from the interdict which she had incurred through her alliance
with the Florentines; and considerable embarrassment was thus caused
to the consciences of the faithful. Giacomo Tolomei, Bishop of Narni,
having been sent to Siena for the purpose of arranging for the absolu
tion of the city and the final restoration of Talamon, some persons
endeavoured to evade the difficulties of their position by enrolling
themselves as members of his household, and so sharing the privilege
he and his servants of course enjoyed of being able to assist at the
Holy Sacrifice. Stephen, among others, had been persuaded to do
this ; but he did not venture to hear Mass until he had written to
consult the Saint. She did not like the proposition at all: there
was a want of straightforward adhesjon to the plain line of duty in
it, which was repugnant to her sense of truth ; and she writes at
once in reply : " About the Mass, you did quite right not to go. As to
your having made yourselves the ' familiars ' of Monsignore Giacomo,
if I had known of it, you would not have done so ; you should have
been humble and obedient, and patiently waited the moment of peace.
However, if you think now you may go with a safe conscience, do so,
but not otherwise. I do not know if his rank gives him such exten
sive privileges, or if by his ' familiars,' we are justified in including
any besides those actually in his service. Can we take the title of
' familiars,' if we are not, and have no intention of becoming so ?
Does his rank allow of it, and who has assured you that it does ? "
(Letter 256.)

5 1 6 Her Disciples ask for a Rule.
Meanwhile Catherine was not backward in procuring indulgences
and privileges from Urban for her friends in Siena, and exerting her
self to hasten the conclusion of this painful business. But this was
not all She was naturally full of solicitude as to what part Siena
might take in the question of the Schism. What she could not do
in person to confirm their fidelity she tried to effect by her letters,
and through the influence of her disciples, whom she charged to
keep her accurately informed of the state of public opinion. On
the 14th January, 1379, a letter from Christofano to Neri di Lan
doccio gave assurance that so far as he could ascertain, there was
not a man in Siena who entertained the least doubt that Urban was
the rightful Pope. " If the ambassadors of the Antipope come
here," he says, " they will not be listened to ; we must pray much
for the Spouse of Christ whom they seek to deprive of her Bride
groom, and in which so much cockle is being sown. But she is
founded on a rock which cannot fail, even the Rock that said to
Peter, Rogabo pro te ut non deficiat fides tua, igitur confundantur qui
earn persequantur.1 The more she is abased the more she is exalted,
Quia dictum fuit sibi : Tu *s Petrus, et super hanc petram edificabo
ecclesiam meant." He has a few words on his own affairs ; he has been
appointed Notary to the Institution for Orphans, and though sorry on
some accounts, is glad to stay at Siena. He wants to come to Rome
before Easter, if his colleague will let him. Then after the usual
salutations which, according to the custom of the time, were some
what lengthy, he says, " All our brethren salute you. Tell Mamma
that we are rather falling to pieces ; 2 I wish she would give us some
sort of a rule, which for her sake we would obey, and meet together
at certain times in her name ; and beg her to write to her wandering
sheep, though we are all well assured she does not forget us in her
prayers." This request for " some sort of a rule," Catherine did not refuse,
and we are disposed to think that one of her letters addressed " to
Sano di Maco and other seculars, her sons in Christ," was written by
way of reply. After some long and very beautiful spiritual instruc
tions on the light of faith, without which they cannot accomplish the
will of God, she says, " I desire to see you all serving Him without
measure, not in your own way, but His ; not choosing times and
1 It will be seen that Christofano's quotation from Scripture was not entirely
accurate. 2 Di a la Mamma che noi siamo molto sciolti.

Catherine 's Reply. c 1 7
places, or seeking consolation, or refusing trials, but embracing
sufferings for the honour of God. Follow Christ crucified, macerat
ing your bodies by watching, fasting, and prayer. Resign your wills
to the sweet will of God, and let your Society be a society of His
servants. When you assemble together,1 don't lose your time in idle
words, criticising the conduct of others, or tearing your neighbour's
reputation to pieces with murmurs and rash judgments ; for God alone
is the Sovereign Judge of all. But show that you have assembled
in the name of Christ, to confer together on His goodness, on the
virtues of the Saints, and your own faults. Be strong, constant, and
persevering; it is perseverance alone that will obtain the crown.
The memory of the Precious Blood will entirely detach you from all
things contrary to the will of God ; be faithful to Him and to my
miserable self. If I do not write to you, I nevertheless always love
you, and occupy myself about your salvation in the presence of God.
Have courage then, and love one another. I desire more than ever
to see all your names written in the Book of Life." (Letter 247.)
In another letter she particularly warns them on the subject of
uncharitable conversation. "On this head," she says, "I do not
think you are, as yet, all perfect. Often under colour of zeal or com
passion you murmur and judge others. Now this must be displeas
ing to God, and it is not the teaching you have received ; you should
mutually love one another and bear each other's faults. No one is
faultless ; that belongs to God only. If you were His faithful
servants, we should see no murmurs, or ridicule, or scandal, or dis
obedience among you, whether in joke or earnest. I have often
noticed this imperfection in you." (Letter 248.) The day after
Christofano's letter was received, came one from Stephen, somewhat
different in style. He also writes to Neri ; and indeed it is remark
able that among all the letters preserved, none, or nearly none, are
addressed directly to Catherine.
" Dearest Brother in Jesus Christ, — I have been wonderfully
pleased with the contents of the two letters you have written to me
since you left Siena, and they comforted me so much that I was
1 "From these words," says Burlamacchi, ''we see that the disciples of the.
Saint were formed into a sort of Spiritual Society, as is still the custom in many
cities of Tuscany, assembling to confer on spiritual things, spending part of festival
days in pious conversation, spiritual reading, or the singing of God's praises ; and
as most of these disciples belonged to the Company of Mary (under the Hospital',
she is probably referring to their meetings held in that holy place."

5 1 8 Letter from Stephen to Neri.
not content with reading them once, or even twice. As to what
you say of our sweet and venerable Mother, it is no sort of surprise
to me ; I have no doubt about it, knowing many facts, beyond com
parison greater, which I cannot write. Indeed I believe and confess
that our sweetest Mamma is Mamma ; and every day I hope to
believe and confess it more earnestly. '
" The other great and good news 1 which you send, touching the
exaltation of holy Church and of the true successor of St. Peter,
Pope Urban VI., has been a sort of mitigating unguent to the pain
I have felt, and am still feeling ; and though it is much alleviated,
yet I don't think I shall be quite cured till I find myself once more
at the feet of my dearest Mother. I hope, in God's goodness, soon
to be free. I have done what you desired, narrating and spreading
about the news as much as possible, so that good folk who believe
Pope Urban to be the true Pope may rejoice, and that the wicked
who believe the contrary may be put to confusion. Every one who
has heard it up till now has shown the greatest joy. On this point
at least you may give a good report to the Holy Father ; for I
assure you that everybody, universally and with one voice, declare
he is true Pope, and that they will hold to his obedience ; nor have
I heard of any one who holds the contrary view. And in proof of
this I will tell you further that, a few days since, it was said that an
ambassador of the Antidemon,2 who was at Fondi, was coming here :
for which cause, suspecting he would get no hearing here, many
who were zealous for God's honour (from which number I do not
wish to exclude myself, however tepidly I may seek it) buzzed the
matter about in the Palazzo, and in the ears of the people outside,
who might be able to devise some remedy ; showing them that this
demon was coming here to sow heresy among us, and to contaminate
our faith, and suggesting that it would be a good work done to
burn him, &c. Moreover, Peter (Ventura) and I went at once to
Messer di Narni, offering ourselves as his lordship's humble servants
to be the first to lay hands on him. And I promise you we found
the people so well disposed, it would have been a real pleasure to
1 i.e. The fidelity to Urban, of England, Hungary, and the Empire, which
Catherine had already communicated to Stephen and William Flete.
2 Stephen very often calls the Antipope the Antidemon, a palpable blunder ;
for if one who opposes the Pope is an Antipope, and one who opposes Christ is
an Antichrist, an Antidemon can mean no other than one opposed to the demon ;
i.e., a true servant of Christ. He probably meant either an Antichrist, or an
Archdemon ; but his pen, like his tongue, often outran his thoughts.

Letter from Stephen to Neri. 519
you to have seen them ; specially those at the Palazzo, who im
mediately gave orders that hie was not to be suffered to enter the
gates. The children declared they would stone him, and I verily
believe that had he come, one way or another he would not have
escaped with his life. I write this to show the good dispositions of
our poor little city, and to comfort you for the pain you felt some
time back when it was opposed to the obedience of the Church.
" I will say no more except to ask you, my sweet brother, not to
forget me, but to pray for me who certainly need your prayers, that
God in His goodness may deliver me from the miserable bondage
of the world, and show me in what way I may best serve Him. And
there are two signs by which you can show that you do not forget
me; one is, that you very often recommend me to our dear and
venerable Mother ; and be so good as to do that at once, before this
letter goes out of your hands, so that you may not forget it. The
other is, that you write to me very, very often, a thing I entreat as
earnestly as I can, specially about what you promised, and also when
you have any good news to tell me about the Church. I am sure
you would do so if you knew what a great charity it is.
"Remember me to all our poor family, each one in order, bearing
in mind that the head and every member is fixed in the very centre
of my heart. Tell Gabriel (Piccolomini), who shows very little
charity to his brethren, that I will do as he asks, and that I have
not been once to sit by his fireside this year, except when I read
them his letter, which was listened to very gladly. God keep us
all in His love, and grant that we may soon meet again. Your
useless and unworthy brother Stephen, poor in all virtue. Jan. 15,
!378 (79)-"
The " Peter " mentioned in this letter, who seems at this time to
have been Stephen's constant companion, was Peter Ventura, the
same whose eye had been cured by Catherine at Belcaro, and who,
when he and his horse had ridden by mistake into the lake, got
out again after invoking her. His character was very sympathetic
with Stephen's, and he often came in for a share in the scoldings
which Catherine bestowed on his friend. She not unfrequently
wrote one letter addressed to both, and seems to have thought her
exhortations against carelessness and tepidity as applicable to one as
to the other.
Stephen's friends in Rome took rather a serious view of the letter
we have just quoted, and not only thought it a little giddy, but con-

520 Appeal to Siena for Help.
sidered that in his tales about the desire of the Sienese to stone or
burn the envoy of the Antipope, he was, to use a common phrase,
" drawing the long bow." Neri wrote and told him so plainly, and
we shall see presently in what way he justified himself. Meanwhile
a difficult negotiation was placed in Catherine's hands. Pope Urban
was in want of substantial aid to defend himself against the forces of
the Antipope, which were beginning to establish themselves at Marino.
He therefore engaged Catherine to appeal, in his name, to her coun
trymen, and she obeyed. But though the Magistrates showed every
wish to hold firmly to their allegiance, yet when there was question
of proving their loyalty by contributing supplies of men and money,
difficulties not unnaturally arose. Catherine, therefore, in obedience
to the Pope's wishes, addressed a letter to the Defenders of the
Republic (Letter 203), in which she urged, among other arguments,
the motive of gratitude to Pope Urban who had absolved their city, ,
and prevented Talamon from remaining in the hands of the Pisans ;
yet now, she complains, when it had come to giving proof of their
gratitude, they treated him like a child, putting him off with fair
words, and giving him no substantial aid. The Sienese, who had
already paid down 8000 gold florins for the restoration of Talamon,
perhaps felt the further demand on their exchequer somewhat a hard
ship ; and as they were slow in their response, the Saint thought it
well to appeal to the devotion of that association, whose influence in
Siena was powerful with persons of all ranks, and whose words and
example were sure to carry respect. This was the Company of the
Blessed Virgin, which has already been spoken of as holding its
assemblies in the subterranean vaults of the hospital of La Scala,
and most, if not all, of whose members were her fervent disciples. So
she writes to them that it is time to see if they are indeed branches
of the true Vine. If so, in this time of calamity they will come to
the aid of the Master of the Vineyard both spiritually and tem
porally ; spiritually by their prayers, temporally by doing what they
can to induce the Magistrates of the republic to send him supplies.
" We certainly ought to do this," she continues ; " have we so little
love for the Faith as not to be ready to make some sacrifice for it ?
Can we forget the great benefits we have received from God and his
Holiness? I beg of you, therefore, put your hand to the work and
that without delay." (Letter 144.) Then she writes to Stephen
Maconi to tell him what she has done, and charges him to support
her appeal by all means in his power. " I send you a letter I have

Catherine writes to the Defenders. 5 2 1
written to the Lords Defenders, and another to the Company of
Mary. Read them, and profit by them ; then have them delivered,
and speak to each one as occasion serves, according to the tenor of
these letters, enjoining everybody, in* God's name and mine also, to
labour with all their power in concert with the Magistrates,, to do
what can be done for the help of the Church and of the Holy Father.
For my part, I only regret that so much trouble is necessary when
there is question of God's honour and the spiritual and temporal in
terests of our city. Try not to be tepid, but stir up the brethren and
chiefs of the Company that they may do their utmost. If you and
your brethren were what you ought to be, you would kindle all Italy ;
the thing is not so difficult." (Letter 261.)
To this appeal Stephen replied, and his letter, addressed to Neri,
shows that he somewhat shared the sentiments of the Magistrates ;
at any rate, he frankly exposed their difficulties. At the same time,
he took occasion to defend himself from the charge of levity and
exaggeration which his grave friend had brought against him on
occasion of his January letter.
"Dearest Brother in Jesus Christ, — On the 21st of June
I received your letter written on Ascension Day (May 19th), in
which you give me good news1 as to the affairs of the successor
of St. Peter, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and the confusion of
that Antidemon, all which gave me great and singular joy.
Although I had already some weeks back heard something of
what you wrote, yet not so particularly; so it caused me a new
pleasure. . . . You say, that to please no one, ought I to tell lies,
and I suppose you think what I wrote in my last letter was all
lies. But to this I reply that I wrote nothing but the truth as to
what had happened ; as to what was going to happen in the future,
granting it was not all true, yet I don't consider I told any lie,
for I did not say anything contrary to what was in my mind,2 and
I said it at no human being's suggestion. Possibly the great wish
I had that it might be as I said, made me believe more than was
true. But I seemed to see the villain coming and sowing his
1 This fresh "good news," written on May 19th, was no doubt an account
of the victory gained over the forces of the Antipope on the 29th of April.
2 After the lapse of six months, such a madcap as Stephen may be pardoned
if he had no very clear remembrance of what he had written expressive of the
delight he would have felt in burning the envoy of Clement, which seems to have
been the point disapproved of by Neri.

522 Stephen's Explanation.
cockle among the good seed in the field of the Lord. And I
say again, that as far as I know or have heard, there are certainly
not more than nine or ten at the most who do not hold with
Pope Urban, and few as they are, they are all regarded as thieves.
In spiritual matters particularly all will obey the Pope as their
true Pastor, but as to temporals they allege their poverty and the
misery in which we are. Just think, every month the soldiers
here require six thousand gold florins ; and only the day before
yesterday, the Company 1 demanded fifteen thousand ; and even so,
we could not prevent their scouring the Maremma and surrounding
country. I don't say this by way of excuse. I have spoken to
them on the subject many times ; and both in the Signoria and
elsewhere, I do not yield them an inch, and pretend not to believe
them, saying that for God's honour and for the maintenance of the
faith we ought willingly to pay something ; and if we are too poor,
we should pledge the goods of the Commune ; and that if we
cannot send many men, we should at least send a few,2 and that
the Holy Father will accept the little that is possible for us. For,
believe me, dear brother, it grieves me to my heart that the
Holy Father should not have what he desires from this city, and
I have said so much about it, that I have often been told I say more
than becomes me. But for that I care but little." Then follows
the passage already quoted in which he asks for a copy of the letter
written to the king of England, and complains that F. Thomas, who
had gone to Rome, had given him no news of anybody, except
what he knew before. He continues, " If I had time, I would give
you a good laugh ; not the others only, but even Master Matthew
was ready to split with laughter." Then come messages to " Our
sweetest Mother, whom he would die for rather than displease," to
Monna Lisa, and Alexia, and Cecca, and the other Sisters, and
to Master John III., and Fra Santi, and F. Bartholomew, " and
a great deal very specially to Master Thomas Petra, and to all the
family, whom though I am not worthy to be with them in the body,
yet in heart I am ever with them. I was just finishing this letter
in our room at the Misericordia, when who should come in but
1 We learn from the Chronicle of Neri di Donato, that to protect themselves
from the ravages of the Free Lances, the cities of Lucca, Siena, Pisa, Perugia, and
Florence came to an agreement with them, paying them a regular sum in money.
2 Eventually a body of troops was sent by Siena to the aid of Urban, under the
command of Sozzo Bandinelli.

Letter from F. Bartholomew Domimc. 523
Master Matthew himself, and finding I was writing to you, he
desires me to send this message to our Mother, — that he has
written so many letters he does not think he can write any more,
but he begs her, and you, and everybody to remember him in
such a way as that some effects may follow. We are certainly
much indebted to him, and I include myself, for he has made
me, I may say, one of his family, and has given me a room here,
which I use day and night. Farewell. If you cannot write your
self, get Barduccio or Cecca to do so ; I am sure they will do it
willingly." Meanwhile Neri had been sent to Naples, and F. Bartholomew
Dominic came to Rome. We have one of his letters to Neri, which
is interesting as setting before us in a common-place, matter-of-fact
way some of the circumstances of St. Catherine's daily life in Rome :
her interviews with Urban, the weighty business in which she was
as constantly engaged as if she had been a Secretary of State, the pro
jected expedition to Naples talked over and finally given up, and how
she and her family were supported on alms. " We have received
two of your letters," writes Bartholomew, " one written to our Mother,
the other to me. You tell me I am to get those two letters sealed ;
I will do so as soon as I can ; but when I spoke of it to Master
Thomas (Petra) a few days after you left, he said that his Holiness
would not seal any of them unless he first had assurance of the good
life of the persons concerned. He was then ill, but is better again
now, though somewhat weak. To-day, Master John wishing to get
his and Peter's sealed, Master Thomas spoke to his Holiness, our
Mother and Master John being present : and his Holiness replied
that they must draw up the petition afresh, and then he would sign
it So Master John does not know what to do, and Master Thomas
is so weary of it all that he will have nothing more to do with it.
None the less I will do what I can. Master Thomas says you may
have the shoes made by whoever you please, and sent to him. To
day we received six gold florins from the Countess Joanna (d' Aquino)
and from Madonna Catilla and her companions at Naples. It is all
we have had. Our Mother has several times thought she was
coming ; but it does not seem to be the will of God, and the Pope
does not consent, though at first he said that he wished it. I fancy
now we must think no more about it.
"At Rome, Sept. 1st, (1379). Thy brother, Bartholomew Do
minic."

524 Stephen is weary of the World.
Are we not right in calling these " family letters " ? They bring
before us Catherine and her companions in the aspect of ordinary
mortals, not however to the exclusion of the fact that the extra
ordinary mingled with the ordinary, as Stephen's casual remark1 lets
us see. The messages about horses, kid-skins, shoes, and refractory
tenants, Stephen's careless rattle, and Neri's grave rebuke; good
Master Matthew looking into the room at the Misericordia, and com
pelled to split with laughter at some joke related by his irresistible
guest; the letter from Rome read at Gabriel's fireside, and Christofano's
solemn confession that in the absence of their spiritual Mother her
disciples were getting rather careless and relaxed, — does it not bring
before us each individual of this beloved "family," and make them
live again, as we hear them tell their own story in their own natural
unaffected words ? Concerning one of the party, however, we have a
good deal more to say. In spite of his light-hearted exterior, and a
certain carelessness which seems to have been the fault which
Catherine was always trying to correct in her " tepid " and " negli
gent " son, Stephen Maconi was not entirely happy. As in most men
of his temperament the outward seeming was not altogether a trust
worthy index of the inward self. Even in the correspondence which
has been quoted, the reader may have observed the passing hint he
drops to Neri, that he is tired of the world, and longs to know what
God demanded of him. Catherine had long ago penetrated to
the most secret recesses of his heart, and understood him far better
than he understood himself. In the very earliest letter from her to
Stephen which has been preserved, she says, " Follow the guidance
of the Holy Spirit. I feel a difficulty in not saying to you one word
of Christ; but I hope to be able to say it some day in the right time
and place ; and then you will hasten to fill the vessel of your heart
with the Precious Blood." This "word of Christ" was doubtless
His word to the young man in the Gospel, " Go, sell all that thou
hast, and follow Me" Catherine saw where God was leading this
soul; but in her prudence she kept back the word till the right
moment should come : when that was will appear in the sequel. In
the meantime she watched him with a mother's tenderness, and
sought to train him for something better than any career the world
could offer. Sometimes she writes to him about the city of his soul,
and reminds him that one day the Master will call on him to
surrender it to Him, adorned with true and solid virtues. Once he
1 Seep. 518.

Catherine' s Advice to him. 525
fell into the hands of some roving Free Lances and escaped almost
miraculously,1 and Catherine takes occasion to examine whether in
his moment of danger he had not experienced a strange interior
peace. " This was but the Aurora," she adds ; " the full light of the
sun has not yet risen upon you, when you will be free from all your
enemies. Nevertheless, take courage from this hour of dawn, for the
sun will soon arise, and then you will hear the sweet word, ' Let the
dead bury their dead.' But on that subject I will say no more at
present." Another time she speaks more urgently. " You must
cut your bonds and not fasten them ; he who does not know how to
cut a knot will always remain bound ; if he cannot fly, he will always
be a prisoner. O negligent son, respond to God's call : it is a shame
to see you always keeping God waiting at the door of your heart, and
never opening it to Him. I say again, you must cut the ties that
keep you outside of the will of God, and stop you in the path of
perfection. Fly the world, then, go forth from your father's house,
retire into the open Side of Jesus crucified. If you will act decidedly,
suffering will be your glory ; but otherwise you will always be ill at
ease, and afraid of your own shadow." These and other similar
words show us that Catherine perfectly understood what was working
in the heart of her favourite disciple. He was torn to pieces by two
contrary emotions : a secret disgust of a worldly life, and a longing
after perfection, on the one hand ; and on the other, that horror
which flesh and blood must inevitably feel at the thought of renuncia
tion. Who, by nature, could have seemed more suited to the world,
and more likely to become its spoilt child than the brilliant and
volatile Stephen who was everybody's favourite, whom, separated
from us by five centuries, we cannot help loving as if we had known
him face to face ; and to whose feet the world was ready to flow at
his first word of invitation ? The interior conflict was severe ; and
in that unsettled mood which betrays itself in variations of temper
and changes of purpose, Stephen was just then an enigma to his best
friends. Even at a distance from him Catherine discerned what was
going on : and now, far from forbidding him to leave Siena, she
1 This at least is supposed by Burlamacchi to be the explanation of the mishap
to which Catherine alludes in Letter 256 ; but it could not be the same occurrence
related by his biographer, in which he was released by invoking Catherine ; as
that is represented as happening after her death. M. Cartier's supposition that
his imprisonment was at Florence is disproved by the fact that the allusion to it
occurs in the very letter in which Catherine announces her safe arrival at Rome.

526 A Misunderstanding.
urged him to come to her, and to " come quickly." " I received a
letter from you yesterday," she writes, " which I will answer in a few
words. As to the indulgences I promised to get for you, do not
expect them, or anything else from me until you come yourself. I
do not say that I will refuse to help you in -your spiritual needs : God
knows I never desired to do so more ardently than now ; never have
I more earnestly offered you to God, for I never knew you need it
more. You say that your present state displeases you : when it
really displeases you, you will quit it. Then you will show that you
know your state, which up to the present time you have been igno
rant of. I trust in God that as the veil is beginning to fall from
your eyes it will soon be taken away altogether ; then you will see
your real state, and it will be soon, too, provided you do not resist,
and that my sins do not prove an obstacle." She seems to have been
still engaged on this letter (in the middle of which occur some
broken and imperfect phrases which indicate an interruption) when
another was placed in her hands from the Abbot of Monte Oliveto,
near Siena, telling her that Stephen and several of his companions
were about to join his Community. And this without a word to her,
her counsel not asked, their confidence not given ! The report
seemed confirmed by all that had appeared so unaccountable in
Stephen's late conduct. And yet, after all, it was merely a report
founded on words which Stephen had almost unconsciously dropped
in conversation, and which had led the Abbot to draw a somewhat
hasty conclusion. Startled with the unexpected intelligence, however,
Catherine finished her letter to Stephen, and wrote as follows : " I
have just received a letter from the Abbot, who talks to me of the
plants he has planted in his garden and mine. He says that he hopes
to plant some others, among whom he reckons on you, — you and your
companions, and says that you have already engaged yourselves !
Of course it is a great happiness to me to see you coming out of your
state of imperfection and embracing a perfect state ; but I confess I
am greatly surprised that you should have engaged yourself without
letting us know a word about it here. There is something in all
this I do not understand : but I pray the Divine Goodness to do
whatever may be best for His honour and your salvation.
" You know I have never wished or desired anything else since I
first knew you, than that you should be delivered from the corrup
tions of the world. - I have the same wish still, and I hope, please
God, to keep it to the end. If you, think the Holy Spirit calls you

A Misunderstanding. 527
to this state, you have done well not to resist, and I shall be content.
When He calls, we must answer. I should have many things to say,
but I cannot and will not say them now." (Letter 263.)
And after all the Abbot had made a mistake, and interpreted
Stephen's intentions by his own hopes. And he had been a little
imprudent and a little premature in communicating his hopes to
Catherine, for in reality they had no foundation in fact. So it was
all a misunderstanding from beginning to end, such as often takes
place in this world of mistakes and imperfections. Yet it inflicted a
wound on Catherine's heart, which she had enough of human sensi
bility to feel acutely ; and at that moment with how many wounds was
her sensitive nature being pierced ! Raymund was at Genoa, Neri
at Naples, Stephen at Siena : and now it almost seemed as if he, the
child of her predilection, were withdrawing his confidence from her,
and deciding his vocation without so much as a reference to the
mother who loved him so tenderly. She did not complain ; she
rejoiced that he should be set free from the shackles of the world ;
but the thorn pricked sharp. Nor in saying this are we (as we may
hope) representing our holy Mother in too natural a light. They
surely do real injustice to the Saints who represent them as strangers
to human emotions, whereas we judge that the Saint of saints Him
self suffered beyond our utmost capacity of comprehension, precisely
because, above all men, He possessed most of that keen sensibility
which gives the power of suffering.1 Catherine then suffered in her
woman's heart, and in the decrees of Divine Providence she was
intended thus to suffer. In these last months of her mortal life she
was to undergo her Passion, and to endure, not merely the extremity
of bodily pain and the assault of evil spirits, but, after the pattern of
her Divine Spouse, the loss of all human consolation. No letters
are preserved which show in what way Stephen explained this mis
understanding, nor are we able to conjecture why he did not go at
once to Rome whither the Saint had so earnestly summoned him.
His biographer gives us to understand that he was really detained
by important affairs, and that " he was ready to move heaven and
earth" to get them finished, that so he might hasten to his beloved
Mother, the accounts of whose state of health were beginning to
alarm him. But for the present we must leave Stephen and his bud-
1 "Will you also go away?" "O faithless generation I how long shall I
suffer you ? " "He was grieved because of the hardness of their hearts.'' " Could
ye not watch with Me one hour?" " Then they all forsook Him, and fled."

528 Catherine' s Friends.
ding vocation, and see a little what sort of intercourse had been kept
lip during the same period between Catherine at Rome and Ray
mund of Capua at Genoa.
It is not every heart that is able to share its love with many friends,
and yet to love them all with any degree of intensity. The common
verdict of mankind is in favour of the theory that affection, to be
worth anything, must be limited to few, if not to one ; and that what
it gains by diffusion, it loses in force. Those, however, who hold
that the perfection of love on earth must be found in its resemblance
to the charity which reigns in heaven, will not readily yield the point
that in the heart of man, as in the house of God, there are " many
mansions ; " and that if once such a heart be purified from selfish
ness, there is absolutely no limit to its power of loving. Such a
heart was St. Catherine's ; and she whom we have seen writing so
eloquently on the variety which makes up the beauty of God's works,
presented an example of that same beauty in the variety of her
human affections. Thomas, Bartholomew, Raymund, and Stephen ;
Lisa, Alexia, and Cecca, — she loved them all, and each with their
own individual love. Her letters show that they each had their own
separate place in her heart, and she did not write to one as to another.
To Raymund she reserved the most intimate outpourings of her
confidence; he was the depositary of her secret intercourse with
God. Their mutual friendship had only strengthened with time,
though the wonderful simplicity of Catherine's character led her
sometimes to speak to him with a frankness quite free from human
respect We have seen one specimen of this in her letter to him
after his return to Genoa ; he himself has given us other instances
not a little amusing. " At the time that I knew her," he says, " I am
certain that if she had had an opportunity of speaking on Divine
things with persons who understood her, she would have gone on for
a hundred days and nights without eating or drinking, and never '
have been tired, but rather refreshed thereby. I may say this, albeit
to my own confusion, that frequently when she spoke to me of God,
and His profound mysteries, for a long time together, I, who was far
from that fervour of spirit which she possessed, would grow tired if
the discourse were much prolonged ; and overcome with the heavi
ness of the flesh, I sometimes fell asleep. At such times she, quite
absorbed in God, would go on talking for some time without per
ceiving it, but when at length she discovered that I was sleeping, she
would awake me by exclaiming in a loud voice : ' Alas, Father ! why

Catherine's simplicity. 529
for the sake of a little sleep do you lose the profit of your soul ?
Am I speaking to a wall, or to you ? ' She often told us the
thoughts of our hearts as clearly as we knew them ourselves, and
frequently reproved me for some that had passed through my mind.
And if I sought to excuse myself with a falsehood, ' O Father ! '
she would say, ' how can you say so ? Will you deny that which I
see more clearly than you see it yourself?' And then she would
both tell me precisely what I had been thinking, and, moreover, give
me a salutary lesson on the same." But this simplicity of their
mutual relations diminished neither his regard nor her respect. He
was at once her father and her son ; her "dear Father, and negli
gent son," as she sometimes called him (Letter 92) ; and the absolute
obedience which she rendered him in the one capacity did not pre
vent her labouring for his perfection in the other. In fact, her
obedience to him as her spiritual director was absolute, and he some
times thought good to put it to the test. One day after they had
been conversing together for some time, Catherine rose to go on some
charitable errand. He abruptly told her to sit down and remain
where she was. She obeyed without the smallest gesture of surprise
or hesitation, and was rewarded, says Caffarini, by a flood of ineffable
consolation which made her eyes become, as it were, two fountains
of sweet tears.1 But she was his mother also, and was always trying
to increase his fervour and his spirit of self-sacrifice. His chief fault
seems to have been a certain repugnance to suffer, and the sum of
all her exhortations tended to lead him to greater generosity. " I
want to see you possessed with perfect zeal," she writes; "zeal makes
us ready to sacrifice our own ease and comfort ; no matter whence
derived, we should renounce them for the sake of our neighbour.
A servant of God once said to Him : ' Lord, what wouldst Thou have
me to do ? ' and He replied, ' Honour Me, and serve thy neighbour :
offer worship to Me, and sufferings for thy neighbour.' Let us
then learn to suffer, my dear Father. God has called and chosen you :
you thought it was moonlight when you were suffering, but believe
me, in suffering you will find your true sunshine. Charity will only
triumph in heaven : when she enters there she will bear the fruit of
patience, for patience is the very pith and marrow of charity. . . Oh,
I conjure you, for the love of Jesus, be detached from all creatures,
and from me, the most of all. Clothe yourself with the love of God,
and love creatures only for God's sake. Love them much, but have
1 Sup., Part 1, Trat. 2, § 21. 2 L

530 Raymund's Character.
little to do with them, unless it be to labour for their souls. I desire
to do this, if God gives me the grace. I would fain strip off the
garments I have worn till now, and clothe myself anew in the Blood.
That Blood is, and shall be, the happiness of my soul ; I deceived
myself when I sought it in creatures. In all my labours I desire to
have that Blood with me ; in it to find all creatures, in it to quench
my thirst for their love, and so to find peace in war, and sweetness in
bitterness. And were I deprived of all creatures, and even of my
father's tenderness, I should still find the Creator, the Eternal and
Sovereign Father." (Letter 93.) When she received the news of his
Second appointment as Prior of the Minerva, she wrote exhorting him
to govern his flock like a good Pastor, and not to be afraid of
fatigues. "Accept them with joy, rather, and go to meet them,
saying, ' Welcome ! ' Say moreover, ' What a grace this is which
God gives me, by letting me suffer something for the glory of His
name ! ' "
Making due allowances for the immense fervour of Catherine's
own soul, compared to which the infirmities of one cast in less
heroic mould would naturally appear like pusillanimity, we may
gather that in Raymund's character there was a certain deficiency
of fire. It* betrays itself in the Legend, which bears the stamp of
being written by one, admirable rather for his humility and his
scrupulous regard for truth, than for strength or ardour. When,
therefore, circumstances placed him in the front of the battle, he
did his duty on a motive of principle, but there can be no shadow
of doubt that according to nature he would have greatly preferred
his quiet cell at the Minerva, or even at Montepulciano, to the
dignity of Papal Envoy to the King of France. Catherine, who
knew him thoroughly, and his disposition to despond, kept ever
sounding in his ears her trumpet-notes of encouragement. " I must
not have you turn your head aside from any trouble or persecution ;
I want to see you glory in adversity, for it is only in trial we can
show our constancy : we have no other means of giving glory to
God. Dear Father, it is now the time for us utterly to forget our
selves ; do not let me see you timid. Think of the necessities of
the Church — alone, and, as it were, abandoned ; and fight generously
until death."
When the news came of his return to Genoa, it moved her, as we
have seen, to expressions which naturally disconcerted him to whom
they were addressed. In his deep humility he was the first to admit

Her Letter on his Return to Genoa. 531
that he could not rise to her level of enthusiasm ; and he wrote a
reply in which he seemed to doubt his fitness for the burden laid on
him, and in his dejection expressed a fear lesfhe had lost something
of Catherine's esteem.
But between two hearts united in God by a friendship such as
that which existed between Raymund and Catherine no real mis
understanding could arise ; and the humility and tenderness of her
reply quickly healed the wound which had been caused by her
former words. Her reproaches now are not for him, but for herself.
" Without the light of Faith," she says, " no work or desire of ours
will attain the end we wish, but everything we do remains imperfect.
And the reason is, as it seems to me, that love is the measure of faith,
and faith of love. He who really loves is always faithful to that
which he loves, even until death. This makes me see that I do not
truly love God, and creatures for God. If I did, I should be faithful
to Him, and ready to die a thousand deaths every day for His sake.
I should have confidence that God would be my defence as He was
that of the glorious martyrs. But because I do not love Him, I do
not really trust Him ; my love is tepid, and this is what hinders all the
works He entrusts to me, and prevents their success. Alas ! dear
Lord, shall I be ever thus miserable at all times and in. all places?
Shall I always thus hinder the designs of Thy Providence by my
infidelity ? Yes, most certainly I shall ; unless, by Thy mercy, Thou
destroy me, and make me anew. Well then, destroy .me; break the
hardness of my heart, that I may no longer be an obstacle to Thy
work. And you, dear Father, pray, I conjure you, that both you
and I may become strong in the Blood of the Lamb, and may effect
something through His grace, instead of spoiling and ruining all.
It is with the same faith that we love the creature ; for as charity
to our neighbour proceeds from the love of God, so there is a faith
which proceeds from the love we bear to creatures. There is a
general faith, and there is one more special between those who love
each other more intimately, just as besides our general love for all,
there is a special love which we bear to some. And this love proves
our faith, so that it is impossible for one to believe or understand
that the other does not seek his good. He who really loves, has
this faith, and nothing will change or diminish it, neither the words
of men, the deceits of the devil, or change of place ; otherwise he
shows his love to be imperfect.
" It seems to me, from your letter, that you have suffered many

532 Letter to Raymund.
interior conflicts from your sensitive nature ; you thought that your
burden was beyond your strength, and that I judged you according
to my own measure. You thought, too, that my affection for you
was diminished, but you were deceived ; you did but prove that
your charity was diminished, and mine increased : for indeed I love
you as I love myself, and I trust that God's goodness will supply
what is wanting on your part. But it was not so, for you seemed
ready to cast your burden to the ground, and were inclined to fall
into weakness and distrust. I saw it clearly enough ; and I trust
I may have been the only one who perceived it. So you see my
love for you augmented instead of diminished. How could you
suppose that I desired anything but the life of your soul ? Where
is the faith which you used to have, and ought always to have ? And
where that confidence which you did possess, that all events, both
great and small, are in the hands of God? ... If you had been
faithful, you would not have been so vacillating and timorous; if
you could not have pursued your journey walking, you would have
crawled on hands and feet ; if you could not travel as a friar, you
would have done so as a pilgrim ; if you had no money, you would
have begged your way.
" But I know that it is my sins that caused it all. And I know.
that if there was a moment's weakness, yet you always have a good
and holy desire to accomplish the will of God and of His Vicar.'
I did not wish that you should have been taken, but only that you
should have gone on by the route that was pointed out. I, too,
have been occupied day and night with affairs that have had no
success, owing to the want of zeal of those to whom they were
entrusted, but chiefly owing to my sins which prevent everything
good. In the kingdom of Naples this last disaster has been worse
than the first. I shall have much to say to you about all this, unless
before your return God, in His mercy, should call me out of this
world. I certainly do wish you had continued your journey, but I
do not trouble about it ; for I know all these things happen by the
secret purpose of God. My conscience is at peace, for I have done
what in me lay to communicate with the King of France. As to
the embassy to the King of Hungary, the Holy Father greatly liked
the idea, and had decided to send you and your companions. I do
not know what changed him, but now he wishes you to remain
where you are and do what good you can there. So have no anxiety
about it.

Letter to Raymund. 533
"Abandon yourself therefore, and renounce your own sense and all
desire of consolation. In Jesus crucified all things are possible to
us, and God never lays a burden on us beyond our strength. We
ought to rejoice when we receive a heavy burden, for it is then that God
bestows on us the gift of fortitude. It is by the love of suffering that
we get to lose the feeling of suffering. Let us then give ourselves up
to the false tongues and evil treatment of the wicked, as those did who,
dead to themselves, laboured in this sweet Garden (Rome) on which
they poured forth their blood, after first watering it with their sweat
and their tears. How unhappy we are ; for we have not shed our
tears, or been counted worthy to pour forth our blood !
" You ask me to pray that God will give you the courage of St.
Vincent and St. Lawrence, of St. Paul and the beloved Apostle, and
then you say you will do great things : truly without such courage you
will do nothing, little or great, and then you will not be my joy. It
was because I knew this that I felt my solicitude for you increase in
God's presence, and had you been near me I should have given you
something more than words. But if you are faithful, you will do
great things. for God, and bring the affairs entrusted to you to a happy
issue : it will not be your fault if they do not succeed. Believe me,
I love your soul more than you can comprehend, and therefore I
desire to see you perfect, and I would force you to be so if I could.
I am always reproaching you in order to make you enter more into
yourself; and I try, and shall always try to make you take up the
burden of the perfect, and to obtain from God that you may reach
the end of perfection, and shed your blood for the holy Church,
whether sensuality like it or not. You must bear patiently with my
faults and with my words ; and when you are shown your faults, rejoice
in the goodness of God, Who has given you some one to occupy
herself about you, and to watch over you in His presence. You
say that Antichrist and his members are seeking to get possession of
you with all diligence ; but surely you cannot doubt that God is
strong enough to prevent them from accomplishing their design. You
ought to feel yourself unworthy of so great a happiness, and therefore
to have no fear at all about it. God and our Sweet Lady will be
ever with you. I feel like a vile slave on this ground on which has
flowed the blood of martyrs : you left me here, and you have been
with God, but I shall never cease to labour for you. Do not give
me reason to blush for you. You are a man when you promise me
to suffer for God ; do not be a woman when the time, comes for you

534 Letter to Raymund.
to keep your promises. Take care lest the same thing happen to
you that happened to the Abbot of St. Anthimo ; he left Siena and
came to Rome, thinking to be safe here and to escape being put in
prison, but he was put in prison at once, and has suffered as you
know. That is the way in which cowardly people are caught. So
be courageous and defy death. Pardon me if I have said anything
contrary. to the respect I owe you; my love must be my excuse."
(Letter 101.) ;
We have said this is the letter of a friend to a friend. Some one
has remarked that it is a pity written letters cannot smile ; for on that
account what is written in jest is too often read in earnest. This
letter of St. Catherine's needs to be read with the memory in our
mind of that smile which doubtless passed over her lips as she penned
some of its passages ; its reproaches are more playful than serious,
and do but testify to the confidence that existed between these two
holy souls.
Here, then, we close these extracts from the more familiar portions
of St. Catherine's correspondence. What remains will furnish us
with materials for setting before the reader the narrative of her last
victory.

( 535 )

CHAPTER VI.
CATHERINE'S LAST VICTORY.
Jan. and Feb. 1380.
THE joy which had been caused in Rome by the victory of
Marino, and the surrender of the Castle of St. Angelo, was
of short duration. That double victory was indeed felt as so
important a success, that it was announced by the Pope to all
the sovereigns of Europe ; but it was soon followed by disaffection
on the part of the Romans themselves. " The ancient serpent,"
says Raymund, "finding it impossible to succeed by one means,
tried another yet more dangerous. What he could not bring about
by strangers and schismatics, he sought to effect by the hands of
those who had hitherto remained faithful to the Holy See. He
sowed divisions between the people of Rome and the Sovereign
Pontiff; and things came to such a point, that at last the people
openly threatened to put him to death." We have no precise
information as to the cause of these disputes. No doubt the
Antipope had his emissaries in Rome as elsewhere, and Catherine,
who had long entertained fears that Urban's life was not secure
in the city, had more than once warned him of his danger. " I
beg of you to take all possible care to have your person well
guarded," she writes, " for I know that the wicked do not sleep,
and that they are seeking to lay snares against your life." (Letter
18.) In another letter,1 she refers to some of the difficulties
which surrounded his government, and offers her sagacious
counsel Francesco da Vico, Prefect of Rome, had usurped
the lordship of Viterbo, and had given an insolent reply to
certain ambassadors whom the Pope had sent to remonstrate
1 Letter 22. This is the last letter addressed by Catherine to Urban which has
been preserved ; but it is doubtful whether it was really the last which she ever
wrote to him ; and whether therefore it is identical with that which we shall find
alluded to further on as written on the Monday after Sexagesima.

536 Catherine' s wise Counsel.
with him. Francesco was an old offender, and even in the
time of Gregory XL had often been in arms against the Church,
on which account he had incurred excommunication. When
Gregory returned to Italy from Avignon he tried to win over
this turbulent subject, and admitted him to favour. Urban
treated him with more severity, and took measures for driving
him out of Viterbo, and regaining possession of that city which
was important for the security of Rome. Although in so doing
he was amply justified, for the authority which Francesco had
seized was utterly unlawful, yet it was a critical moment to choose
for pushing his quarrel with so powerful an adversary ; and
Catherine, who understood the imprudence of such a line of
conduct, advised the Pope at once to assemble a Council-general,
calling together the chiefs of the city quarters, and other notables,
that he might consult with them in this emergency. " I have
learnt," she says, " the fierce and insolent reply which the Prefect
has given to the Roman ambassadors. The best thing would
be to call a Council-general, and for them to send you the chiefs
of the quarters (i Caporioni) and some notables. I beg of you,
most Holy Father, continue as before to see them often, and to
keep on good terms with them. And I would suggest that when
they come to tell you what the Council has decided, you should
receive them with all possible condescension, explaining to them
whatever may seem necessary to your Holiness. Pardon me if
I say too much, but I think you ought to know the character of
your Roman children, whom it is easier to lead by kindness than
by harsh words. And you know that what is most necessary
for you and for the Church just now, is to keep the people loyal
and submissive to your Holiness. I would also most humbly
suggest the prudence of your not promising more than you can
perform, as much confusion ensues thereby. You will let me
say thus much : your goodness and humility will not reject these
counsels, though they come from the mouth of so miserable a
woman ; for the humble soul considers not who it is that speaks,
but only what God's honour requires. Have courage ! and as
to the insolent reply which that rebel has dared to send your
Holiness, fear nothing ; God will provide for that as for all else,
for He is the Master and Protector of the Ship of holy
Church and of your Holiness." She then refers to some affairs
in connection with an embassy- from Siena, the explanation of

Dispute between the Pope and the Romans. 537
which has not been preserved, and concludes by again urging
his Holiness "to condescend to human infirmity, otherwise the
evil will only increase. Remember the ruin that ensued through
out Italy, owing to the bad governors not having been changed,
who were bringing destruction on the Church of God." (Letter
22.) No one can read this letter without gaining fresh insight into the
character of St. Catherine. If any one has hitherto been disposed
to regard her as a mere zealot, who blindly embraced the cause of
the Roman Pontiff against that of the Antipope, thinking only of his
claims and ignoring the grievances of those who opposed him, this
letter is the reply. There is in it a plea for something very like popular
government. If he is in difficulties, let him call a Council-general
( Consiglio Generate) of the chief citizens and listen to their advice ;
a sound policy, full of good sense, as prudently conceived as it is
humbly expressed. We are not informed whether it was adopted by
Urban ; and it is quite possible that, even if adopted, he did not carry
it out in the spirit she would have advised ; for the very next fact
which comes to our knowledge is the dispute which broke out
between the Pope and the Roman people.
Catherine had done her part as the Pope's councillor ; if prudence
and firmness could have averted the impending calamity, her words
had pointed out the right way. Nothing was now left for her to do,
save to offer her prayers and her sufferings, nay, to give her very life
as a victim for the Church and its earthly Head. This was the
sublime office reserved for the last days of her mortal life ; she had
often longed and prayed for martyrdom, and in a certain sense her
prayer was to be granted.
When Catherine heard of the revolt of the Roman citizens, and
their threats against the life of the Pontiff, she was profoundly
afflicted; and having recourse to prayer, besought of God not to
permit the accomplishment of so terrible a crime. " In a letter to
me written at that time," says Raymund, " she told me that she had
seen in spirit the city of Rome filled with demons who excited the
people to parricide ; they poured forth the most horrible threats
against the Saint, saying, ' Accursed wretch ! thou seekest to hinder
us, but we will cause thee to die a terrible death ! ' She answered
them nothing, but only prayed with greater fervour, entreating God,
for the honour of His Name, and the salvation of His Church tossed
about by such great tempests, to defeat the plots of the enemy, to

538 Catherine' s Prayer for Rome.
save the Sovereign Pontiff, and not to suffer the people to commit
so abominable a crime. Our Lord replied, ' Leave this people alone
who daily blaspheme My Name, and when they have committed this
crime, I will destroy them in My wrath, for My justice will no longer
endure their iniquities.' But she cried with greater fervour, saying,
' O most merciful Lord ! Thou knowest how Thy Spouse, redeemed
with Thy Blood, is outraged throughout the entire world ; and how
few defenders she has, and how her enemies seek her humiliation
and the death of Thy Vicar. If this calamity should happen, not
the Romans only, but all the faithful will suffer much. Be appeased
then, O Lord, and despise not Thy people for whom Thou hast paid
so precious a ransom.'
"This struggle with her Divine Spouse lasted many days and
nights, and her feeble body had much to suffer. God opposed His
justice to her prayers, and the evil spirits continued their clamours
against her. The struggle was so great that, to use her own expres
sion, if God had not encircled her members she would have been
annihilated by it. But in this obstinate combat, wherein her bodily
strength was utterly wasted by protracted suffering, Catherine at last
triumphed and obtained her petition. When God alleged His justice,
she replied, ' O Lord, if Thy justice must needs be satisfied, inflict
on my body the chastisement which this people deserves ; for the
honour of Thy Name and of the holy Church I will cheerfully drain
the chalice of suffering and death ; for Thy Truth knows that I have
always ardently desired this, and that Thy grace has kindled this
desire in my soul' When she had uttered these words from the
bottom of her heart, she understood that her prayer had prevailed.
And in fact from that moment the popular sedition gradually calmed
down, but the Saint like a pure victim had borne its expiation. The
powers of hell had permission to torment her holy body, and exerted
their utmost rage against her, so that those who witnessed it assured
me it would be impossible for any one who had not seen what passed
to form any idea of what she endured at their hands.
" These terrible sufferings daily increased ; her skin seemed- to
adhere to her bones, and her body was reduced to a mere skeleton ;
yet she walked, prayed, and laboured without intermission, though to
those about her she appeared rather like a phantom than a living
person. Far from discontinuing her prayers, Catherine only increased
their length and their fervour ; her spiritual children saw mos.t
evident signs of the tortures heaped on her by the powers of darkness,

Her Sufferings. 539
but no one could apply a remedy. It was not the will of God ; and
notwithstanding the decay of her bodily powers, her soul rose joyously
and courageously above all that she endured. The more she prayed,
the more she suffered; I was informed by those around her, and
indeed by herself in a letter she wrote to me at that time, that in the
midst of this martyrdom she heard the evil spirits shriek, 'Thou
cursed wretch ! thou hast always pursued us, and thou pursuest us
still : now we shall take our revenge on thee ; thou wouldst force us
to depart hence, but we will first take thy life ; ' and so saying they
redoubled their blows."1
Maimbourg 2 says " that the disturbances in the city were at this
time quelled- through the interference of Catherine, who exerted her
self with God by her prayers, and with the Roman people by her
remonstrances. She was so successful that the citizens not only
returned to their duty, but used in Urban's defence the very arms
they had taken up against him." He also states that the Romans
had first tried to poison the Pope, and then attacked him in the
Vatican, when he courageously exhibited himself to the mob, clad in
his Pontifical vestments, and overawed them by his presence.
In the meanwhile Catherine's sufferings continued daily to increase.
We learn from the letter written by Barduccio Canigiani to his sister
Maria Petriboni, a nun in the convent of St. Pietro di Monticella near
Florence, that from the feast of the Circumcision of that year she
had found it necessary completely to change her ordinary manner of
living. The small amount of food she had hitherto been accustomed
to take, caused her such suffering that it became impossible for her
to touch it ; and though consumed by a burning thirst, she was
unable to swallow so much as a drop of water, though she seemed to
be breathing fire. These sufferings were frightfully increased on
Sexagesima Sunday, which fell that year on the 29th of January, from
which day she never recovered her wonted state of health. We shall
presently quote her own letters describing the extraordinary tortures
of mind and body which she underwent at that time ; but in order
to-render her words more intelligible, we shall first give the narra
tive as it is related by Raymund and her other biographers.
" From Sexagesima Sunday until the last day of April, when she
passed out of this life," says Raymund, "her sufferings continued to
increase. But one thing which she herself wrote to me was truly
x Legend, Part 3, ch. ii.
* Histoire du Giand Schisme, lib. i. p. 148.

540 Catherine 's Visits to St. Peter's.
astonishing -. up to that time, on account of the pain' in her side and
other infirmities which never left her, it had been her custom not to
hear Mass until the hour of tierce ; but through the whole of Lent
she every morning went to the church of St. Peter's ; heard Mass
there, prayed for a long time afterwards, and returned home about
the hour of vespers. Those who then saw her stretched on her bed
thought she would never again be able to rise from it ; but the next
day, as soon as it was light, she would rise and set out again from
her house in the Via del Papa, between the Minerva and the Campo
di Fiore, and go to St. Peter's, walking quickly the whole way, a dis
tance sufficient to fatigue a person in strong health."
The course here so exactly described will be familiar to many of
our readers. Catherine must every day have passed by the Minerva
into the open market-place in front of the dark solemn portico of the
Pantheon ; thence pursuing her way along that street where now
stands the beautiful church dedicated to her favourite patroness St..
Mary Magdalen, until she found herself in the Via St. Lucia. Follow
ing its course she would come to the bridge which now bears the
name of St. Angelo, but which at that time was called St. Peter's
bridge ; she would have passed under the walls of the castle, which
presented much the same appearance then as now ; for its marble
walls had been levelled a year before by the triumphant populace,
when they took possession of it after the surrender of the French
garrison ; and even thence she would have had a further walk of some
distance to accomplish before reaching the Basilica of the Apostles.
I need not remind the reader that of the Basilica which she daily
visited not a vestige now remains. It fell under the hammers of the
Renaissance, in order that Michael Angelo might realise his magni
ficent promise — that " he would place the Pantheon in the clouds."
He kept his word, and gave us the dome of St. Peter's ; but he swept
away the Basilica that had been founded by Constantine, and dedi
cated by St. Sylvester, where Charlemagne had been crowned Emperor
of the West, and in which St. Catherine prayed. Eight of the marble
columns which may now be seen in the balconies arranged above the
pillars supporting the cupola, and which are said by tradition to have
stood in the Temple of Solomon ; and the famous mosaic of the
" Navicella," designed by Giotto and preserved in the porch of the
present building, are all that remain of the ancient Basilica.
Here it was, then, that on Sexagesima Sunday, as she was praying at
the hour of vespers, a mysterious circumstance occurred, causing her

The Ship of the Church. 541
such terrible agony that she never recovered its effects. This event
is not mentioned by Raymund, nor is it more than obscurely alluded
to by Barduccio in his narrative and by herself in her letters ; but
in the Leggenda Minore?- and again in his deposition, F. Thomas
Caffarini gives us fuller particulars. It appears that whilst still in
the Church of St. Peter's a mysterious vision or sign of her approach
ing death and of its cause was granted to her. She not only saw,
but felt the Navicella, or Ship of the Church, laid on her shoulders.
Crushed by the awful weight she sank fainting to the ground ; she
understood that she was in some way to give her life for the Church as
a true victim, and from that moment her bodily strength began visibly
to consume " away. This remarkable incident was followed on her
return home by an attack or crisis of supernatural suffering. " On
the night of Monday following," says Barduccio, "after dictating a
letter to me, she had so violent a crisis that we mourned her as dead.
She remained for a long time without giving the smallest sign of life ;
then she suddenly arose, and seemed as though she had undergone
no change whatever."
This "crisis" is more fully described in the Saint's own last letters
to Raymund of Capua which shall now be quoted. The reader will
observe the broken phraseology, and occasional confusion of sense,
too clearly indicating the sufferings both mental and physical which
were being endured by the writer.
" O my dearest Father ! " 2 she writes, " I will not conceal from you
the mysteries of God, but will relate them as briefly as I can, and as
my weakness will permit. I will tell you also what I want you to
do ; only do not afflict yourself on account of what I shall say, for I
know not what the Divine Goodness is about to do with me, whether
I shall stay, or whether He is about to call me away. My Father,
my Father, my beloved son ! God has worked such wonderful things
from the Feast of the Circumcision until now, that it would be
1 Leg. Min., p. 156. In the Proce-s, after describing her sufferings from the
evil spirits and their threats of causing her death, he adds : In cujus praasagium
ostensumfuit in Sancto Petro de Urbe qualiter navicella ecclesice posita super spatulas
virginis, in tantum Virginem ipsam compressit, quod moriendo in terram cecidit.
(Process, 1299, 1300.) The same thing is affirmed by F. William Flete in his
Sermo in reverentiam Beatcz Katerina de Senis.
2 In the Aldine Edition this letter (No. 102) is dated Feb. 15, 1379 ; that is,
according to our way of beginning the year, on January 1st, 1380, a fortnight after
the events to which it refers. In this intervening fortnight the disputes between
him and the Roman people must have broken out ; and the threatened danger
have been dissipated.

542 Catherine's mysterious Sufferings.
impossible for me to relate them. But we will leave that time and
come to Sexagesima Sunday (Jan. 29th), on which day happened
those mysteries of which I am going to speak. Never before did
anything similar occur to me. Such was the agony of my heart, that
my very garments were torn, I fell writhing in the chapel x like one
in convulsion ; had any one sought to restrain me, they would have
caused my death.2 On Monday evening I was much urged to write
to the Christ on earth and to three Cardinals ; I procured help and
went to my cell, but when I had written to the Christ on earth,3 I
could write no more, so intense was the bodily pain I suffered.
Shortly afterwards there began terrible attacks from the evil spirits,
who threw me down : they were furious against me, as though I,
poor worm of the earth, had torn out of their grasp what they had
so long held possession of in the Church ; and the terror I felt,
joined to my other sufferings, was so great, that I wished to fly from
my cell and go to the chapel, as though the cell had been the cause
of my pains.
" I rose then, and being unable to walk, I leant on my son Bar
duccio ; but immediately I was thrown down again ; and lying on
the ground it seemed as if my soul quitted the body ; not in the
same way as it did that other time,4 because then I tasted the joy of
the Blessed, enjoying with them the Sovereign Good ; but now it
seemed to me that I was a thing apart. I did not seem to be in my
body, but I beheld my body as though it had belonged to -some other
person ; and my soul, seeing the distress of him who was with me
(i.e. Barduccio), wished to know if I could use my body so as to be
able to say to him : ' My son, be not afraid.' But I found I could
not move my tongue, or any other member, any more than if my
body had been utterly without life. So I left the body as it was,
and fixed my understanding on the abyss of the Holy Trinity. I
1 The chapel ; that is the private chapel she was allowed to have in her house,
in which this crisis took place.
2 This passage is very obscure, and indicates a mysterious access of suffering,
the cause of which was wholly supernatural, and which the Saint was unable to
express in ordinary language : Guinimai uno simile caso non mi parbe porlare.
M. Cartier translates caso as accident. But though caso often has the sense of
accident, I do not think it at all conveys what is here meant, which is evidently
intended to describe what one might call an ecstasy of supernatural suffering.
3 This letter is supposed by Gigli to be the same as that (No. 22) which has
been quoted above (p. 536), a letter of calm practical advice. It may have been
so, but the fact seems questionable.
4 At the time of her mystic death.

Catherine' s mysterious Sufferings. ' 543
remembered distinctly the needs of the holy Church and of the
Christian people. I cried to God, and confidently implored His
help, showing Him my desires, and seeking to do Him holy violence
by offering the Blood of the Lamb and the sufferings He had
endured. I prayed so earnestly that I felt certain He would not
reject my prayer; and then I prayed for all of you, and conjured
Him to accomplish in you His will and my desires. Then I im
plored Him to deliver me from eternal damnation ; and I remained
thus so long that all the family wept for me as dead.
" Meanwhile the terror of the evil spirits was somewhat dissipated,
and the humble Lamb offered Himself to my soul, saying : ' Be sure
that I will satisfy thy desires, and those of My other servants, and
you shall see that I am a good Master. I act like the potter who
destroys and refashions his vessels as he pleases ; and so I act with
My vessels. This is why I have taken the vessel of thy body, and
have refashioned it in the Garden of holy Church, so that it shall be
other than it was in time past' And He added other gracious
words, which I cannot here repeat. Then my body began to
breathe a little, showing that the soul had returned to it. I was
full of wonder, and there remained such a pain in my heart that I
still feel it. Then all joy, all consolation, and all strength seemed
taken from me, and being carried into the room above, it seemed to
me full of demons who began a fresh attack, the most terrible I ever
sustained ; for they sought to make me believe that it was not I that
was in my body, but an unclean spirit. But I invoked the Divine
help with the utmost tenderness, refusing no suffering, but repeating,
Deus in adjutorium meurn intende, Domine ad adjuvandum me
feslina !
" Two days and two nights passed in these conflicts, but my mind
and my desire underwent no change, my soul always remained fixed
in its Object,1 though my body seemed reduced to nothing. On the
feast of the Purification of Our Lady I wished to hear Mass : then
all the mysteries were renewed, and God made known to me the
great danger that was threatening the city and which has since
appeared ; 2 for Rome was on the point of revolting, and nothing was
to be heard but blasphemies and irreverence ; had He not pacified
1 La mente sempre stavafisso nell' obietto suo ; that is united to God, the Object
of the soul.
2 From this passage we see that the revolt of the Romans broke out after the
2nd of February.

544 Catherine in St. Peters.
men's hearts, so that now, as I hope, all will end well. Then He
imposed on me this obedience, that during the whole time of Lent
I was to offer the desires of the whole Family, and to cause Mass to ,
be celebrated before them for the intention of holy Church. More
over, every morning I was to hear a Mass at daybreak, which you
know is to me naturally an impossible thing ; but in obeying Him,
all things become possible. The desire to obey has taken such
possession of me 1 that my memory- retains no other thought, and
my will desires no other thing ; and not only does the soul refuse and
reject all things here below, but even in conversing with the true
citizens (the Saints) the soul cannot and will not share in their joys,
but only in the hunger they had when they were pilgrims and
sojourners in this life. With these and other like feelings which I
know not how to express, my life is consumed and distilled for the
Sweet Spouse ; I, in this way, and the glorious martyrs by their
blood. I pray the Divine Goodness that He may soon grant me to
see the redemption of this people.
" When the hour of tierce comes, I rise from Mass, and you might '
see me going like one dead to St. Peter's, there to labour anew in
the Ship of the holy Church ; 2 and I remain thus until the hour of
vespers ; and I would fain remain in the same place day and night
until I can see this people a little calmed, and reconciled with their
Father. My body remains without any kind of food, not even so
much as a drop of water, and its sweet sufferings are so great that I
have never felt anything like them, and my life hangs, as it were, by
a thread. I know not what the Divine Goodness intends to do
with me. I do not mean as to what I feel within, for I understand
in that respect what He wills for me ; but as to what I suffer in my
body, it seems to me I am to crown it by a new kind of martyrdom in
the sweetness of my soul, I mean, the holy Church. - Perhaps He will
then cause me to rise again with Him, and terminate both my
miseries and my crucified desires ; or He may use the ordinary means
of restoring my bodily strength. I pray His mercy to accomplish
His will in me, and not to leave you and the others orphans ; but
ever to direct you in the doctrine of Truth with true and perfect
light ; and I am sure He will do so.
" I beg and conjure you, my Father and my son, who were given
to me by the sweet Virgin Mary, that if you believe that God has
1 This is far too feeble a translation : tanto s'e incarnato questo desiderio.
2 Entro di nuovo a lavorare nella Navicella, della Santa Chiesa.

Her Charge to Raymund. 545
cast the eye of His mercy on me, you will renew your life ; and as
one dead to all sense of self, cast yourself into this Ship of holy
Church.1 Be ever cautious in your conversations. Your actual cell
you can have but little of, but I would have you ever keep and bear
with you everywhere the cell of your heart ; for, as you well know,
so long as we are shut up there, the enemy has no power to harm
us. Then let everything you do be directed and ordered according
to God. And I beg of you mature your heart with a true and holy
prudence, that your life may be exemplary in the eyes of seculars,
and not conformed fo the ways of the. world. Let your liberality
to the poor and the voluntary poverty you have always professed be
renewed and reinvigorated with true and perfect humility. What
ever position or dignity God may bestow on you, relax not, but
rather go down lower into the valley of humility. Love the table
of the Cross, and there feed on souls, embracing that sweet mother
of humble, faithful and continual prayer, with holy watching. Every
day celebrate Holy Mass, unless absolutely prevented. Fly light
and useless conversations ; and always show yourself grave in your
words and conduct. Cast from you all tenderness for yourself, and
all servile fear ; for the holy Church needs not such servants, but
rather those who are severe to themselves and devoted to her.
" These are the things to which I conjure you to apply yourself.
I also request you to collect the Book, and every other writing of
mine with which I have sometimes occupied myself, and which you,
Father Thomas, F. Bartholomew, and the Master,2 and Master
Thomas also, may find ; and do with them whatever you think most
for God's glory. I recommend to you also this family, begging you
that, as far as possible, you will be its pastor, director, and father;
keep them all in the bonds of charity and perfect union, that they
may not be scattered as sheep having no shepherd. As to myself,
I hope to be more useful to them after death than ever I have been
1 Questa Navicella della Santa Chiesa. These repeated allusions to the Navi
cella are easily understood when we bear in mind the vision with which this
mysterious crisis began; in which the Ship of the Church (the representation of
which was daily before her eyes) appeared laid upon her shoulders.
2 The persons here named are all familiar to the reader. By F. Thomas may
be understood either F. Thomas della Fonte, who for ten years collected notes of
her graces and revelations, or F. Thomas Antonio Nacci Caffarini, who afterwards
composed the Supplement to her life. The Master is F. John Tantucci. Master
Thomas is either Thomas Buonconti, or Thomas Petra, the Pope's Pronotary and
Secretary, with whom, during her residence in Rome, she had become very
intimate. « 2 M

546 Her last Letter.
in life. I beg the Eternal Truth that all the abundance of gifts
and graces which He has granted to my soul, may be poured out
upon all of you, that you may be as lights set upon a candlestick.
I entreat you ask the Eternal Spouse that He may enable me man
fully to accomplish His obedience, and that He will pardon the
multitude of my sins. And I beseech you also to forgive every
disobedience, irreverence, and ingratitude of which I have been
guilty, and every pain and distress I may ever have caused you ;
humbly asking your blessing. Pray earnestly for me, and get prayers
for me for the love of Jesus. Pardon me if I have ever written
anything to pain you. I do not say these things to distress you ;
but I wish to discharge my duty, because I am in doubt, and
know not what the goodness of God is about to do with me. Do
not be troubled' because we are separated from each other as to
the body ; for though, indeed, it would have been a great consolation
to me to have had you near me, it is a far greater one to know that
you are labouring for the Church. Labour, I beseech you, with
more zeal than ever, for her needs were never greater ; and for no
persecution depart without permission of our Lord the Pope. Cour
age, courage in Christ our Sweet Jesus ! and never be cast down.
Abide in the sweet and holy love of God ; Jesus Sweetness, Jesus
Love." (Letter 102.)
It would seem as though Catherine here brought her letter to a
close, not having at the moment strength to finish all she had to
say ; and she takes up its thread in her next letter without any fresh
introduction, so as to make of the two but one consecutive com
position. She desired, while she was .able, to say all that was in her
heart to her spiritual Father ; and having given her last earthly charges
and directions, she now returns to the subject of what was passing
in the interior of her soul.
" I was continually tormented by the ardent desire I had newly
conceived in God's presence, because the eye of my understanding
was fixed in the Eternal Trinity ; and I beheld in that abyss the
dignity of the rational creature, the misery which man incurs by
mortal sin, and the necessities of the holy Church, which God
showed to me in His bosom. And I saw that no one can taste the
Beauty of God in the abyss of the holy Trinity, save by means of
that sweet Spouse ; wherefore all must needs pass through the door
of Jesus crucified, and that door is only to be found in the holy
Church. I saw then how the Church gives life, for there is so much

Catherine and her Children. 547
life in her, that there is no one who can put her to death ; and she
gives strength and light, so that no one can weaken or darken her
in herself; and I saw that her fruit never fails or diminishes. Then
the Eternal Deity said to me, ' All this dignity which your under
standing cannot comprehend, is given to you from me. Look, then,
with bitter sorrow, and you will see that men now only go to my Spouse
for the sake of her outer vestment, that is her temporal substance ;
she is empty of those that seek her interior life, the fruit of the Blood.
He who does not bear that fruit which is the treasure of Charity with
sincere humility, and in the light of holy faith, is not living, but dead.1
He acts like the thief who takes what is not his. The fruit of the Blood
belongs to him who has the treasure of love ; for the Church was
founded in love, She is Love Itself? and I desire that all should give
themselves (to her) by love, even as I have charged My servants to
give as freely as they have received.3 I complain that no one now
serves the Church : on the contrary, all abandon her ; but I shall
know how to remedy this.'
" Then the grief and fire of my desires increasing, I cried to God,
saying, ' O ineffable Love ! what can I do ? ' And His Good
ness replied, ' Offer anew thy life, and give thyself no repose ;
IT IS FOR THIS THAT I HAVE CHOSEN THEE, AND ALL THOSE WHO
FOLLOW THEE, OR WHO SHALL FOLLOW THEE HEREAFTER. Apply
thyself, then, never to relax, but always to increase thy desires.
For, as to Me, I ever apply Myself with love to assist you with
temporal and spiritual graces ; and in order that your souls may
be occupied with no other thing, I have provided by kindling
with great ardour her * whom I have chosen to direct you,
1 The language is obscure ; but the meaning evidently is, that though many may
seem outwardly to belong to the Church, as covered by her exterior garment, yet
they are not living, but dead members, unless they bear the fruit of the Blood,
i.e., unless they are in charity.
2 Ella ifondata in amore, ediesso amore.
i Freely you have received, freely give. — Matt. x. 8.
* Quella ; this certainly means St. Catherine herself, the Mother of the
spiritual family to which this exhortation is really addressed, although the
first part of the paragraph is addressed to her. But the difference may be
observed between the thy and thou used at the beginning and end of the
paragraph, denoting her only ; and the you and yours, used in this small portion,
.in which her children are being spoken to. A little further on, when Catherine
is again individually addressed, the thou again appears. I may observe that in none
ojf her letters is the phraseology more obscure than in these two, requiring close
attention to develop the sense.

548 The Pope and the Cardinals:
training her, ' and fitting her for the task by mysteries and hidden
ways, so that she may consume herself in the service of My
Church, and that you may serve it by humble, faithful, and
continual prayers, and all necessary exercises, which I inspire
to each one according to his degree. Consecrate then thy life,
thy heart, and thy whole affection to this My Spouse, for My
sake, forgetting thyself (per me, senza te). Look on Me, and
behold the Bridegroom of this Spouse, even the Sovereign
Pontiff. See his good and holy intention which has no limits;
and as the Spouse is one, so also is the Bridegroom. I permit
that by the violent means he employs, and by the fear he inspires
in his subjects, he should purge the Church, but another will
come who will tend her with love. And it will be with the
Spouse as with the soul, wherein fear enters first to strip her
of vices, and then love follows, to fill and clothe her with
virtues. " 'All this will be accomplished by patient endurance. Sufferings
are sweet to those who truly feed at her breast ; nevertheless, tell
My Vicar, that so far as he can, he must show himself peaceable,
granting peace to those who will receive it. And tell the' Columns
of the holy Church, the Cardinals, that if they would repair all
these ruins, they must be united, and be tike a mantle to cover
what may appear defective in their Father. Let them be regular
in their lives and households, fearing and loving Me, agreeing
together, and not following their own interests. If they act thus,
I, Who am Light, will give them the light needful to holy Church.
And seeing what they have to do, let them promptly and ardently
propose it to My Vicar, who cannot resist their good will, because
his intentions are good and holy.'
"But no tongue can tell the mysteries which I saw in my
understanding, and felt in my heart. I passed that day in ecstasy,
and when evening came, I was so transported with the affection
of love, which I could not resist, that I was unable to go to the
place of prayer. And feeling that the hour of death was drawing
near, I reproached myself bitterly for having served the Spouse of
Christ so negligently and ignorantly, and for being the cause
that others should have done the same. I was full of these
thoughts when God placed Himself before me. He is indeed*
always present to me, forasmuch as He contains all things in
Himself. But this was in a new way, as though memory, will,

Victory! 549
and understanding had nothing more to do with the body. And
I beheld the truth so clearly that in that Abyss seemed to be
renewed all the mysteries of holy Church ; all the graces past
and present which I had ever received in my whole life ; and
that day when God espoused my soul to Himself. Then all seemed
swallowed up in the fire of love which constantly increased, and
I thought no more of anything save how I might sacrifice myself
to God for the holy Church, and take away the ignorance and
negligence of those whom God had put into my hands. Then the
demons were let loose on me, seeking to prevent me, and to
diminish the fervour of my desire by their terrors. They struck
the poor husk of my body, but the desire of my soul only kindled
the more, and I cried, ' O Eternal God, accept the sacrifice of
my life for ihe mystical body of Thy holy Church. I have nothing
to give save that which Thou hast given to me. Take my heart then,
and press it out1 over the face of Thy Spouse! '
" Then the Eternal God, regarding me with an eye of clemency,
took my heart, and pressed it out over the holy Church. And
He took it with such force, that if He had not strengthened
me, not willing that the vessel of my body should be destroyed,
I must that moment have died. Then the evil spirits cried with
yet greater fury, as if they felt an intolerable pain ; they used
their utmost efforts to terrify me, threatening me that they would
find a way of rendering useless what I had done. But because
the powers of hell cannot resist humility joined to faith, the
more they strove, the more ardently also I combated, as it were
with weapons of fire ; and I heard words from the Divine Majesty
so sweet and tender, and promises so full of joy, that in truth,
I cannot speak of them. Then I said, 'Thanks, thanks be to
the Most High, the Eternal, Who has placed us like knights on
a field of battle to combat for His Spouse, protected by the
shield of holy faith. The field is won ! 2 the victory is ours !
thanks to that virtue and power which has discomfited the
1 Premilo ; literally, squeeze it. Observe also the expression, "I have nothing
to give save what Thou hast given to me ; " alluding to the heart mystically given
her by Our Lord. In fact, this vision of her Heart is in some sense the
complement of the earlier one, and helps us to see the mystical sense in which
both are to be understood. This pressing out of the heart of St. Catherine over the
Church has been made the subject of one of the designs in Francesco Vanni's
Pictorial Life of the Saint.
2 El campo e rimaso a noi !

550 Catherine's Prayer. '
devil, the tyrant of the human race, but who has been defeated,
not by man, but by God. Yes ! the Enemy is overcome ! not by
the suffering 6f our bodies, but only by the fire of the burning and
inestimable Charity of God ! ' " (Letter 103. )
To complete this narrative we must add the prayer which on this
same 15th day of February was uttered by Catherine in ecstasy,
and taken down from her lips by some of her children ; and which
forms too interesting a monument of this time to be omitted here.
Certain words which the Blessed Virgin Catherine of Siena spoke in
prayer after the terrible crisis which, she had in the night of
Monday after Sexagesima, when she was wept for as dead by her
family, after which she never regained health, but continually
grew worse until the end.1
" O Eternal God, my good Master, who hast formed the vessel of
Thy creature's body out of the slime of the Earth ! O sweetest Love !
Of how vile a thing hast Thou formed it, and yet Thou hast placed
within it a treasure so great as the soul which bears Thine image, 0
eternal God. Thou, good Master, my sweet Love, art the Master who
destroys and makes anew ; Thou breakest and repairest this vessel
according to Thy good pleasure. To Thee, Eternal Father, I, most
miserable, offer anew my life for Thy sweet Spouse ; that as many times
as it may please Thy Goodness Thou mayest drag it out of my body
and restore it to my body, each time with more pain than before ; in
order that I may see the reformation of Thy sweet Spouse, the holy
Church. O Eternal God, I recommend to thee this Spouse.
" I also recommend to Thee my beloved children ; and I pray thee,
the Most High and Eternal Father, if it please Thee to take me out of
this body and not to let me return thither, that Thou wilt visit them
with Thy grace, and when they are dead, make them to live again in
true and perfect light. Bind them together with the sweet bonds of
charity, that they may die enamoured 2 of Thy sweetest Spouse. And
I pray that none of them may be snatched out of Thy hands, but that
Thou wouldst deign to pardon them all their iniquities. And pardon
me also my great ignorance and negligence committed against Thy
Church, and for not having accomplished all I might and should
have done. Peccavi Domine, miserere mei.
1 Our translation of this prayer, of the Ullime parole, and of the Transito, are
all taken from the corrected edition of Signor Grottanelli.
2 Spasimati, a word expressive of the most intense and passionate love.

The Family of the Future. 551
" I offer and recommend to Thee my beloved children who are as
my very soul. And if it please Thy goodness to detain me yet longer
in this vessel, do Thou, the Sovereign Physician, heal and sustain it,
that it be not entirely torn to pieces. O Eternal Father, give us Thy
sweet benediction !
"February 15, 1380."
Who would dare to comment on such words as these ? They are
as far above our criticism or our praise as the Divine mysteries they
record are above our experience. Here, then, we behold the hand
maid of Christ crowned at last " with a new kind of martyrdom ; "
accepted as the victim of the Church ; and giving to God the heart
He had once given to her, that He might annihilate it for the renova
tion of His holy Spouse. It is the completion of her course, the
sublime consummation of her holocaust ; there is now nothing more
to relate than the story of her last passage.
But to you who read these words, are there none among them
that have thrilled you through and through, as though the eyes of
your glorious Mother had been turned and fixed on you as she
uttered them ? When she cried to our Lord in loving agony, say
ing: " O ineffable Love ! what can I do?" He replied, " Offer thy
life anew, and give thyself no repose ; it is for this that I have
chosen thee, and all those who follow thee, or who shall
follow thee hereafter." Of whom was He speaking, if not of
the children of the Saint ; her family then living on earth, and all
those who were in time to come to be numbered among her children ?
And who are these ? Oh, daughters of St Dominic and St. Catherine,
scattered ovep the wide world ; you who wear her habit, and glory in
calling her your Mother, whether it be in Italy or France, in Eng-
gland, or Holland, or America ; you whose Order has given to the
Church a white-robed company of saints, who became saints by
treading in her footsteps, and whose names sound like sweetest
music in our ears,— a Rose, " first flower of the new world," a Mar
garet, a Benvenuta, a Sybillina, a Lucy, and an Osanna ;— you who
in China have realised by hundreds her dearest wish of dyeing her
white robe red in the blood of martyrdom, who in the Western
Indies are reproducing her heroic work of tending the lepers ; : whose
1 The Hospital of Lepers at Cocorite, in the island of Trinidad, is now served
by nuns of the Third Order, belonging to the (French) congregation of St.
Catherine of Siena.

55 2 Her Charge to her Children.
companies are multiplying even on our English soil, engaged on a
common work, under one watchword, — "God's honour, and the
salvation of souls!" — it was of you she thought, it. was to you she
spoke in that supreme moment of her life. She would give you with
her own lips the rule that was to guide you ; she would point with
her own hand to the path that you should follow. Nay, rather, she
would have you hear, not from her lips alone, but from those of your
Eternal Spouse the meaning of your sublime vocation :
" Offer yourselves anew ; give yourselves no repose ; ir is
for this that I have chosen you ! "

( 553 )

S

CHAPTER VII.
THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
March and April, 1380.
T. CATHERINE'S letters to Raymund of Capua quoted in the
last chapter were written, as we have seen, on the 15th (and
probably the 16th) of February; that is, on the Wednesday and
Thursday that preceded the third Sunday of Lent. From the com
mencement of that holy season she had applied herself with so much
fervour to meditation, notwithstanding her infirmities, that those
about her were astonished at the abundance of her sighs and pious
tears. Her prayer was at all times so fervent that one hour so spent
weakened her frame more than two days of uninterrupted spiritual
exercises would have exhausted any other person. Every morning
after communion she had to be carried from her chapel and laid on
her bed as one dead. Yet in an hour or two she would rise and go
to St. Peter's, and stay there, as has been said, till vespers, return
ing home in almost a lifeless condition. And all this time her
children marvelled to see with what a joyful countenance she would
bear this fatigue, and with what sweet and affable courtesy she would
welcome all who came to her, whether to consult her on the affairs
of their souls, or on any business for the common good, though
every one could see she was reduced to the last extremity. So she
continued until the third Sunday in Lent, when she was forced to yield
to the immense sufferings that overwhelmed her body, and the anguish
that rent her soul in beholding the sins committed against God, and
the dangers that threatened the Church. She was a mass of interior
and exterior suffering, and thus she remained during eight entire
weeks, being unable even to raise her head. In the midst of that
martyrdom, she frequently said, " These pains are physical, but they are
notnatural; God allows the demons to torment me thus." It wasevident
that what she stated was correct, and that her sufferings were wholly
supernatural. But at each new torture she joyously raised her

554 F. Bartholomew Dominic in Rome.
heart and her eyes to God, saying : " Thanks be to Thee, O my ever-
living Spouse, Who dost continually crown Thy poor and wretched
handmaid with new proofs of Thy favour."
At this time her appearance was that of a skeleton covered with a
transparent skin ; her countenance, however, beaming with an angelic
expression ; whilst she was so entirely prostrate in strength that
she could not so much as turn herself in her bed from one side to
the other.1
It was in this state that she was found by F. Batholomew Dominic,
when, towards the close of Lent, he was despatched to Rome on busi
ness by command of his Provincial. He had been hitherto detained
at Siena by the duties of his office as Prior of San Domenico, so
that a year had probably passed since last they met. And thus
during this long time of suffering and anxiety Catherine had been '
deprived of his company, as well as of that of so many others who
enjoyed her closest confidence, God so permitting it for the increase
of her sacrifice and her merit. He arrived in Rome on Holy
Saturday, and at once hastened to Catherine's house, not being aware
of the condition in which he should find her. His exact and
beautiful account of what he witnessed shall be given in his own
words :
" I found her lying on boards, surrounded by other boards, so that
she seemed, as it were, in a coffin. I approached her, hoping to be
able to converse with her as usual. Her body was so emaciated that
it looked as though it had been dried in the sun, and no longer pre
sented its former beauty. The sight was heart-breaking, and I said to
her, weeping, ' Mother, how do you find yourself? ' When she recog
nised me she tried to express her joy, but she could not speak, and
I was obliged to put my ear close to her lips in order to catch her
reply, that ' all was going on well, thanks to our merciful Saviour ! ' I
then told her the business on which I had come, and added, ' Mother,
to-morrow will be the Feast of the Pasch,2 I should like to celebrate
it here, so as to give Holy Communion to yourself and your spiritual
children.' She replied, ' Oh ! would that our sweet Saviour would
indeed permit me to communicate ! '
"I left her, and returned next day to fulfil my promise. I
1 In the above account are blended together the accounts given by Barduccio
in his Letter, and by Caffarini in the third part of his Supplement.
2 This Easter Day must have fallen on March 25th, St. Catherine's '33d birth
day.

He gives her Holy Communion. 555
approached her in order to hear her confession and give her absolu
tion ; no one hoped to see her go to Holy Communion ; for during
several days she had been incapable of making the least movement.
However I gave her for a penance to ask of God, for her consola
tion and ours, the grace of receiving Communion on so great a fes
tival ; and I then went to the Altar which was quite close to her
bed. I prepared the Host and then commenced Mass. Catherine
remained motionless until the Holy Communion ; as soon as I had
terminated and had taken the ablutions, she got up suddenly, to
the great astonishment of all present, who shed tears of joy ; she
advanced unassisted as far as the Altar, knelt down with her eyes
closed and her hands clasped, and remained thus until she had
received the consecrated Host, and the wine which it is customary to
present for washing the mouth. She afterwards fell into her ordinary
ecstasy, and when she came forth from it, it was impossible for her
to return to her bed ; her companions carried her there, and she
remained on it immovable as before. God permitted her, however,
to converse with me during the few days that I still remained in
Rome, and it was then that she explained to me the incredible pains
and sufferings that the demons had forced her to undergo. She
prayed with unabated ardour for the peace of the Church ; she desired
and asked of God to expiate in her person the sins of those who
separated the faithful from the real Sovereign Pontiff, Urban VI.
' Be assured] said she, ' that if I die, the sole cause of my death is
the zeal which burns and consumes me for the holy Church. I suffer
gladly for her deliverance, and, if need be, I am ready to die for her.'
" The affairs that led me to Rome being terminated, my companion
pressed me to return. I constantly resisted, and I told this to Cathe
rine. She said that I must go back to him that sent us. ' Mother,'
said I, ' how can we go and leave you in such extremity ? Were I
absent and informed of your condition, I would quit all and hasten
to your side. No, I cannot resolve to depart without seeing you
better, or without at least having grounds for hope in your recovery.'
Catherine said : ' My son, you well know what great consolation I
experience in seeing those whom God has given me, and whom I love
in the Truth. It would give me the greatest pleasure would our Lord
grant me the presence of Father Raymund as well as yours ; but it
is His intention that I should be deprived of this, and as I desire
not my will but His, you must depart. You know that at Bologna
a Chapter of the Order will soon be celebrated for the election of a

556 Catherine 's Promise to Thomas Petra.
Master-General ; Father Raymund will be nominated ; I wish you to
be there with him, and always to be obedient to him. I command
you this as far as I have the power to do so.'
" I then told her that I would do whatever she commanded me, as
soon as I saw her better in health, and I added : ' If it is God's will
that I. go, ask Him to restore you to health before my departure'
She promised me to do so, and when I returned on the following
day, I found her so calm and cheerful, that I approached her full of
hope. But she, who had hitherto remained motionless, extended
her arms towards me and embraced me so affectionately that I could
not refrain from shedding tears of joy; it was to make known to me
God's will, and to exhort me to depart. ' The Lord had deceived
me,' to speak like the Prophet — Seduxisti me, Domine, et seductus
sum ; fortior me fuisti et invaluisti (Jer. xx. 7). I left Rome. A
short time after I had returned to Siena, a letter informed me that
Catherine had quitted this life to be united to the Spouse Whose
embraces she so ardently desired."1
We have more than once named Master Thomas Petra, the Pope's
Secretary, who had first made Catherine's acquaintance at Avignon,
and who had become very intimate with her during her residence in
Rome. She had conceived a great affection for this good and loyal
man whom she used to call her father. One day during the last few
weeks of her life he found her in a garden belonging to a lady in
Rome, whither her disciples had carried her by way of giving her
some refreshment. He approached her, and observing her ghastly
pallor and extreme emaciation, " Mother," he said, " it seems to me
that your Spouse is about to take you out of this life ; have you
made all necessary dispositions ? " " What dispositions," she replied,
" can a poor woman like me make ? " He replied, " It would be an
admirable will and testament if you were to make known to each one
of your disciples, what he ought to do after your death. I beg of you,
for the love of God, to do this ; I am sure all will obey you as readily
as I shall." " Willingly then," she replied, " I will do it with God's
grace." Then he continued, "I have another 'favour to ask you,
and I beseech you to grant it for the love of God. Obtain from
your Divine Spouse that I may know the state of your soul after
death." "That," she replied, " does not seem possible; for either
the soul is saved, and then the bliss it enjoys makes it forget the
miseries of this world : or it is lost, and then the torments it endures
1 Process.

Stephen is summoned to Rome. 557
prevents its obtaining any such favour." Llowever, she promised him
to grant his request, if God would permit, and indeed she did do so,
in the manner hereafter to be noticed.
Meanwhile the accounts which F. Bartholomew and others brought
to Siena alarmed all her friends. Lapa had already rejoined her
daughter, and Stephen was impatient to follow. The letters he
received from the Saint's companions told him of her aggravated
sufferings, of her combats with the demons, and the state of utter
prostration to which she was reduced. He was now in haste to get
his affairs terminated with all despatch, so that he might at once
rejoin her : for her own words in some of her last letters to him kept
recurring to his mind — "When will you come, Stephen? Oh, come
soon ! " 1 One night as he was praying with the Brethren of the
Company of La Scala, he distinctly heard these words : " Go to
Rome ! make haste ! the departure of thy Mother is at hand ! "
When he told the others, they all agreed that it was a Divine warning,
and that he ought to hasten to Rome without more delay. With his
parents' permission, therefore, he set out at once, and reaching the
city, proceeded at once to Catherine's residence. When he entered
that beloved presence the sight of her wasted form and transfigured
countenance told him that the end was indeed near at hand. And
then once more he heard the sound of that voice, so well remem
bered and so dearly loved, and of which for eighteen weary months
he had been deprived. " Thou hast come at last, my son," she said,
" and hast been obedient to the voice of God, Who will not fail to
make known to thee His will. Go therefore, and confess thy sins,
and prepare with thy companions to give thy life for the Sovereign
Pontiff, Urban VI." This, then, was their greeting, in which nature,
truly, had no part ; yet he had the satisfaction of once more discharg
ing his old office of her secretary, for she bade him write a letter for
her to F. Bartholomew Dominic to bid him a last farewell. " My son
Stephen," she said, "write to Siena to F. Bartholomew, and tell
him the Lord is exercising His mercy on me. Therefore, let him
and the rest of his brethren at San Domenico beseech my Spouse
Jesus that He would suffer me to lay down my life, even to the
shedding of my blood, to manifest His glory in the face of the
Church." 2

1 << 1

1 Quandtu, Stephano, ne viene. . . . Veni tosto."
2 Pro ejus gloria in faciem ecclesia illustrandum (Vit. Step. Mac, ch. xi.).
This expression may bear allusion to that mystic pressing out of her heart's blood
over the face of the Church, spoken of in the last chapter.

558 The last Words.
We do not know the exact date of Stephen's arrival in Rome, and
we cannot tell, therefore, for how many days he was permitted the
sad happiness of watching by his Mother's dying couch. They
cannot have been many ; but few as they were, they did their work.
They unveiled to him the secret of his own heart, and, setting the
seal on all that had gone before, they accomplished that wondrous
transformation of the natural man to which can be given no other
name than " the change of the right Hand of the most Highest."
How could it be otherwise ? They who know what it is to watch by
the death-bed of one of God's servants, who have tasted the
inexpressible sweetness of those last days, a sweetness so strange
that at times we know not whether to call it joy or sorrow, — whether
it be of earth or heaven, — can understand from their own memories
something of what must have been passing in Stephen's soul. They
will recall the quiet house, the gentle footsteps, the sense of Divine
and angelic presences in that chamber from which all thoughts of
earth, all clamour of human passions, all regrets, all resentments, all
desires (save one) were banished. They will realise the calm and
hush that must have fallen on every soul in the little family, as they
stood round that bed of boards, and beheld the attenuated form*
and the countenance of their Mother, which, says Caffarini, shone
"as it had been the face of an angel."1 The hours slipped by so
gently, but alas ! so fast ; till feeling that few were now left her,
Catherine, remembering the promise she had made to Thomas
Petra, bid them all gather around her that she might give them a
parting exhortation. It need hardly be matter of surprise that the
words she then spoke were carefully noted and preserved by those
present ; and we shall give a faithful translation of them from what
is regarded as the most authentic copy in existence.

the last words.
" The Blessed and most happy Virgin Catherine, feeling herself
growing much worse on account of her many and grievous infirmities,
called about her all her spiritual sons and daughters in Christ, and
made them a devout and profitable exhortation, encouraging them in
the practice of virtue ; and specially to certain things which she said
she had taken as the principle and foundation of all perfection ; which
1 Sup., Part 3, Trat. 2, §. 2.

The last Words. 559
were briefly these. First, she said that from the beginning she had
understood that whoso would give himself wholly to God, must first
strip his heart of all sensitive love of all created things out of God ;
because the heart cannot be wholly given to God unless it be free,
open, and without doubleness. And she declared that from her
earliest days it had been her principal study to do this, desiring to
seek God by the way of suffering.
" She said also that she had fixed the eye of her understanding in
the light of living faith, holding it for certain that all whatsoever
happened to her or to others proceeded from God, out of the great
¦ love He bears His creatures, and not out of hate. And thence she
had conceived a great love and promptitude for holy obedience to
the commands of God and of her superiors, remembering that all
their commands "proceeded from God, either for the needs of her
salvation, or for the increase of virtue in her soul. And she added :
' This I will say in the presence of my Sweet Creator, that this point,
by His goodness, I have never transgressed.'
" Next, she said that God had shown her that none can ever arrive
at perfection nor acquire true virtue save by means of humble, faith
ful, and continual prayer, which she said is the mother that conceives
and nourishes all virtues in the soul ; and without it, all languish and
fade away. To which prayer she exhorted us most earnestly to
apply ourselves, declaring that there were two kinds thereof, namely,
vocal and mental prayer. To vocal prayer, she said, we should
attend at the appointed hours ; but to mental prayer, continually,
striving always to know ourselves and God's great goodness to us.
" And she said that in order to arrive at purity of heart, we should
guard ourselves against all judgment of our neighbour, and all idle
speaking of the doings of others, looking only to the will of God in
His creatures ; and saying with much earnestness that for no cause
ought we to judge another. For even if that which we should see
were evident sin, yet we ought not to judge it, but with true and holy
compassion, to offer it to God in humble and devout prayer.
" And speaking another time on this same subject, she rendered
this witness of herself to her spiritual Father, that never, on account
of any persecution, murmurs, detraction, injury, or evil-speaking, had
she suffered herself to think anything in her mind, save that they
who so treated her were moved thereto by charity and zeal for her
salvation. And she gave thanks to the inestimable goodness of God,

560 The last Words.
that by this light He had delivered her from the peril of judging her
neighbour. " Lastly, she said that she had ever placed ,a great hope and confi
dence in Divine Providence, and invited and urged us all to do the
same, which she said she had found passing great and admirable even
from her childhood ; adding :• ' And you yourselves have seen and
experienced the same, and that so largely, that if our hearts were
not harder than stones, our coldness and hardness must be dis
solved thereby. Therefore, have a great love for this sweet Provi
dence, which will never fail those who trust in it, and, specially, will
never be wanting to you.'
" These, and many other things she said, comforting and instructing
us, and humbly exhorting us to that which our Saviour left as His
testament to His disciples, namely, that we should love one another.
And she repeated again and again with great fervour, ' Love one
another, my children, love one another ; for by this you will show
that you are willing to have me for your Mother. And I will hold
you to be my beloved children, and if you are virtuous, you will be
my joy and my crown : and I will pray the Divine Goodness that
the abundance of life, and all the gifts and graces which He has bee*
pleased to pour into my soul, He will also bestow on each one of you.1
" Then she commanded us all, saying : ' My children, never relax
your desires for the reformation and good estate of holy Church ;
but always offer burning tears, together with humble and continual
prayers in the sight of God for that most sweet Spouse, and for Pope
Urban, the Vicar of Christ ; ' saying on her own part, ' For a long"
time have I cherished this burning desire ; but chiefly about seven
years ago it seemed to me that God Himself placed it in my heart.
And from that time there has been no day that I have not offered
myself before Him with sweet and sorrowful longings. And on that
account has His Goodness been pleased to lay on this frail body so
many pains and infirmities. But specially in this present time it
seems that my sweet Creator has done with me as He did with Job,
giving licence to the demons to torment and persecute me as they
please. For I never remember at any time to have endured such
tortures as now I bear. Thanks be to His infinite Goodness which
makes me worthy to endure something for the praise and glory of
His Name, and for His sweet Spouse, the Church. And now,
at last, it seems to me that my beloved Spouse, after so many
earnest and burning desires and bodily pains, wills my soul to

Her last Charge. 561
depart out of this darksome prison, and return to its final end. I
say not that I see His will in this matter with any certainty, but so
it seems to me ; ' and she added, ' hold this for certain, my sweetest
and dearest children, that when I depart out of this body, I shall
truly have consumed and given my life in the Church and for the
Church ; which thing is a most singular favour.' Then seeing us
all weeping bitterly around her, she comforted us, saying : ' Dear
children, let not this make you sad, but rather rejoice and be exceed
ing glad ; considering that I am leaving a place of many sufferings,
and that I go to rest in the peaceful sea,— the Eternal God ; and to
be for ever united with my most sweet and loving Spouse. And I
promise you that I will be more perfectly with you, and of more use
to you there, then ever I could be here : because I am leaving dark
ness, to pass into the true and Eternal Light.
" ' Nevertheless I leave both life and death to the will of my
Creator. If He sees that abiding here, I can be of use to any one, I
refuse neither labour, nor pain, nor torment ; but I am ready, for
His love and for the salvation of my neighbour, to give my life a
thousand times a day, and each time, if that were possible, with
greater suffering than before'
"And so having finished these, words, she called us her children to
her, each one by name, and gave to each a charge what they should
do when she should have departed out of this life : and each of us
with reverence and humility received her obedience. Then she
humbly prayed us to pardon her if she had not given us the holy
doctrine, and the example of a virtuous life to which she was
bound ; and if she had not helped us with prayer before God as she
should have done ; and, moreover, if she had not sufficiently supplied
our temporal necessities ; as well as for any pain, distress, or trouble,
of which she might have been the cause ; saying : ' Every fault has
been through ignorance ; but I declare before God, I both have had
and continue to have an ardent desire for your perfection and salva
tion, which if you attain, dear children, you will be my glory and my
crown.' And then at last, whilst we all remained still weeping, she
gave her blessing in Christ to each one of us, after her accustomed
manner." With regard to what is here stated concerning the separate charge
which she delivered to each one of her disciples as to the state of
life they should embrace after her death, more exact and interesting
particulars have been left by her other disciples. She appointed
2 N

562 She desires Stephen to be a Carthusian.
Alexia 'to be the Mother and Superioress over the Sisters of Penance,
in her place ; commending her spiritual sons to the care of F.
Raymund of Capua, whom she bade them regard and obey as their
Father. She also sent a message to F. William Flete, bidding him
not forget her children ; and to the absent Neri di Landoccio, to
whom she made known that his vocation was to the state of a hermit.
"And lastly," says Stephen, "turning to me, and pointing to me
with her finger, she said, ' As to you, I desire you, on the part of
God, and in the name of holy obedience, to enter into the Order of
the Carthusians, for it is there that God would have you to be, and
it is there He calls you.' "
The place and the hour, when she was to speak to him that
" Word of Christ," which until now she had withheld, were come
at last : and when she uttered that word, a great light made itself
sensible in Stephen's heart. " I say this to the honour of God and
his servant Catherine," he writes, " that when she ordered me, in the
name of holy obedience, to enter among the Carthusians, I had
never once so much as thought of that or any other Order. Never
theless, after her departure, I felt in my heart so great a desire to
obey her, that if the whole world had opposed me, I should have
made not the least account of it."
Caffarini tells us that during these last days she also gave her
disciples other instructions, specially on the danger of self-love, the
root of all evil ; and that she acknowledged to them that she had
once been filled with a most intense longing for solitude, desiring to
live apart from all men in some grotto or forest ; and that she had
even prayed to our Lord with much earnestness that He would grant
her this favour ; but she felt Him reply within her, " Many live as
to the body in their cell, and with their affections in the world : I
will that thy cell should be the knowledge of thy sins and infirmities.
Hollow out this cell in thy heart, and abide there in compunction.
He who will do so, will attain perfection, for wheresoever he goes,
and with whomsoever he speaks, he will still remain retired, solitary,
and enclosed."
And now there only remains for us to relate the end ; but not in
our words shall the tale be told, but in those of the loving and
broken hearts who stood by Catherine in her agony, and beheld her
yield her glorious soul into the hands of her Creator. The narrative
we are about to give is called the " Transito," or last passage. It is

The Transito. 563
taken almost word for word from Barduccio's letter to his sister,1
which has before been quoted ; though the writer of this particular
document in its existing form is believed by Gigli to be no other
than Stephen Maconi; and judging by the language used in the
introductory paragraph, he would seem to have written it almost
immediately after the orphaned family had sustained their unspeak
able loss.
1 In the footnotes we have indicated a few of the variations in the two accounts.

( 564 )

CHAPTER VIII.
THE TRANSITO.
April" 29TH, 1380.
We will now write the order of the glorious and happy end of this
most Sweet Virgin, according as our base intellects are able to compre
hend the same, overcome as they are with immense grief.
" ' I ">HE faithful Spouse of Jesus Christ having now lain eight
X weeks without being able to stand upright, suffering many
unspeakable pains and torments, she came at last to such a state
that she seemed almost to resemble those forms whereby painters
depict death ; that is, in her body and limbs, for as to her face, that
remained up to the time of her burial, angelic and devout. And
some days before her death she lost all power of motion, specially
from her waist downwards, and could not so much as turn herself in
the least degree.
"On the Sunday before the Ascension, being the 29th day of April,
in the year 1380, there was a great change,1 and it seemed to us that
she was about to fall into her agony. She therefore caused all her
family to be called, and with much humility and devotion, without
speaking, made a sign to the priest that she desired the absolution
from her faults and their penalties 2 which was given her by Master
John the Third, of the Order of St. Augustine, Master in Theology.
She continued consumed and sinking all day, until there seemed no
sign of life left, but a continual, feeble, and painful breathing. It was
therefore decided to give the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and
this was done by the hands of the Abbot of St. Anthimo, at which
time she appeared to lie as one unconscious.
" Shortly after having received the holy unction, there appeared a
1 Barduccio says, " The night preceding the Sunday there was a great crisis
two hours before dawn."
2 Da colpa e da pena, that is, not the absolution given in the Sacrament of
Penanbe, but that which enabled her to receive the Indulgence granted by the
Pope at the hour of death. This is apparent from what follows a little later.

Her last Conflict. 565
great change in her ; and by the movements of her countenance and
of her arms she seemed to be enduring a grievous assault from the
powers of darkness. She remained in terrible conflict with them for
one hour and a half, making various signs, which we did not under
stand, with her eyes and her whole head. Having passed about half
that dreadful time in silence, she at length began to speak, and to
say : Peccavi Domine, miserere mei. And she said this more than
sixty times, each time raising her right arm, and letting it fall again,
striking the bed whereon she lay. Then she changed her words,
and said, many times, ' O God, have mercy on me ; take not from
me the memory of Thee ! ' Then she said, ' O God, come to my
assistance ; O Lord, make haste to help me;'1 and, saying this, she
did not move her arm. Then she used other devout and humble
words ; and once, with holy boldness, she said, as though answering
some one who accused her, ' Vainglory ? never ! but the true glory of
Christ crucified.' When the space of time I have named had passed,
her face suddenly changed, and from being dark and troubled, it
became joyous and angelic, shining with such beautiful serenity that
it was a great joy only to look on her. Her eyes, which before had
appeared tearful and almost extinct, kindled, as it were, and became
bright and resplendent. It seemed as though she had come forth
out of some dark abyss ; and the spectacle softened somewhat the
grief of all her afflicted children, who stood weeping around her with
a sorrow that may be imagined, for we thought at that moment that
she was miraculously delivered from all her infirmity. She was then
lying supported on the bosom of Monna Alexia, her beloved daughter
and disciple in Christ ; but she now tried to rise, and we assisted her
to sit upright, still leaning on Alexia. We had placed before her
a little table on which were some relics of the Saints and certain
beautiful images.2 She immediately fixed her eyes on the crucifix
which was in the centre, and began to pray ; and as she prayed, to
accuse herself generally before God of all her sins, and in particular
she said, " Mea culpa J O Eternal Trinity, I have often and miser
ably offended Thee by my negligence, ignorance, ingratitude, dis
obedience, and many other faults. Woe is me ! that I have not-
observed Thy general commands, nor those which Thy Goodness
1 Here Barduccio's account is rather different. He says she repeated the words,
Sancte Deus, miserere mei.
2 This had been given her at Avignon by a Cardinal. The frame of relics is
still preserved in the Sacristy of San Dominico.

566 Her Accusation of herself .
has laid on me in particular.' And often, as she thus accused
herself, she struck her breast. ' Alas ! ' she exclaimed, ' I have not
observed the command Thou gavest me to seek always Thy honour
and the good of my neighbour ; I have done the contrary, seeking
my own honour and flying from labour, when I might have succoured
others in their needs. O Eternal God ! Thou didst command me
to lose and abandon myself, and to seek nought save Thy glory and
the salvation of souls ; delighting in taking that sweet food upon the
table of the most holy Cross. And I have ever sought my own con
solation, and not cared to see souls in the hands of the demon.
Thou, O most merciful Father ! hast constantly invited me to oblige
Thee by intense, sweet, loving, and crucified desires, with tears, and
with humble, faithful, and continual prayer, to grant the salvation of
the whole world, and the reformation of the holy Church, promising
by such means to show mercy to the world,, and to reform Thy
Spouse ; and I, miserable that I am, have never responded to Thy
call, but have slumbered on the bed of negligence. And therefore
are all these evils come upon the world, and so much ruin on Thy
Church. Woe, woe is me ! O sweetest Lqrd ! Thou hast set me
to govern souls, and hast given me all these beloved sons and
daughters, that I should love them with a passing great love, and
guide them carefully in the way of truth ; and I have been to them
nothing but a mirror of misery. I have not taken care of them ; I
have not helped them with humble and continual prayer. I have
not given them the example of a good and holy life, or fed them
with the doctrine of the word in time of need. Oh, miserable soul
of mine ! I have not had the reverence I was bound to have for
such innumerable gifts and graces ; so many sweet pains and tor
ments, that Thou hast been pleased to lay upon this frail body. I
have had no regard to the ineffable love with which Thou hast given
them to me, and so I have not received them with the loving affec
tion that I ought.
" ' Alas, my sweetest Love ! Eternal Spouse of my soul, Thou, for
Thine inestimable goodness, didst choose me, even in my childhood,
to be Thy Spouse ; and I have not been faithful to Thee, but most
unfaithful : for I have not kept my memory full of Thee and of the
remembrance of Thy benefits. My intellect has not been fixed in
Thy truth, and in the sole knowledge of Thy Will ; and my will has
not been disposed to love and follow Thee with all my strength, as
Thou didst require of me.'

She asks her Mother's Blessing. 567
" Of these and many other similar faults did this most pure dove
accuse herself, more, perhaps, for our example than for her own
need. Then she turned to the priest and said, 'Absolve me, for
the love of Jesus crucified, from these sins which I have confessed
before God, and from all others which I do not remember.' And
he did so. Then she said, 'Now absolve me from my faults and
their penalties;' he replied, 'You have been absolved.'1 She
said, ' I have had this indulgence granted me both by Pope Gregory
and by Pope Urban ; give me now Pope Urban's indulgence.' For
like a soul athirst for the Blood, she seemed to seek by what means
it might be poured over her head in yet greater abundance. Her
wish was granted, and after this, still keeping her eyes fixed on the
Crucifix, she began once more to pray, speaking to God high things,
which for our sins we were not worthy to understand, save a little
here and there ; and also because of the pain which she had in her
breast, which did not permit of her speaking very distinctly.2
"Then she addressed herself to some of her children who had not
been present when she made her exhortation, and she imposed on
them her obedience, as to what they were to do. And she asked
pardon of them and of the others, not for her, but for our faults ;
and after this she returned to her prayer.8
" Oh, how can I say what it was to see the humility and reverence
with which, again and again, she asked and received the blessing of
her weeping and afflicted mother, Lapa : most certainly it was a
sweet sorrow ! What a devout spectacle to see that sorrowful mother
recommending herself to her holy daughter, and asking and receiving
her blessing in return ! Truly it pierced one's very soul to behold
it ! And specially did the mother implore of her daughter to obtain
fortitude for her from God, that in her deep affliction she might
not offend Him. And certainly in this matter God both has wrought
and still works wonderful things. But all this did not disturb her
from her prayer, but she continued praying even while she spoke.
" And the end drawing nigh, she made a special prayer for the
Church and for Pope Urban VI., whom she declared to be the true
Pontiff and Vicar of Christ upon earth. And with great fervour she
1 See p. 564.
2 "We caught a few words, bending over her lips to listen, but my grief
prevented me from hearing much." (Barduccio.)
3 " She spoke a few words to Lucio and to me, and to another.'' (Barduccio.)
This Lucio was one of her Roman disciples.

568 Her happy Death.
prayed for all her beloved children whom God had given her, and
whom she loved with a passing great love ; using many of those
words which our Lord spake when He prayed to His Eternal Father,
imploring earnestly, and with most sweet words, that every hard
heart might become softened. Then at last she said, 'Father, they
are Thine, and Thou gavest them to me, and now I give them back
to Thee. Eternal Father, do Thou keep and guard them ; and I
pray that none of them may be snatched out of Thy hands.' And
so praying for us,1 she signed and blessed us. Then once more
making the sign of the Cross, she blessed all those who were not
there corporally present. Then feeling the approach of hej long
and much-desired end, still persevering in prayer, she said, ' Lord,
Thou callest me to come to Thee, and I come ; not in my own
merits, but only in Thy mercy, which mercy I ask in virtue of the
most Precious Blood of Thy dear Son ! ' At the last she exclaimed
several times, ' blood ! blood ! ' Then gently pronouncing the
Words, ' Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,' bowing her
head, she gave up the ghost.
" Her death took place about the hour of sext, on the Sunday
before named, being the Feast of St. Peter Martyr, of her Order.
And we kept her precious body until Tuesday evening, during which
time it remained fresh, of devout and angelic beauty, and emitting
a sweet fragrance. Her arms, hands, fingers, feet, and neck, and all
her other members being as flexible as though her holy soul had not
departed from the body. Deo gratias. Amen."
1 " She spoke with such tenderness, we thought our hearts would cleave
asunder." (Barduccio.)

Tomb of St. Catherine.

CHAPTER IX.

MIGRAVIT AD SPONSUM! n8o.

SHE had passed to her Spouse ! the combat was over : the three
and thirty years of labours and sufferings had been crowned
with a loving martyrdom for the Church, and she had passed to her
reward ! The weeping children knelt a while round the sacred
remains; "they were in great heaviness, for the loss of the good
Mother who had departed from them," says the old legend, "and
who had left them orphans in this wicked world. And they did
what they could to conceal her death from the people, both to avoid
the great press and tumult which they knew would be made if her
death were once noised abroad ; and also, that they might with more
quietness confer together concerning the manner of her funeral."
By general consent the direction of these last duties seems to have
been committed to Stephen Maconi ; and it was he who bore the
sacred remains, on his own shoulders, to the Church of the Minerva,
watching by them day and night until the moment came for their
interment. In a very short time the news of Catherine's death spread through
the city, and vast crowds thronged the church, moving forward like
great waves, says Raymund, that they might kiss the feet, or so much
as touch the garments, of the Saint. The impetuous devotion
exhibited by the people excited fears lest they might even seek to
dismember the holy body in the church ; for which reason it was

570 Semia s Narrative.
judged prudent to place it behind the iron screen of the chapel of
St. Dominic. There it remained for two days, during which time
no change was observable in the countenance, and the limbs remained
perfectly flexible, as in life. The people continued to pour into the
church, bringing with them their sick and infirm friends, and
recommending them to the prayers of the Saint. Many on touching
the body, or even only articles that had been laid on it, received
their cure; and the noise of these miracles spreading abroad, in
creased the eagerness of the multitudes, so that the whole population
of Rome may be said to have collected in the church.
Meanwhile a circumstance occurred, to explain which we must
return to the history of the previous day. On that Sunday morning
when Catherine breathed her last, a certain devout matron of Rome,
named Semia, who lived in the neigbourhood, and was much
attached to the Saint, awoke, intending to rise and hear an early
Mass, that she might return home in time to prepare dinner for her
sons. Semia had not been to visit Catherine for several days, and
so had not learned that her sickness had reached its last extremity.
As she was preparing to rise from her bed, there appeared to her a
child about the age of eight or ten years, who forbade her, saying,
"Thou shalt not rise till thou hast seen what I have to show thee."
Then taking her by her garments, he led her, as it seemed, to a
large open place, where she saw an oratory, containing a fair taber
nacle of silver, fast closed. The child bade her observe attentively
what should happen, when lo ! another child appeared with a golden
key, who opened the tabernacle; whereupon there came forth a
young and beautiful virgin, royally apparelled in shining white,
decked with jewels, and wearing on her head three crowns, — the first
of silver ; the second of silver mixed with gold, " showing a glistening
red colour as when an orient red ground is wrought over with threads
of gold ; " the third of pure gold decked with precious stones.1
Looking steadily on her, Semia recognised the countenance of
Catherine of Siena, but her age not agreeing, she did not believe it
to be her. Whereupon the young virgin, looking at the children, said,
smiling, " Lo ! she knoweth me not ! " Then four other children
came, carrying a kind of rich seat, in which they placed her, desiring,
as it seemed, to carry her away therein. But she said to them,
1 These three crowns would seem to represent those of Virgin, Martyr, and
Doctor, to the merits of all which states Catherine may be said, in a certain- sense
to lay claim.

She hears of Catherine s Death. 571
" Suffer me first to go and speak to her who sees, but does not know
me;" and coming nearer she said, "Semia, do you not know me?
I am Catherine of Siena: mark well what you will now see." Then
Semia beheld how the children lifted the seat, and bore it up to
heaven, where was a throne set, and on it a King, royally clad,
holding in His hand an open book. As soon as the children had
borne her to His presence, Semia beheld the young virgin descend
from her seat and prostrate at the King's, feet to adore Him ; Who
said to her, " Welcome, My beloved Spouse and daughter Catherine ! "
Then there approached a Queen, accompanied by a shining train of
virgins ; and when the holy maid saw her, she knelt upon her knees,
and did her reverence. And the Queen also embraced her, saying
lovingly, " Welcome, my dear daughter Catherine ! " After which
she passed among the virgins, and they received her with passing
great joy, kissing and saluting her one by one. On this Semia
began to pray aloud, and doing so she awoke, and found she had
indeed fallen asleep again at the moment when she was intending to
rise, and that all she had seen had been a dream. It was late,
moreover, and she was in doubt if she should be in time to hear
Mass ; so in some disturbance of mind she made hasty preparations
in her kitchen, and then set forth to the church, saying to herself,
" If I lose Mass this day, I shall take all I have seen to be the work
of the enemy ; but otherwise I shall think it has been shown me for
Catherine's sake." On reaching the church she found the gospel
was over, and, much distressed, began to fear that the wicked fiend
had deceived her. However, hearing a bell ring for Mass at a convent
of nuns hard by, she hastened thither, and was in time to fulfil her
obligation, which somewhat comforted her. As soon as Mass was
over, she hastened back, full of fear lest her sons should be home
before her, and impatient for their dinner. They overtook her in
the street, and begged her to let them have their dinner at once, as
the hour was late. She unlocked the door and went straight to the
kitchen, where, to her surprise, she found everything ready to be
served. Full of wonder who could thus have come to her help, she
was impatient that the meal should be over, that she might hasten
fo Catherine's house, and relate her dream. But when she came to
the house she could make no one hear, though she knocked many
times ; for indeed all the inmates were at that moment absorbed in
sorrow, the departure of their dear Mother having taken place shortly
before'; and they were still taking counsel how best to proceed in

572 Devotion of the People.
the matter of her burial. Semia, therefore, was forced to retire
without seeing or speaking with any one ; nor was it until the next
day that, seeing the crowds hurrying towards the Minerva, and
asking whither they were going, she learnt that Catherine had
departed this life, and that her body had been carried to the church
of the Friars. On this she also hastened to the church, and in a
passion of grief reproached the Sisters for not having called her to
be present at her dear Mother's last passage, inquiring at what hour
she had breathed her last. Then she learned that Catherine had
departed out of this life at the very hour when she had seen her so
gloriously received into heaven, and relating the goodly vision which
our Lord had shown her to the Sisters and others who stood about
the bier, "they all gave glory to God, and took no small comfort"1
This narrative did not lessen the devotion of those who were
present at Catherine's funeral ; and during the whole of that and the
following day the same extraordinary scenes continued. Many of
the first preachers in Rome contended for the honour of celebrating
from the pulpit the praises of the departed Saint ; and among others,
Master John the Third made an attempt to deliver her panegyric in
the church where she lay. But the tumult of the people coming and
going, and their efforts to bring their sick and infirm near enough to
touch the holy body, rendered it impossible for him to make himself
heard. He contented himself therefore, with crying in a loud voice,
"This holy virgin has no need of our preaching, she preaches
sufficiently herself;" and so came down from the pulpit without
saying another word. " It was truly a wonderful spectacle : the whole
population of Rome came thither spontaneously," says Raymund,
"to venerate the remains of the departed Saint, and recommend
themselves to her prayers." Cardinals, prelates, nobles, and plebeians
might be seen crowding round the bier, all speaking of her admirable
life, trying to touch her body, or carry away portions of her
garments. Many miraculous cures took place in the church ; others
followed after the body had been placed in the sepulchre prepared
for it. During the two days and nights that elapsed before the
interment, Stephen and his companions ceased not to watch by the
beloved remains, and when at last the time came to deposit them in
their last resting-place, it was Stephen who with his own hands laid the
body in its coffin of cypress wood, reverently kissing it and watering
it with his tears. He then closed the coffin, which was deposited in
1 Abridged from Fen, Part 4, chap. ix.

Stephen's Sorrow. 573
the cemetery of the religious, burial within the church being reserved
for persons of the highest rank ; but it was not actually buried in
the earth, but placed in a sarcophagus somewhat elevated above the
ground. The funeral obsequies, which were of great magnificence
were celebrated on the 2nd of May, at the expense of Pope Urban,
who commanded all the clergy of Rome, whether secular or regular,
to assist at the ceremony. A few days later another funeral service
of equal solemnity was celebrated by order of John Cenci, Senator
of Rome, as a token of gratitude from the citizens to her who had
proved their most powerful protectress. Although it had been
Stephen's intention to leave Rome immediately after the funeral, yet
he continued to linger from day to day, unable as it seemed to
separate from the spot where reposed her mortal remains. He
occupied himself in collecting every object she had ever used, and
in writing accounts of her last moments to Raymund of Capua, to
the Brethren of Our Lady at Siena, and to other pious persons ;
"which letters," says his biographer, "turned the mourning of those
who read them into joy." Every night he watched for many hours
by the tomb of the Saint ; for this devotion was his only comfort,
and he knew not how to give it up, though at the same time he felt
moved to depart in order to fulfil her dying injunctions. However,
he could not make up his mind to depart without some memorial of
his beloved Mother. He debated in his mind whether he might not
reopen the coffin and cut off some of her hair ; or possess himself of
a finger, or perhaps a hand. He remembered however what she
had formerly predicted to Raymund as to the translation of her
body, and prudently determined to wait till then, before taking any
step of this kind. Nevertheless, after consulting with Alexia and
the other Sisters, he reverently took a tooth, and gave one also to
Alexia ; Neri di Landoccio obtaining possession of a third. Raymund
in his Legend relates the story of Cintio Tancancini, a young man of
Rome, who was in the last extremity from quinsey, and whom Alexia
cured by applying to his throat the tooth which had been given to
her, and which she kept as her most precious treasure; and on one
occasion when Raymund was speaking from the pulpit of the merits
of the Saint, and relating this incident, Cintio himself stood up
among the audience and attested the truth of the preacher's words.
We shall not however dwell at any length on the miracles wrought
at this time, or later, by the Saint's intercession. The reader will
probably feel greater interest in hearing the manner in which the

5 74 Her Death is revealed to Raymund.
news of her death was communicated to some of her absent
disciples. And first, we must speak of F. Raymund of Capua, who
was just then preparing to leave Genoa for Pisa, on his way to
Bologna, where the election of a new Master-General of the Order
was about to be made.1 " The same morning that the blessed
Catherine expired," he says, " I had gone to the church to celebrate
the festival of St. Peter Martyr. After saying Mass, I again went
up to the dormitory to prepare my little bundle for our intended
journey, when passing by the image of our blessed Lady, which
stood in the dormitory, I said an Ave Maria softly, after the manner
of our religious, and remained kneeling there for a few minutes.
At that moment I heard a Voice, which was not in the air,
pronouncing words which I perceived, not orally, but mentally ; yet
I was more distinctly conscious of than if I had listened to them
with my bodily ears, as though it had been a voice, yet without a
sound. This Voice spoke, or at least presented to my mind these
words : ' Fear not, I am here for your sake ; I am in heaven for
you ; I will protect and defend you : be tranquil ; fear nothing, I am
here for you.' At first these words threw me into great trouble, and
I tried to think what they could mean. At the moment I could
only attribute them to the blessed Virgin whom I was in the act of
saluting ; yet this I dared not think, because of my unworthiness.
I feared some terrible calamity was at hand, and thought that perhaps
as I had been invoking this good Mother of the afflicted, she had sent
me this warning to prepare me for the coming event. For as I had
been preaching at Genoa against the schismatics, I fancied some
among them might be awaiting an opportunity to injure me. It was
so I endeavoured to account for the prodigy which God had been
pleased to work by the soul of His Spouse, in order to support my
weakness." Raymund was not the only person who, at the moment of
Catherine's death, seems to have had an intimation of her blessed
ness. The reader will remember what had passed between her and
Master Thomas Petra ; and this worthy man gave his testimony of
what happened to himself after her death, in a letter which is to be
found in the second deposition of F. Bartholomew Dominic, forming
part of the Process. The responsible position, no less than the
1 This election was rendered necessary by the fact that Elias of Toulouse had
espoused the cause of the Antipope. The newly-elected General was only for
that portion of the Order that remained faithful to Urban.

Thomas Petra s Narrative. 575
grave and accurate character of the writer, must be borne in mind
while reading his extraordinary narrative.
" Eight days had elapsed after the death of Catherine," he says,
"when early one morning a man of great piety, called John of Pisa,
came and knocked at my door. I opened it directly. ' Catherine
of Siena is coming,' he said. ' How can that be ? ' I asked, ' she
has been dead more than a week.' 'Nevertheless,' he replied,
' you may be sure that you will see her,' and, so saying, he departed,
before I could call him back. The morrow, and the next day, and
so on for nearly thirty days, I received a similar visit from men
estimable for their virtues and their saintly lives. I presume they
were angels from God, who took the forms of these persons to
announce to me what was to take place. At last, one Sunday, after
having recited my Matins, 1 disposed myself to take a little repose,
when, towards daybreak, I saw in a cloudless sky, a multitude of
blessed spirits who advanced in regular procession; they were
clothed in white, and marched three by three, bearing ornaments,
relics, crosses, silver chandeliers, lighted tapers, and musical instru
ments ; and they sung, in several choirs, sacred hymns, the Kyrie
Eleison, the Gloria in Excelsis, the Sanctus, the Benedictus, and the
Te Deum.
" The magnificence of this spectacle completely rapt me out of
myself; nevertheless, remembering the promise that had been given
me, I took courage, and said to one of the Angels, ' What are
you doing?' He answered me, 'We are conducting the soul of
Catherine of Siena into the presence of the Divine Majesty.'
When he had passed on, with those who accompanied him, I
addressed another, and said, ' Where is she ? ' Directly he heard
me, the whole procession formed an extended circle, in the centre of
which was Catherine : she was clad like the Angels, and resembled
Our Lord, as He is painted in the tribune of churches. Her
hands were filled with palm-branches, her head was inclined, and
her eyes modestly cast down. I recognised her perfectly well by her
exterior. I then asked Almighty God to complete the vision, and to
comfort my soul by allowing me to behold Catherine's countenance.
I was heard ; she raised her head and looked at me with that gracious
smile which always expressed the joy of her soul. The procession
then resumed its onward march, continuing the heavenly chants."
What joy to those who beheld such spectacles ! The world is at
liberty to call them dreams, and we are not careful to claim for them

576 Letter from fohn of the Cells.
any other title. But happy they who have such dreams ; who, when
the beloved ones of their souls have gone from them, are privileged
thus to behold them " in the visions of the night when deep sleep
falleth upon man ; " with the old " gracious smile" upon their lips,
and a new and heavenly joy on their shining countenances. If such
be the dreams that follow the parting stroke, who would not so
dream on for ever ! Another revelation appears to have been
granted to John of the Cells, who speaks of it in the following beau
tiful letter, addressed to his former disciple Barduccio.
" My Son Barduccio,— -How can we any longer live, now that our
Mother, our only consolation, is gone from us ! What is now left us
save to weep over our unhappiness- ! And we shall not be alone in
our tears ; for now is accomplished the word spoken by the prophet
of old, ' There shall be a great weeping in Jerusalem.' For now are
weeping in the Church of our loving Lord the company of monks by
themselves, and the company of devout friars by themselves, and the
widows by themselves, and the virgins of the Church by themselves,
and those who are married, and penitents, and all whom Catherine
gained to God, they all weep by themselves, and the poor and the
miserable, they also weep by themselves.1 And after them, I also
weep, although the angels are celebrating a joyful festivity in heaven
for her ; yet, nevertheless, nothing is so sweet to me as to weep. I
do not weep for her, for she desired death, and is living now in the
presence of her Creator : neither do I weep out of any diffidence (as
to her state), but I weep because I am an orphan and abandoned ;
because the joy of my heart has been taken from me ; and therefore
my eyes are blinded with my tears, and nothing brings me comfort,
for there is no comfort to be had. And if it were not, that even now
she has appeared to me, and consoled me with her devout and angelic
presence, I should, to use the words of the Patriarch Jacob, ' weeping,
have gone down into the grave' By the grace of God, I have for
thirty days celebrated for her the Holy Sacrifice of salvation. Come
then, beloved son, come to your old Father, come to your brethren,
who expect you impatiently, in such sort that when you come they
will receive you as no other than an angel of God. And recommend
me to Brother Raymund, and salute all the children of Catherine in
my name. Farewell, my son, and may the Lord show thee His will,
that thou mayest at all times know what is acceptable to Him." 2
1 The allusion here is to Zach. ii. 12.
2 Leltere di Santi Iloreniini. No. xxvii.

Letter from Nigi di Doccio. 577
One other letter yet remains to be quoted. It is that which Nigi
di Doccio addressed to Neri, still absent in Naples, on the subject
of their receot bereavement. "May 22, 1380.
" Dearest Brother, — I think you know how our dearest and
most venerable Mother departed to Paradise on the 29th of April
last. Praised be our blessed and crucified Saviour, Jesus Christ !
I seem left an orphan, for all my comfort was in her, and now I
cannot stop from weeping. I weep not for her, but for myself, who
have lost my only good. I could not, as you know, have suffered
a greater loss. Pray her to obtain from God that He send me some
comfort. As to our Mother herself, I rejoice and am glad, in so
far as she is concerned ; but for us, her children, who remain in this
miserable world, there is cause indeed to weep over and to pity
them. I cannot pour out my grief to any one except yourself, who
were the means of my first acquiring so great a blessing. I feel some
comfort in this, that our sweet Mother remains incarnated in my
heart more than ever she was, and I seem now to know her as I
never knew her before. How miserable we were to have so much
of her company, whilst yet we never knew her rightly, or were worthy
of her presence ! And I take comfort in this also, that she said, as
you know, that she would be more useful to us dead than living.
Know, dearest brother, that my sorrow will greatly diminish when
I can once more be with you ; remembering, as I said, that you were
the means of my first possessing so great a treasure. But the more
the thing which we possess is good and holy, the greater is our
sorrow in losing it. Dearest brother, I am so distracted in mind by
my loss that I am writing to you incoherently, and so I will bring
my letter to a close. I greatly fear the orphaned children will be
like sheep that have lost their shepherd. Our Mother left the
Bachelor and Master Matthew in her place. Sano di Maco will be
Prior of the Company next June. I shall never forget you. Write
and say when you are coming to Siena. Sano di Maco, and Sano
di Bartolomeo, and all the other orphans remember themselves to
you. Paoloccio has taken a wife. I, your servant Nigi Doccio, the
orphan, salute you as well as I can."
Meanwhile the election of a new General of the Order of Friar
Preachers was proceeding at Bologna, where on the Feast of
Pentecost, according to Catherine's prediction, Raymund of Capua
was nominated to the vacant office by the Motu Proprio of the
2 o

578 Catherine's Head is sent to Siena.
Sovereign Pontiff. He made every effort to escape from so heavy
and responsible a charge, but was at length constrained to accept it
by obedience, as well as by the urgent solicitations of the Chapter.
He determined in his mind that as soon as he should return to
Rome he would cause the head of St. Catherine to be sent to the
convent of St. Domenico at Siena, both as a token of affection to
his brethren there, and also that this, the chief relic of her holy
body, should repose in the city so dear to her in life, and which had
been illustrated by so many of her most admirable actions. As soon
therefore as he had entered on his office, and happily completed the
visitation of the Ultramontane Provinces, he returned to Rome,1 and
once more took up his residence at the Minerva, where his first visit
was to the sepulchre of her who, while she lived, had been at once
his spiritual daughter and his Mother. He caused it to be opened,
a thing easily done as, in point of fact, it was not actually buried
beneath the ground ; and found that the clothes had suffered some
what from the dampness of the place where the body was deposited,
and where it was much exposed to the rain. He therefore resolved
immediately to transfer the remains to a stone sarcophagus, and to
deposit them in a safe place on the right hand side of the high altar
of the church. When he had done this, he remembered, not without
tears of tenderness, what Catherine had predicted to him on the
eve of St. Francis, when they were together at Voragine on their
journey back from Avignon ; 2 namely, that he should on that same
day in a future year, cause such a translation of her body to be made ;
a prediction which was thus fulfilled in every particular. As to his
further design of sending her head to Siena, he could not venture on
so important a step without obtaining the consent of the Sovereign
Pontiff. He therefore solicited the necessary permission from
Urban, who willingly consented, charging him, moreover, to omit
nothing that could make known to the world the merits and glory of
the Saint. Having received this permission,3 he once more visited
the sacred body, and first prostrating on the ground and asking her
1 The date is uncertain ; but from an expression of Caffarini's in the Supplement
we should judge it to have been in October 1381. ! See p. 338.
3 The account which follows is abridged from the rare little memoir, entitled
"Breve Relazione del modo come fu portata da Roma a Siena la Sacra Testa di
Santa Caterina (Siena, 1683). It does not bear the name of its author, but
Carapelli informs us it was the work of F. Tommaso Angiolini. His account as
will be seen is entirely in conformity with what Raymund says in the Legend,
(Part 2, ch. xi.) though much more circumstantial.

Raymund has it publicly honoured. 579
assistance, he then with generous resolution separated the head from
the body, enclosed it in a reliquary of gilded copper, and consigned
it to the care of two friars of the Order, of whom one was F. Thomas
della Fonte, and the other was F. Ambrose di Luigi Sansedoni, both
Sienese by birth. F. Ambrose was a man of great learning, and
Socius to the General, who reposed the utmost confidence in him,
and on that account selected him for this business. The two Fathers
performed their journey with the utmost secrecy, and succeeded in
depositing their precious charge in the convent at the Campo Reggio,
without its being known by the people ; and as the holy relic could
not be exposed to public veneration before the canonisation of the
Saint, it was laid up in a chest, and placed in the sacristy, where the
intention was carefully to conceal and guard it until such time as
the decision of the Church should authorise their rendering it
befitting honours.
But it was not destined that the head of St. Catherine should long
remain in this obscurity. A few years later, Raymund was ordered
by his physician to repair to Siena for the purpose of recruiting his
health in the medical baths of that vicinity. According to the
Carthusian biographer of Stephen Maconi this visit took place in
1384 or 1385. 1 Raymund was at that time engaged in compiling the
life of the Saint, commonly known as the Legend ; a work to which
he devoted such intervals of leisure as he could secure in the midst
of his heavy official duties. He took occasion of his visit to Siena
to resume his labours on this book, and it was whilst thus occupied
that his heart reproached him with having sent away from Rome
the most noble of her relics in so secret a manner, and permitted
it to have remained concealed so as to receive no signs of respect
and veneration. He was aware that in Venice the custom had been
at once established of celebrating the anniversary of her death, and
causing her praises to be published from the pulpit ; and reproaching
himself for his own negligence, he resolved to repair it without loss
of time, by taking measures that the sacred relic of her head should
in future be treated with greater honour. He therefore took
1 Capecelatro and some other writers, give 1385 as the date of Raymund's
first translation of the body, in ignorance of the fact that this translation and the
sending to Siena of the head of St. Catherine preceded by some years the
public reception of the holy relic by the citizens, and the honours then rendered
to it. F. Gregorio Lombardelli even assigns to this latter event so late a date
as 1388.

580 The great Predica.
counsel with the Fathers of the convent, and with several of the
Saint's most intimate friends who were still resident in Siena ; among
others with Master Matthew of the Misericordia, Neri di Landoccio,
and Ser Christofano di Gano. Stephen Maconi, then a professed
Carthusian livjng in the monastery of Pontignano, about five miles
out of the city, received a supernatural intimation to join them, as
they were assembled in consultation in the church of San Domenico ;
and it was through his influence that the consent of the Bishop was
obtained for the plans which they proposed and laid before him.
It was agreed that Raymund should then present himself to the
.Consistory of the republic, and make known to them in what
manner the head of their glorious fellow-countrywoman had been
brought to the city, and hitherto preserved concealed. The
Magistrates at once resolved that a grand public solemnity should
be ordered, to be preceded by a week of spiritual exercises, during
which time the most eminent preachers, whether' natives or
foreigners, should be invited to proclaim the glories of St.
Catherine. This part of the festival Raymund made it his business to arrange.
On the evening of Saturday the 23 rd of April, the bells announced
the commencement of the great predica, which was opened next
morning by Raymund himself. We shall not weary our readers with
the list of all the preachers, but only notice the names of F.
Bartholomew Dominic, F. Massimino of Salerno, F. Thomas
Nacci Caffarini, F. John Piccolomini (son of the honest Gabriel), F.
George of Naddi, whom the Saint had delivered from the thieves,
and F. Bartholomew Montucci. On the following Sunday, May 1st,
(on which day was then kept what was called the " Solemnity " of the
holy Virgin), the whole city flocked to San Domenico, and it was
announced to them that on the following Thursday (May 5th) they
. should again repair to receive the head of their beloved fellow-
citizen and protectress, Catherine Benincasa. Meanwhile, the fame
of so many illustrious preachers who were collected in the city had
drawn thither a great number of visitors from other parts. The
Consistory moreover had written to all the bishops, abbots, and
other prelates of the republic, inviting them to assist at the great
procession which they had determined to celebrate on the following
Thursday. On the night, then, of the preceding Wednesday, Raymund took
the relic with all possible privacy to the Hospital of St. Lazarus, out-

The Procession. 581
side the Porta Romana, where the procession was to begin, and
where, says our historian, " St. Catherine was well known, and had
worked many miracles." He placed it in a rich tabernacle, and
prepared everything for the solemnity of the morrow. At dawn of
day — a May day in the most delicious of Italian, climates — the
people, full of joyful devotion, came out into the streets, scattering
flowers and sweet- smelling herbs, and burning perfumes in every
place where the procession was to pass. When all was ready, the
great bell of the Palazzo gave the signal from its lofty tower, and at
that sound, as by magic, all the other bells of the churches rang out
as by one consent, and continued doing so the whole time until the
procession had reached its destination. It would seem that the
Porta Romana had been chosen as the gate by which the procession
was to enter, in order that thus they might traverse the entire
length of the city ; so they set forth at last, chanting with a thousand
voices, and making the air resound with so many musical instru
ments, " that," says Angiolini, "you would have thought the gates of
Paradise had been thrown open." First came two hundred girls and
as many boys, all selected of equal heights, dressed in white, and
adorned with gold, silver, and jewels. They carried in their hands
huge bunches of roses, lilies, and other flowers, " in memory," says
F. Angiolini, " of Catherine's words ; for she was accustomed to
say that every one should wear white garments, and carry flowers in
their hands ; meaning thereby that they should be pure and innocent
in life, and adorned with virtues." Then came representatives
chosen for each one of the Contrade of the city, and of the different
arts, bearing lighted torches. The various Companies and Confrater
nities, both of the city and of the country for five miles, in like
manner sent their deputies ; and each of these societies represented
in a kind of tableau vivant in the procession some mystery of the
Saint's life, the dresses being provided at the public expense ; while
before each Company was borne its own banner and a vast number
of torches. Then followed all the Hermits of the Sienese States, of
whom there were great numbers, all supported by the republic, to
the end that they might with less distraction pray, meditate, and
afflict their bodies ; and before them was borne the Crucifix. Next
came the different religious communities, each with their cross.
Then the secular priests of the diocese, followed by the canons, all
carrying wax candles. Then the gentlemen, magistrates and officials,
two and two according to their rank, and clad in robes of office.

582 Lapa walks in the Procession.
Then the illustrious Consistory, in their richest dresses of state ; after
them the abhots and other dignitaries ; followed by the bishops, in
their pontificals, all with their pastoral staves in their hands. Last
of all came a Baldachin of gold brocade adorned with jewels, borne
over the sacred relic, which was carried in a magnificent tabernacle of
gold, adorned with pictures of St. Catherine's life, which had long
before been prepared by Raymund. He himself, as Master-General
of the Friar Preachers, walked on the left hand of the relic, while
on the right appeared the Bishop of Siena.
It was a grand and solemn spectacle, but its most touching feature
has yet to be described. Closely following the Baldachin came a
long line of figures, walking two and two, clad in white robes and
black mantles, on whom the eyes of all the citizens and of those
who had come from distant parts rested with a peculiar interest.
They were the Mantellate of St. Dominic, St. Catherine's own
religious Sisters, many of them her chosen friends and companions
in life. And their appearance recalled to every mind the days when
she, too, clad in the same habit, went about those very streets on
her missions of charity, ministering to the wants whether of soul or
body, and diffusing around her the sweet perfume of her angelic
presence. And there, in the midst of them, assisting at this magnificent
solemnity, wearing the habit of the Sisters of Penance, and walking
in their ranks, appeared one venerable woman in extreme old age.
It was Lapa, the mother of the Saint, who at eighty still survived to
take part in-the honours rendered to her beloved child. At the sight
of her the beholders could not contain their tears, and many, breaking
through the ranks of the procession, crowded round to look at and
congratulate her, exclaiming, " O happy you, who with your own
eyes have beheld the glorious triumph of your daughter ! " 1 The
procession having at last reached the Church of St. Dominic, at the
further extremity of the city, and the Te Deum having been sung,
Raymund delivered a brief discourse ; the Bishop bestowed his
benediction on the people ; and the sacred relic was deposited in a
becoming chest made for the purpose, and placed in the sacristy.
Stephen Maconi bore his part in this procession, "and for many
days afterwards," says his biographer, "he could not cease from
weeping, and speaking of his blessed Mother." On the same day
1 O te beatam ! aiebant, qua ipsis oculis adhttc tarn gloriosum de filia cernere
meruisti triumphum /— Bollandus, p. 969.

English and Irish Preachers. 583
that her head was deposited in the Church of St. Dominic, he
himself received from Rome the finger on which had been placed
the ring of her mystic espousals, and which had remained stiff and
erect, whilst all the other fingers were perfectly flexible. It was
preserved at Pontignano with great veneration, and some years later
Stephen received the cure of a malady of his eyes by touching them
with this precious relic.
We do not know what the reader will think of the devotion of the
Sienese, when we add that not content with the Octave of preparation,
they celebrated another "predica " of fifteen days, after the conclusion
of this solemnity, and the names of the preachers of each day are
faithfully given by F. Angiolini. One of them was F. Matthew
Tolomei, the brother of Master James, and the same who had accom
panied the Saint to Rocca dell' Orcia; another was F. Augustine
of Pisa, who had been in the Church of St. Christina when Catherine
received the stigmas ; another was F. Gregory of Cescena, whose
discourse was so magnificent as to stupefy his audience with admira
tion. But I shall pass over other more illustrious names of Fathers
gathered from every convent of the Order in Tuscany, as well as
from Venice, France, and Spain, and only add the consoling fact
that among the distinguished foreign Dominicans who during that
fortnight filled the pulpit of San Domenico, are to be found the
names of F. Peter Martyr of Ireland, and F. John of England, the
first of whom was " a great Doctor of Paris," and the second " a
man greatly renowned as learned, holy, devout, exemplary, and full
of faith."
It is thus that the true narrative of this celebrated procession is
carefully given by F. Thomas Angiolini;1 and we have quoted it
here, both because his little work is extremely rare, and because the
facts have been related by other historians with many variations from
the truth. The procession is very commonly represented as having
been made by command of the Magistrates of Siena, in order to receive
the relic when first sent from Rome by Raymund ; ignoring the fact
that its original transmission to Siena had been made privately, and
at least five years previous to the public reception above described.
Probably no such honours were ever decreed to any other servant
of God within so short a time of their decease, and prior to their
1 We have added to his narrative a few particulars given in the Life of Stephen
Maconi.

584 The Bread multiplied.
canonisation. They were rather civic than religious honours, for
these last could not, strictly speaking, be permitted, according to the
laws of the Church. It was the welcome which Siena gave to the
greatest and the holiest of her citizens. And it was after this long
day's festivity was over that the incident took place which Raymund
has related in his Legend, though only accidentally, as it were, and in
illustration of a totally different subject.
"It is now nearly five years ago,"1 he says, "when I was in the
city of Siena, where, at the earnest request of Catherine's spiritual
children, I had commenced writing her life. It occurred to me at
that time that the head of the Saint, which had been brought from
Rome to Siena, and which I had ornamented to the best of my ability,
had not yet been publicly exposed and honoured. I thought that a day
might be selected for a solemn reception of this precious relic in the
convent, as though it had just arrived, and that the religious might
chant the Office of the day, as a particular one could not be allowed
as long as the Sovereign Pontiff had not yet inscribed her in the
catalogue of the Saints. The festival took place to the great satisfac
tion of the religious and the citizens, but especially of those persons
of whom she had been the spiritual guide. I invited her most faith
ful disciples to dine in the refectory, and recommended the lay
brother to give an extra attention to the serving of the repast.
" When the Office was concluded, and the moment for breakfast
arrived, the Brother in charge of the pantry came to the Prior and
told him with much distress that there was not sufficient bread for
the Brethren at the first table, and none at all for the twenty invited
guests. On this information, the Prior determined to ascertain the
real situation of affairs, and having seen how it was, he immediately
sent the steward, with Father Thomas (Catherine's first confessor) to
several friends of the Order, to bring the bread required ; but they
delayed so long that the Prior desired that the loaves which were in
the house should be set before the strangers who were with me, so
that a very small quantity remained in the storeroom. But as those
on the quest did not return, he bade the religious sit down to table
1 This " five years ago " would be an admirable point d'appui for our chron
ology did we but know from what year we were to reckon back ; but this Raymund
has forgotten to mention. For the rest, his notice of the fact is valuable, and
confirms the perfect accuracy of Angiolini's narrative. The words we have
italicised show that the first sending of the head to Siena and its subsequent public
reception happened at distinct times.

Fire at San Domenico. 585
and begin on this small quantity until more should be brought.
Then it was found that either in the storeroom, or on the refectory
table, or somewhere, the bread had so multiplied through Catherine's
intercession, that the whole Community were abundantly supplied,
both at the first and second tables, and plentiful fragments left over ;
in fact, fifty religious had been fed with what would barely have
sufficed for five. When the Brethren who had been sent out returned
with what they had procured, they were told that it would serve for
another time, because God had amply supplied the wants of His
servants. After dinner I was speaking with our guests at some
length on the virtues of the blessed Catherine, when the Prior came
in with some others of the religious, and told us the miracle that had
just taken place. Then I said to those present, ' It is clear that the
holy Mother would not refuse to work for our benefit the same
miracle she so often worked in her lifetime ; the prodigy of to-day
shows that she has accepted our service, and that she is ever with
us; let us then give thanks to God and to our good Mother.'"1
Having said thus much concerning the first procession of the holy
head of St. Catherine, it may be well to add a few words as to the
subsequent history of this precious relic. In 1468 it was transferred
to a magnificent silver reliquary, representing the head and bust of
the Saint, one of the keys of the same being delivered to the keeping
of the Captain of the people, and the other to the Prior of the Con
vent On the night of the 3rd of December, in the year 1531, a
terrible fire broke out in the Church of San Domenico, which destroyed
many of the sacred relics and other treasures preserved in the church
and sacristy ; but St. Catherine's head was saved, thanks to the devo
tion of a certain Florentine lay brother, named Brother Anselm,
who, wrapping himself in clothes dipped in water, threw himself into
the midst of the flames, and rescued the relic, though not without
its having sustained considerable injury. At the beginning of last
century it was again transferred from this silver reliquary to one of
crystal, in order the more easily to be seen and venerated by the
faithful. Dating from the time of its solemn reception by the
citizens, the annual custom of celebrating the festival of the Saint by
a procession of her relics through the city has always been observed ;
though since its transfer to the crystal reliquary, the head itself has
not been carried, but only the silver bust, in front of which is placed
1 Leg. , Part 2, ch. xi.

586 Other Relics of St. Catherine.
another relic, namely, the thumb of her right hand ; " that hand,"
says Gigli, " which hold the pen that wrote so many marvels." This
annual procession still forms the great Festa of Siena, in which not
the clergy alone, but all the magistrates, nobles, and citizens take
part. The streets are then adorned with tapestry and flowers, the
Church of San Domenico, and the little cell of the Fullonica blaze
with lights, and are visited all day long by pious pilgrims ; and at
night the whole Contrada of Fontebranda is brilliantly illuminated,
and resounds with hymns and pious songs which recall the life of
her whose glory still sheds its radiance over her native city.1
We must not conclude this chapter without adding a few particu
lars concerning the other chief relics of St. Catherine. When Ray
mund removed her body from the cemetery to the Church of the
Minerva, he placed it at the foot of a column facing the Rosary
Chapel, where it remained until 1430. In that year St. Antoninus
(afterwards Archbishop of Florence) was Prior of the Minerva, and
by his orders the body was placed in a new stone sarcophagus; richly
carved and surmounted by a wooden statue of the Saint. The head
of the figure rests on a pillow, on which are engraved the words,
Beata Katerina ; while on the sarcophagus itself appears the follow
ing inscription : Sancta Caterina virgo de Senis ordinis S.
Dominici de p^enitentia. 2 This sarcophagus has often been
opened, and relics taken from it have been distributed among
various churches and convents. Thus in 1487, F. Joachim Toriani,
General of the Order, gave the right hand to the nuns of S. Domenico
e Sisto, and at the same time sent a foot to the Church of SS. John
and Paul, at Venice. In 1575, F. Sixtus Fabbri gave another large
relic to. the nuns of Santa Caterina of Rome, whose community
descends from the disciples of the Saint. On the 17th of April,
1855, when the Church of the Minerva was undergoing restoration,
the sarcophagus was again opened by F. Alexander Vincent Jandel,
General of the Order, in presence of many ecclesiastics of high rank.
1 The head of St. Catherine is kept in the chapel dedicated to her in the
Church of S. Domenico. An exact account of its present state will be found given
in the Scientific Report quoted by Niccolo Tommaseo in the first vol. of his edi
tion of St. Catherine's letters, (Appendix XL), in which the writer declares that in
spite of the injuries of time, the countenance even yet retains an expression of
" vigour and agreeable candour."
2 A representation of this sarcophagus and statue appears at the head of the
present chapter.

Last Translation of the Relics. 587
On that occasion a considerable portion of the sacred relics was
taken out by the General, and sent to the convent of St. Dominic's,
Stone, the Mother-Ffouse of the English congregation of Sisters
of Penance, which bears the name of St. Catherine. These relics,
which fill two silver and crystal reliquaries each three and a half
inches long, consist of portions of bone and skin presenting the
appearance of grey ashes, among which appear mingled threads of
gold, the remains, probably, of the cloth of gold in which the holy
body was wrapped.1
The Church of the Minerva was reopened after its restoration on
the 3rd of August 1855. The relics of the Saint, still reposing in
their ancient sarcophagus, were then deposited beneath the high
altar which, on the day following, being the Feast of St. Dominic,
was solemnly consecrated by Pope Pius IX., of holy and happy
memory. The next day the shrine was visited by the Roman Senate,
and the relics were borne through the neighbouring streets in a
grand and solemn procession. On this occasion, as before at Siena,
appeared the unusual feature of a number of Sisters of the Third
Order, following the crowd of prelates and illustrious personages
who were assembled to do honour to their great patroness.2 This
is the event celebrated as the Translation of St. Catherine, which
was decreed to be thenceforward observed as a Totum Duplex on
the Thursday before Sexagesima Sunday, on which day had, until then,
been kept the Commemoration, or Espousals of the Saint ; and a
Proper Office of nine lessons was granted to the Order to be on that
day recited. A few years later Pius IX. adorned the tomb of the
Saint with some precious jewels, in consequence of which it has
been thought necessary to enclose the sarcophagus in a kind of
lattice-work, yet so as still to leave it visible under the high altar.
We have already spoken of the right hand of St. Catherine which
is preserved in the convent of San Domenico e Sisto ; other relics of
a different kind are, or were, preserved in various places. Gigli tells
us that at Rome, in his time, a portion of her habit was to be seen
at St. Niccolo in Carcere ; a discipline and chain are at St. Cecilia
in Trastevere ; and a shoe of white leather is at Santa Maddalena.
1 One of these reliquaries is preserved at St. Dominic's, Stone ; the other at the
convent of St. Catherine, at Bow, near London.
2 This circumstance is referred to in the sixth lesson of the Office of the Trans
lation. Episcopi adlatera incedebant, subsequenlibus Sororibus Tertii Ordinis. _

588 The Ftdlonica.
This last-named convent is on -the Pincian Hill, and was founded
in 1582 by Sister Magdalen Orsini; but during the Pontificate of
Gregory XVI., the Community, which was of strict observance, was
broken up, and its members incorporated with those of Santa Cate
rina and another Dominican Community; the convent being assigned
to the nuns of the Perpetual Adoration. The shoe mentioned by
Gigli is probably, therefore, the same now in the possession of the
nuns of Santa Caterina, who also have a crucifix said to have
belonged to the Saint.
It is at Siena, however, that the greatest number of her memorials
have been preserved, among which must be numbered the holy
house of the Fullonica, which was her birthplace and home. It was
purchased by the Signoria in 1464, and transformed into a devout
oratory at the petition of the inhabitants of the Contrada di
Fontebranda who were too poor to undertake the expense them
selves. At that time we read of "the great number of foreigners
who came thither on pilgrimage, devoutly kissing the stairs and floors,
saying as they did so, ' Here lived the true Spouse of Christ,' and
other similar words." The oratory when finished was given into the
custody of the Confraternity of St. Catherine in Fontebranda. The
house has happily been preserved in all its chief features unaltered,
and the visitor may still see the workshop of Giacomo and the cellar
where the wine was multiplied ; the staircase which Catherine so
often ascended as a child, reciting a Hail Mary on every step ; the
fireplace where she prepared the family meals ; the room she
occupied with her brother Stephen, and that which afterwards served
as her chapel, and in which Mass was celebrated after her return
from Avignon. The altar still remains, and on it are reliquaries
containing various objects used by her in her lifetime; such as the
lantern she carried when summoned to the sick during the hours
of the night ; a phial of scent, given to her, probably, at the time of
the plague ; and a stick on which she leaned when infirm. But by
far the most interesting spot is the cell which was assigned to her
own use, lighted by its little window, beneath which appear the
remains of the brick steps on which she occasionally rested her head
during her scanty hours of repose : 1 the walls and floors of this
room remain unaltered, and the pilgrim may still kiss the ground
where her feet once trod. On the opposite side of the street stands
the Church of Sta. Caterina, occupying the site of the former garden ;
kJ Portions of these are preserved in St. Dominic's Convent, Stone.

San Domenico. 589
and here is preserved the Crucifix brought from Pisa, before which
she received the stigmata. From the top of her father's house
Catherine could behold the neighbouring church of San Domenico,
and here she is said by tradition to have been in the habit of
resorting, as to a place of prayer and contemplation. Of the church
itself we have already spoken. As at Sta. Caterina, the walls are
everywhere adorned with paintings and sculptures representing the
chief scenes of Catherine's life, executed by the best Sienese artists.
Of these the most celebrated is the Swoon of the Saint, who appears
supported in the arms of two of her Sisters. This painting, which
is in the chapel of St. Catherine, is by Giovanni Antonio Razzi, of
Verzelli, more commonly known as Sodoma, and is regarded as his
masterpiece. Its grace and loveliness are beyond dispute, yet, as is
so often to be remarked, the conception of the artist fails as a repre
sentation of the actual fact ; for this picture in no way corresponds
with what we know to have been Catherine's real condition when in
ecstasy. On the pavement of the church appear various inscriptions,
placed there by F. Angiolo Carapelli, when sacristan, in order to
show the exact spots where certain events in Catherine's life took
place. Here, we read, her heart was exchanged for that of her
Divine Spouse — there, she bestowed the silver cross upon the beggar ;
in another place she gave her garment to Christ under the form of a
poor pilgrim ; whilst another inscription marks the place where He
was wont to recite with her the Psalms of the Divine Office.
Catherine's memory, then, still survives in the heart of her country
men ; and the events of her marvellous life form part of the classic
history of Siena. Much might be said of the tributes which have been
paid to the beauty of that life by literature and by art, but we pur
posely abstain from all such digressions as would present the reader
with a mere human idealism of one of God's Saints. It is not with
them as with the great ones of this world, whose histories may be
woven into poems and dramas, and made the theme of fanciful
conceptions. For, " the just are living for evermore" We cannot
altogether relegate them to the past, and regard them through the
dim medium of intervening centuries, as we regard many a hero and
heroine whose historic existence is almost swallowed up in that
with which they have been invested by the imagination. It is not to
art or to poetry that the memory of the Saints owes its amazing and
fructifying power, but to the fact that we hold with them a living
intercommunion. On the fifth centenary of St. Catherine, which

590 Conclusion.
we are now celebrating, or about to celebrate, she lives as truly as in
the days of her mortal pilgrimage ; nay, rather, endowed with a newer
and more abundant life ; and thousands of hearts will on that day
invoke her as a living Mother. In her own Order she has for five
centuries held a position altogether exceptional, the undisputed
model on which has been formed a countless progeny of Saints.
Far from representing the ideas of a dead and obsolete past, her
example and her words are as fresh and vigorous in this nineteenth
century as they were in the fourteenth. As a living Mother, then,
we will invoke her, and implore her, from her home in the highest
heavens, where she joyfully reposes with her Eternal Spouse, that
she will look down on the troubles and sorrows of us, her children,
and assist us before God with her loving prayers ! De excelso
cxlorum habitaculo, in quo in jucunditate accumbis cum Sponso tuo,
intuere, piisima Virgo, augustias et tribulationem generis tui, et subveni
ante conspectum Dei nostri (Off. Trans. S. Cath. Resp. ix.).

( 59i )

CHAPTER X.
THE DEVOTIONS OF ST. CATHERINE.
IT would be quite beyond the design proposed in these pages to
attempt, at the close of St. Catherine's history, anything like a
formal analysis of her character or spirit. If she has not already
herself revealed them, no comment from the pen of another would help
to make her better known. Yet before quite parting with the glorious
Saint, whose history has so long engaged us, it way be well to cast
one retrospective glance on the path we have been following. In
relating her story it has been the aim of the writer, as far as possible,
to make St. Catherine her own biographer, specially when we have
been required to study the inner movements of her heart. Few
Saints have left behind them more ample materials for such a study
than we possess in the works and letters of St. Catherine. They
unveil her soul, as far as any soul can be unveiled to human eye's ;
and it is in this, more even than in the example of her great actions,
that the value of her life consists. For her actions were, for the
most part, on too colossal a scale for imitation ; we cannot even
understand them aright without an interpreter ; and their interpreta
tion must be sought from a knowledge of the interior spirit, of which
they were but the outer shell. Incidentally, as the narrative of her
life has proceeded, the quotations from her letters and the records
of her spoken words will, from time to time, have lifted portions of
the veil ; but some may desire more than such accidental glimpses
of what lay behind it, or at any rate to be able to place such revela
tions before them in a coherent form. To do this may involve
something of recapitulation, for which the patience of the reader is
solicited ; but it will also set before him some points which have of
necessity been but briefly touched on in the course of our history.
There is perhaps no better way of reaching the end we have in
view than by considering for a few moments the subject of St.
Catherine's Devotions. Devotion is the blossom of Faith. Blossoms,

592 The Perfection of Faith.
as we all know, are of little value without fruit; but besides the
obvious fact that they have a good deal to do with the production of
fruit, they have another use, which is, that by their examination and
dissection we recognise the tree from which they spring. We know
what style is to an author or an artist ; a something that betrays the
irresistible, perhaps unconscious, tendency of his mind. It appears
in certain words or locutions which perpetually recur on the written
page ; or certain forms — a subdued or splendid colouring, a grace
of line, or a power of conception, which is always reappearing on the
canvas, not only revealing to us the artist, but also giving us a key
to the hidden emotions of his soul. And just what style is in art
or literature, devotions are in the spiritual life. They mark the
specialities of the souls in whom they appear, those specialities which
make up the spiritual character. For, far from being all alike, we
observe among the Saints that endless variety which (as St. Catherine
has told us) so wonderfully increases the beauty of God's Paradise.
And thus, when studying the character of any Saint, we require to
know their special devotions, and to see them arranged in such an
order as may show us their connection and coherence.
St. Catherine received from her Creator many great and glorious
gifts, but, beyond all question, the most glorious of all was that which
has been so often spoken of as " the Perfection of Faith." From the
very dawn of her spiritual life she fixed the eye of her understanding
on the great truths of Creation and Redemption, and fed her soul
with the Eternal Verities of the Catholic Creed. One God in Three
Persons ; God the Son made Man for us, shedding His Precious
Blood for our Redemption, and pouring It out over our souls through
the Sacramenfs of holy Church; these were the Verities which
became to her the only realities in the world. They are the same
truths which every child in every Catholic poor school believes and
professes ; but there is a difference between believing and professing
them, as the common herd of men are used to do, and going down
into their depths, exploring, tasting, and living upon them as Catherine
did, until all else faded from her spiritual vision, and she became
enamoured of the Truths of Faith. As the beauty of Faith grew
upon her, she desired with increasing ardour to possess it more
perfectly, and the gift of this Faith in its fullest measure was the
foundation-stone of her sanctification. Thus the spiritual eye of her
understanding became so illuminated that what others beheld in a
dark manner, she gazed at almost without a veil ; at any rate, the veil

Devotion to the Holy Trinity. 593
was so thin as not to impede her sight, and the spiritual world
became far more real to her apprehension than the material and
tangible world that surrounded her.
Among the Truths of Faith which she thus lovingly contemplated,
the prime and principal one was God Himself. It has already been
noticed how like her words are to those of the Catechism in speaking
of the end of our creation : the same may be said of the expressions
she uses regarding the Unity and Trinity of God. Her devotion to
the Holy Trinity and her habitual contemplation of It appears on
every page of her writings, which display her to us with the eye of
her intellect fixed on that most Divine and exalted of all Mysteries,
plunging into its depths, and delighting in its fathomless infinitude.
" O Eternal Trinity ! " she exclaims, " O Deity, Whose Divine nature
gives the price to the Precious Blood of Thy Son ! Thou, Eternal
Trinity, art the fathomless sea into which the deeper we enter, the
more we find ; and the more we find, the more we seek. In that
abyss the soul satiates herself, and is never satisfied; but ever
hungers and thirsts after Thee, the Eternal Trinity, even as the hart
pants after the fountains of living water." 1 This, her habitual devo
tion, nowhere finds fuller expression than in her prayers, which are
but a few specimens accidentally preserved of her daily communings
with God. In these prayers she sometimes begins by invoking the
" Eternal Trinity, one God in three Persons" (23); sometimes she
goes on to address each Person separately, distinguishing them with
admirable precision ; or she occupies herself with the attributes
which she beholds in the Most Holy Trinity, and applies them to
her own spiritual wants, asking light from Its Light, wisdom from Its
Wisdom, and strength from Its Force (Prayer 24). Sometimes she
contemplates the same mystery in another way, as displaying the love
of God for man : as when she calls the adorable Trinity " our table,
our food, and our servant." " For Thou, O Father, art the Table
whereon is served to us the unspotted Lamb, Thy only Son ; and
this Lamb is Himself our sweet and delicious food ; and the Holy
Ghost has made Himself our servant, serving to us the doctrine that
enlightens our understanding and attracts our heart" (Ibid.). And
Caffarini tells us that when offering any special prayers for the souls
of others, it was her custom to recommend them to each Person of
the Holy Trinity.
She realised with astonishing precision, and dwelt on the thought
1 Dial., ch. clxvii.-
2 P

594 Likeness of the Soul to God.
with ever-increasing wonder and delight, that in the three powers of
the reasonable soul there is impressed the image of the Most Holy
Trinity. To her this was the most suggestive of all truths ; and she
drew from it a profound sense of the dignity of the human soul.
" O Eternal Father ! " she exclaims,1 " Thou hast drawn man out of
Thy holy thought, like a flower wherein are distinguished the three
powers of the soul ; and in each of these powers Thou hast placed
a germ, that they may fructify in Thy garden and yield back to Thee
the fruit which Thou hast bestowed. Thou hast given him memory,
that he may retain the thought of Thy benefits ; and understanding,
that he may know Thy truth and Thy will, which is his sanctification ;
and Thou hast given him will, that he may love that which his
understanding perceives, and his memory retains." In her Dialogue
she expresses the same truth even more precisely. After saying that
it was uncreated charity which moved God to create man in His own
image, she continues : " And this Thou didst, O Eternal Trinity,
desiring that man should participate in Thee altogether. Therefore,
Thou gavest him memory, that he might participate in the power of
the Father; and understanding, that he might participate in the
wisdom of the Son; and will, that he might participate in the.
clemency of the Holy Spirit." 2 Thus she passed from God to the
creature, and from the creature back to God, whom she habitually
recognised as the End and Object 3 of the creature, the ohly cause
and explanation of how it came to be. Without God man is nothing,
for God is He Who is, and the creature, of itself, is nothing. Out
of this thought flowed the fountain of her humility. She marvelled
that the creature, knowing itself to be a creature, should be capable:
of vainglory ; 4 for as she expresses it in the Dialogue, " As soon as a
soul knows itself, it has found humility." 5 Yet this same thought of
God, as the one Object of the soul, taught her likewise to understand.
the soul's true greatness and dignity.6 If God were the Object for.
which man was created, nothing less than God could ever satisfy him :
man's soul, having in it an appetite and capacity for the infinite, can
1 Prayer 21. a Dial., ch. xiii.
8 In her first prayer she calls God it proprio Obie/to delf anima; and the same
expression is to be found in many parts of the Dialogue, as well as in her last
letter to Raymund. It is unnecessary to point out the deep significance of such
an expression, which summarises in a single word the relations between God and
man. 1 P. 260. 5 Dial., ch. vii.
6 0' voluto che tu abli gustata fa dignity delf uemo. Dial., ch. xxxi.

Christ, the Bridge. 595
never be appeased with finite things, which are all less and lower than
himself. " For man," she says, " is placed above all other created
things, and therefore he cannot rest or be satisfied save in something
greater than himself. But there is nothing greater than man save
God ; and therefore it is that God alone can satisfy him."1 Hence,
too she understood the intolerable blindness and folly of pride. " It
is impossible for us," she says, " even to comprehend the senseless
ignorance of man when he trusts in himself and confides in his own
wisdom. O foolish one ! seest thou not that the wisdom that thou
hast, thou hast from none save God ! " 2 These truths, so simple, yet
so profound, she made the principles of her spiritual philosophy, and
applied them in the guidance of souls.
St. Catherine, then, saw in God the Beginning and the End of
man ; but between them yawned a vast abyss. Across that abyss
there had once been a road, but it had been broken and ruined by
the sin of Adam. To enable man once more to reach God, the
Eternal Son of God took our nature upon Him and became the
bridge. This thought forms the text of her Dialogue. " To enable
you to enjoy eternal life and to reach your end, My Son has made
Himself a Bridge." She understood that this was effected by
the Incarnation. " For the greatness of the Divinity abased itself to
the earth of your humanity, and by this union the Bridge was made,
and the road repaired." 3 The amazing charity of God towards His
creatures became in a manner sensible to her under this image.
" My charity has been made visible in the person of My Son, Who has
shown it to you by shedding His Blood for you. And this Blood
nourishes you in the Sacraments. It is My Vicar who holds the key
of the Blood, and who is charged to distribute It to you. You will
find It in the hostelry which is established on the Bridge, to feed the
pilgrims who pass thereby." 4
The abyss between God and man bridged over by the Word made
Flesh; we, the pilgrims between earth and heaven, only able to reach
our end — the God for whom we were created — by passing over that
Bridge; but unable to pass, and fainting by the way without the'
Food that must sustain us on our journey ; that Food, the Precious
Blood of Christ; and that Blood applied to our souls by -the
Sacraments, and dispensed to us on earth by one alone who holds
the key, and by those whom he commissions ; — here are the sensible
1 Dial., ch. xciii. * Ibid., ch. cxl.
3 Ibid., ch. xxii. * Ibid.', chaps, xx., xxii., Ixvi.

596 The Precious Blood.
figures under which St. Catherine beheld the grand mysteries of the
Catholic Faith : and here were the links of that wonderful chain
which united together in her luminous devotion the Eternal God in
Three Persons ; the Word made Flesh, and so becoming the Bridge
between earth and heaven ; His Blood, the Price of our Redemption,
and the Food of our souls ; the Sacraments, Its channels ; the
Church, Its Tabernacle or Hostelry ; and the Vicar of Christ and
the priests of holy Church, those who hold the key to unlock that
Tabernacle, and who pour its priceless Treasure on our souls.
When, therefore, after naming the Most Holy Trinity, we say that
St Catherine's devotions of predilection were to all the mysteries of
the Incarnation, but specially to the most Precious Blood as to the
sum of them all, our meaning will be clear. It was the closely
reasoned connection between all these adorable mysteries " cemented
together as stones by the Precious Blood," which inspired her with
her habitual ejaculation, " O Fire ! O Blood ! " and made those
words to be, in fact, a brief and energetic profession of loving faith in
all the articles of the Christian Creed ; so that, even at the moment
when she passed out of this life, the same accents still lingered on her
lips, and she died murmuring the words, " Blood ! Blood ! " St.
Catherine's devotion to the Precious Blood was not exclusively
expressed in the phraseology of her writings and her prayers. Her
frequent and fervent use of the Sacraments was an inherent part of
this devotion. " She was as one famished for the Blood of Christ,"
says Caffarini, " ever seeking to be washed in It afresh." Her marked
solicitude to procure from the Sovereign Pontiff privileges and
indulgences for herself and others had the same origin. In one
such Brief which she obtained from Gregory XL, an indulgence at
the hour of death is granted to seventy-seven of her friends and
disciples by name. On her deathbed, having received the in
dulgence granted her by Gregory, she was not satisfied until she had
also received that of Urban. And, as we have seen, the disciple
who wrote the account of her last moments comments on her con
tinual request for absolution, saying, that "it was as though she
desired that more and more of the Blood of Christ should be poured
over her." x These things were evidences of that faith which filled
1 In one of her prayers (9) St. Catherine uses the expression, " the Eternal
Blood," which has been criticised by some as incorrect. She herself, however,
adds her own explanation : " I call It Eternal, because It is united to the Divine
Nature; " and her commentators refer us to the words of St. Paul, Per proprium

Zeal for Souls. 597
her soul, and enable us faintly to realise the light in which she
regarded the Sacraments and ordinances of holy Church.
But further than this, it was the vivid comprehension she had of
the dogmas of Creation and Redemption which was the origin of her
immense love of souls. It is probably by her zeal for the conversion
of sinners and the salvation of souls that St. Catherine is chiefly
remembered. This sacred passion for souls sprang from the keen
insight she had into the love which God bears them. In her Dia
logue she represents the Eternal Father, after disclosing and explain
ing to her the mysteries of the Incarnation, as figured by the mystic
Bridge, declaring to her that all she beheld had been the work of
Love, and with amazing condescension soliciting her to pray for the
souls He longed to save.1 He made her understand that He chooses
men to be His fellow-labourers, to take part in the great work of
the salvation of the world ; and that He asks and desires them by
their prayers to move Him to show mercy to sinners. And then it
was that in a rapture of love she exclaimed, " O Abyss of Charity !
who can resist Thee ! For Thou seemest to love Thy creatures
even to folly, as though Thou couldst not live without them ! . . .
In mercy Thou didst first create them ; in mercy Thou didst redeem
them ; in mercy Thou hast washed them in the Blood of Thy Son ;
in mercy Thou still desirest to converse with them. O folly of Love !
it was not enough for Thy Son to become man, but He would even
die for man. . . . We are the creatures whom Thou hast made, and
I behold in our redemption in the Blood of Thy Son, that Thou
art verily enamoured of the beauty of Thine own creature ! "2 In one
passage of her Dialogue we have an intimation that the subject that
drew from her the celebrated exclamation, Vidi Arcana Dei I was
none other than the stupendous love of God for His creatures. " O
Eternal, Infinite Good!" she exclaims, "O folly of Love ! Dost
Thou stand in need of Thy creature ? It surely seems as though
Thou couldst not live without him. He flies from Thee, and Thou
followest after him, seeking him. He keeps away from Thee, and
Thou drawest near. Nearer to him Thou couldst not come than
sanguinem intromit semel in sancta, aterna redemptione inventa" (Heb. ix. 12).
And, again, to the passage in the Apocalypse, where we read, " Agnus qui occisus
est ab origine mundi " (Apoc. xiii. 8).
1 Qnesti sono quegli peccatori per li quali io vi prego che voi mi preghiate, e per
li quali vi richieggio di lagnme, e sudori, acciochi da me ricevano misericordia
(Dial., ch. xxix.). ' Dial-, chaps, xxv., xxx., clxvii.

598 God's Love for Man.
to clothe Thyself with his humanity. I could say with St. Paul,
' The tongue cannot speak, nor the ear hear, nor the eye behold, nor
the heart conceive that which I have seen.' What hast thou seen ?
Vidi Arcana Dei ! " x
It was by the light of this revelation which she had received of the
love which God bears His creatures, that St. Catherine came to con
template souls ; to measure their worth, and to appreciate that sin
which alone can separate them from Him. We know that it was
her intense realisation of God's love to man which broke her heart,
and was the cause of her mystic death. When she returned from
death to life, she found herself possessed and inebriated with two
absorbing passions ; the love of souls, and the hatred of sin ; and
henceforth her life became a long crusade undertaken to deliver the
creatures so dear to God from the tyranny of His enemy.
God having been pleased to " elect her to be a labourer in the
spiritual vineyard of the Church," communicated to her a special
light for the guidance of souls. That exquisite purity of conscience
which made sensible to her the least defect in her own conduct,
enabled her to implant in the souls whom she trained in perfection
a like horror of even the shadow of sin. With wonderful skill she
used that insight which she possessed into the hearts of others, not
merely to discover to them their hidden sins, but also to trace these
sins to their fountain-heads, assuring her disciples that if they would
be delivered from their habitual faults they must have patience to
seek out, and courage to eradicate the hidden root of self-love from
which they sprang. Thus we read, that Sister Francesco di Marco,
one of the Mantellate, came to her one day, complaining that her
soul was full of uneasiness and obscurity, which she felt, without being
able to explain. But Catherine told her that very often the smallest
spark of an unmortified passion (una piccola scintilla di passioncella),
if not promptly cast out of our hearts, may kindle within us a great
fire which we cannot extinguish when we wish to do so ; and made
known to her the precise imperfection which she had unconsciously
been cherishing, and to which her present sufferings were to be
attributed.2 We have quoted this passage both for the sake of its intrinsic value,
and also because it affords a proof that Catherine did not merely
occupy herself with reclaiming great sinners, and rescuing them when
on the verge of destruction. It is true that the stories which appear
» Dial., ch. cliii. 2 Sup., Part 2, Trat. 5, § 10.

Devotion to the Holy Eucharist, and to Our Lady. 599
in her life, most often exhibit her to us engaged in this kind of work ;
but her power was no less wonderful in leading souls to perfection.
A manual of spiritual direction might be compiled out of her letters,
the key-note to which would certainly be fidelity to conscience, based
on the love of God.
St. Catherine's devotion to the Holy Eucharist, which may be said
to have filled up so large a part of her daily existence rested on
. precisely the same foundation. The Holy Eucharist is the extension
of the Incarnation ; and the clear perception with which her faith
beheld " God the Son made man for us, truly present under the
appearances of bread and wine," is the explanation of those . long
ecstasies, and all those other wonders of her Communions which fill
the pages of the Legend. And we all believe and possess what she
believed and possessed ! this holy mystery is not the appanage of the
few, but the inheritance of all. Is it too much to say that, thinking
thus of St. Catherine's ecstasies after Communion, they seem almost
the natural and rigorous consequences of the realisation of such an
article of faith ; and that her burning love and rapture of union appear
less miraculous than the coldness of our own hearts ?
One so devout to the Incarnation, so penetrated with a faith in the
dogma, and a comprehension of all its bearings, could not but be a
loving child of Mary. Accordingly we find St. Catherine addressing
the Blessed Virgin as " the temple of the Holy Trinity," " the source
of our peace," " the Mother of Mercy who has borne the fruit of life,"
" she who may be said to have saved the human race, inasmuch as
she gave to Christ the flesh in which He redeemed us," " who (in a
sense) redeemed us by her sorrowful Compassion, whilst her Son was
(actually) redeeming us by His Bloody Passion," "the new tree
which gives us the Fruit of Life," " the car of fire, preserving the Fire
hidden under the ashes of our humanity," "she who drew the
Divinity to descend upon her by the gentle force of her humility,"
"the book in which is written our rule," "she in whom is revealed
the dignity, the force, and the liberty of man." For "the Almighty
Himself knocked at the door of your will, O Mary, and if you had
not opened to Him, He would not have taken on Him our nature."
Finally, she says that " he who has recourse to Mary with love and
respect will never become the prey of the infernal wolf," and again,
" O Mary, I address myself to thee with boldness, because I know
that God can refuse thee nothing." x We shall scarcely find language
1 The above extracts are almost all taken from St. Catherine's I Ith prayer. Mgr

600 Devotion to the Church.
more fervid, or more tender than this ; and from the moment when
Catherine, as a little child, commended herself to Our Lady on each
step of the staircase in her father's house, up to that Feast of the
Annunciation, 1379, the very year before her death, when she wrote
the prayer from which most of the above epithets have been extracted,
her devotion to the Mother of God was of the same character, based
on the same solid foundation of faith which inspired all her other
devotions, and expressed in the same sweet and natural language.
It is almost -needless to indicate St. Catherine's devotion to the
Church, as springing from the same root The Church is to her
always the Body of Christ. It is Christ Himself: e esso Christo.
Those who do not realise this truth with equal clearness, are naturally
startled by the severity of her expressions in speaking of the enemies
of the Church. Even the Abbe" Fleury is shocked at her calling the
schismatics, '"incarnate devils;" yet, as has been before observed,
the language was rigorously logical. If the Church be Christ Him
self, the would-be dividers and destroyers of the Church are His
enemies, and aim at His destruction ; and therefore she saw in them
the likeness of the great enemy. Moreover, she had an eye to the
ruin of souls, and those who caused that ruin she justly considered
to be doing the work of demons.
St. Catherine's devotion to the holy Church, the unspotted Spouse
of Christ, is all the more apparent from the circumstance that at the
time in which she lived, to use her own expression — repeated, and
possibly even quoted by the English King — " her face had become
pale." Scandals were seldom darker, sanctity in the ministers of
the Church never more rare. The two Pontiffs, to whose cause she
devoted herself with such unflinching loyalty, were both of them men
Rafaelle Maria Filamondo, in the learned " Considerations " on some of the
expressions used in these prayers (printed in Gigli's 4th volume), examines and
explains the sense in which she speaks of Our Lady as redeeming the world by
her Compassion, and gives parallel passages from the Fathers. In some editions
of her works a conclusion appears to her 14th prayer, containing expressions
which contradict the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The authenticity of
the passage, however, has long since been disproved. It is admitted to be a
literary forgery, and one not very creditable to its authors. The whole question
has been critically examined by F. Hyppolito Marraccio, in his work entitled
Vindicatio S. Catharina Senensis a commeniilia revelatione eidem S. Catharines
adscripia contra Im. Conceptionem B.V. Maria. (Puteoli: 1663). It would have
been strange, indeed, if St. Catherine had given utterance to any expressions
disparaging to a doctrine of which the Sienese were ever the most ardent
defenders (See Diario San., 2, 29, 520). „

The Ministers of Christ. 60 1
of good-will and blameless lives ; but they were not without defects,
and precisely such defects as ordinary minds observe and contemn ;
and which, in such minds, diminish respect, and test the reality of
faith. In this, so far as Catherine was concerned, there was a peculiar
Providence. Had St. Gregory the Great or St. Pius V. sat on the
chair of St. Peter instead of Gregory XL and Urban VI. , it might have
been thought that some of St. Catherine's impassioned loyalty was
directed to the individual man. We may safely say, however, that
her conduct in that respect would have been entirely the same had
the occupant of the Holy See been even less distinguished by
personal qualities than those we have named. She beheld in him
nothing but the Vicar of Christ Exactly as she saw Christ in the
poor pilgrim whom she clothed, did she behold Him in the persons
of the Pontiffs whom she served ; so too in their inferior ministers.
She had not the happiness of living in times when she might have
seen the Episcopal thrones of Christendom filled by a St. Antoninus,
a St. Charles, or a Bartholomew of the Martyrs; among the priests
who ministered to the souls around her, she found neither a St.
Vincent of Paul, nor an Olier, nor a Cure" of Ars. In men like these,
it would have required no extraordinary faith to recognise the
" Ministers of the Blood." But St. Catherine lived in a sorrowful
age, surrounded by scandals that would have tried a weaker faith,
and to which, beyond all doubt, must in part be attributed the bud
ding germ of that disaffection which two centuries later ripened in
revolt All the heresiarchs of that time began by taking scandaL
There was plenty to cause it, and woe be to those by whom the
scandals came ! But while St. Catherine felt those scandals to the
centre and marrow of her soul, so that they formed a part of that
long anguish which was her life's martyrdom, they never dimmed her
faith. This is much too weak an expression. They in a certain
sense brought it into more dazzling light. " Let a man so account
of us as the Ministers of God," says the apostle, and he adds : " Now
it is required of Ministers that they be found worthy." It needed
an eye illuminated by the Light of Faith to discern the Ministers of
God in those so masked by human corruption as were some of those
with whom St. Catherine had to do. Did she ever waver on this
point, or rather, is not the very severity of her language the proof of
her faith? for it was because they were " unworthy Ministers " of the
Blood of Christ, that she so wrote and spoke. Hence her ardent
longings for reform, though one need scarcely remark that a reform

602 Devotion to the Saints.
which struck at the very foundations of Faith could never have been'
welcomed by St. Catherine. Nevertheless, the peculiar magic which
that word exercises over certain minds, and the fact that she not
only desired, but even predicted its advent, has led some who identify
the word exclusively with the work effected by Luther and other
Protestant sectaries, to claim St. Catherine as a morning star of the
Protestant Reformation. That event (may we say it) must have been
sadly in want of morning stars, if its votaries could find none better
suited to the purpose than the Saint who, had she lived to witness
the revolt of the sixteenth century, would certainly not have bestowed
on its adherents a gentler name than she applied to the schismatics
of the fourteenth. Such audacious suppositions could never have
been put forth by any one familiar with her works. No doubt the
word reformation occurs in them sufficiently often ; her meaning in
using it she has explained clearly enough, when she repeats again and
again that "the Church herself can never need reform." And to
conclude the matter we will say with Tantucci, that she meant
neither more nor less than what the Councils of Constance and Trent
intended by their canons of reform. When those Councils can be
claimed by historians as Hussite or Lutheran assemblies, we shall
cheerfully admit St. Catherine among the ranks of the " morning
stars."1 To come to another branch of the subject, St. Catherine's
devotions to the Saints were all marked and characteristic. First in
order we must place her devotion to St. Paul2 She loved him for
his love of his Lord : it was just of that generous, fearless, self-
forgetting character which her own soul so well comprehended. In
the prayer she composed on the Feast of his Conversion, she says
some wonderfully beautiful and profound things as to the nature of
that love. " O Paul, holy Apostle, you well understood this truth,
whence you came and whither you were going, and by what road you
must travel to reach your end. On the day when the Divine Word
converted you from error to truth, you saw in rapture the Divine
1 As a fact, the argument used by the latest impugner of St. Catherine's
orthodoxy maybe briefly reduced to the following syllogism: "St. Catherine
believed in the Redemption : but Catholics do not believe in the Redemption ;
therefore St. Catherine was not a Catholic, though she thought she was."
2 Caffarini tells us that in one of her ecstasies it was made known to her that
she had tasted the same degree of bliss as was granted to St. Paul when rapt to
the third heaven.

St. Paul and St. Dominic. 603
Essence in Three Persons. Then when you returned to your bodily
senses you beheld the Incarnate Word, and understood that He, by
His sufferings, was to be the glory of His Father and our salvation.
Then you became famished and athirst for suffering ; you forgot all
else; you confessed that you knew nothing but Jesus, and Jesus
crucified. Neither in the Father nor the Holy Spirit could you find
suffering; and therefore- it was that you said you knew none but
Jesus, who suffered such great things for us ; Jesus and Jesus
crucified." This generosity of the chosen Apostle was what so
greatly endeared him to her, it was like the point of sympathy on
which two friends meet and understand one another. His fervent
words, his love for the very name of Jesus, his desire of suffering, his
zeal for God's honour and the salvation of his brethren, — she felt
and comprehended it all.
And next to him stood her glorious Father St. Dominic, the
likeness and faithful pattern of the Son of God. She beheld him
in vision resembling his Master even in his very person, no less
than in his unalterable patience and his burning charity. From her
earliest childhood it had been the dream of her imagination to serve
God by the imitation of St. Dominic ; and the fidelity with which she
realised this idea is worthy of all admiration. In her nightly
disciplines, in her desire of martyrdom, in her longing (like him) to
give her body to torments, not once only, as she says, "but over
and over again, each time with more pain than before," l if by so
doing she could win God some glory, or save one soul ; in all this
she was a faithful imitator of St. Dominic, as he was of Jesus Christ.
So, too, in that profound humility which made him, before entering
any town, kneel down and pray that his sins might not bring on it
the Divine Judgment, Catherine followed closely on his track. For
she believed all the evils in the world, all the woes of the Church,
all the ruin of souls, over which she wept, to be the effect of her sins.
" No more sin, O Lord, no more hell ! " so she cried to God in
prayer, asking that she might be placed in the mouth of hell to
prevent sinners from going there. Such words are often enough
regarded as pious exaggerations ; but to understand them we must
first understand sin as St. Catherine and St. Dominic understood it.
1 "If we had taken you at such a time,'' said the heretics to St. Dominic,
" what would you have done?" And he replied, " I would have asked you not
fo kill me all at once, but to have cut off my limbs one by one, and to have placed
them before my eyes, and then to have torn out my eyes, and left me so to
perish." (Constantine of Orvieto, Vita St. Dom. n. 12.)

604 Love of the Martyrs. .
Of the other Saints of her own Order, St. Peter Martyr and St.
Agnes of Montepulciano were her favourite patrons ; she called St.
Peter "the true knight without fear," and with St. Agnes, as we
know, her relations were those of a familiar and holy friendship.
But what shall we say of her love of St. Magdalen, the saintly
penitent, given her to be her mother by her Divine Spouse Himself?
In all the lives of the Saints we shall scarcely find an example more
striking of a special devotion to a chosen patron than that which St
Catherine displayed towards St. Mary Magdalen, the lover of our
Lord. In one of his greatest works of art, the painter who most
often loved to place on his canvas the form of St. Catherine, has
depicted her side by side with St. Magdalen, contemplating the
Eternal Trinity.1 He could hardly have better represented our idea
of St. Catherine's fundamental devotion. Among the other Saints
her preference was for the martyrs ; and of these we may name St.
Stephen, St. Lawrence, St. Agnes, and St. Lucy of Rome ; the latter
of whom, but little known, she specially loved, and was granted on
her feast to share the merits of her martyrdom. In Rome she
exulted in treading the ground consecrated by the blood of the
martyrs. " They desired death," she says, " not to fly labour, but
to attain their end. And why did they not fear death, from which
man naturally so shrinks ? Because they had vanquished the natural
love of their own bodies by divine and supernatural- love. How can
such a man complain of the death of the body, he who desires to be
set free from life which he finds both long and bitter ? How can he
regret to lose that which he despises ? Nay, rather he desires to give
his life for God Who is his Life, and to shed his blood for love of the
Blood that was shed for him." 2
Catherine comprehended the martyrs' spirit,. because she shared
it. For among her devotions we ought surely to number her love oj
suffering. Recalling in her Dialogue the memory of her own mystic
death, she says : " When a soul that has been absorbed in God by
1 This picture is by Fra Bartolomeo, and stands over a side altar in the Church
of St. Romano at Lucca, the same which St. Catherine frequented during her
stay in that city. Above is a representation of the Eternal Trinity as the object of
worship to the heavenly host, below appear the two Saints, kneeling so as almost,
yet not actually, to touch, the ground. The habitual ecstasy of both is indicated
to the eye by placing them on light clouds, a very little elevated. St. Magdalen's
eyes, as the penitent, are cast down, those of St. Catherine are turned upwards,
and are expressive of supreme longing.
3 Dial., ch. 115.

Love of Suffering. 605
love returns to her bodily senses, she endures life with difficulty, for
she sees herself deprived of the union she had enjoyed with Him, and
the desirable company of the Blessed. Yet, as her will is no longer
her own, she can will nothing but His will. She desires to go to
Him, yet she is content not to go, if so He ordain, but to remain
and suffer for His glory. The more she suffers, the more she rejoices,
for suffering soothes the desire she has of death, and the love of suf
fering sweetens the sorrow she feels not yet to be delivered from the
body." 1 In Catherine's mind suffering was identical with love : we
cannot understand her practices of penance without remembering
this. One in our own day has written that " to love is to suffer ; " 2
Catherine would have given those words her heartiest acceptance,
and her profoundest interpretation ; and she would also have reversed
the terms and have said that " to suffer is to love ; '' indeed she does
say so, repeating again and again, " The more we suffer, the more we
prove our love." 3
As to what are commonly called practices of devotion, her love of
the Church Office certainly held the first place. The reader will
remember her solicitude to be able to recite it, and knowing Who
was wont to recite it with her, we do not need to be told that it
could have been no common recitation of the Office that obtained
so wondrous a favour. All the feasts and holy seasons were followed
by her with a sympathy and depth of comprehension, which shows
her feeding her soul on the language, the solemnities, and the order
of the Sacred Ritual, which indeed supplies all true children of the
Church with an ever-flowing torrent of spiritual recreation. Open
the Supplimento, and you will see each new grace chronicled by no
other date than the feast on which it occurred ; and if sick, and
unable to assist at the solemnities in which her soul delighted, she
1 Dial. , ch. Ixxxiv.
2 " Aimer, c'est souffrir." (Mdme. de Swetchine.)
3 Quanlo pik sostiene, piit dimostra che mi ami. (Dial., ch. v.) Among the
many passages we might quote from her writings illustrative of this point, none
perhaps is more touching than that which occurs in her Dialogue, when, after
God has revealed to her the misery of sin and the ineffable love He bears to His
creatures, she continues, " Then that soul felt her love renewed in the knowledge
of God. The force of her love bathed her in a profuse sweat, but she beheld it
with shame, desiring that it should rather be a sweat of blood. Alas ! poor soul
of mine ! " she cried, "thou hast lost every moment of thy life ! So many sins in
the world and in the Church ! So many miseries and offences against God !
Would that thou couldest repair them all by a sweat of blood ! " (Dial., ch. xix.)

606 Purgatory.
took comfort as she lay on her bed in gazing at the walls only of the
distant cathedral. So long as she could use vocal prayers, which as
time went on became impossible by reason of her ecstasies, she loved
the Rosary and always wore it at her side. Her use of holy pictures
and Crucifixes is apparent from the fact that in whatever place she
sojourned some such" object of piety is still shown which she is said
to have used. Siena still keeps and venerates the miraculous Mad
onna in Provenzana, which according to tradition was first placed by
her hands in the niche where it was discovered.1 She gave a Crucifix
to the Convent of Monticella, and gladly received presents of crosses,
and images of the Holy Child. Her reception of the stigmas before
the Crucifix at Pisa speaks for itself. Raymund tells us also that
she had a great love for pious pilgrimages. We know that she made
many such, and her daily pilgrimage to St. Peter's during the last
Lent of her mortal life, excruciated as she was with bodily and
mental pain, stands before us as one of the sublimest pictures in
her life.
Only one other point seems to deserve a word of notice. What
devotion is more distinctive of the pious Catholic than the devotion
to the holy souls in purgatory ? With many it is a sort of special
vocation to devote themselves to the relief of these suffering souls.
To St. Catherine also this devotion was intensely dear. The charity
of Christ pressed her, until she could obtain the deliverance of those
for whom she prayed.2 And it is a significant fact that the long tor
ture of that pain in the side, which never left her, was a voluntarily
accepted suffering for the relief of her father's soul.
Thus much, then, concerning the devotions of St. Catherine, which
the reader will see were common in their kind, and extraordinary only
in their intensity. This is the point we desire to emphasise. Her
amazing life, with all its supernatural graces and wonders, flowed from
a wayside fountain, of whose waters all that pass by may drink if they
have a mind. The Arcana Dei was after all no more than the Truth
that God made man, and preserved him, and redeemed him, because.
He loved him ! Catherine believed this, and it made her life a long
ecstasy. She believed it, and the love that swelled her heart broke
it in twain. She believed it, and thenceforth she saw and understood
that there, was nothing else in this world to live for, but God and the
souls He died to save. This is the history of her sanctity. Those,
» Diar. San, Part 2, p. 2. s See pp. 78, 117.

Conclusion. 607
then, who desire to tread in her footsteps, must lay as their foundation
the broad stone of Faith. Only when we believe as she believed
shall we live as she lived ; or to quote her own admirable words :
" The guide and support of the human will is the sacred light of
Faith, for that light is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all
perfection." x 1 Prayer 7.

( 6o8 )

CHAPTER XI.
A LAST GLANCE AT THE FAMILY.
AND now, before closing our narrative, it remains for us to take a
. last look at that little company of faithful disciples whom we
have so often seen gathered round their Mother, taking part in her
works, or gathering from her lips the maxims of perfection. On the
event of her death they were scattered, as to their bodily presence,
though the spiritual links that bound them together remained
unbroken to the last. The first concerning whose after-career we
naturally desire to know something, is Father Raymund of Capua.
Elected to the chief office in his Order within a few weeks after
Catherine's departure, the remaining nineteen years of his life were
devoted to three duties : the defence of the Church against the
schismatics, the reform of his Order, and the composition of the
Legend, or biography of his holy penitent. Of the first of these we
shall say little more than that Urban and his successors in the Holy
See are declared to have found in Father Raymund " their right arm
and eye." That in the midst of the unspeakable troubles of the
Schism, he should have been able to have begun and successfully to
have carried on a reform of those abuses in the Order which Catherine
had in her lifetime deplored, speaks not a little for his courage and
talent for government. According to the common sentiment of all
historians of the Order, it is to St. Catherine herself that we must
attribute that movement in the direction of reform which made
itself sensible after her death, and which was mainly carried on by
her disciples. " It was St. Catherine," says P. Vincenzo Marchese,
" who by her earnest exhortation had moved Blessed Raymund of
Capua resolutely to put his hand to the work of reformation ; and it
was her no less beneficial influence that gained to the Order that
daughter of Peter Gambacorta of Pisa, who became the reformer of
its religious women. And although Catherine herself, worn out by
suffering, departed to the heavenly kingdom, yet Raymund, as soon

Reform of the Order. 609
as he was placed at the head of the Order of Preachers, delayed not
to carry her wishes into effect. He made a pressing appeal for
succour to all those who had a zeal for God and their holy Institute,
which was quickly responded to in Germany by F. Conrad of Prussia,
and in Italy by B. John Dominic, F. Thomas (Caffarini) of Siena,
B. Lawrence of Ripafratta, and F. Thomas Ajutamicristo ; the two
last-named Fathers belonging to the convent of Sta. Caterina at Pisa.
But long before they began their labours, Blessed Clara Gambacorta,
impatient of delay, set on foot the reform among her own Sisters,
enclosing herself with a few religious under a very strict rule in the
convent of San Domenico, on the 29th of May, 1382. From this
convent, as from a copious fountain-head, went forth those who
reformed the communities of Genoa, Parma, and Venice. And not
satisfied with this, by her prayers and counsels she greatly promoted
the cause of reform even among the Friars themselves, so that the
Dominican Order, with reason, regards Blessed Clara as another
St. Teresa." x
What is here said of the influence of Blessed Clara over the Friars,
and her promotion of the reform no less among their convents than
in those of her religious Sisters, is amply confirmed by a reference
to the chronicle of Sta. Caterina of Pisa ; from which we find that all
the most holy religious of that Community gathered round her as
round a mother ; and it is considered sufficient praise to bestow on
Fra Niccolo Gittalebraccia, one of the pillars of the reform, to say
that he was de intimis filiis sororis Clara de Gambacurtis. Neverthe
less, the same convent of Sta. Caterina of Pisa for a considerable
time opposed itself to the reform, and Blessed Clara's disciples had
to carry on the good work in more distant provinces. Raymund, on
his part, laboured without ceasing to establish discipline and regular
observance, but he invariably did so in the spirit of meekness.
" He always exhibited the utmost gentleness in his government,"
says Caffarini,2 " being liberal and discreet to all, and severe only to
himself. He lived in great poverty to the day of his death, which
took place at Nuremburg, on the 5th of October, 1399." Though
never beatified, he is always remembered in the Order by the title
of "Blessed Raymund." He completed the Legend about the year
1395, having been engaged on it at intervals for fifteen years.
Caffarini tells us that he himself assisted the author in his laborious
1 Cenni Storici del Beato Lorenzo da Ripafratta.
2 Sup., Part 3, § 2. 2 Q

610 F. Thomas della Fonte.
task, in the course of which Raymund used great and praiseworthy
diligence in collecting from their own lips the evidence of all those
who had known Catherine most intimately, such as her mother
Lapa, Lisa, Alexia, and the rest. In 1395, Raymund, coming from
Sicily to Venice, brought the manuscript with him ; and delivering
it to Caffarini, who was then established in that city, desired him to
have copies of it made and distributed into every province ; a duty
to which he and his companions devoted themselves with such
ardour, that in an incredibly short space of time the Legend of St.
Catherine was diffused throughout every country in Christendom.
There are few things more remarkable in the history of literature
than the rapid circulation of this book, unaided by the art of
printing, and its translation into every known dialect. On its
completion, Raymund applied himself to the translation of the
Dialogue into Latin, carefully consulting the three secretaries to
whom the original had been dictated, in order to secure perfect
accuracy. The Abbe" Fleury, in the truly astonishing remarks he;
has made on St. Catherine and her writings, has thought fit to
express his surprise that her secretaries should have written in Latin
what she dictated in Tuscan ; but his words only betray his entire
ignorance of the facts. The Dialogue was both dictated and written
in Tuscan ; that same Tuscan text which we still possess ; and its
Latin versions by Christofano and Raymund were not made until
some years after her death.
From Raymund we will pass to St. Catherine's other Confessors.
F. Thomas della Fonte survived her ten years, during part of which
time he filled the office of Prior of San Domenico, and took great
delight in causing paintings and images of the holy virgin to be made
and placed in various parts both of the church and the city. Caffarini
affirms 1 that he even placed in the Church of the Friars, and in a
very conspicuous place (in posto elevato), a picture of the Saint
receiving the Stigmata; and after the great procession which has
been described in the preceding chapter, he successfuly exerted
himself to obtain from the Magistrates that the same solemnity should
be annually observed in their city.
F. William Flete is often said to have died in the same year
as St. Catherine. His "Sermon," already referred to, and dated as
having been delivered in 1382, proves this statement to be erroneous ;
but it is probable that he did not long survive her. Master John
1 Sup., Part 3,. § 1.

F. Thomas Caffarini. 6 1 1
the Third returned from Rome to Lecceto immediately after her
death, and was still living in 1391.
F. Bartholomew Dominic took an active part in the reform of the
Order under Raymund of Capua, a work for which his learning,
holiness, and singular prudence specially qualified him. He filled
many high offices in his Order, was for seven years Provincial of the
Roman Province, Procurator for the Order in Rome, and finally
became titular Bishop of Corona in the Morea. He had the happi
ness of labouring in concert with F. Thomas Caffarini for the reform
and extension of that branch of the Order to which St. Catherine
more particularly belonged ; and also of giving his most important
evidence in that " Process of Venice," so often quoted in the
preceding pages. As to F. Thomas Caffarini, his career was a yet
more active and illustrious one. As a writer, he has certainly done
more to illustrate the life of St. Catherine than any other of her
disciples. We have seen that he assisted Raymund in the composition
of the original Legend. When it was completed, he wrote his own
Leggenda Minore, introducing many incidents which Raymund had
omitted ; and finally he drew up his Supplement to the Legend, at
the earnest solicitation of a vast number of religious persons, specially
of the Camaldolese Hermits of Florence, and the Carthusians of
Vienna. The letter addressed to him by the good hermits does
them infinite credit as judicious readers and critics. They had both
read the Legend and relished it, but they wanted more. " For our.
common and greater edification," they say, " we desire to be informed
of all the daily, manual, and most minute actions of Catherine, of
her conversations, her exercises, her particular ways of speaking, of
whatsoever movements were noticeable in her gait, and the gestures
of her hands and feet." We entirely sympathise with these their
holy desires, and do not by any means accuse them as guilty of
vain curiosity. We only wish that F. Thomas had more literally
complied with their request, the rather that in one respect they set
him an excellent example by dating their letter, August 26th, 1400.
Not content with this first appeal, they sent him a second the
following April, conjuring him to spare no pains in collecting the
least little saying of the holy virgin, whether recorded in Latin or
Italian; and to look very sharp after his copyists, lest, overcome
with weariness, they should cheat, by leaving out some minute cosatelle,
whereas he should oblige them to set down all with sincere fidelity..
"For if you do otherwise," continues the Prior, "and are guilty of

6 1 2 The Supplimento.
any negligence in this matter, be sure that you will have a rigorous
account to give before the Tribunal of God." He adds that he has
a few books about Catherine, one in particular which he has read
over and over again da capo apiedi ; namely, her wonderful Dialogue ;
and he concludes by spurring his friend on to expedition by reminding
him of the shortness of life, and the fact that no one could be so fit
to undertake the work as he.
As if this were not enough to drive F. Thomas to seize his pen
and begin at once, the General of the Carthusians, who could have
been none other than his old friend Stephen Maconi, forwarded him
a letter on the 5th of August, written by another Don Stephen of
the Certosa of Vienna, who relates to his Superior, by no means
briefly, a tale of woe and of deliverance. It seems that on the night
of Saturday, in the Octave of Pentecost, he had felt extremely ill, and
was in such pain that he could neither stand, sit, nor lie down, nor rest
either on his back or his side. When the signal for Matins was
given, he was in great perplexity, not knowing whether to get up, or
stay where he was. He felt sure he could not stand upright in choir,
yet did not like to absent himself. So he bethought him that he
would recite the Office of Our Lady, which he did, but could hardly
remember if he did it mentally or vocally ; indeed, he had very little
voice left, and what there was, was extremely hoarse. Suddenly there
came to his mind certain reports that he had heard of the wonderful
assistance which the Blessed Catherine of Siena was used to give to
those who invoked her. He began therefore to pray, that if what
was commonly reported concerning her Sacred Espousals were true,
he might, as a sign thereof, be immediately cured. Instantly he felt
himself relieved of his pain ; and going to the choir, was in time to
sing the Lauds of the next day's solemnity in honour of the Holy
Trinity, with his brethren. These letters seem to have made a great
impression on F. Thomas, and the end of it was that he resolved to
commence his Supplement without further delay. In one of the
Prologues prefixed to the work, he apologises for thinking it necessary
to add anything to Raymund's biography ; but explains that though
that holy man was the best authority who could be referred to for
those years during which he acted as Catherine's director, yet these
did not include the earlier portion of her life, the materials of which
Raymund was obliged to gather from others, and concerning which
he himself was better informed.
Thus much for Caffarini's written labours relating to the holy virgin.

Labours of Caffarini. 6 1 3
They formed but a small part of those to which he devoted himself
in order to promote her honour. Soon after her death he undertook
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, returning whence he came to Venice,
and was there lovingly captured by Blessed John Dominic, who by
that time had taken the lead in the work of reform. He rightly
judged that no one was better fitted to assist in that work than the
chosen friend of St. Catherine ; one who for long years had enjoyed
her confidence, and, who, as might well be believed, had imbibed her
spirit. At Venice, therefore, Caffarini was thenceforward fixed ; and
there he effected many wonderful conversions, among which is
specially noted that of a certain lady named Maria Storiona, who
from a life of worldly vanity, was so entirely changed by his preach
ing, that she embraced a course of austere penance, which merited
for her after death the title of Blessed.
During the remainder of his life Caffarini laboured without ceasing
to maintain or restore regular observance in the convents of the Friars,
and to extend that Third Order which had been rendered so illus
trious by the sanctity of St. Catherine. He re-wrote the Rule of the
Sisters of Penance in Italian, and established several regular convents
of their Order, in which work he was greatly assisted by F. Bartholo
mew Dominic, and the Blessed John Dominic. Indeed his zeal in this
matter was so great that, as Ferdinand Castiglio tells us in his history
of the Order, Caffarini was commonly, though inaccurately, called
the Founder of the Claustral Order of Penance ; that is, of those
convents of the Sisters of Penance in which was established the
regular religious and community life. Besides this, in concert with
Stephen Maconi, he ceased not to copy, translate, and cause to be
circulated, the Life, Letters, and Dialogue of the Saint. Applica
tions were made to him for these books from many princes, and
illustrious personages, among others from King Henry IV. of
England ; and he did his best to satisfy their demands, and to take
evefy step which the difficulties of the time rendered possible to
obtain her canonisation. On this point hope long deferred did not
in the least abate his ardour. If he did not live to see his desires
accomplished, it was he who prepared the way for their accomplish
ment, and like another David he was content to collect the materials
out of which those who came after him were to raise the actual
edifice. During the forty years of his residence at Venice he intro
duced there, and wherever his influence extended, the custom of
celebrating the 29th of April as the anniversary of Catherine's death.

6 1 4 The Process of Venice.
On that day preachers pronounced her eulogy, her portrait was'
exhibited and decorated with a profusion of flowers, formed into
crosses, bouquets, wreaths and crowns, this being the favourite manner
of honouring the memory of her who in her lifetime was such a lover
of flowers. And, says Caffarini, it was fitting that it should be so,
for the Cross of Jesus was the flowery couch of her love ; she was
destined to collect a multitude of souls as a nosegay of sweet
flowers to offer to God ; her own words and works were like so many
bouquets, and she herself blossomed in the Eternal Paradise in the
month which is the season of flowers. For sixteen consecutive years
he preached on this festival ; and during one Lent we are assured
that he preached daily, explaining the Gospel of the day, and illustrat
ing it by examples drawn from the life of Catherine. Not the least
remarkable incident connected with these honours rendered to the
Saint, was the extraordinary multiplication of her portraits. The
faithful who attended the celebration of her festival demanded them
in such numbers that a process was devised by which they were
struck off from wooden blocks, in a manner which seems to have
anticipated the invention of wood-engraving.
But in 141 1 objections were made to these celebrations of the
anniversary of a person not yet canonised, though it would seem
that at that time such proceedings were very commonly permitted.
However, the affair was referred to Francis Bembo, Bishop of Venice,
and Legate of the Holy See ; and an inquiry was instituted, in the
course bf which twenty-five witnesses were examined with all possible
formality. The proceedings were not closed until the 5th of Janu
ary, 141 3 ; and the depositions of the witnesses form that celebrated
Process of Venice so often quoted in the foregoing pages. The
result of the investigation was entirely to exonerate the Friars from
all blame in what they had done to honour the memory of the holy
Virgin of Siena ; and the depositions, thus carefully collected, were
afterwards used in the Process of her canonisation. That event
Caffarini did not live to witness, though he survived to an advanced
age. His death took place in the year 1434, and the veneration
with which he was regarded by his Brethren is shown by the title of
" Blessed," which is commonly prefixed to his name.
Of the religious Sisters of St. Catherine, and their history- subse
quent to her death, few particulars have, unfortunately, been preserved:
Those who were left in Rome formed themselves into a Community,
of whom Alexia was the first Superioress ; but she did not survive

Master Matthew. 6 1 5
her beloved friend and Mother more than two years, and was suc
ceeded in the government of the little family by Lisa. They at
first continued to live in the house in the Via del Papa where the
Saint had died, but some years later were transferred to a more
suitable residence; and the Community, which now occupies the
convent of Santa Caterina, not far from that of San Domenico e
Sisto in Magnanapoli, derives its origin from St. Catherine's own
religious daughters.
The two good citizens of Siena, Master Matthew of the Miseri
cordia, and Ser Christofano di Gano, must not be dismissed without
a word. Of the first, we read that he continued the same kind,
affable, and generous friend he had ever shown himself; regarding
hospitality to the children and disciples of the holy virgin Catherine
as a sacred duty. Anything that had belonged to her he gathered
up and kept as a precious relic, were it no more than the smallest
particle of her dress. He somehow got possession of one of her
fingers, the index finger of the right hand ; and placing it in a silver
reliquary, he gave it to the Church of San Domenico. He survived
until the arrival of Pope Gregory XII. at Siena, which was in the
September of the year 1407, loving nothing so much as to
speak of the virtues and recall the sayings of his beloved Mother.
Being taken with his last sickness, he devoutly received all the
Sacraments of holy Church, and the Indulgence of which the
Saint had received a grant from Pope Gregory XL in favour of him
and of seventy-seven of her other disciples. As to Ser Christofano,
he lived to fill the important office of Lord Defender of the republic
of Siena, and an excellent magistrate he no doubt made. This was
in 1383 and 1384; six years after which time his wife and all his
seven children died of the plague within a few months of one another.
After this domestic calamity which freed him from those worldly
shackles he had been half unwilling to assume, the old inclination
revived in his heart to have done with the world altogether, and to
seek a more perfect life. So, on the 14th of August, 1391, he took
the habit of the Oblates of St. Augustine, and dedicated himself,
like a brave man as he was, to the service of the sick in the
hospital of La Scala, where his exemplary character and business
like habits eventually procured for him the honourable office of
Chancellor. The habit of these Brethren of La Scala was black,
adorned at the side with the badge of a red ladder. And so our
good Christofano appears in the painting which may still be seen in

616 Ser Christofano.
the " Pellegrinajo," as it is called ; that is, the hall where the pilgrims
going to Rome are lodged and entertained. But besides his work
in the hospital, there was another work to which Christofano devoted
himself, and at which he continued to labour until his dying day.
Conjointly with Master Paul, Rector of the hospital, and Nicolas de
Benvenuto, Archbishop of Ragusa, he tried to procure from Gregory
XII. the canonisation of the Saint. The Archbishop had received
from Christofano a copy of his Latin translation of the Dialogue,
which so enchanted him that he never rested till he had translated it
into Sclavonic for the benefit of his flock ; and leaving Ragusa, he
came to Siena, where Gregory then was, with the express purpose of
petitioning for Catherine's canonisation. Gregory was fully as devout
to her memory as any of those who pressed him with their solicita
tions ; but at that time the grievous troubles of the Schism prevented
the accomplishment of their wishes, and the Archbishop, dying at
Siena, was buried in the church of San Domenico, "just on that
spot," says Caffarini in the third part of his Supplement, "where
Catherine had received from our Lord the gift of His Heart," leaving
to Caffarini, with the permission of the Pope, all his writings, in which
he had collected many things relative to the Saint.
The various devices conceived by Christofano for keeping up the
memory of St. Catherine and promoting devotion to her were truly
admirable. His veneration for her had first made him turn author ;
it now equally prompted him to become a patron of the arts. " Out
of reverence to the said Catherine," he says, "I had her painted in
the Duomo, near the Campanile, in the chapel of St. James
Interciso, whom I also had painted there. I had a great devotion to
St. James, because, when I went into Lombardy on the affairs of a
certain senator, I saw him painted in a chapel. So I had him
painted at Armacolo, in a corner of our vineyard, among other
figures that are there." In no degree discouraged in the sacred duty
he had imposed on himself, of obtaining the exaltation of his holy
Mistress to the altars of the Church, he kept up an incessant agita
tion on the subject by means of letters addressed now to Caffarini, at
Venice, and now to Stephen Maconi, who, as Prior-General of the
Carthusians had been called into Austria on the affairs of his Order.
Christofano urged him to return, that with their united prayers and
representations they might move the heart of the Pope. He was
however doomed to disappointment. Gregory left Siena for Lucca ;
and poor Christofano fell sick of a painful and tedious malady.

Francesco Malevolti. 6 1 7
Before he died, however, he had the consolation of once more
greeting his old friend Stephen, who at last returned to Siena.
"When Christofano saw him" (says the author of Stephen's life),
"he embraced him lovingly, and exclaimed, 'Thou hast come at
last, O Father, dear above all other friends ; therefore I give thanks
to God that He has heard my prayer, and suffered me once more to
see thee ere I depart out of this life' Then Stephen began to
speak of the goodness of God, and the protection which the Seraphic
Virgin of Siena displayed towards her sons who were still living in
the world. As he spoke, Christofano's soul seemed to overflow with
sweetness, and raising himself a little in his bed, he cast up his eyes
to heaven, as though answering God Who called him, and so peace
fully expired ; all who stood by being full of wonder to see that the
soul of Christofano should have been thus detained in his body,
until he could die in the presence of his beloved Stephen." 1
Francis Malevolti, concerning whom the reader will remember that
Catherine had uttered a prophecy, and who in spite of his immense
veneration for the holy virgin, had never, during her life, entirely over
come the fluctuations of his soul between the movements of nature
and the pleadings of divine grace, shall tell his own story in his own
words, for none can tell it better.
On the occasion when some of the Sisters of Penance had com
plained of him and his want of perseverance in the ways of grace,
Catherine had told them not to be troubled, for that the day would
come when she would put such a yoke on his neck as he should
never be able to shake off When these words were spoken, both he
and the Sisters standing by laughed merrily, having no notion what
they might mean. He had at that time a wife and children, and
seemed as unlikely a man to embrace a religious life as could well
be imagined. " But after the holy virgin had departed to her Spouse,"
he says, " my wife and children also having paid the debt of Nature,
I found myself alone and free from all ties. I neither thought of,
nor cared for the words above related ; but being alone, I found
myself harassed by many who urged me again to enter into the state
of matrimony. Nevertheless our Lord, Who would not that the words
of His spouse should be falsified, found out a new way of binding
me with the bonds she had foretold. One of my uncles, named
Nicoluccio, who was considered to be a man of singular prudence,
seeing my delight in horses and armour, said to me one day,
1 Vit. Steph. Mac, Lib. iv. Cap. I.

6 1 8 Francesco's Narrative.
' Francesco, what do you intend to do ? I should like you either to
marry, or if that does not suit you, that you should do something
else.' I asked him what he was thinking of, and he replied, ' I should
like, as you are so fond of arms and horses, that you should become
a Knight of St. John, and so indulge your taste without risking your
salvation.' It was wonderful he should say this, and quite beyond
human calculation, for he was not at all given to spiritual things,
but much involved in worldly affairs. However, though I had never
thought of the matter before, I at once gave my consent. It was
agreed I should go to Genoa where the Chapter of the Knights was
then being celebrated ; and there I was unanimously accepted, and
a commission appointed to bestow on me the knightly dignity and
the habit of the Order. I returned first to Siena, however, and busied
myself collecting horses, arms, and other things required for my
purpose. All being concluded, it came to the very day preceding
that on which I was to be made a Knight. In the middle of the
night as I lay on my bed, (I cannot say whether I was awake or
asleep), behold, the glorious virgin Catherine appeared to me, and
touching me, she said : ' Rise, negligent that thou art, and sleep no
longer ; seest thou not that I have found a way of breaking all
thy bonds ? and still thou followest nothing but the vanities of the
world. Rise, and seek thy companion, Neri di Landoccio, and go
both of you to the house of the Brethren of Mount Olivet, and there
thou shalt without opposition be received. Dost thou not remember
how I once said to thee that when thou shouldst think me to be far
away from thee I should be nearer to thee than ever, and subject
thy neck to such a yoke that thou shouldst never be able to shake
it off ? ' Then I answered : ' O my Mother, do you not know how
many and great things these monks do, and what long trials they
require before they consent to receive any one into their Order?'
and with many other words I tried to resist the Holy Spirit, and the
glorious handmaid of Christ. But she said, 'If you do not fulfil
what I have told you, you will not be able to accomplish what you now
purpose doing ; but will fall into great dangers,' and with that she
disappeared. Now, when I came to myself and recalled what had
passed, I was filled suddenly and miraculously with the most ardent
desire of taking the habit of these Brethren, so that the remainder of
the night seemed intolerably long. When day dawned I went at
once outside the city to Neri, whom I found already risen, for, as he
afterwards told me, the same holy virgin had appeared to him, and

The three Secretaries. 6 1 9
had said, ' Expect thy friend Francesco Malevolti, and go with him to
the house of Mount Olivet' This Neri was at that time living near
the city in the habit, and leading the life of a hermit. So we went
both together to the monastery aforesaid, which is about fourteen
miles from Siena, and is the principal house of the Order; where in
the absence of the Abbot-General, the Prior of the house and the
ancient Fathers, understanding my petition, with one accord agreed to
receive me." After this nothing remained for Francesco save to
return to the city in order to sell his horses and other property ; and
returning to the convent, he at once entered on the new life to which
he had been so strangely called, and in which he persevered happily
for many years, and died a holy death.
It remains to speak of Catherine's three secretaries, Neri, Stephen,
and Barduccio Canigiani. Barduccio after her death, became a
secular priest. " In her last moments," says Raymund, " Catherine
enjoined him to attach himself to me and place himself under my
direction ; she did it without doubt because she was aware that he
would not live long : in fact, a short time after he was attacked with
consumption, and although he appeared at first to be convalescent,
it soon became evident that there was no hope of his recovery.
Fearing that the air of Rome was hurtful to him, I sent him to Siena,
where he slept peacefully in the Lord. Those who witnessed his
death, declare that at his last moments, he looked up to heaven
¦smiling, and gave up his soul with such lively tokens of joy, that
death itself could not efface their impression from his countenance :
he probably saw her whom he had loved during life with such purity
of heart, come forth to meet him, in the glory of triumph." His
death took place little more than a year after that of his saintly
Mother. Neri di Landoccio, to whom the merit certainly belongs of
having been the means of introducing almost all his fellow-disciples
to the Saint's acquaintance, returned from Naples to Rome in time
to assist at her funeral, and witnessed all the wonderful events which
then took place. He has told his own tale of sorrow and bereave
ment in two poems, in which he embalmed the holy memory of his
saintly Mother, and gave vent to all the emotions which such an
event would naturally elicit in his sensitive and loving heart. " O
Spouse ! " he exclaims, " elected to the throne of the blessed, O name,
at the naming of which my heart is breaking, O refreshment in every
grievous loss ! Tell me what shall I do ? for thy departure fills my
afflicted heart with new and redoubled sorrows. Tell me who will

620 Neri di Landoccio.
now deliver me from an evil end ? who will guard me from delusion ?
who will now point out to me the upward path ? who will any longer
comfort me in my troubles ? who will any more say to me, ' Thou art
not going on well,' who will encourage me ? who will reprove me now ?
All these things make the tears to flow down my cheeks, until thou
assurest me of that which thou didst promise me at Lucca."
Neri was not at once able to retire to his hermitage. He had
hurried from Naples to attend the funeral before his business there
was complete, and had to return thither immediately afterwards, for
it was there he received the letter of Nigi di Doccio which has been
already quoted. As soon as he could, he made his way back to
Siena, in order to commence that solitary life to which his own
inclination, no less than the Saint's commands, invited him.
His hermitage was outside the Porta Nuova of Siena. Here he
gave himself up to a life of prayer and austerity, not however entirely
neglecting literature and poetry. A letter followed him from Naples
from his friend Giunta di Grazia, about a book which he had lent
him, which was badly written and incorrect, begging him to procure
a better one, and also to return " quello pezo di Dante" which Giunta
had left with him. In 1391 Stephen Maconi writes to him, "Those
verses you sent me written with your own hand I have had copied
on parchment in fine letters, well illuminated ; and I gave them to
the Duke's High Councillors, who were much pleased, and commended
them greatly." No doubt these were some of the verses already quoted,
or others on the same subject, for we learn from Caffarini in the
third part of his " Supplement," that " he made many rhymes and
devout songs in praise of the holy virgin, which he wrote out with his
own hand, and distributed to his friends." All his poems, however,.
were not on St. Catherine, and in the Bodleian Library is preserved
at this time a MS. poem of his, a legend of St. Giosaffa, written in
ottava rima. But besides his poems, he busied himself in other
works connected with the memory of the Saint. Caffarini tells us
that it was chiefly at his solicitation that F. Raymund wrote the
Legend in Latin, and when finished, Neri, at the request of Caffarini,
undertook and began its translation into Italian ; but dying before
the completion of the work, it was finished by another hand, Neri's
translation only going as far as the fourth chapter of the second part.
By what has been already said, the reader will have gathered some
idea of Neri's natural disposition. St. Catherine's letters have shown
his habitual tendency to religious despondency, and in the retirement

His Death. 621
of his hermitage this constitutional infirmity at one time assumed
an alarming form. For two years his dear friend Stephen received
no tidings from him, and at last understood that the cause had been
a temporary access of mental malady. Family troubles, and the
threatened war between Siena and Florence had come to the aid
of long austerities, and for a time broke down the fine mind and
sensitive organisation. " I hear from Leoncino," writes Stephen, " that
you have been alienato;" but in his next letter he says, "It seems
by your letter written on the Purification that you have recovered
from that accidental derangement" (alienazione). In fact it was
only a temporary attack, nor do we hear that it ever returned. For
Neri was by no means a fanciful hypochondriac. Caffarini calls him
a " Vir mirabilis," and even in his hermitage he was looked up to
as a man of influence and weight. Everybody wrote to him and
consulted him — Maconi, Caffarini, Francis Malevolti, and the Car
thusians of Lucca. It would seem he was not always very prompt
in answering their letters, but in spite of that, they all looked up to
him, and valued him as an adviser. His chief friends, however,
were the Olivetan Monks, then enjoying a wide repute as living in
great fervour and observance. He was also inseparably united with
Gabriel Piccolomini (who with him had been an eyewitness of that
prodigy described by F. Raymund, when St. Catherine fell into the fire
and received no injury), and with his brother poet, Anastagio da
Montalcino, whose poem on the Saint, written in her lifetime, has
been so frequently quoted. Neri lived to a great age, and in his
last sickness, out of motives of humility, he caused himself to be
removed from his hermitage to the hospital of La Scala. There he
placidly expired in 1406. We are half reluctant to quote the letter
in which Luca di Benvenuto, one of the Olivetan Monks, communi
cates to a friend the intelligence of Neri's death. In it the tragic
mingles with the comic, and the latter, it must be owned, prevails :
" Luca di Benvenuto to Ser Jacomo.
" Ave Maria.
"Dearest Father in Christ,— My negligence— I need say
no more— but yet with grief and sorrow I write to you, how our
Father, and our comfort, and our help, and our counsel, and our
support, and our refreshment, and our guide, and our master, and
our receiver, and our preparer, and our waiter, and our visitor, and
he who thought for us, and our delight, and our only good, and

622 Letter from Luca di Benvenuto.
our entertainer : and his meekness, and his holy life, and his holy
conversation, and his holy teachings, and all his holy works, and
his holy words, and his holy sayings, and his holy investigations.
Alas, miserable ones ! alas, poor wretches ! alas, orphans ! where
shall we go, to whom shall we have recourse ? Alas ! well may we
lament, since all our good is departed from us ! I will say no more,
for I am not worthy to remember him, yet I beg of you that as it
is the will of God, you will not let yourself be killed by the news ;
know then — alas ! I don't know how I can tell you — alas ! my dear
Ser Jacomo, alas ! my Father and my Brother, I know not what to do,
for I have lost all I cared for. I do not see you, and I know not
how you are. Know, then, that our love and our Father — alas !
alas ! Neri di Landoccio, alas ! — took sick on the 8th of March,
Monday night, about daybreak, on account of the great cold, — and
the cough increasing, he could not get over it, alas ! He passed out
of this life, confessed, and with all the Sacraments of holy Church,
on the 1 2th of March, was buried by the Brethren of Mount Olivet
outside the Porta Tufi, and died in the morning, at the Aurora, at
break of day.1 I know there is no need to recommend to you his
blessed soul, and I, miserable as I am, am left to dispense all he
left. I grieve you were not present at his end, and to undertake
this business. It is left to me that you should have something ; I
don't know if it is the best, but I will keep your things, unless I die.
Pray for Neri's ' soul, and for me, Luca. And also to you, Ser
Christofano, I must say something, but what I say to one I say to
the other, may Gpd keep us all in His grace ! I beg of you for1 God's
sake send me word how you are. Your parents are well. I need
not say what a loss Neri is, you know it well. After Lent come, or
send me word what I am to do with your things. — Your miserable
" Luca di Benvenuto.
" PS.^-I, Luca, have given to Ceccanza . . . two new Capuces,
and a gown. "
"To Neri de le Cancella, I gave a foot cover, and a pair of new
stockings, and a pair of shoes, and a pair of leather stockings.-
" To Monna Caterina (the Tertiary), I gave three chest preservers,
and two old ones, and a pair of stockings, and socks, and also some
old foot covers very much torn, and a gown, also torn ; and the old
1 Luca, as will be observed, buries him first, and makes him die afterwards.'
We endeavour to be literal, however, in the translation. - .

The Distribution of Goods. 6 2 -
cloak, and an old grey petticoat (!) and two old feather pillows
and a broken bed, and a pair of spectacles, and a shirt, and an
old chair.
"To Monna Nera, a pair of torn sheets and a bed, very much
broken, and a gown, mended and patched.
" To Dominic di Lorenzo, an old shirt
" To Cecco, a sheath, and his spectacles.
" To Maltra, 10 soldi.
"To the Friars of Monte Oliveto, 62 soldi.
" To Tonghino, a bag, and an old torn towel."
In this very curious distribution of goods, the Friars of Monte
Oliveto certainly came best off; but we must not be malicious. Neri.
left to them all his books, writings, and notes, as well regarding the
holy virgin as on other matters. A picture of the Saint which he
had caused to be painted, came into the possession of Padre Antonio
Benedetto, of the same Order, and he made a graceful present of it
to Master Paul, Rector of the Hospital of La Scala, and an old
disciple of the Saint.
One member, and one only of the little family remains to be
spoken of, and we have reserved him to the last, because there is
more to tell about him, and because he claims perhaps a larger
share in our interest than any of his companions. First then, let us
hear in what terms Stephen Maconi pours out his grief for their late
bereavement in writing to his old friend Neri. The letter is dated
from Rome, February 18th, 1381 ; whence we find that Stephen
remained in that city for ten months after St. Catherine's death. Its
style contrasts forcibly enough with the light-hearted and careless
letters of former days, and tells of a blow which had struck to the
heart ; one of those touches by which God works out the sanctity of
His servants, as the master sculptor fashions his statues by repeated
blows of chisel and hammer. " Your return to Rome," he says,
"was anxiously looked for by me, your useless and miserable brother.
For as it has pleased the Divine Goodness so severely to punish my
ingratitude, depriving you as well as me of that jprecious treasure
which I did not rightly know or value, I desired to find myself once
more with you, above all our brethren in Christ, that I might pour
out my heart to so loving a brother, and confer with you on many
things. But it seems that God, did not so permit. Then I hoped
to have met you at Siena, but that also was not allowed : and not

624 Letters from Stephen to Neri.
only have I been deprived of your presence, but I have not even
deserved to receive a short letter from you. Perhaps our good God
wished to deprive me of the presence of all those with whom I
thought to have taken a little comfort, in order that I might the
better draw near to Him the Creator of all, and that without the
intervention of any creature. In His inestimable charity may He
grant me the grace to do this, and to do it manfully."
He met with no small difficulty on the part of his family to his
resolution of becoming a Carthusian ; but at last, some time in the
April of 1 38 1, he commenced his novitiate at Pontignano. During
the whole of his time of probation he steadily refused to see any of
his friends, but his Superiors insisted on his relaxing this rule in
favour of St. Catherine's disciples. He wrote to Neri a few weeks
after he had entered the monastery, beginning his letter, dated the
30th of May, " To my sweetest and most beloved Brother in Christ,
and in the holy memory."
" Beloved Brother, — I write to inform you with great joy that our
loving Lord in His goodness and not for my merits has cast the eye
of His mercy on my misery, and has deigned that I should receive
here the holy habit. I write that you may share the joy with which
my heart is full. I do not relate the how and the why, only this I
must tell you that our venerable Mother has amply fulfilled to me
what she promised at the time of her happy death, that she would be
more helpful after she was gone, than ever she had been in life.
And though it would have been very sweet to have seen and spoken
with you, yet I hold your peace of mind as dear as my own. So I
will not take amiss what, by God's grace, you are doing, since I firmly
hope, as you say, that He, in His mercy, by the merits of the Blood of
the Lamb, and the intercession of Mary (and of her in whom we
are so closely bound together), will grant us the grace to see each
other again in life eternal, provided that we follow on our way with
manly hearts, without stopping or turning backwards. May He grant
it Who is blessed for ever. Amen."
In December 1382 he writes again, no longer in the tone of a
novice, for in fact, to his own great trouble, he had just been made
Prior of Pontignano.
" Dearest Brother in Jesus Christ, — I shortly since received
two letters from you, which were very welcome ; reminding me of
that holy time — by me so badly spent, so little understood or valued.

Letters from Stephen to Neri. 625
And not to be tedious I ask of you, my sweet brother, to have
compassion on me, and help me with your prayers ; and to pray that
God will give me the grace to amend my life, and that I may remain
His true servant to the end; and that the burden He has been
pleased to lay on my shoulders (the office of Prior) I may know how
to carry to His honour, and my own salvation. When I took the
holy habit I thought, as I thanked God, to sing with the Psalmist,
Ecce elongavi fugiens et mansi in solitudine. But the spouse of
obedience, which our holy Mother gave me, has chosen rather that I
should sing, " I am become as it were a beast of burden before
Thee." So I must once more glory in the Cross of Christ, and
rejoice in it, and desire nothing beside it. It would be a great
happiness to speak to my dear brother, but not to write. I know I
can be of no use to you because of my sins, yet I confess that I
desire the salvation of all, and specially of those whom God has
engrafted in the very centre of my heart."
We pass over a few years, and open another letter, written in 1 3 9 1 by
Maconi, then General of his Order, and just returned from a visitation
of his convents, to Neri, who was recovering from a severe illness in his
hermitage, brought on by excessive austerity. The letter is too long
to quote, but he relates how he had been at Genoa and had dined
there " with our common Father, Master Raymund, and Brother
Thomas Antonio (Caffarini) and others, with many holy conversations
on sweet subjects. . . . And our venerable Mother, Madonna Orietta
Scotta, with great charity recognised me for her son, and many other
things I could tell you which I doubt not you would like to hear."
Who could doubt that Neri would indeed like to have heard of these
things, and would read them with tears of tenderness, remembering the
time when he and Stephen were lodging in Orietta's house with their
holy Mother, and when both of them were restored to health by her
in the long years that were past ?
Stephen Maconi became celebrated after his entrance into religion
for carrying on one of the Saint's good works with great success,
namely, the reconciliation of enemies, and in this he was much
assisted by F. William Flete. He never forgot his beloved Mother,
but was always doing something to promote her honour — now sending
a young man on pilgrimage to her tomb, who came back restored in
body and soul, now agitating for her canonisation, now propagating
copies of her life. He himself translated into Italian the Leggenda
Minore of Caffarini, and sent a copy of it to the King of England.
2 R

626 Our Lady of Graces.
He always kept in his cell the gold reliquary containing the relics of
many saints which had been given to St. Catherine at Avignon, and
had been before her at the moment of her death. In little things
and great he loved to keep alive her memory ; and was particularly
fond of beans, because they reminded him of a dinner he had had
with her one Easter Day shortly before her death, when there was
nothing else in the house, "for," says his biographer, Don Bartho
lomew, " the remembrance of that banquet stuck fast to the marrow
of his spirit, so that when he was Superior he always adorned the
table of his religious on Easter Day with the delicacy of beans ;
and the same pious custom flourished in several convents of the
Order for many years." l
In 140 1 he was elected General over that part of his Order which
remained faithful to the obedience of Gregory XII., successor to
Urban VI. The chief seat of this part of the Order was fixed in
Austria, but when Gregory came to Siena, Stephen was summoned
thither to join him, and accompanied him in many of his journeys.
He exerted himself to induce the Pontiff to resign his dignity with a
view to secure the peace of the Church ; and what he advised, he
himself put in practice ; for going into France he succeeded in gather
ing together the disunited members of the Order; he induced
Raymund Ferrer (brother to St. Vincent) who was General over the
other half, to resign his office, doing the same himself ; and so the
two branches being reunited, elected a Superior who was accepted
by all. This new General appointed Stephen his Vicar over all the
convents of the Order in Italy, an office he held till his death. He
resided at Pavia, at the splendid Certosa which had been founded in
1396 byGian Galeazzo Visconti, in expiation of his crime in murder
ing his uncle and father-in-law, Bernabb Visconti, and all his family.
The monastery of "Our Lady of Graces" is supposed to be the
most splendid monastery in the world, though its splendour is rather
that of a palace than a religious house. Here then Stephen Maconi
spent the evening of his days, ever loving to speak of Catherine, and
to repeat what he remembered of her instructions. Indeed, his
1 Either Don Bartholomew relates the circumstance of the bean banquet with
several inaccuracies, or there were two such repasts. The one we have narrated
(p. 176) took place in Siena on Ascension Day, 1373, before Stephen knew the
Saint. Bartholomew places the scene of his story in Rome, on Easter Day, and
very shortly before St. Catherine's death. However it may have been, the result
was, that Stephen's Carthusian brethren always had beans to eat on Easter Day.

Death of Stephen. 627
biographer gives a sort of abstract of these instructions which the
old man was accustomed to give to his monks. Towards the close
of his life he became intimate with St. Bernardine of Siena, who was
born in the very year of Catherine's death, and who delighted in
nothing so much as to sit and hear Stephen pour out his recollections
of their glorious fellow-citizen. And while Stephen found a sweet
consolation mingled with sadness in thus dwelling on the memories
of the past, the youthful friar felt his heart kindle as he listened, with
holy emulation, and an increase of ardent charity.
Stephen died at Pavia on the 7th of August, 1424. At his
last moments he repeated the verse Maria, Mater gratice, and then
invoking the intercession of Catherine, he expired with her beloved
name upon his lips.
And now our task is ended, and the time has come when to all these
holy souls and loving hearts we must bid a last farewell. Not as the
shadowless characters of a poem or drama have they come before us,
the creatures of imagination demanding our sympathy with their
fictitious sorrows and skilfully depicted passions. Far different from
this has been our acquaintance with St. Catherine and her
companions. For she is as truly a Irving and loving mother to us
as any of the beings of flesh and blood by whom we are surrounded :
and they who held her company, and who laid up for our benefit the
treasures of their testimony, are our brethren and sisters also. There
is between us the fellowship of sympathy : we understand their
language, and they have opened to us their hearts.
Farewell, then, to you, faithful Lisa, and Alexia, beloved and
privileged to the very end ; farewell, Barduccio, found worthy to stand
by thy Mother in her last combat and to hear her call thee " Son ; " l
to Neri, with his grave and pallid face, the inspired poet, and the
true-hearted friend; to Stephen, the careless one, but the best-
beloved of all ; to Matthew and Christofano, in whose company we
have seemed to go about the streets of the old city, and to mingle
in all the ways and " doings " of their blameless lives ; to each and
all of you, farewell !
Farewell to all the scenes amid which we have seen you passing
for so many a day; to the oaks of Lecceto, the vineyards of
Montalcino, and the chestnut woods of Monte Amiata; to the
streets and the churches which once you peopled in the grand old
days of Siena's freedom ; to the graves in San Domenico, where so
1 See p. 542.

628 Farewell I
many of you are laid to rest. It is well with you now, for the time
of bitter separation is over, and the hour of reunion has come. We
envy not your happiness, though we would gladly share it ; and the
thought of you and of " the holy memory " will help us through
many a troublous day. Five long centuries have passed, since all of
you, under the guidance of a Saint, fought out your combat and went
to your reward. You lived human lives of common vicissitude, and
were made of common mould like us ; you were weak, and you
stumbled ; you fell, and you rose again. And now, all is over, and
you are reunited with your Mother in the Eternal Presence ; and you
understand the tangled web of your past lives, and the meaning of all
that once seemed so strange. As we think of you and think of her,
time seems to vanish "like a needle's point," and we, too, look to a
day not far distant, when parting shall be no more ; and falling from
the heavens like the echo of church bells, we seem to hear a chant
in which your voices mingle with the voices of others who have gone
before :
" Absterget Dews omnem lacrymam ab oculis Sanctorum; et jam
non erit amplius neque luctus, neque clamor, sed nee -ullus dolor;
quoniam prior a transierwit."

( 629 )

CHAPTER XII.
THE CANONISATION OF ST. CATHERINE.
URBAN VI. died in 1389, and was succeeded in the line of the
Roman Pontiffs by Boniface IX. and Innocent VII., both of
whose Pontificates were of short duration. On the death of Inno
cent in 1406, Cardinal Angelo Corario of Venice, titular Patriarch
of Constantinople, was elected Pope under the title of Gregory XII.
The Antipope Clement VII. continued to reign at Avignon until
1394, and on his death the Cardinals of his obedience elected as his
successor Cardinal Peter de Luna, who took the title of Benedict
XIII. Both Gregory and Benedict were elected by their respective
partisans under the promise of abdicating the papal dignity, should a
similar resignation be obtained from the rival Pontiff. The sincere
desire on the part of all good men on either side was to extinguish
the unhappy schism ; and it was with this view and intention that
in 1409 the Cardinals of both obediences assembled in council at
Pisa, to confer on the necessary steps to be taken for restoring the
peace of the Church. Their decision, unfortunately, only introduced
greater disorder : for they took on themselves to declare both the
reigning Popes deposed, and proceeded to elect a successor to the
vacant dignity. The Pontiff thus irregularly elected, took the name
of Alexander V., but dying almost immediately, a fresh election was
made at Bologna, the newly-chosen Pope being known as John
XXIII. As, however, neither Gregory nor Benedict acknowledged
the Cardinals as possessing the lawful authority to depose them,
this ill-advised proceeding only increased the existing disorders, by
adding a third claimant to the chair of St. Peter. This miserable
state of things lasted until 141 7, when a General Council of the
Church assembled at Constance. The voluntary abdication of
Gregory XII. having been first obtained, the two other pretenders
to the Papacy were deposed ; and the election of a Pope, the validity
of whose title should be universally acknowledged, became at last

630 Council of Constance;
possible. On the nth of November 141 7, Otho Colonna was
accordingly elected, taking the title of Martin V. ; and thus Christen
dom was once more united under the obedience of one Supreme
Head. The man who had probably the greatest share in bringing
about this happy result was the Blessed John Dominic, then
Cardinal Archbishop of Ragusa. He had already laboured nobly in
carrying out one of St. Catherine's great desires, the reform of the
Dominican Order ; and it was his lot to be the chief instrument in
realising another, by restoring peace to the Church.
But more than this, the Fathers of Constance, by the election of a
Roman Pontiff, had brought about the permanent restoration of the
Holy See to Rome. They also entered vigorously on the work of
reform : in their 43rd Session they published many ordinances,
having for their sole object the reform of the clergy; nor did they
separate without declaring that another Council should shortly be
called, for the express purpose of carrying out this great work more
effectually. St. Catherine therefore had not lived in vain ; the cause
for which she had given her life was vindicated before the eyes of
Christendom ; and it is little wonder that Pope Martin and his
successors should have been besieged by petitions from every
quarter, from the Doge of Venice, from the Sovereigns of Austria
and Hungary, and by other illustrious personages, to delay no longer
in raising to the altars of the Church the holy maiden of Siena who,
in her lifetime, had been its devoted champion.
But this glory was reserved to a Pope, her countryman by birth,
and the member of one of those noble families of Siena whose name
had been borne by more than one of her disciples. ^Eneas Sylvius
Piccolomini was probably the greatest scholar of his time, and- had
received the laurel crown from the hands of the Emperor Frederick
III. He had travelled through every European country, including
Scotland, whither he was sent as ambassador to King James I. from
the Council of Basle. He had filled the post of Secretary to the
two Popes Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V. ; he was created Bishop
of Siena and Cardinal of Santa Sabina by Calixtus III. ; and finally,
in 1458 he was elected successor to the last-named Pontiff, taking
the title of Pius II.
The choice of so distinguished a personage was hailed in
Rome with extraordinary enthusiasm. People ran about the streets
singing, dancing, and laughing with joy, and shouting aloud, Sena !
Sena I felix et fortunata Sena ! whilst the name by which the new

Apneas Sylvius Piccolomini. 63 1
Pontiff had earned his European celebrity, linked to that which he
had newly chosen, and his unusual experience as a traveller in
remote lands, irresistibly suggested the application to him of the
famous line of Virgil :
Sum Pius Apneas, fama super wtliera notus.
At Siena itself the rejoicings were on a prodigious scale. It was
the age of the classical Renaissance, when the popular taste displayed
a marked preference for heathen symbolism, and the description of
the splendid shows by which the election of Pius was celebrated in
the Piazza del Campo reads almost like an apotheosis. In the year
following, Pius II. came on a visit to Siena, where he remained two
months, during which time he lavished favours on his countrymen
with a liberal hand. Corsigni, his native place, was given the
dignity of an Episcopal city, and received the new name of
Pienza; the Pope bestowed the golden rose on the Signoria of Siena ;
he made several Sienese Cardinals ; he raised the See of Siena to
the rank of an Archbishopric ; he restored to the nobles their
municipal rights; and last, b.ut not least, he resolved on the
Canonisation of St. Catherine. Few contrasts could be greater than
those which existed between these two illustrious fellow-citizens, or
their respective claims to celebrity; between the ambassador of
Frederick, and the ambassadress of Gregory ; between the scholar
of the Renaissance, and the author of the Dialogo ; between the
letters of ^Eneas Sylvius, and the letters of St. Catherine. Yet there
was one point of closest sympathy between them, and the Pope who
was to decree to Catherine the supreme honours of the Church, was
one whose Pontificate was to be spent in strenuous, but unavailing
efforts to organise a fresh Crusade.
In fact, at that juncture, the rapid advance of the Turkish arms
was threatening the safety of all Europe. In 1453 Constantinople
had fallen, and the boundaries of the empire now began to be
assaulted. True to their traditions, the Popes, as the Fathers of
Christendom, had continued to warn the Christian sovereigns of
their danger, and had laboured vigorously to concert measures of
defence. Two men only had responded to their call; Huniades,
the brave Regent of Hungary, who repulsed Mahomet II. from the
walls of Belgrade ; and George Castriot, better known as Scanderbeg,
who chased the Turks out of Epirus, and restoring the independence
of his native country, became its prince. For many years he upheld

632 Pius II. Canonises St. Catherine.
the cause of Christendom unsupported by any other allies than the
Roman Pontiffs. " Had the efforts of Calixtus III. been seconded
by the princes of Christendom," says Platina, the contemporary and
historian of that Pope, " the success of the Turks would have been
rendered impossible ; but in spite of the fair words which they gave
to his ambassadors, none of them showed themselves ready to act,
when there was question of their sacrificing their selfish interests."
Pius II., before his elevation to the chair of St. Peter, had taken
an active part in all the measures concerted by the Sovereign
Pontiffs for the defence of Christendom. He now devoted to the
same cause all the talents and energies with which he was so
remarkably endowed. He had conceived the design of calling a
European Congress at Mantua for the purpose of forming a common
league against the infidels; and on leaving Siena, he repaired to
that city and opened the assembly in person, delivering an address
so eloquent and touching as to move his audience to tears. But
though all the members of the Congress agreed in theory as to the
necessity of a holy war, and though the Pope put aside every
difficulty that was raised, by pledging himself to take upon his own
shoulders the whole burden of the enterprise, the insane spirit of
intestine dissension hindered the realisation of these fair hopes.
Civil wars broke out simultaneously in Spain, England, Germany,
and Italy ; and though the Crusade was indeed proclaimed, the Pope
was left to carry it on as best he could, unaided by a single European
sovereign. From Mantua he again returned to Siena, where he made a long
sojourn, receiving there a crowd of embassies from the afflicted pro
vinces of the East, who in the moment of supreme anguish looked
to the Vicar of Christ as to their only hope. There was a singular
suitability in the fact that these dying echoes of the crusading war-
cry should have been heard in the native city of St. Catherine ; nor
was the coincidence lost on Pius II. On- his return to Rome he
took measures for proceeding without delay to her solemn canonisa
tion ; and the necessary formalities having been concluded, the Bull
which raised her to the Altars of the Church was finally published
on the 29th of June, being the Feast of the Holy Apostles, 1461.1
To roaik his special devotion to the Saint of Siena, the Pope drew
up her Office with his own pen. Nor is this the only composition in
1 The sermon delivered by Pius on this occasion, in the Basilica of St. Peter's
is given by the Bollandists in a note to the Bull of Canonisation, p. 984.

Death of Pius II. 633
which Pius II. has celebrated her praises ; for besides the hymns of
that Office which were written by him, we possess another little poem
in which he may be said to have briefly epitomised her history : J and
it is worthy of notice that in this poem every one of the special and
supernatural graces of St. Catherine's life are distinctly named : as
her holy Espousals ; the exchange of her heart with that of Christ ;
her mystic death and return to life, and her reception of the Stigmata.
The Pontificate of Pius II. terminated three years later, whilst he
was engaged in a last supreme effort to organise the Crusade. He
had succeeded in gaining to the cause Philip, Duke of Burgundy,
the Doge of Venice, and several of the Italian rulers ; and in the
month of October 1463, he published an Encyclical letter addressed
to all Christian princes and prelates, declaring his intention of pro
ceeding in the year following to Ancona, where the fleet of the
allies was then preparing to assemble, and of himself accompanying
it to the shores of Greece and Asia. When the time came, how
ever, Philip of Burgundy contented himself with sending a small
body of 2000 men to join the expedition ; the Doge, more faithful
to his promises, repaired to Ancona with the naval forces of the
republic ; and the Pontiff also kept his word, arriving at Ancona
about the middle of July. There, however, he was attacked with
fever, and expired on the 14th of August, 1464, and with him
expired also the last hopes of the Crusade.
In the Piccolomini library, attached to the Duomo of Siena, may
still be seen the ten grand frescoes, in the execution of which Pin-
turicchio is said to have been assisted by the youthful Raphael,
representing the chief events in the life of this celebrated Pope.
Among them we see the Proclamation of the Crusade at Mantua,
the Canonisation of St. Catherine, and the preparations for the
1 The verses alluded to will be found printed at the end of the Venice edition of
her letters, and also in the Appendix to Capecelatro's History. We extract from
them a few passages : Christusque deinde
Desponsavit earn ; sacris propria ore confecit
Doctrinis. .
Ilia cor a Domino petit renovarier alma,
Continue meditans ; compos Jeliciter alii
Facta, fuit zioti ; viditgue evellere Christum
Cor p? ins, atque novum jdammis sibi tradere Jlagrans.
Ilia crucem memori portans sub pectore semper
Stigmata passa fuit, dictu mirabile, Ckrzsti.
Hose annis triginta tribus tot Christus, et a/tie
Vixit ; nam sponsam Spoftso decet esse cotevam.

634 Feasts in honour of St. Catherine.
departure of the fleet from Ancona ; and thus the name of the Saint
in whose heart survived the spirit which had animated the first
Crusaders, is indissolubly linked with the memory of the Pope by
whose lips the holy war was for the last time proclaimed.1
In the Bull of St. Catherine's canonisation, with which we shall
close this volume, it will be observed that the first Sunday in May
was assigned as the day on which her feast was to be celebrated.
In 1630, however, by a decree of Pope Urban VIIL, this was changed
to the 30th of April : the 29th of that month (on which day her
death actually took place) being already occupied by the Feast of
St. Peter Martyr. The same Pontiff brought to a close a vexatious
controversy which had been raised on the subject of the Saint's
stigmas, by declaring them to have been " not bloody, but luminous."
This declaration was in exact conformity with the narrative of
Blessed Raymund ; and the lessons of the Office, as approved by
Pope Urban, so commemorate the fact. At a later period Pope
Benedict XIII. granted to the whole Dominican Order, as well as
to all the clergy of Tuscany, an Office of the Stigmas of St. Catherine;
the 3rd of April being set apart to be kept as a feast in their
honour. On the Thursday before Quinquagesima Sunday was
formerly kept the commemoration of her holy Espousals ; but this
has been merged in the Feast of her Translation, which is now
celebrated on that day, a new Office of the Translation having been.
granted to the Order by Pope Pius IX. in the year 1855. A few
years later an additional honour was rendered to the Saint by the
same holy Pontiff, who, by a decree dated April 13th, 1866, declared
the Seraphic virgin, St. Catherine of Siena, secondary Patroness of
the city of Rome; and her feast was thenceforth ordered to be
celebrated throughout the Order with a solemn Octave.2
1 The subject of the ten frescoes in the Sala Piccolomini are as follows: —
I. ^Eneas Sylvius going to the Council of Basle. 2. Received as envoy from the
Council by James I. of Scotland. 3. Crowned Laureate by the Emperor Frederick.
4. Sent as Ambassador from the Emperor to Pope Eugenius IV. 5. He presents
the Emperor to his bride, the Infanta of Portugal, outside the Porta Camolia of
Siena. 6. Receives the Cardinal's hat from Calixtus III. 7. Is carried in Pro
cession as Pop'e Pius II. 8. Proclaims the Crusade at Mantua. 9. Canonises St.
Catherine. 10. Gives the signal for departure of the Crusaders from Ancona.
2 The Feasts of only two other Saints of the Order enjoy the same rank ;
those, namely, of St. Dominic and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Bull of Canonisation. 635

Bull of Pius II.
For ihe Canonisation of St. Catherine.
Pius, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to all the faithful of
Christ, health and Apostolic benediction.
The mercies of the Lord which in our days we have so abundantly
experienced, can never be recounted by mortal lips : for the benefits '
of God surpass all human language, and even though man should
seek to express them with every member that he possesses, he could
never worthily declare the praises of his Creator. We were created
out of nothing, and from nothingness received a being. And not
only do we possess being, in common with stones, plants, and
animals, but we are, moreover, endowed with reason, and have been
made capable of divine things. We have been made in the likeness,
not merely of the angels, but in some manner of the Almighty and
Invisible God ; we have been crowned with glory and honour, and
given power over the works of His Hands. And nevertheless, if we
except the pride of Lucifer and his followers, man alone of all
creatures has been ungrateful and rebellious to God. All other
created things declare in their order the goodness of God ; they
obey the laws of nature and accomplish the end for which they were
created. The earth yields to the ploughshare, and receives in her
bosom the seed which she gives back again with usury : faithful to
the commands of God, whether savage or cultivated, she still renders
service to man ; the stone which is taken by the builder submits
without resistance to the tool or the fire by which it is to be fashioned
into shape ; the trees which cover the fields with their ample foliage
yield us their fruit, and even when they are cut down, they still serve
us for fuel, or help to form our houses and roofs. Behold the
plants, and consider the varied uses of their leaves, their roots, their
flowers, their seeds, or even of their very juice ! What services, too,
are rendered to us by the rivers, lakes, and seas, whose waves are
ploughed by countless vessels, and thus unite the most distant
countries ! And the same may be said of the animals that people
the sea and land. All things praise God according to the laws of
their several natures. The stars and elements obey His word ; the
sun runs its course and departs not from the limits of the zodiac ; the
moon, shining with borrowed light, fails not in her functions ; the
stars, free in space, deceive us not, but each pursues its proper orbit.

636 Bull of Canonisation.
All things in heaven and earth praise and bless the Lord by accom
plishing the end of their creation. Nothing resists the law assigned
to it ; things that have weight fall, and those that are light mount
upwards : thus all things show forth their gratitude to God, and obey
the laws of nature.
Man alone among all creatures, by his ingratitude, disobedience,
and rebellion, has imitated the ruin of the fallen angels. Lucifer at
the very height of heaven, sinned by pride, and desired to be equal
with God ; and he was cast into the abyss and punished for his
guilty thought : and man, made of the slime of the earth and placed
in this world, forgot his weakness : he also thought to elevate himself
by eating the forbidden fruit ; he desired by the knowledge of good
and evil to become equal with God ; and on that account he was
driven out of the Paradise of pleasure, and condemned to unnum
bered afflictions. The gates of the heavenly kingdom were closed
against him ; death entered into the world, and thenceforth no man
could escape its doom. How greatly the sons of Adam sinned
before the deluge, and how far they had wandered away from the
Divine will, we may gather from the punishments that followed. All
flesh was destroyed by the waters, and the virtuous Noe alone was
saved, together with those who went with him into the ark. Nor
were his children exempt from the malice of sin. They also became
perverse and fell into all kinds of. iniquity. The tower of Babel was
begun in resistance to God, but the language of men was confused ; and
then followed wars, rapine, disorder, carnage, adultery, incest, perjury,
the worship of idols, and all other evils that have sprung from sen
suality and pride. Up to the time of Abraham, the faithful followers
of the Divine law were few in number ; but that holy Patriarch gave a
wonderful example of the sincerity of his faith, for in order to obey God
he hesitated not to sacrifice his only son. In his race all the nations
of the earth were blessed. Not only did the Prophets of the Law
come forth from him, but our Saviour Christ deigned, according to the
flesh, to be born of his seed, when in order to redeem the human
race He, Who in His Divine nature was equal to the Father, was
pleased to annihilate Himself, taking the form of a servant; and to
be made man, to clothe Himself with our infirmities, to endure the
most cruel torments, and to accept on the Cross no common death,
but one that was violent, horrible, ignominious, and beyond all
human power to endure. By His death He destroyed death,
and restored life to us ; He despoiled the power of hell, delivered

Bull of Canonisation. 637
the just, and, victorious over death and Satan, He opened in
triumph the gates of heaven that had so long been shut By His
Ascension to His Father, He showed us the way by which we must
follow Him ; and He left us in His Gospel, in Holy Baptism, and in
the other Sacraments, the means of rising from our fallen state, and
accomplishing our salvation.
And, nevertheless, we have not allowed ourselves to be gained by
all these benefits ! Our malice and perversity have not been destroyed,
and the ungrateful heart of man has not deserted the paths of sin.
The more graces have been heaped on us, the more have we shown
ourselves ungrateful and inclined to evil. For, in what way do we
show our love and honour for this great God ? In what way do we
keep His laws? Who obeys the Gospel? Where is there to be
found any fear for the decisions of the Church, or submission to
superiors, or charity to inferiors ? Where among men shall we look
for equity, the love of justice, piety, or morality? Do not many even
say in their hearts, "There is no God"? Some invent impious
doctrines and devise blasphemies; others, the slaves of licentious
ness, think only of gratifying their passions ; others desire and seek
after riches, and others are athirst for blood. Innocence is very
rare, and almost always exposed to danger. To what good are the
ties of family, or laws whether human or divine ? Force and fraud
everywhere prevail, and with reason is the devil called the Prince of
this world, for, in truth, he governs the greater portion of the globe.
Does not the error of Mahomet, the false prophet, bear sway almost
throughout the whole East, as well as in the States of Africa ? His
followers blaspheme Christ in the kingdom of Grenada, in Spain, and
in many of the provinces of Greece. The Jewish people, spread
throughout the world, are the enemies of the Gospel and of the
Christian religion. In the East, as in the North, idolatry still abounds ;
Christianity is confined to a corner of Europe ; for though we are
assured that there are many Christians scattered throughout Asia
and Libya, yet their faith is not pure ; they live apart from the Holy
See, in the midst of infidels and heretics; they do evil and are
infected with many errors. And as to the Christians who are to be
found in Europe, can they be called Christians in anything more
than the name ? The religion of the greater number is but an empty
pretence, as is proved by their conduct. How many are there who
do the works of Christians? By their fruits you shall know them,
said our Lord (Matt. vii. 16). Only if we live as Christ commands,

638 Bull of Canonisation,
can we be called Christians. For the Apostle St. John tells us that
men are the children of those whose works they do. If we keep the
commands of God, we are the children of God ; but if we do the
works of the devil, we belong to him ; for our Lord has said, " You
have the devil for your father ; " words most terrible, but yet most
true. For every one is the son and subject of him whose commands
he follows. How many ungrateful Christians are there not, who
stray from the Divine precepts and follow the suggestions of the
enemy ? Who does not know it even by his own experience ? Let
each one interrogate his own conscience, and mentally review his
life, and he will see how far he is from accomplishing the duties of a
true Christian. How great, then, are the mercies of God who still
bears with us and suffers us to live, waiting for us till we shall be
converted with our whole hearts, and return to Him !
Nevertheless, in all times some men have been found who have
pleased God by the holiness of their lives. Clothed in mortal
bodies, they have yet vanquished the desires of the flesh, and led a
heavenly life even in this world. It is by their merits and interces
sion that the world has been preserved. The consuming fire that
threatens it has been checked, and the wrath of God and His
vengeance have been suspended. We doubt not that even at this
very hour there are some souls living who appease God, and render
the King of heaven favourable and propitious to us. Among those
who .thus found favour with God, the city of Siena, illustrious
throughout Tuscany, has been so happy as to reckon Bernardine.
Born of a noble family, he renounced the world even from his youth
in order to enter the Order of St. Francis. He found the religious
of that Order fallen from the rule and example of their founder;
wherefore he powerfully reproved them, and not being able to recall
them to a better way, he separated from them those who were
willing to observe the rule, and together with these he visited
monasteries, founded new ones, and introduced into them many
wise reforms: thus he journeyed through Italy, everywhere tread
ing down vice, and causing virtue to flourish. Everyone admired
his abstinence, his angelic purity, the sweetness of his gravity, the
charm of his words, the profound wisdom of his preaching ; and as
he was a sincere lover of holy poverty and the enemy of riches and
pleasures, the most lively joy ever shone on his countenance, and
the most profound peace reigned in his heart. Innocence rendered
him happy, and his conscience was untroubled by a stain. He
destroyed a great number of scandals in Italy, and worked many

Bull of Canonisation. 639
miracles. Therefore, even in his lifetime, he was regarded as a
Saint ; he was everywhere venerated, and the people ran in crowds
to do him honour. He ended his career at Aquileja ; and in the
year of the Jubilee when the Christian world flocked to Rome to be
purified from the stain of sin, our predecessor, Nicholas V., placed
him among the numbers of the holy Confessors of Christ.
But before the time of Bernardine, our Fathers had beheld in the
same city of Siena the virgin Catherine, not less great in merit or
less agreeable to God. The prayers she offered to the Divine
Majesty were, are, and ever will be most useful to the human race ;
for if the crimes and blasphemies of the wicked draw down on us
the wrath of God, the prayers and good works of the Saints surely
preserve us from it. Catherine led on this earth the life of an angel ;
it is now eighty years since she passed to heaven ; numberless
miracles have manifested her glory ; but the Church militant has not
yet inscribed her among the faithful virgins of Christ. The Roman
Pontiffs, our predecessors, have not so decreed. Urban VI., and
after him, Innocent VII. and Gregory XII., who both of them, had
a particular knowledge of her merits, desired indeed to render her
this honour ; but they were prevented from doing so by the Schism,
the troubles, and the wars with which their Pontificates were
distracted. God no doubt so permitted it, because in the midst of
those tempests what was proclaimed in one obedience, would have
been rejected in the other. The affair then was deferred until our
time ; and the Canonisation of this blessed soul, our own fellow-
countrywoman, has been reserved to Us. The holiness of the
virgin of Siena will be proclaimed by a native of Siena, seated in
the Chair of St. Peter ; ahd we own, this thought causes Us a sweet
and holy joy. Who does not love to celebrate the glories of his
own country, city, or family, when he can rightly and justly do so ?
We take pleasure in praising the illustrious men of all nations, but
with how much more eagerness do we do this in the case of our
fellow-citizens ? If, then, We should have rejoiced in beholding the
sublime gifts, the noble genius, the great soul, and the holy will : of
the Blessed Catherine, whatever might have been her country, with
yet greater joy do We admire these things, inasmuch as she was a
native of Siena,— of that city which also gave Us birth : wherefore
We nourish a hope of sharing in a more special way her merits
and intercession, than if she had been born in Scythia or the Indies ;
1 Sublimes dotes, nobile ingenium, divinam mcn.'eiu, sacratissimam voluntatem.

640 Bull of Canonisation.
for the natural ties which bind us to the Saints cannot surely fail to
procure us some greater privilege.
Nevertheless, such considerations must have no power to make
Us say more or less than the truth. Not on account of the ties of
country and kindred must any be numbered among the Saints
without the accustomed examinations and formalities. However
much, therefore, it gladdened Us to hear that the blessed Catherine,
whose Canonisation was demanded of Us, was a native of Siena, yet
none of those things required for so great a solemnity have on that
account been omitted by Us. Many petitions have been addressed
to Us, not only from the people of Siena, but from others also.
Our dear son in Christ, Frederick, the August Emperor of the
Romans, and Our beloved son Paschal, the noble Doge of Venice,
have implored Us no longer to withhold the honours due to this
holy virgin, for whom their people entertain much devotion, and of
whom many wonderful prodigies are related. Having spent some
time at Siena, on Our way to Mantua, we there had declared to Us
in public Consistory her great merits and wonderful miracles ; and'
many ardent supplications were made to Us that We would decree
her the honours bf the Saints. We did not at once yield our consent,
but according to the ancient custom, We appointed, viva voce, three
of our brethren, Cardinals of the holy Roman Church, a Bishop, a
priest, and a deacon, who, after the usual process had been gone
through, should diligently examine the life and actions of Catherine,
and the miracles worked by her during life and after death, and what
ever else was necessary for her Canonisation ; and who, as is customary,
should make a faithful report of the same to Us in secret Consistory.
The Commissaries discussed these matters for a year or more, during
which time We returned from Mantua to Rome. The ancient
Processes having been found, which were drawn up at Venice and
elsewhere, and the witnesses examined afresh, and everything having
been carefully weighed and considered, they first of all made their
report to the Cardinals only, sincerely gathered out of what they had
thus found. We then directed that the same should be recited' by
an Advocate in public Consistory. Lastly, assembling in our court
all the Bishops and Cardinals, the said Commissaries, by the mouth
of Our Venerable Brother William, Bishop of Porto, a Frenchman
by birth, who presided over the rest, declared anew all that they had
learnt, and all that seemed to them to have been satisfactorily proved.
From their full and eloquent narrative we have resumed the following

Bull of Canonisation. 64 1
* statement of facts, all which are true, well attested, generally known
and manifest.
The virgin Catherine, born in Siena of parents of middle rank,
before she was of an age to know God, desired to consecrate herself
to Him. When six years old she wished to fly into the wilderness,
that she might there serve the Lord ; and going out of the city she
hid herself in a cavern which she found in a solitary place ; remain
ing there, however, but a short time, inasmuch as she was commanded
• by the Holy Spirit to return home. Having learned the Angelic
Salutation, as often as she went up the staircase in her father's house
she would kneel at each step, and venerate the holy Virgin, Mother
of God. And in the seventh year of her age she consecrated her
virginity to Christ, on Whose Majesty she had gazed in a wonderful
vision, wherein also she beheld the secrets of the heavenly court,
which the tongue of man cannot utter. Renouncing all worldly
delights, she gave herself wholly to prayer, and afflicted her body
with watching, fasting, and disciplines. Moreover, she taught and
persuaded other young maidens, her companions, to follow her
example, and do in like manner. Having arrived at the age of
marriage, she cut off her hair and refused to accept of any mortal
spouse, despising the injuries and persecutions of which she was the
object. She obtained by long importunity the habit of the Blessed
Dominic, which is worn by the Sisters of Penance. In her father's
house she discharged the duties of a servant, desiring nothing better
than to appear vile and abject in the eyes of men. With her father's
permission she gave abundant alms to the poor of Christ, and served
the sick with all care and diligence. She overcame the temptations
of the enemy, and the continual assaults of evil spirits, by the sword
of faith and the buckler of patience. To prisoners and the oppressed
• she brought all the consolation in her power. Never did a word
proceed from her lips that was not holy and pious; but all her
discourse had for its subject religion, piety, the contempt of the
world, the love of God and of our neighbour, and the desire after our
heavenly country. No one ever approached her without going away
wiser and better. Her doctrine was infused, not acquired. She
seemed to be a mistress without having been a disciple ; and replied
with consummate prudence to Professors of theology, and even to
Bishops of illustrious churches; and satisfied them so entirely, that
those who had gone to her as fierce lions or wolves, became, before
they left her, as gentle as lambs; so that some of these, full of

642 Bull of Canonisation.
admiration at the divine wisdom displayed by this young maiden, *
distributed all their goods to the poor, and embracing the Cross of
our Lord, lived thenceforth a life of evangelic perfection.
The abstinence and austerity of Catherine's life was truly great and
wonderful ; she entirely renounced the use of wine and flesh, and
ended by eating neither vegetables nor bread, ' taking only that
heavenly Bread which the Christian soul receives in the Sacrament
of the Altar. On one occasion she was known to have prolonged
her fast from Ash Wednesday until the Feast of the Ascension, tak
ing no food save the most Holy Eucharist. For about eight years
she lived on the juice of herbs which she retained with difficulty, and
on Holy Communion. She went to table as to execution, but she
hastened with joyful ardour to the Sacred Altar as to a wedding
feast, and communicated almost daily. Under her garments she
wore a hair-shirt to mortify her flesh, and using neither pillow nor
soft bed of any kind, her couch was of planks, and on this she took
her repose ; which was so scanty that in the course of one day and
night it rarely exceeded two hours. The rest of her time she spent
in watching, praying, instructing souls, or attending to the works of
mercy. She macerated her body with long disciplines, and suffered
almost continually from a pain in the head, besides being parched
with fever, and tormented by many other infirmities. She often had
to combat with, the demons who persecuted her in many ways, but
she said with the Apostle, " When I am weak then I am strong"
(2. Cor. xii. 16). In all her trials she never suffered herself to be cast
down, or to neglect her works of charity. She assisted the unfor
tunate and the oppressed, reproved sinners, and drew them to pen
ance by the sweetness of her words, gladly instructing all in the
precepts of salvation. She showed to each one with a joyful coun
tenance what they should do and what they should avoid, and with '
wonderful power she appeased discords, destroyed hatreds, and put
an end to many bloody feuds. To procure peace for the Florentines
who were at war with the Church and lying under an interdict, she
hesitated not to cross the Apennines and the Alps, and to journey
even as far as Avignon to the Sovereign Pontiff Gregory XL, our
great predecessor, to whom she manifested that by Divine revelation
there had been made known to her the vow which he had secretly
taken to return to Rome, although this was known by none save by
himself and God. She was also endowed with the spirit of prophecy,
and foretold many events, revealing also hidden things. She was

Bull of Canonisation. 643
often rapt in ecstasy, and hanging suspended in the air, there con
templated divine things, being at such times so wholly out of herself
that if touched or shaken she in no wise perceived it ; and this most
often befell her after she had received the Divine Eucharist. By
many people she was held in repute as a Saint, and from all parts
they brought to her the sick, and persons tormented by evil spirits,
many of whom recovered health. She spoke with command in the
name of Christ to fever and sickness, and compelled the demons to
leave the bodies of those whom they possessed. She was held most
dear by two Roman Pontiffs, namely by Gregory XL, of whom we
have just now made mention, and by Urban VI., insomuch that they
employed her in their legations, and she was by them enriched with
many great spiritual favours. And having thus spent her life, in
about the thirty-third year of her age she- died at Rome. Marvel
lous and stupendous revelations of the glorious reception of her soul
into heaven were granted to many persons who held this holy virgin
in esteem, and specially to her confessor, Raymund of Capua, a
Master in Sacred Theology who was at that time named Father-
General of the Order of Preachers. He, being at Genoa on the
night that the virgin expired, saw her in the morning, in the dormi
tory, near the image of the Mother of God, shinihg with great
splendour, and he heard from her lips words of consolation. Her
body having been kept for some days, was at last buried in Rome in
the Church of the Minerva, belonging to the Friar Preachers, amid
a great concourse of devout people. And on touching the same,
many sick persons received health from God, whilst others were
restored by merely touching those things which had touched the
holy body of Catherine.
And being received into heaven, she has lent a benignant ear to
the prayers of those who have invoked her, and has obtained that
they should be heard by Christ, her Saviour, Lord, and Spouse ; so
that many hearing the glorious name of Catherine and the power of
her intercession have had recourse to her patronage and been cured
of various maladies. At Venice, likewise, where Catherine never was,
as well as in other places, her name has become celebrated, and she
receives the prayers and homage of many.
After our venerable Brother the Bishop of Porto had related these
and many other things to Us in the aforesaid assembly of Bishops
and Cardinals, assuring Us that they had been clearly proved, the
Cardinals and prelates (of whom there were present a great number)

644 Bull of Canonisation.
were required to make known their opinion, when it appeared that
by common suffrage they declared Catherine worthy of these honours;
nor was there one who did not counsel that We should proceed at
once to her canonisation. Having attentively heard all these things,
therefore, We commanded that a high and well-adorned balcony
should be erected in the Basilica of St. Peter's, the Prince of the
Apostles, whence, this day, in presence of the clergy and people,
after having pronounced a discourse on the life and miracles of
Catherine, and after having celebrated the Holy Sacrifice, and
fulfilled all the accustomed ceremonies, We proceed to the canonisa
tion of the Blessed Catherine in the following terms : —
To the honour of the Almighty and Eternal God, Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and the
augmentation of the Christian religion ; by the authority of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and of the holy Apostles' Peter and Paul, and by Our
own.; and by the advice of our brethren ; We declare that Catherine
of Siena, a virgin of illustrious and immortal memory, whose body
reposes in Rome, in the Church of the Friar Preachers called the
Minerva, has been long since received into the heavenly Jerusalem
amid the choirs of the blessed virgins, and crowned with the diadem
of eternal glory ; she having merited the same by her virtues, assisted
by the Divine grace, We judge and define that she is to be honoured
as a Saint both privately and publicly, and We command that she be
enrolled among the holy virgins venerated by the Roman Church ;
directing that her feast shall be kept each year on the first Sunday in
the month of May, and that all those honours be rendered to her
that are rendered to other holy virgins. Moreover, to all those who
on the said festival shall visit her tomb, We grant in perpetuity seven
years and as many quarantains indulgence, according to the customs
of holy Church. Let no one presume to change anything in this
declaration, or to alter anything which it contains, declares, com
mands, ordains or establishes ; and let no one temerariously call it
in question. If any should dare to violate what is contained herein,
let him know that he thereby exposes himself to the wrath of God,
and of the holy Apostles, SS. Peter and Paul.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of Our Lord 1461, on
the 29th day of June, in the third year of Our Pontificate.

( 645 )

APPENDIX A.
RELATION OF A DOCTRINE, OR SPIRITUAL
INSTRUCTION.
Written in the year of our Lord 1376, on the seventh day of the
month of January, by Brother William Flete, an Englishman,
of the Hermits of St. Augustine in Lecceto, a man of great
learning and sanctity ; which doctrine and document received
viva voce from the Seraphic Virgin, St. Catherine of Siena, of
whom he was a disciple, was by him reduced to writing in Latin,
and has lately been translated into the vulgar tongue in the follow
ing manner, from an ancient manuscript, still preserved in the
Archives of the Fathers of St. Dominic of Siena, similar to the
other ancient text preserved in the Chartreuse of Pontignano
near Siena, amongst the memorials of the Blessed Stephen
Maconi, another disciple, and secretary of the Saint.
The holy Mother, speaking of herself as of a third person, said
that in the beginning of her illumination she placed as the foundation
of her whole life, in opposition to self-love, the stone of self-knowledge,
which she separated into the three following little stones :
The first was the consideration of her creation ; that is to say, how
she had no existence whatever of herself, but one solely dependent
on the Creator, as well in its production as in its preservation, and
that all this the Creator had done, and was still doing, through His
grace and mercy.
The second was the consideration of her redemption ; i.e., how
the Redeemer had restored with His own Blood the life of grace
which was before destroyed ; and this through His pure and fervent
love, unmerited by man.
The third was the consideration of her own sins, committed after
baptism, and the graces therein received, through which she, having
deserved eternal damnation, was astonished that out of the eternal

646 Appendix.
goodness of God, He had not commanded the earth to swallow
her up.
From these three considerations there arose within her so great a
hatred against herself, that she desired nothing whatever conformable
to her own will, but only to the will of God, Who, as she already
knew, willed nothing but her good. From this it followed that every
tribulation or trial was to her a matter of pleasure and delight, not
only because it came through the will of God, but also because she
saw herself to be thereby punished and chastised. She began like
wise to have the greatest dislike to those things in which she used
formerly to take pleasure, and great delight in what formerly displeased
her ; thus the caresses of her mother, in which she had once found
so much pleasure, she now shunned as she would sword or poison,
whilst at the same time she joyfully embraced all the abuse and
insults that were bestowed upon her.
And she also welcomed what at the same time she abhorred — the
temptations of Satan ; she welcomed them for the suffering they
brought, and abhorred them inasmuch as they offered her sensual
enjoyments. After these things there was kindled within her an
immense desire for purity, and after having made continual prayer
during many months to obtain it, and that it might be bestowed on
her in its highest perfection, our Lord at last appearing to her said :
" Beloved Daughter, if thou wouldest obtain the purity thou desirest,
thou must needs first become perfectly united to Me, Who am
purity itself, which thou shalt obtain if thou observe three things.
In the first place, thou must turn thyself wholly towards Me with
thine intention, and have Me alone for thine end in all thine actions,
and make it thy sole study to keep Me ever before thine eyes.
Secondly, denying thine own will, and paying no regard to that
of any creature soever, thou must have respect and consideration for
Mine, which wills thy sanctification, since I neither wish nor permit
anything . except for thy good. If thou attentively observe this,
nothing shall sadden or disturb thee even for an hour, but rather
thou wilt esteem thyself obliged to any who insult thee. Moreover,
thou shalt not judge anything to be sinful unless thou knowest it
manifestly to be so, and then thou shalt be indignant against the sin,
but shalt compassionate the sinner. The third thing is, that thou .
judge the actions of My servants, not according to thine own inclina
tion and taste, but according to My judgment ; because thou knowest
full well that I have said, ' In My Father's house are many mansions,'

Appendix. 647
and because the mansion of glory corresponds with the merit of the
way ; so, as there are many mansions in that Fatherland, there are also
many roads leading thereto. It is therefore My will that thou judge
not My servants in any way, but that thou shouldst have the highest
respect for all their actions, provided they be not expressly against
My teaching. If thou observe these three things, thou shalt become
well regulated in thyself towards Me by means of the first, and
towards thy neighbour, be he good or evil, by means of the second
and third. In this way thou shalt not through vices quit the way
of virtue, and consequently shalt have and shalt perfectly preserve
purity, by the aid and operation of My grace.
For the better explanation of the foregoing, she also said that self-
love is the occasion of every evil and the ruin of every good ; and
that it is of two sorts ; namely, sensitive and spiritual. The first is
the cause of all sensual sins, as well as of all others that are open
and manifest, and that are committed through affection towards
earthly and created things ; that is to say, when for the sake of such
things the commandments of the Creator are despised and trans
gressed. The second kind of self-love, called spiritual, is that which
causes a man who has a contempt for earthly things, for all creatures,
and even for his own sensuality, to be, in spite of all this, so tena
ciously attached to his own spiritual sense and to his own opinion,
that he will neither serve God nor walk in His ways, unless accord
ing to his own inclination and sentiments. Hence it follows, since
God will have man to be absolutely destitute of self-will, that such
an one can neither remain where he is, nor continue going on his
way, so he must needs fall, because he adheres more to his own will
than to that of God.
Of this sort are all those who will choose for themselves a state of
life and occupation agreeable to their own notions, and not according
to the vocation of God, decided by the counsel of prudent and discreet
men. Such again are those who attach themselves too much to any
spiritual practice or exercise, for instance, fasting and the like, in
which they place, as it were, their end, so that if perchance it happen
that they are unable to practise it, they give way at once to despair,
and abandon everything. In this class may also be numbered souls
who have an excessive love for consolations and spiritual sweetnesses,
for when these are wanting, they at once fall into discouragement.
For true spiritual love loves God alone, and the salvation of souls
for God's sake. . Let all things then be made use of in due order for

648 Appendix.
this end, nor let the means, whatever they be, trouble us, provided
that their end be the honour of God and the salvation of our neigh
bour. Whatsoever then possesses true spiritual love, must judge all
things and accept all things according to the will of God, and not
according to the will of men : and when deprived of any spiritual
consolation, he should at once reflect and say: "This happens
through the Divine plan'; by the permission of God, Who, in all the
adversities He sends me, seeks and wills nothing but my justification
and sanctification ; " and with this thought all that is bitter will
become sweet. Thus spoke the Saint.
The same Brother, William Flete, adds further the following words.
Our Mother, Blessed Catherine, asked our Lord for solitude, and He
replied to her : " Many people remain in their cell who live out of
their cell ; My will is that thy cell be the knowledge of thyself and
of thy sins." From this cell Catherine never issued forth, and every
servant of God should act in the same way, because in this manner
he would keep within his cell in whatever place he might be.

APPENDIX B.
FATHER WILLIAM FLETE.
From Pitts' " De Lllustribus Anglim Scriploribus," p. 521.
Joseph Pamphili calls him William Flete, and several foreign
writers also call him Flete. He was an English monk of the Order
of the Hermits of St. Augustine ; a lover of solitude and heavenly
contemplation, and very famous for his sanctity. Ever ascending
from virtue to virtue, and growing every day more holy, he found
by his own experience that no perfection in this world is so great as
that, by the help of the Divine grace, we may not attain to a greater.
When he heard that some of his brethren in Italy had been reformed
and had embraced a stricter discipline in their monasteries, he
hastened thither and persevered among them (as Ambrose Corio-
lanus and James of Bergamo testify) in wonderful innocence and
integrity of morals even to the last day of his life. He is said to

Appendix. 649
have received divine revelations in his prayers and contemplations,
especially about the future calamities of England, on which subject
he wrote various epistles, full of varied learning and Christian zeal,
addressed chiefly to the members of his own Order and Institute.
The following list is preserved of his writings :
1. To the Provincial of his Order in England, one Epistle. Obsecro
in Domino J esu.
2. To the Doctors of the Province, one Epistle. Cum timore Dei,
et reverentia. 3. To the Brethren in general, Ait enim Apostolus, Spectaculum.
4. Predictions to the English of calamities coming upon England,
one book.
5. Divers Epistles. One book.
6. Of Remedies against Temptations. One book.
Some or all of these were preserved in Pitts' time among the
Norwich MSS. in the Public Library of Cambridge. The same
writer represents him as dying in Italy in 1380, in the reign of
Richard II., a date which is proved to be incorrect by the fact of
his sermon on St. Catherine having been delivered in 1382. Pitts
also quotes Sabellicus, who affirms that he was finally enrolled among
the number of the Saints, which, however, would seem to mean no
more than that he enjoyed among his own Brethren the repute of
sanctity.

INDEX.

A.
Abondio, St., St. Catherine's visits to, 64.
Agnes St., of Montepulciano, 206, 2-11.
Alexia Saraceni, 89, 128, 201, 614.
Alphonsus Vadaterra, 262, 278.
Andrea de Bellanti, conversion of, no.
Andrea Vanni, the painter, 143 ; his picture
of St. Catherine, 144.
Andrea (Sister), St. Catherine's charity to,
181.
Andrea Salimbeni, his execution, 200.
Angelo, St., Castle of, is recovered, 485.
Anjou, Louis, Duke of, 321, 327 ; takes
the Cross, 329.
Anthimo, St., St. Catherine's visit to, 389 ;
the abbot of, 357, 389, 425.
Antipope elected, 461.
Apostate, Letters from an, 400, 401.
Art, remarkable passage on, 164.
Avignon, Pope's residence fixed at, 237 ;
Description of, 309 ; Catherine's opinion
of the Court of, 316 ; Gregory XI. lpaves,
334- B.
Bambino of Lucca, 290.
Barduccio Canigiano, disciple and secretary
of St. Catherine, 422 ; his death, 619.
Baronto di Ser Dato, 261.
Bartholomew Dominic, 6o, 100, 106, 132 ;
he is delivered from a scruple, 133, 170 ;
his last interview with Catherine, 554,
5SS ; Montucci, 105 ; of Ravenna, Prior
of Gorgona, 273 ; Letter from, 456.
Bartolo, brother to Catherine, n, 38, 101 ;
his death, 190.
Bartolomeo Fra, his pictures of St. Ca
therine, 285/ 604.
Baths, Catherine's visit to the, 29.
Beans, the dinner of, 176, 626.
Beatrice of Milan, 245.
Beech tree of Vallombrosa, 430.
Belcaro, foundation of, 223, 355, 357-
Belforti, Catherine's letter to the, 217, 218.
Benezet's, St., bridge, 327.

Benincasa, family of, n; Catherine's brother,
88.
Bernabd Visconti, 241, 250 ; Catherine's
letter to, 244.
Bianchina, the Countess, 378, 380, 383.
Blood, Catherine's sweat of, 46 ; devotion
to the1 Precious, 46 ; weeps tears of, 46.
Bonaventura, Catherine's sister, 10 ; her
death, 21.
Bordighera, 336.
Bread, multiplication of, 202 ; at Rome,
471 ; at Siena, 584.
Bridge, our Lord compared to a, 595.
Bridget, St., of Sweden, 249; her warnings
to Gregory, 322.
Brothers, Catherine delivers her, 87.
Bull of Canonisation, 635.
Bull, Raymund asks for one, 213.
Butt of wine, 71. C.
Caffarini, his first acquaintance with
Catherine, 57 ; his labours, 613.
Calumnies against Catherine, 182.
Campo of Siena, 83 ; Gampo Santo of Pisa,
2S3-
Cardinals, letter to three, 482.
Carnival Masques forbidden on feast of
Espousals, 54.
Carthusian disciples of St. Catherine, 296.
Casa della Misericordia, 124.
Catherine, St., of Siena, her birth, n; seeks
the wilderness, 15 ; her vow, 15 ; her
fault and repentance, 20 ; is persecuted,
23; receives the habit, 32 ; lives retired
for three years, 35 ; is directed by Our
Lord Himself, 36 ; her doctrine is infused,
43 ; her temptation and deliverance, 48,
49 ; learns to read, 51 ; her espousals,
53 ; her ecstasies, 62, 63, 65, 154, 332,
359. 3^7. 397 I ner charity to the poor,
67 ; nurses lepers, 73 ; prays for the
perfection of faith, 53; and of charity,
94 ; her heart exchanged, 96 ; her dis
traction in church, 101 ; her mystic

652

Index.

death, 105 ; power over evil spirits,
117, 384, 386, 387 ; her prophetic
gifts, 133 ; confounds two learned
doctors, 147 ; her appearance, 161 ;
character, 163 ; begins to communi
cate daily, 172 ; inability to eat, 173 ;
people murmur against her, 179 ; re
ceives the crown of thorns, 183 ; first
visit to Florence, 188 ; tends the plague-
stricken, 191 ; increases the meal, 202 ;
visits Montepulciano, 206, 207 ; her
countenance is transformed, 151, 214 ;
reconciles feuds, 223 ; assists criminals,
227 ; visits Pisa, 251 ; promotes the
Crusade, 254 ; writes to Hawkwood,
257 ; receives the Stigmas, 266 ; visits
Gorgona, 274 ; foretells the Schism, 281 ;
goes to Lucca, 284 ; recognises an uncon
secrated Host, 286 ; reconciles Stephen
Maconi and his enemies, 293 ; her first
embassy to Florence, 302 ; goes to Avignon,
308 ; the Florentines deceive her, 314 ; she
is examined by three prelates, 318 ; visits
Villeneuve, 328 ; reminds Gregory of his
vow, 333 ; visits Voragine, 337 ; and
Genoa, 339 ; heals the sick, 343 ; in
danger at sea, 347 ; founds a convent at
Belcaro, 357 ; her communions, 362 ;
revives frequent communion, 376 ; letters
to the Salimbeni, 380 ; goes to Rocca
d'Orcia, 383 ; great fruit of souls, 390 ;
learns to write miraculously, 397 ; second
embassy to Florence, 408 ; her life is
threatened, 416 ; restores peace, 421 ;
writes the Dialogo, 435 ; her letters to
Ristoro Canigiani, 445 ; goes to Rome,
464 ; sends oranges to Urban, 467 ; mul
tiplies bread, 471 ; her letters to Queen
Joanna, 480, 494 ; to Charles V. of France,
490 ; her visits to St. Peter's, 405 ; her
last combat, 542 ; her interview with
Bartholomew Dominic, 554 ; her last
words, 558 ; her death, 568 ; her devo
tions, 559 ; her canonisation, 632.
Catherine, St., of Sweden, 474.
Cell, the interior, 23 ; Catherine's, 27.
Cells, John of the, 423 ; his defence of
Catherine, 427 ; his letter on her death,
576.
Certosa of Calci, 273 ; of Gorgona, 274 ; of
Pavia, 626.
Chapel, Catherine's private, 363 ; delle
Volte, 109.
Charity to the poor, 67 ; to sinners, 167.
Charity, Perfection of, 94, 99.
Charles IV., the Emperor, defeat of, 85.

Charles V. of France, Letters to, 330, 490 ;
supports the Schism, 476, 490.
Charles of Sweden, death of, 259.
Charles Durazzo, 492, 496.
Children, Catherine's love of, 59.
Christ appears as a pilgrim, 69 ; the wall on
which we lean, 398.
Christina, St., the church of, 270.
Christofano di Gano, his memoir, 140 ; he
translates the Dialogo, 437 ; his love of
St. Catherine, 616 ; his death, 617.
Church needs no reform, 226 ; her face is
pale, 303, 324, 498 ; is Christ Himself,
298 ; of San Domenico, Siena, 5, 109 ;
of St. Romano, Lucca, 285.
Clara of Gambacorta, 262.
Clement VII., 461.
Colombini family, 64, 131.
Communion, frequent, 364, 373, 447 ;
Spiritual, 373, 375 ; miraculous favours
at, 365.
Company of La Scala, 126, 520.
Companies, the Free, 256.
Confidence in prayer, 42.
Conversion of Lazzarino of Pisa, 90 ; of
Andrea Bellanti, no ; of two criminals,
114; of James Tolomei and his sisters,
123 ; of Francesco Saraceni, 129 ; of
Master John Tantucci, 148 ; of Nanni,
219 ; of Nicholas di Toldo, 228 ; of two
learned doctors at Pisa, 259 ; of Stephen
Maconi, 293 ; of John of the Cells, 424.
Council of Constance, 629, 630.
Creatures, how to love them, 156, 157.
Cross, Holy, of Lucca, 286.
Crown of thorns, the, 183.
Crusade, 239, 249, 253, 255, 326, 329, 425.
D.
Death, Catherine's mystic, 105, 106.
Demoniacs delivered ; Laurentia di Mon
aldi, 118 ; at Rocca, 384, 385, 387.
Detachment, Letter on, 288, 289.
Devotions of St. Catherine, 591.
Dialogue, where and when written, 434.
Direction for a man of the world, 446, 448.
Disciples of St. Catherine, 130, 135, 145.
Disciplines, 14, 29, 270.
Distraction, Catherine's, 101.
Divine Office, 44, 51 ; Our Lord recites it
with Catherine, 44, 51.
Doctrine infused, 43.
Dominic, St., preaches at Siena, 5 ; Cathe
rine's devotion to him, 17 ; he promises
her the habit of Penance, 25 ; visions bf,
53, 100 ; pictures of, at Florence, 306 ;

Index.

655

Catherine the imitator of, 28, 161, 167;
Order of, 442 ;
Domenico, San, church of, 6, 35.
Dove seen over Catherine's head, 24.
Duomo of Siena, 5, 162, 164.

Eating, Catherine's sufferings in, 172, 173.
Elbianco, letter to, 177.
Elys de Turrenne pierces Catherine's foot,
318.
England, policy of the Pope towards, 329 ;
part taken by her during the Schism, 495.
Espousals, 53, 54 ; Feast of, 587.
Eugenia, Catherine's niece, 207.
Exchange of Hearts, 96.
Execution of Nicholas Toldo, 228.
Bxtracts from Dialogue, on the Divine illu
mination, 43 ; on music, 45 ; on the
Sacred Heart, 97 ; on the Holy Eucharist,
370, 371- F.
Faith, the perfection of, 53.
Fall of the Twelve, 84.
Family, the Spiritual, 128 ; Catherine's life
in her, 57.
Famine in Siena, 2or ; in Tuscany, 279.
Fast of fifty-five days, 175.
Feuds of the Middle Ages, 216 ; Catherine,
the healer of, 217.
Fire, Catherine falls into the, 64 ; rain of
blood and, 94.
Flete, Father William, 149 ; extracts from
his sermon, 154, 155 ; his correspondence
with John of the Cells, 426 ; refuses to go
to Rome, 469, 470.
Florence, Catherine's first visit to, 188 ; her
first embassy, 302 ; places which she
visits, 307 ; her second embassy, 408.
Flowers, Catherine's love 'of, 52, 58, 163;
her feast celebrated with, 614.
Fontebranda, 6.
Fortitude, Catherine prays for, 47.
Fountain at Lecceto, 157 ; at Val d' Elza,
3°7-
Fragrance emitted by Catherine, 63 ; and
by her very clothes, 154.
Francesco Malevolti, 138 ; accompanies
Catherine to Rocca, 384, 396 ; his final
conversion, 617.
Fraticelli, 207, 424; Catherine disputes
with them, 420.
Fulloncia, 7.
Funeral, Catherine's, 572.

Gabriel Piccolomini, 137.
Gabriel of Volterra, conversion of, 148.
Gambacorta, Peter, 203, 251 ; Clara, 262.
Gemmina, Sister, cure of, 199.
Genoa, Catherine visits, 339 ; Gregory XI.
stops at, 341 ; traces of Catherine at, 346.
George, St. , Company of, 484.
Gerard du Puy, 246, 250.
Gerard Buonconti, 251, 264.
Ghinoccia Tolomei, conversion of, 121.
Giacomo Benincasa, Catherine's father, 10,
58 ; his kindness to her, 26, 66 ; his death,
77-
Gittalebraccia, 259.
Gregory XI., his election, 239 ; first com
munication with Catherine, 246 ; his ap
pearance, 311 ; his vow, 333 ; he leaves
Avignon, 334 ; his death, 413.
Guelfs, Captains of the, 412.
Guelfaccio, Thomas, 149.
Guido of Siena, picture by, 164.
H.
Habit, Catherine receives the, 32.
Hair, her, 19 ; she cuts it off, 22.
Hand, stigmatised, 104 ; relic of, 269.
Hawkwood, Sir John, 256 ; Catherine's
letter to hirer, 257 ; he assists Urban at
Marino, 484.
Heart, Catherine's exchanged, 96 ; pressed
out, 549.
Head, relic of her, 578 ; taken to Siena,
578 ; the procession of, 581.
Hermits, Catherine's love of, 145 ; of Lec
ceto, 146 ; of Vallombrosa, 429 ;
Honorius Gaetano, Count of Fondi, 483.
Hope, passage on, 445.
Hospital of La Scala, 125, 191.
Host, the Sacred, flies into Catherine's
mouth, 396 ; other prodigies, 364, 365.
Hungary, Louis of, 492. I.
Ignorance of pride, 595.
Insults offered to Catherine, 180.
Interdict, Florence laid under, 299 ; re
moved, 421.
Iron chain, 27.
Isle of Gorgona, 273.

James Tolomei, 123.
Jane di Capo, 131 ; her illness at Florence,
417 ; she forgets to provide bread, 471.
Jealousy among Catherine's disciples, 277.

654

Index.

Joanna of Naples, 248 ; espouses the
Schism, 474 ; feigns repentance, 494 ;
her death, 496.
John Dominic, B,, is cured before St.
Catherine's picture, 144 ; sees her at
Pisa, 259 ; and Florence, 305 ; he labours
for reform, 613 ; his influence at Con
stance, 630.
John of the Cells. (See Cells.)
John Tantucci, 146 ; his conversion, T47 ;
goes to Avignon with Catherine, 319 ;
preaches at her funeral, 572.
K.
Kiss of the Spouse, the, 366.
Knights of St. John, 205 ; letter to one,
231.
Knowledge of God, and of ourselves, 38 ;
of souls, 162, 317. L.
Lapa, 10 ; her distress at Catherine's
penances, 28 ; her death and restoration
to life, 79 ; her impatience, 344 ; she is
present at Catherine's death, 567 ; and
at the procession of her head, 582.
Last words, the, 558.
Laurentia Monaldi, 118, 119.
Lecceto, 151, 157.
Legates, conduct of the, 250, 280.
Leghorn, 274.
Lepers, Catherine serves the, 73, 74.
Lion and its cubs, the, 448.
Lisa Colombini, 11, 59, 88, 208.
Love of God, 39 ; love of self, 40.
Lucca, Catherine at, 282.
M.
Mantle, Catherine's, 33 ; gives one to
Prior of Gorgona, 275.
Marino, victory of, 485.
Mary Magdalen, St., 21, 98.
Mary Mancini, B., 263.
Matthew of the Misericordia, 125, 135, 196,
278.
Matthew Tolomei, 123.
Miraculous cures ; Master Matthew, 195 ;
Fra Santi, 197 ; woman crushed, 199 ;
Sister Gemmina, 199 ; youth at Pisa,
252 ; Neri Landoccio, 342 ; Stephen
Maconi, 343 ; John of the Cells, 429.
Montepulciano, visits to, 263.
Music, passage on, 45. N.
Nanna, letter to her niece, r89.

Nanni di Ser Vanni, 220.
Naples, proposal to send Catherine' there,
474 ; Civil war, 494.
Neri di Landoccio, disciple and secretary of
Catherine, 135 ; his sickness, 342 ; letters
to, 136 ; 400, 402 ; he becomes a hermit,
620 ; his death, 621.
Nicholas Soderini, Florentine citizen, 188,
298, 302, 408.
Nicholas Toldo, execution of, 228.
Nigi di Doccio, Letter from, 577.
Nuncio, murder of the, 299.
Nurcia, Catherine at, 336.
O.
Obedience, Catherine's, 35, 463 ; passages ,
on, 432.
Office, divine, 44, 51, 605.
Olive branch, sign of peace, 421.
Olivetian monks, 431, 432.
Oranges, Catherine sends some to the Pope,
467.
Orcia, the river, 29, 382, 398.
Orietta Scotta, Catherine's hostess, 339.

Palace of Popes at Avignon, 309.
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, 82.
Palmerina, Catherine's charity to, 75.
Passion, thoughts on the, 103;
Patrick's St., purgatory, 276.
Paul, St., Catherine's devotion to, 602.
Penance, Sisters of, 25.
Peril at sea, 347.
Peters, St., the old Basilica, 540; Catherine's
visits to, 540.
Peter Albizi, 260.
Peter Gambacorta, 204, 251.
Peter di Luna, 409.
Petra, Thomas, 331, 458.
Petrarch, extracts from, 322.
Piazza del Campo, 81.
Pilgrim, Christ appears as a, 69.
Pilgrimages, Catherine's love of, 150.
Pisa, Catherine at, 251 ; Cathedral of, 253 ;
second visit to, 349.
Pius II. 630, 632.
Plague at Siena, 9, 191:.
Poison, Gregory threatened with, 324,
Catherine's letter on, 325.
Portraits of Catherine, 160.
Power over evil spirits, 117, 383.
Powers of the soul, the three, 439.
Prayer, vocal, 14, 41, 102, 208 ; and mental,
37, 41; instructions on, 208, 447; Ca
therine's manner of, 167, 332 ; at Avignon,

Index.

655

331, at Genoa, 341 ; power of, 221 ;
written by her own hand, 397.
Prophecy, Catherine's gift of, 133 ; pro
phecy of the Schism, 281 ; at Voragine,
338. Q.
Quirico, St., Catherine at, 210.

Rabes Tolomei, 121, 395.
Rainaldo of Capua, letter to, 444.
Rationes Anglicorum, 500.
Raymund of Capua, 193 ; tends the plague
_ stricken, 195 ; is cured of the plague, 198 ;
' asks for a Bull, 213 ; sees Catherine's face
transformed, 214 ; his narrative of the
Stigmas, 266 ; goes to Avignon, 301 ; his
love of truth, 364 ; narrative of the lost
' particle, 368 ; he goes to Rome, 392 ;
]&st interview with Catherine, 477 ; he
is sent to France, 478 ; his escape, 488 ;
Catherine's reproof, 489 ; her last letters
to him, 541 ; she appears to him after
death, 574 ; he is elected General, 577 ;
he sends her head to Siena, 578 ; he
reforms the Order, 608 ; his death, 609.
Read, Catherine learns to, 51.
Red and white roses, 495.
Republics, Italian, 8.
Revolution in Florence, 280.
Richard II. of England, 299, 511.
Reformation, the, 85.
Rogation processions, 209.
Romano, St., Catherine at, 285.
Romans rebel against Urban, 535, 539.
Rome, Catherine at, 464.

Salimbeni family, 86, 200, 377, 378.
Santi, Fra, 145, 197.
Schism, the Great, 461.
Secret of the Heart, 97.
Semignano, letter to the priest of, 224.

Self-love, passages on, 40.
Sickness, Catherine's, 205.
Simon of Cortona, 449, 514, 202.
State of souls, she sees the, 76.
Stations of Rome, Catherine performs the,
473-
Stephen Benincasa, 12, 16, 190.
Stephen Maconi, 291 ; accompanies Cathe
rine to Avignon, 296 ; sickness and cure
at Genoa, 343 ; returns to Siena, 348 ;
is sent to Florence, 352 ; accompanies
Catherine to Florence, 408 ; his letters to
Rome, 518, 522 ; Catherine's letters to,
525, 526 ; he comes to Rome, 557 ; he
becomes a Carthusian, 624 ; his letters
to Neri, 625 ; his death, 627 ; his testi
monies regarding Catherine, 162, 163.
Sweat of blood, 46. T.
Talamon, 355.
Thomas della Fonte, F., 21, 58, 131, 174,
r79. J94. 392.
Thomas Caffarini, F. , 132.
Torre del Mamgia, 83.
Trinity, the Holy, Catherine's devotion to,
593 ; chapel at Voragine, 338.
U.
University of Paris, its decision on the
Schism, 491.
Urban VI., 454 ; his character, 456, 457.

V.
Vallombrosa, Catherine at, 417 ;
monks of, 429.
Vanni, Andrea, 143, 144.
Variety, passage on, 443.
Virtues, Catherine prays for the, 41.
Visions, 12, 36, 97, 365.W. ¦
Wine of Vernaccia, the, 264,

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