Catherine of Siena

Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa was born on 25 March 1347 (shortly before the Black Death ravaged Europe) in Siena, Republic of Siena (today Italy), to Lapa Piagenti, the daughter of a local poet, and Jacopo di Benincasa, a cloth dyer who ran his enterprise with the help of his sons. The house where Catherine grew up still exists. Lapa was about forty years old when she gave birth prematurely to her 23rd and 24th children, twin daughters, named Catherine and Giovanna. After birth, Giovanna was handed over to a wet nurse and died soon after. Catherine was nursed by her mother and developed into a healthy child. She was two years old when Lapa had her 25th child, another daughter named Giovanna. As a child, Catherine was so merry that the family gave her the pet name of "Euphrosyne", which is Greek for "joy", and the name of Euphrosyne of Alexandria. Catherine is said by her confessor and biographer Raymond of Capua's Life to have had her first vision of Christ when she was five or six years old: she and a brother were on the way home from visiting a married sister when she is said to have experienced a vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. Raymond continues that at age seven, Catherine vowed to give her whole life to God. When Catherine was 16, her older sister Bonaventura died in childbirth; already anguished by this, Catherine soon learned that her parents wanted her to marry Bonaventura's widower. She was absolutely opposed and started a strict fast. She had learned this from Bonaventura, whose husband had been far from considerate but had changed his attitude after his wife refused to eat until he showed better manners. Besides fasting, Catherine further disappointed her mother by cutting off her long hair in protest of being encouraged to improve her appearance to attract a husband. by Neroccio di Bartolomeo de' Landi (1475) Catherine would later advise Raymond of Capua to do during times of trouble what she did now as a teenager: "Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can never flee." In this inner cell, she made her father into a representation of Christ, her mother into the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her brothers into the Apostles in the New Testament. Serving them humbly became an opportunity for spiritual growth. Catherine resisted the accepted course of marriage and motherhood on the one hand, or a nun's veil on the other. She chose to live an active and prayerful life outside a convent's walls, following the model of the Dominicans. Eventually, her parents gave up and permitted her to live as she pleased and stay unmarried. A vision of Dominic de Guzmán gave strength to Catherine, but her wish to join his order was no comfort to Lapa, who took her daughter with her to the baths in Bagno Vignoni to improve her health. Catherine fell seriously ill with a violent rash, fever and pain, which conveniently made her mother accept her wish to join the "Mantellate", the local association of devout women. The Mantellate taught Catherine how to read, and she lived in almost total silence and solitude in the family home. == Later life ==

, The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena According to Raymond of Capua, at the age of twenty-one (), Catherine experienced what she described in her letters as a "Mystical Marriage" with Jesus, later a popular subject in art as the Mystic marriage of Saint Catherine. Caroline Walker Bynum imagines one surprising and controversial aspect of this marriage: "Underlining the extent to which the marriage was a fusion with Christ's physicality[...] Catherine received, not the ring of gold and jewels that her biographer reports in his bowdlerized version, but the ring of Christ's foreskin." Catherine herself mentions the ring ‘of flesh’ motif in one of her letters (#221), equating the wedding ring of a virgin with the flesh of Jesus; she typically claimed that her own wedding ring to Christ was simply invisible. She wrote in a letter (to encourage a nun who seems to have been undergoing a prolonged period of spiritual trial and torment: "Bathe in the blood of Christ crucified. See that you don't look for or want anything but the crucified, as a true bride ransomed by the blood of Christ crucified – for that is my wish. You see very well that you are a bride and that he has espoused you – you and everyone else – and not with a ring of silver but with a ring of his own flesh." Raymond of Capua also records that she was told by Christ to leave her withdrawn life and enter the public life of the world. Catherine rejoined her family and began helping the ill and the poor, where she took care of them in hospitals or homes. Her early pious activities in Siena attracted a group of followers, women and men, who gathered around her. With her help in the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala and within the neighborhood that she was living, Catherine's acts of charity became well-known. This led to her being known as , or a holy woman. This reputation of holiness eventually led to her involvement in politics and a hearing with the pope. As social and political tensions mounted in Siena, Catherine found herself drawn to intervene in wider politics. She made her first journey to Florence in 1374, probably to be interviewed by the Dominican authorities at the General Chapter held in Florence in May 1374, though this is disputed (if she was interviewed, then the absence of later evidence suggests she was deemed sufficiently orthodox). In June 1376, Catherine went to Avignon as ambassador of the Republic of Florence to make peace with the Papal States (on 31 March 1376 Gregory XI had placed Florence under interdict). She was unsuccessful and was disowned by the Florentine leaders, who sent ambassadors to negotiate on their own terms as soon as Catherine's work had paved the way for them. Catherine sent an appropriately scorching letter back to Florence in response. While in Avignon, Catherine also tried to convince Pope Gregory XI, the last Avignon Pope, to return to Rome. Gregory returned his administration to Rome in January 1377; to what extent this was due to Catherine's influence is a topic of modern debate. Catherine returned to Siena and spent the early months of 1377 founding a women's monastery of strict observance outside the city in the old fortress of Belcaro. She spent the rest of 1377 at Rocca d'Orcia, about from Siena, on a local mission of peace-making and preaching. During this period, in autumn 1377, she had the experience which led to the writing of her Dialogue and learned to write, although she still seems to have chiefly relied upon her secretaries for her correspondence. Late in 1377 or early in 1378, Catherine again travelled to Florence, at the order of Gregory XI, to seek peace between Florence and Rome. Following Gregory's death in March 1378 riots, the revolts of the Ciompi broke out in Florence on June 18 in the ensuing violence Catherine was nearly assassinated. Eventually, in July 1378, peace was agreed between Florence and Rome and Catherine returned quietly to Florence. She received the Holy Eucharist almost daily. This extreme fasting appeared unhealthy in the eyes of the clergy and her own sisterhood. Her confessor, Raymond, ordered her to eat properly. However, Catherine replied that she was unable to, describing her inability to eat as an (illness). From the beginning of 1380, Catherine could neither eat nor swallow water. On 26 February she lost the use of her legs. Catherine died in Rome on 29 April 1380, at the age of thirty-three, having suffered a massive stroke eight days earlier, which paralyzed her from the waist down. Her last words were, "Father, into Your Hands I commend my soul and my spirit". ==Works==

Three genres of work by Catherine survive: • Her major treatise is The Dialogue of Divine Providence, which is thought to have been begun in October 1377 and finished by November 1378. Contemporaries of Catherine are united in asserting that much of the book was dictated while Catherine was in ecstasy, though it also seems possible that Catherine herself may then have re-edited many passages in the book. This text is described as a dialogue between God and a soul. Other correspondents include her various confessors, among them Raymond of Capua, the kings of France and Hungary, the infamous mercenary John Hawkwood, the Queen of Naples, members of the Visconti family of Milan, and numerous religious figures. • 26 prayers of Catherine of Siena also survive, mostly composed in the last 18 months of her life. The University of Alcalá conserves a unique handwritten Spanish manuscript, while other available texts are printed copies collected by the National Library of France. ==Theology==

Catherine's theology can be described as mystical, and was employed toward practical ends for her own spiritual life or those of others. She used the language of medieval scholastic philosophy to elaborate her experiential mysticism. Interested mainly with achieving an incorporeal union with God, Catherine practiced extreme fasting and asceticism, eventually to the extent of living solely on the Eucharist every day. For Catherine, this practice was the means to fully realize her love of Christ in her mystical experience, with a large proportion of her ecstatic visions relating to the consumption or rejection of food during her life. She viewed Christ as a "bridge" between the soul and God and transmitted that idea, along with her other teachings, in her book The Dialogue. The Dialogue is highly systematic and explanatory in its presentation of her mystical ideas; however, these ideas themselves are not so much based on reason or logic as they are based in her ecstatic mystical experience. Her work was widely read across Europe, and survives in a Middle English translation called The Orchard of Syon. In one of her letters she sent to her confessor, Raymond of Capua, she recorded this revelation from her conversation with Christ, in which he said: "Do you know what you are to Me, and what I am to you, my daughter? I am He who is, you are she who is not". This mystical concept of God as the wellspring of being is seen in the works and ideas of Aquinas and can be seen as a simplistic rendering of apotheosis and a more rudimentary form of the doctrine of divine simplicity. She describes God in her work, The Dialogue (which she referred to simply as "her book"), as a "sea, in which we are the fish", the point being that the relationship between God and man should not be seen as man contending against the Divine and vice versa, but as God being the endless being that supports all things. According to the writings attributed to Catherine, in 1377 she had a vision in which the Virgin Mary confirmed to her a thesis supported by the Dominican Order, to which Catherine belonged: the Virgin said that she had been conceived the original sin. The Virgin thus contradicted the future dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Cardinal Lambertini (later Pope Benedict XIV) in his treatise , 1734–1738, cites theologians who believed that Catherine's directors or editors had falsified her words; he also cites Father Lancicius, who believed that Catherine had made a mistake as a result of preconceived ideas. == Rhetorical influence ==

Catherine of Siena defied the patriarchy of her time through her persuasive skills both in speaking and in writing. Catherine is considered the first woman writer in the Italian literary tradition. According to James A. Herrick, a scholar of rhetoric, women’s engagement in letter writing faced fewer obstacles than literature or homiletics, with style and conventions that Catherine learned to master. Catherine's epistolary rhetoric Most of Catherine of Siena’s letters were written between 1374 and 1380, the year she died. She wrote to many different kinds of people, including mercenaries, queens, popes, housewives, priests, nuns, prostitutes and prisoners. == Veneration ==

of Saint Catherine beneath the High Altar of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome Catherine was initially buried in the (Roman) cemetery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva which lies near the Pantheon. After miracles were reported to take place at her grave, Raymond moved her inside Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where her body lies to this day. Her head, however, was parted from her body and inserted in a gilt bust of bronze. This bust was later taken to Siena, and carried through that city in a procession to the Dominican church. Behind the bust walked Lapa, Catherine's mother, who lived until she was 89 years old. By then she had seen the end of the wealth and the happiness of her family, and followed most of her children and several of her grandchildren to the grave. She helped Raymond of Capua write his biography of her daughter, and said, "I think God has laid my soul athwart in my body, so that it can't get out." The incorrupt head and thumb were entombed in the Basilica of San Domenico at Siena, where they remain. Pope Pius II himself canonized Catherine on 29 June 1461. On 4 October 1970, Pope Paul VI named Catherine a Doctor of the Church; making them the first women to receive this honour. In the 1969 revision of the calendar, it was decided to leave the celebration of the feast of St Peter of Verona to local calendars, because he was not as well known worldwide, and Catherine's feast was restored to 29 April. Catherine is remembered in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church on 29 April. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) also commemorates Catherine of Siena on 29 April. Legacy Catherine has been ranked highly among the mystics and spiritual writers of the Catholic Church. about her, her writings, acts, life, and influence which is extraordinary for a woman in her time in world history. Patronage In his decree of 13 April 1866, Pope Pius IX declared Catherine of Siena to be a co-patron of Rome. On 18 June 1939 Pope Pius XII named her a joint patron saint of Italy along with Francis of Assisi. Severed head The people of Siena wished to have Catherine's body. A story is told of a miracle whereby they were partially successful: knowing that they could not smuggle her whole body out of Rome, they decided to take only her head which they placed in a bag. When stopped by the Roman guards, they prayed to Catherine to help them, confident that she would rather have her body (or at least part thereof) in Siena. When they opened the bag to show the guards, it appeared no longer to hold her head but to be full of rose petals. ==Biographical sources==

showing the vision of the mystic wedding of Catherine and Christ. (Bruges Public Library, MS 767) There is some internal evidence of Catherine's personality, teaching and work in her nearly four hundred letters, her Dialogue, and her prayers. Details about her life have also been drawn from the various sources written shortly after her death to promote her cult and canonization. Though much of the material is hagiographic, written to promote her sanctity, it is an important early source for historians seeking to reconstruct Catherine's life. Various sources are important, especially the works of Raymond of Capua, who was Catherine's spiritual director and close friend from 1374 to her death and himself became Master General of the Order in 1380. Raymond wrote what is known as the , his Life of Catherine which was completed in 1395, fifteen years after Catherine's death. It was soon translated into other European languages, including German and English. Another important work written after Catherine's death was (Little Supplement Book), written between 1412 and 1418 by Tommaso d'Antonio Nacci da Siena (commonly called Thomas of Siena, or Tommaso Caffarini); the work is an expansion of Raymond's making heavy use of the notes of Catherine's first confessor, Tommaso della Fonte, that do not survive anywhere else. Caffarini later published a more compact account of Catherine's life, the . From 1411 onward, Caffarini also coordinated the compiling of the of Venice, the set of documents submitted as part of the process of canonisation of Catherine, which provides testimony from nearly all of Catherine's disciples. There is also an anonymous piece, (Miracle of Blessed Catherine), written by an anonymous Florentine. A few other relevant pieces survive. ==Main sanctuaries==

The main churches in honor of Catherine of Siena are: • Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, where her body is preserved. • Basilica of San Domenico in Siena, where her incorrupt head is preserved. == Gallery ==

File:St Catherine. San Domenico.jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, holds a stalk of lilies.|Andrea Vanni, fresco of St. Catherine of Siena (c. 1400) File:Catherine of Siena prey.jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, kneels in prayer before an altar with a crucifix.|Vecchietta, Arliquiera (1445) detail File:Giovanni di Paolo, Predella Panel from an Altarpiece, St. Catherine of Siena Invested with the Dominican Habit (1460s).png|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white robe and veil, is offered religious garments by Saints Dominic, Augustine, and Francis in heaven. She chooses the black mantle of St. Dominic.|Giovanni di Paolo, Predella Panel from an Altarpiece: St. Catherine of Siena Invested with the Dominican Habit (1460s) File:Giovanni di paolo, St Catherine of Siena.jpg|Giovanni di Paolo, St. Catherine of Siena, c. 1475, tempera and gold on panel. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, England. File:3481 Taggia (Italie) - Rétable de Ste Catherine de Sienne (Attr.L.Brea vers 1490).jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil, white robe, and black mantle, holds a red heart, a stalk of white lilies, and a crucifix as angels hold a golden crown above her head.|Ludovico Brea (attr.), St. Catherine of Siena (1488) File:Fungai Bernardino, Communion of Saint Catherine of Siena (1490s).png|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, and with a golden halo, kneels to receive mystical communion from an angel. |Bernardino Fungai, Communion of Saint Catherine of Siena (1490s) File:Fra Bartolomeo, Saint Catherine of Siena (1509).jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, and with a golden halo, holds a stalk of lilies.|Fra Bartolomeo, Saint Catherine of Siena (1509) File:Domenico Beccafumi - Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata - 97.PB.25 - J. Paul Getty Museum.jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, with a golden halo, kneels before an altar with a crucifix as she receives the stigmata, expressed as golden threads of light.|Domenico Beccafumi, Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata (1513-5) File:Beccafumi - A Vision of Saint Catherine of Siena, K1203, Philbrook Museum of Art.jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, kneels by a stalk of lilies to receive a crown of thorns from Christ in the clouds.|Domenico Beccafumi, A Vision of Saint Catherine of Siena (1528) File:Lesser Poland St. Catherine of Siena.jpg|St Catherine and the Demons by an unknown artist, c. 1500, tempera on panel. National Museum, Warsaw. File:CatherineCommunionBeccafumi.jpg|Domenico Beccafumi, The Miraculous Communion of St. Catherine of Siena, c. 1513–1515, Getty Center, Los Angeles, California File:Francesco Vanni, Saint Catherine of Siena (1566).png|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, contemplates a crucifix intertwined with lilies and a skull. |Francesco Vanni, Saint Catherine of Siena (1566) File:RosaryStaAgata.jpg|The Virgin Mary Giving the Rosary to St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena, Church of Santa Agata in Trastevere, Rome (Bottom of painting: the souls in Purgatory await the prayers of the faithful) (possibly 16th century) File:Plautilla nelli (attr.), santa caterina da siena, su rame (uffizi).jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, and wearing a crown of thorns, holds a crucifix intertwined with a lily.|Plautilla Nelli (attr.), St. Catherine of Siena (16th c.) File:San Domenico74.jpg|''St Catherine's mystic communion'' by Francesco Brizzi (1615) File:Franceschini, Baldassare - St Catherine of Siena - Google Art Project.jpg|Baldassare Franceschini, Saint Catherine of Siena, 17th century, Dulwich Picture Gallery File:St Catherine of Siena by Ercole Ferrata (Chigi Chapel, Siena).jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a mantle and veil, a crown of thorns upon her head, holds a stalk of lilies.|Ercole Ferrata, St. Catherine of Siena (1660s) File:5850 - Milano - San Nazaro - Dipinto - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto - 7-Feb-2008.jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, places her hands on her heart as a cherub holds a stalk of lilies above her.|painting of St. Catherine of Siena (17th c.) File:Saint Catherine Of Siena, 17th-Century Flemish School.jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white veil and black mantle, and a crown of thorns, and with a golden halo, embraces a crucifix intertwined with lilies. |Saint Catherine Of Siena, 17th-Century Flemish School File:Joseph Hasslwander - Die heilige Katharina mit Monstranz - 4506 - Österreichische Galerie Belvedere.jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a white mantle and robe, with a black veil, holds a monstrance.|Joseph Hasslwander, St. Catherine with Monstrance (1838) File:Revelación del Santísimo Rosario a Santo Domingo de Guzmán.jpg|This painting depicts the Virgin giving the rosary to St. Dominic; in the scene also appear Fray Pedro de Santa María Ulloa, Saint Catherine of Siena and Servant of God, Mary of Jesus de León y Delgado. The fresco is located in the Church of Santo Domingo in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. File:St Catherine of Siena.jpg|A statue of St. Catherine of Siena at the Parish of St. Catherine of Siena Church in Trumbull, Connecticut File:Francesco Messina, Statue of St. Catherine of Siena (1961) detail.jpg|alt=St. Catherine of Siena, wearing a veil and mantle, holds a stalk of lilies.|Francesco Messina, St. Catherine of Siena (1961) == Bibliography ==