Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 11-09-08
Catherine of Siena
/Caterina Benincasa (1347-1380)
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"LET THE TRUTH BE YOUR DELIGHT.... PROCLAIM IT..., BUT WITH
A CERTAIN CONGENIALITY."
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Catherine Benincasa was born to a middle-class and politically active family in Siena. When she was 15, she refused her parents' plan for her marriage. Until she was 21, she stayed in her home, living in seclusion and practicing bodily austerities. In 1368, one of her visionary experiences led her out into the community to serve others. It was apparently in the same year that she joined a Dominican Third Order group (lay women loosely affiliated with the order), most of whose members were widows with independent means.
For the next six years Catherine worked with the poor and with victims of the plague and famine in and around Siena. Her reputation for sanctity caused a number of people (including political activists) to gather around her as disciples. The growth of this following aroused suspicion and hostility among some Sienese but also made her known outside her own city.
In 1374, when Catherine was 27, she attended the Dominican general chapter being held in Florence. At the chapter or shortly after, the head of the order assigned the priest Raymond of Capua (c.1330-99) as Catherine's confessor and advisor. This marked the beginning of Catherine's full participation in political affairs. The popes had been living in Avignon for almost 70 years, and the Italian city-states were feuding --- and frequently warring --- with each other and with the papacy. Perhaps because the normal ecclesiastical and civic leaders had lost their moral authority, marginal figures such as Catherine (and Birgitta of Sweden before her) were listened to. For her part, Catherine began to write letters to public figures and to travel to nearby cities urging civic reform.
In 1376, Catherine and Raymond went to Avignon, to try to mediate a disagreement between Florence and the papacy, to urge a crusade to Jerusalem (a perennial solution to an overabundance of soldiers), and to convince the pope, Gregory XI, to return to Rome. He finally did return in 1377, and he died a year later; legend says he died regretting having listened to "meddling women."
During the next year, Catherine continued to travel in the area around Siena, trying to make peace within and between cities. She founded a monastery for nuns, though she herself remained in the lay Third Order. She continued to write letters --- to her followers, to her critics, to anyone who could help in her goal of reform. She also began to write Libro della divina dottrina (frequently called Dialogo), setting down her spiritual doctrine in the form of a conversation between God and a soul.
In the spring of 1378, after the death of Gregory XI, one faction among the cardinals elected an unpopular Urban VI as his successor; in the fall, a rival group of cardinals elected another pope, Clement VII, who went to Avignon while Urban VI remained in Rome, beginning a schism that would last 35 years. Near the end of 1378, Urban sent for Catherine to come to Rome to support him.
In Rome, Catherine lived a community life with those of her followers who had come with her (Raymond had been sent abroad). Until her death a little over a year later, she continued to write letters and to speak to whoever might be able help Urban. Her goal was the unity of the church, but she was not naive; she was quite able to see Urban's flaws and to call them to his attention --- as she had done for others.
Catherine failed in her political goals. Suzanne Noffke says it best: "Her pleadings had ultimately been ignored by those she most wanted to persuade. She had failed to convince Pope Urban VI to temper the arrogance and violence that was dooming his efforts at reform. She had, above all, apparently only aggravated the schism she had given every drop of her energy trying to prevent and then to end" (1996, p.63).
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print:
Letters
Libro della divina dottrina
Prayers
Raymond of Capua's LegendaInformation about secondary sources.
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1. Letters in English:
(a) Vida D. Scudder's 1905 Saint Catherine of Siena As Seen in Her Letters translates and introduces 64 of Catherine's letters (of a total of over 380); the letters are arranged thematically but are in a reasonably chronological order. Also given are two useful chronologies: of Catherine's life and of "Contemporary Public Events."
(b) In this alphabetical list , go to "Catherine of Siena" for four links to letter excerpts: the first is to a parish priest who was not living up to Catherine's standards (1376); the second and third from her 1376 letter to Charles V, King of France; the last, from 1375, is to a Sienese woolworker (note the "lambskin" image). The translations here are by Suzanne Noffke.
(c) Catherine shared the general opinion of her Christian contemporaries that any reasonable non-Christian who had been taught about Christianity must wish to convert. So in this 1376 letter urging a Sienese Jew to be baptized, she calls on Consiglio to "open his mind's eye." (We don't know if Consiglio was offended by Catherine's appeal; we do know that he did not convert.)
(d) Noffke's translation of a letter to Pope Gregory XI in Avignon. Catherine was in Avignon in the summer of 1376, but apparently didn't see the pope as frequently as she would have liked; note where, near the end, she says, rather wistfully, "I would rather say it personally than in writing.".
(e) The October 1377 letter to Raymond of Capua that describes the experience that led to the writing of Diologo during the next year; the translation is by Bertrand Mahoney.
2. Diologo in English:
(a) Links to the parts of a much abridged Libro della divina dottrina (Dialogo), translated in 1895 by Algar Thorold (but "modernized"). A considerable amount of the original is omitted, and scholars find some of the translation misleading, but it is worth looking at. You can link to it by going to each of the four sections, here called "treatises."
(b) At another site, a hypertext version of Thorold's abridgement, where you can link to individual sub-sections. Here you can also click on any highlighted word or phrase and be led to all its uses. For example, go to the second last sub-section, "This is a brief repetition of the entire book," and there see the uses of "Bridge," one of the book's key words.
(c) A passage from Suzanne Noffke's complete translation of Dialogo, on how to treat one's neighbor (for more from Noffke's version, see below, under "In print").
3. Prayers composed by Catherine and written down by her companions in Rome in 1379:
(a) The opening stanza of the first of several prayers written in February, "O immeasurable love! O gentle love! Eternal fire!" translated by Noffke.
(b) A few days later, asking for help in her mission of reform of the church, "I acknowledge, eternal God," from Noffke.
(c) And the following day, developing the image of God as fire, Noffke's "In Your nature, eternal Godhead, I shall come to know my nature."
(d) For the feast of the Annunciation, "O Mary, temple of the Trinity."
(e) And from a prayer of Easter week, Noffke's "We were enclosed, O eternal Father, within the garden of your breast."
4. In Italian:
(a) Links to 389 letters by Catherine (see "Libro Primo" through "Libro Sesto"), and to 46 letters by others (see "Lettere dei discepoli").
(b) Libro della divina dottrina (Diologo), in a 1912 edition by Matilde Fiorilli.
(c) The original of the prayer to Mary given at # 3(c), above.
5. A link to the text of an anonymous 1853 translation of Legenda, Raymond of Capua's 1385-95 biography of Catherine, The Life of St. Catharine of Sienna, hagiographic but with reports of conversations and with biographic detail not given elsewhere; you can also download the work in a PDF file.
6. Excerpts from Legenda by other translators:
(a) "Doctrines of St. Katherin of Seenes," selections from a 1492 English translation; the tract is one of seven printed together in 1521 as the Cell of Self-Knowledge, edited (with spelling modernized) by Edmund G. Gardner.
(b) Two other passages, translated by George Lamb, on Catherine's early desire to be a priest.
(c) An excerpt in which Catherine's prayers apparently saved her mother from death (for information on the painting by Giovanni di Paolo see #10b below); the translation is by Lamb (for another excerpt from Lamb, see "In print").
(d) Catherine's dying instructions to her disciples.
7. Essays, etc:
(a) A 1996 biography, by Mary Ann Sullivan, gives brief quotes from the letters and is a useful introduction.
(b) "Catherine of Siena, Justly Doctor of the Church?" (2003), by Noffke, first describes the rather tortuous process of 1967-1970 by which Catherine was declared "Doctor of the Church," and then gives her own views on Catherine as theologian, citing passages from her translations of Dialogo and the letters.
(c) An earlier article by Noffke, "Catherine of Siena and Ecclesial Obedience" (1989), includes the author's translations of parts of Catherine's letters and prayers as well as Dialogo. (This essay would appear in revised form as Chapter 6 of Noffke's 1996 Catherine of Siena: Vision Through a Distant Eye; for excerpts from that book, see "In print.")
(d) "Power Suffering" (1999), by Jennifer Egan, looks at Catherine's practice (and later rejection) of physical self-punishment.
(e) "Catherine of Siena and Our Call to the Work of Justice and Peace" (1991), by Mary Ann Fatula, describes Catherine's work for social justice; the essay includes brief passages from the letters and Dialogo.
(f) "Catherine of Siena's Wisdom and Spirituality" (1991), by Nadine Foley, quotes from Catherine's prayers and letters, in Noffke's translation.
(g) "Sheltered by the Mercy: St. Catherine's Gentle Way" (1990), by Sheila Galligan, analyzes Catherine's use of the term dolce in Diologo; cited passages are translated by Noffke.
(h) Mary O'Driscoll's 1988 "Catherine the Theologian" discusses the sources of Catherine's theology and the style in which she presents it. Quotations from Diologo and the letters are given in O'Driscoll's own translation.
(i) "Catherine of Siena and The Eschatology of Suffering" (1888), by M. Starr Costello, discusses the purposes of human suffering revealed in Diologo.
(j) The chapter on Catherine from Rudolph M. Bell's 1985 book, Holy Anorexia, (although perhaps overly confident in the accuracy of Raymond of Capua's Legenda) is useful for the stories told of Catherine's childhood and adolescence. Bell gives his own translations from the works he quotes, including passages from Catherine's letters.
(k) "'How few mad people there are now': Thoughts of Teresa and Catherine" (2002), by Joel Giallanza, quotes the words of Catherine in Dialogo (translated by Noffke) and of Teresa of Avila on the madness of loving God and on God's madness in loving humanity.
(l) A link to the text of Edmund G. Gardner's 1907 Saint Catherine of Siena: A Study in the Religion, Literature and History of the Fourteenth Century in Italy, which quotes extensively from the letters. (In 1996, Noffke called Gardner's book "the best and most scholarly work in English from a historical point of view.") You can also download a PDF file of the book.
8. Reviews (for excerpts from the first, see "In print"; for information on the other books' treatment of Catherine, see "Secondary sources") :
(a) Brigid O'Shea Merriman on Suzanne Noffke's 1996 study, Catherine of Siena: Vision Through a Distant Eye.
(b) Gabriella Zarri on F. Thomas Luongo's 2006 study, The Saintly Politics of Catherine of Siena; at a different site, another review, by Thomas M. Izbicki; and elsewhere, still another, by Paul Diffley.
(c) Michael P. Kuczynski on Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski's 2006 study, Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism, 1378-1417.
(d) Ulrike Wiethaus on John Wayland Coakley's 2006 study, Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and Their Male Collaborators.
(e) Anna Dronzek on Prudence Allen's 2002 second volume of The Concept of Woman series, The Early Humanist Reformation, 1250-1500; and another review, by Patricia Z. Beckman.
(f) Wayne A. Rebhorn on the 2001 essay collection, Perspectives on Early Modern and Modern Intellectual History.
(g) Clarence Thomson on the 2000 collection, Lay Sanctity, Medieval and Modern: A Search for Models.
(h) Carolyne Larrington on the 1999 collection, Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters; and another review, by Lisa M. Bitel.
(i) Constant Mews on the 1993 collection, Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre.
9. After a biography by Otto Vervaart, a 2006 bibliography of editions, translations, and secondary sources.
10. Images of Catherine:
(a) Shown after a page from Orcherd of Syon (a 1519 English translation of Diologo), a fresco of Catherine by Andrea Vanni (1332-1414). Vanni was a friend and correspondent; the fresco was made shortly after Catherine's death and is assumed to be an accurate portrait.
(b) The popular tales about Catherine that derived from Raymond's Legenda are shown here in eight panels created by Giovanni di Paolo at the time of her canonization in 1460.
(c) A woodcut from the first complete printed Italian collection of Catherine's letters, Aldus Manutius' 1500 edition, Epistole devotissime de Sancta Catharina da Siena. The Latin scrolls on the right give lines from a poem and a passage from a psalm; the Italian on the book held by Catherine quotes her usual ending to her letters, "Sweet Jesus, Jesus love."
11. For historical background, essays on the "Avignon Papacy" (1305-1378) and on the "Great Schism" (1378-1415) that followed; both are by Lynn Harry Nelson (2001).
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[Of over 380 letters by Catherine that are extant, Suzanne Noffke has translated 303 in three volumes (with the letters of 1379 and 1380 still to come). Volume 1 gives 68 letters; Vol. 2 gives 148; Vol. 3 gives 87. Each letter is preceded by a brief introduction, and accompanied by detailed notes. Each volume provides a selected bibliography, an appendix on individuals named in the volume, and an index that includes topics as well as names. Volume 1 gives a detailed general introduction and a chronology. (See online the table of contents of Volume 1, of Volume 2, and of Volume 3; all list the recipient of each letter.):]
The letters of Catherine of Siena / translated with introduction
and notes by Suzanne Noffke (Medieval & Renaissance Texts
& Studies; v. 202, 203, 329). Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona Center
for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000-2007. (3v.: facsims.,
maps)
LC#: BX4700. C4 A4 2000; ISBN: 0866982442 (v.1); 0866982450
(v.2); 9780866983778 (v.3)
Includes bibliographical references and index
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"Let's do better in the future."
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[To a friend, Augustinian friar Felice da Massa, who had gone with Catherine to Avignon; this passage at the end of a late 1377 letter describes (and exemplifies) Catherine's own rhetorical method:]
And let the truth be your delight; let it always be in your mouth, and proclaim it when it is needed. Proclaim it lovingly and to everyone, especially those whom you love with a special love---but with a certain congeniality, putting the shortcomings of the other person on your own shoulders. If in the past you haven't done it as sensitively as you should, let's do better in the future. [vol 2: p. 638]
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"What you have heard... has made you very skeptical."
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[The austerities that Catherine had practiced before she began her public life included severe fasting; the result was that for the rest of her life eating anything became difficult. In 1374 or 1375 she received a letter from a "religious person" in Florence which apparently accused her of delusion, if not fraud. She responded:]
Dearest father, I sincerely thank you for your zealous concern for my soul. It seems that what you have heard about my way of living has made you very skeptical. I'm sure it is only your zeal for God's honor and my welfare that prompts you to fear that the devil's deception is at work. I'm not surprised at your fear, father, especially about my eating habits. I assure you, in fact, that I am as fearful as you.... My only trust is in God's goodness. I do not---I know that I cannot---trust in myself....
You wrote suggesting that I ask God for the ability to eat. I tell you, my father---and I say it in the sight of God---that in every way I have been able to manage I have forced myself to take food once or twice a day. Over and over I have prayed and do pray and will continue to pray God for the grace to live as other people do in this matter of eating---if it is his will, for it certainly is mine....
Please write me about whatever solution you see. I will gladly do as you say, so long as it for God's honor. But please don't be quick to pass judgment unless you have really been enlightened before God. [1: pp.160-61]
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"Up, father! No more irresponsibility!"
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[From Catherine's earliest extant letter to Pope Gregory XI at Avignon, probably written in January, 1376. Cities of Italy were combining in an anti-papal league to resist what they saw as oppression. Catherine's solution involved the pope's taking three steps: appointing honest ecclesiastics in Italy, returning from Avignon to Rome, and beginning a crusade against the Turks to regain Jerusalem. After her salutation and identification, she begins her letter:]
I long to see you you a productive tree planted in fertile soil and laden with sweet mellow fruit. For a tree uprooted from the soil (I mean the soil of true self-knowledge) would dry up and bear no fruit. [1: pp.244-45]
[After this opening, the letter starts by talking about what "we" should do, and the damage done by "those" authorities who deal unjustly; in the middle, "we" moves to "you":]
We lack nothing but virtue and hunger for the salvation of souls---but there is a remedy for this, father: that we do away with loving ourselves or anyone or anything else apart from God.
Let us concentrate no longer on friends or relatives or on our own material needs, but only on virtue and the promotion of spiritual matters. For the only reason you are wanting for material things is your abandonment of concern for the spiritual. [p.247]
[After two more paragraphs on what "we" should do:]
If till now you haven't been very firm in truth, I want you, I beg you, for the little time that is left, to be so---courageously and like a brave man---following Christ, whose vicar you are....
Don't be afraid, for divine help is near. Just attend to spiritual affairs, to appointing good pastors and administrators in your cities, for you have experienced rebellion because of bad pastors and administrators. Do something about it! And take heart in Christ Jesus and don't be afraid.
Pursue and finish with true holy zeal what you have begun by holy intent---I mean your return [to Rome] and the sweet holy crusade. Delay no longer, for your delaying has already been the cause of a lot of trouble....
Up, father! No more irresponsibility!...
Forgive me father, for talking to you like this. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks, you know. I am sure that if you are the kind of tree I want you to be, nothing will stand in your way. [pp.248-49]
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"They come in the name of Christ crucified and in mine."
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[Two months later, Catherine wrote again to Gregory XI, to prepare him for the visit of Raymond and his fellow Dominicans, who were coming to Avignon to urge Catherine's three-part program:]
I tell you in the name of Christ crucified that you must use your authority to do three essential things. You are in charge of the garden of holy Church. So uproot from the garden the stinking weeds full of impurity and avarice, and bloated with pride (I mean the evil pastors and administrators who poison and corrupt the garden)....Use your authority, you who are in charge of us!...
But just think, my dear father, how difficult it will be to do what I've been talking about unless you do the other two essential things: I mean your return [to Rome] and the raising of of the standard of the most holy cross [a crusade]. Don't let your holy desire falter on account of any dissent or rebellion you might see or hear about on the part of the [Italian] cities....
I beg you to hear and listen to what Frate Raimondo my father and my other sons who are in his company have to say to you. They come in the name of Christ crucified and in mine, for they are true servants of God and sons of holy Church. [2: pp.61-64]
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"With bold and blazing heart... go and give honor to God."
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[And to Raymond of Capua (16 years older than Catherine) and his companions, on the road to Avignon and nervous about their reception at the French-controlled papal court:]
Learn from the Master of truth, who preached virtue only after he had practiced it.... To this wonderful school, then, my children!...
Open your ears, I tell you, to hear his teaching --- and it is this: voluntary poverty; patience in the face of injury; returning good to those who do us evil; being little, humble, oppressed and forsaken in the world; with ridicule, torment, wrongs, insults, detraction, gossip, difficulties, and harassment from the world....
No more indifference, then! No more sleeping in unawareness! No, with bold and blazing heart stretch your sweet loving desires to go and give honor to God and your best efforts to your neighbors, never losing sight of your objective, Christ crucified. [2: pp.5-9]
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"The dangers are made up by those who are advising you."
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[By June Catherine herself was in Avignon, where she met with the pope and wrote to him when she couldn't see him. The French Gregory XI wanted to go to Rome but was being inundated by his French courtiers' warnings of Italian treachery. Catherine's role was to keep goading him. In early August:]
...[T]hey want to frighten you by saying you'll be killed. They say this to keep you from coming.... I tell you, you have no reason to be afraid.
As his [Christ's] vicar, follow his example. Be firm and decisive with yourself and with them, saying, "Though I lose my life a thousand times, I want to fulfill my eternal Father's will." (But let's admit it, you won't lose your life but rather gain the way and the means of continually winning the life of grace)....
I have already prayed about it... and I saw neither death nor any danger at all. The dangers are made up by those who are advising you. [2: pp.212-13]
[And a week or so later, a suggestion on how to evade those advisors:]
Make use of a holy trick. I mean, let it look as if you are going to take a few more days, and then all of a sudden, go! For the sooner you act, the sooner you will escape the tormenting anxieties....
Let us go quickly, my dear babbo [father], and fearlessly! If God is for you, no one will be against you. [2: pp.216-17]
[About a week before he finally left Avignon in September, Gregory received a letter warning him that he would be poisoned in Rome (from the French view a daily occurrence in Italy). Catherine responds with ridicule:]
He [the letter-writer] is, it seems, advising you to send some trustworthy people ahead, where they will find this poison on the counter-tops (in the shops, apparently). It seems people plan to administer it in small doses---over a few days or a month or a year. Well. I assume as much poison can as well be found on the counter-tops of Avignon or any other city as on those of Rome!...
I beg you in the name of Christ crucified not to be a timid child but a courageous man. [2: pp.244-47]
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"I know that you want me to follow it."
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[When she was away from Siena, Catherine wrote several letters to her widowed mother, who was not happy about her youngest daughter's absence. On her way home from Avignon, Catherine wrote:]
You know that I must follow God's will, and I know that you want me to follow it. It was God's will that I go away---and my going was not without mystery, nor without worthwhile results. It was also God's will that I remain away; it was no mere human decision, and whoever says anything else is lying....
You were glad, I remember, for the sake of material gain when your sons left home to win temporal wealth. But now when it is a question of winning eternal life it seems to be so hard that you say you are going to go to pieces if I don't answer you soon. All this because you love the part of me that I got from you (I mean your flesh, in which you clothed me) more than you love the part of me that I got from God.... Take heart now, for love of Christ crucified! And don't imagine that God has forsaken you, or I either. [2: p.250]
[And a year later, again out of town trying to reconcile warring clans:]
Understand, dearest mother, that I your poor daughter have been put on earth for no other purpose; this is what my Creator has chosen me for. I know that you are happy to have me obey him. If you think I am staying here longer than you would like, I beg you to be content, because I cannot do otherwise. I believe that if you knew the circumstances you yourself would be sending me here. [2: p.442]
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"People are suspicious and are grumbling to you."
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[Some Sienese had questioned Catherine's trip to Avignon,
but when she went a year later to make peace between families
in an area with which Siena had long been feuding, even the city
fathers became concerned. She wrote to the chief magistrates
of Siena:]
As for my coming here with my family [her followers], I am told that people are suspicious and are grumbling to you about it. I do not know, however, whether this is true. But if you valued yourselves as much as they and I value you, you and all the other citizens would not so lightly harbor such thoughts and feelings. You would stop your ears so as not to hear....
I love you more than you love yourselves. And I love peace and your security as much as you do. So do not believe that I or any of the others of my family would do otherwise. [2: p.416]
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"In a short time the world has kicked you twice."
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[While in Avignon, Catherine had received permission to found a monastery for women. In the following year she was recruiting members for it. Here she writes to the Countess Bandecca Salimbeni, a widow who had planned to remarry, only to have her fiance die:]
Love this gracious and glorious bridegroom who has given you life, and who will never die. Other husbands die and pass away like the wind---and often they are the cause of death to us. You have experienced how constant they are, for in a short time the world has kicked you twice, and divine Goodness permitted this to make you run from the world and run to him as your father and bridegroom.
Run away, then, from the world's poison, which it offers you in a flower. It shows itself as a child, when it really is old. It pretends that life is long, when it really is quite short. It seems to have some stability, when in reality it is as changeable as a leaf whirling in the wind. You have seen clearly that it has no stability in your regard, so realize that if you trust it again it will do the same thing to you. The next one will be as mortal as the first. [2: pp.335-36]
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"This is God's will."
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[By January of 1377, Gregory XI was back in Rome, and his first act was to go to war to re-conquer the property that had been lost to the city-states. This was not what Catherine had in mind:]
Open wide the eye of your understanding... and look at these two evils: the evil of the [loss of] temporal grandeur, lordship, and possessions you think you are obliged to regain; and the evil of seeing souls lose grace and the obedience they owe your holiness.... Once your mind's eye has seen and discerned which is the lesser evil, you... ought to choose the lesser of them....
Forgive me! I am not saying this to lecture you. I am compelled by gentle First Truth and by my desire, my dear babbo, to see you at peace, at rest, body and soul. For I don't see how, with these disastrous wars, you can have a single hour of good. What belongs to the poor is being eaten up to pay soldiers, who in turn devour people as if they were meat! And I can see that it is standing in the way of your holy desire for the reform of your spouse.
Reform her, I say, with good pastors and administrators. And you can hardly do that with war, since as long as you think you need princes and lords, you will consider yourself obligated to appoint pastors in their way rather than your own....
Now you see, most holy father, what a good is being impeded and how great is the consequent evil. I trust in God's goodness and your holiness that you will do everything in your power to apply this remedy, holy peace. This is God's will. [2: pp.300-302]
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"I experienced both bitterness and consolation...."
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[By October of 1377, the reform Catherine had hoped for was still not forthcoming. Raymond of Capua had been in Rome for several months and his letters must have worried Catherine; in this letter to him she will go on to describe the visionary experience that would become the basis of her book, Dialogo, but the opening reveals her own disappointment, even as she encourages Raymond:]
Take heart, dearest father, where Christ's dearest bride is concerned, for the more bitter troubles she experiences, the more divine Truth promises to make her overflow with sweet consolation.... So be happy about the bitterness, since Truth has promised to give us relief.
I experienced both bitterness and consolation when I received dear Babbo's [Gregory's] letter and your own --- bitterness for the harm done to holy Church and for your own bitterness...; and happiness because you relieved me of my great concern [a mutual friend had told her that Raymond was near despair]. After I had read the letters and understood everything, I asked a servant of God [herself] to offer tears and sweat in God's presence for this bride and for Babbo's weakness. [2: p.495]
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"This letter... I've written with my own hand."
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[And at the end of the same letter, Catherine describes her first attempts at writing (until now her letters had been dictated):]
Have compassion on your poor daughter, who is living in such torment because God is so offended, and who has no one to whom she can unburden herself---except that the Holy Spirit has provided for me interiorly by his mercy, and outwardly has provided me a diversion in writing....
This letter and another I sent you I've written with my own hand.... He [God] provided for my refreshment by giving me the ability to write---a consolation I've never known because of my ignorance---so that when I come down from the heights I might have a little something to vent my heart, lest it burst. [p.505]
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"Reconcile your children by leading them with kindness."
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[In early 1378, The French Gregory XI died, and the cardinals in Rome, under pressure from the people, elected a new pope, the Italian Urban VI. Catherine wrote to him in July:]
I trust in God's gentle goodness that he will fill you with his blazing charity. Then you will recognize how souls have been hurt, and how obligated you are to love them.... [Y]ou will try especially to reconcile your children by leading them with kindness and with only as much of the staff of justice as they can bear, no more. [3: p.155]
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"You really need to have their counsel."
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[Urban began to try to reform the clergy, but his methods favored harsh justice rather than any kindness and so alienated even many of those who had been his supporters. By September the French cardinals had left the Papal States and had decided to elect yet another pope. Just three days before that election began the 25-year "Great Schism," Catherine wrote to Urban:]
Besides divine help, seek to to have the help of God's servants who will advise you faithfully and sincerely, their counsel uninfluenced by passion or selfishness. It seems to me you really need to have their counsel, and I am certain that you be eager to seek them out once your mind's eye is enlightened in truth, but not otherwise. [3: p.216]
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"You will show that you are a woman, with little stability."
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[Three months later, Catherine wrote to Joan, Queen of Naples, who had always supported the Avignon papacy. The letter assumes that Joan had not already decided to support the French pope, Clement VII, over Urban (she had). Of interest in the letter is Catherine's (and her age's) identification of women with weakness:]
Those who don't want to help the Church in her need (though you will be held accountable by God if you don't) should at least not work against her. Remain so neutral that the truth which may not be clear to you now may be made evident and clear to your mind. If you do this you will show that you have the light, that you are no longer weak and effeminate but have become courageous and strong. But if you follow a different way, stupid and unenlightened, you will show that you are a woman, with little stability; you will become weak because you will have wandered away from your head, Christ in heaven and Christ on earth, who is your strength. [3: pp. 290-91]
------------------------------
"Oh, stupid humility!"
------------------------------
[Despite her concern with ecclesiastical politics, Catherine continued to respond to those who asked her help. To a Florentine who apparently had written about whether or not he was worthy to receive communion:]
...[W]e should not act as unwise worldly folk act who transgress the precept of holy Church when they say, "I'm not worthy!'.... Oh, stupid humility! Who can't see that you aren't worthy! How long are you going to wait to be worthy? Don't wait; you'll be as worthy in the end as at the start, for even with all our uprightness we will never be worthy. God is the one who is worthy, and with his worth he makes us worthy. [3: p.192]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...what great evil would follow upon taking penance alone
as one's foundation."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Four letters are extant that Catherine wrote to a woman called Daniella, who lived in the town of Orvieto and who like Catherine was a lay Dominican tertiary. Daniella was performing the severe ascetic practices that Catherine herself had used as a teenager. In her 1378 letters the 31-year-old rejected the mistakes of her youth:]
There are some who devote themselves entirely to chastising their body by performing severe and enormous penances. To keep their sensuality from rebelling against reason, they have set their whole desire more on mortifying their body than by killing their selfish will. ....[U]nless they are very humble and find their strength in judging not by human standards but by God's, they will often sin against their perfection by setting themselves up as judges of those who do not follow the same way as they....
So you see what great evil would follow upon taking penance alone as one's foundation.... So we must build our foundation in drowning and killing our perverse selfishness, and once our will is subjected to God's, we shall offer tender, flaming, infinite desire to God's honor and the salvation of souls....
Wretch that I am, I regret that I have never followed this true teaching, I have, in fact, done the opposite. And this, I believe, is why I've so often fallen into unhappiness and into passing judgment on my neighbors. [3: pp.232-40]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Tell them they aren't telling you the half of what they
could!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Catherine had spent quite a bit of time in Florence in 1374 and in 1378, working with those who supported papal power and so antagonizing those who did not. Just before she left Siena for Rome in late 1378, she wrote to two Florentine friends, telling them how to respond to ongoing criticisms of her:]
Here is how I want either of you to respond to anyone who talks to you about my faults: Tell them they aren't telling you the half of what they could! Tell them to be moved to compassion in their heart before God for what they are laying out in words, begging divine goodness to reform my life. Then tell them that the supreme Judge is the one who will punish all my sins and reward every effort made for love of him. [3: p.348]
=======================================================================
[This is properly a secondary source, but Noffke quotes --- sometimes briefly but other times substantially --- from the letters, including letters written after 1378, and so not in her translation above. The book has a thorough annotated bibliography, but, oddly, no index:]
Noffke, Suzanne. Catherine of Siena: vision through a distant
eye. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, c1996. (iv, 267 p.:
maps)
LC#: BX4700.C4 N64 1996; ISBN: 0814653111
Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-267)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...entrusted with government of the city (and can't even
govern himself!)"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Catherine continued to work for her own city. To the the city magistrates of Siena in 1379:]
The wretch who has been entrusted with government of the city (and can't even govern himself!) shuts his eyes when poor men and women are robbed---even to the point of convicting the parties who are in the right and acquitting the criminals. [p.84]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In terms of vision you can see no more than any one person
can."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[And she continued to try to influence Urban VI, who had silenced a Dominican friend of hers:]
Oh most holy father, be patient when people talk to you about these things. For they speak only for God's honor and your well-being..., since they are well aware that their father has a huge family to care for, yet has only one man's vision.... So far as authority is concerned you can do everything, but in terms of vision you can see no more than any one person can....
I know that your holiness wants helpers who will really help you---but you have to be patient enough to listen to them. [p.59]
=======================================================================
[Unlike the online translation, Suzanne Noffke's translation of Libro della divina dottrina is complete. Noffke's introduction is thorough, and the index covers themes as well as names. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The dialogue / Catherine of Siena; translation and introd.
by Suzanne Noffke; pref. by Giuliana Cavallini (The Classics
of Western spirituality). New York: Paulist Press, c1980. (xvi,
398 p.)
LC#: BV5080 .C2613 1980; ISBN: 0809122332, 0809102951
-----------------------------------------
"Upon knowledge follows love."
-----------------------------------------
[The opening:]
A soul rises up, restless with tremendous desire for God's honor and the salvation of souls. She has for some time exercised herself in virtue and has become accustomed to dwelling in the cell of self-knowledge in order to know better God's goodness toward her, since upon knowledge follows love. And loving, she seeks to to pursue truth and clothe herself in it. [p.25]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I will not leave your presence till I see that you have
been merciful..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[In the dialogue between God and a soul, God had assured the
soul that He will have mercy on her, but she would not settle
for a merely personal salvation:]
My Lord, turn the eye of your mercy on your people and on your mystic body, holy Church. How much greater would be your glory if you would pardon so many and give them the light of knowledge! For then they would surely all praise you, when they see that your infinite goodness has saved them from deadly sin and eternal damnation. How much greater this than to have praise only from my wretched self....
So I beg you, divine eternal love, to take your revenge on me, and be merciful to your people. I will not leave your presence till I see that you have been merciful to them. [p.49]
--------------------------------------
"She opened her mind's eye."
--------------------------------------
[Catherine describes the process by which the soul learned:],
Now nothing can be known in Truth unless the mind's eye can see it. So one who wishes to know must rise up with a desire to know by the light of faith and in Truth, and must open the mind's eye by opening its pupil, which is faith, onto the object of truth....
So she rose up above her very self with a longing beyond all telling. And by the light of a very lively faith she opened her mind's eye onto eternal Truth, and there she saw and knew the truth of what she had asked. [p.160]
-----------------------------------------------------------
"...lest I be deluded by my own lack of insight."
-----------------------------------------------------------
[The soul asked God for help in counseling others; she wanted more specific detail than she had as yet been given:]
Sometimes people will come to me or to another of your servants asking for counsel in their desire to serve you and wanting me to instruct them. I know, gentle eternal God, that you have already told me, "I am one who takes delight in few words and many deeds." Still, if it would please your kindness to say a few more words on this, you would be doing me a great favor.
Also, sometimes when I am praying for your creatures and especially for your servants, it happens in the course of my prayer that I find this one spiritually well disposed, apparently rejoicing in you, and another seems to have a darksome spirit. Eternal Father, should I or can I judge the one to be in light and the other in darkness? Or if I should see one going the way of great penance and another not, should I judge that the one who does the greater penance is more perfect that the other?
I ask you, lest I be deluded by my own lack of insight, to be more specific about what you have told me in general terms. [pp.182-83]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Why then are you so mad? Because you have fallen
in love...!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[This last excerpt is from one of the chapters omitted in
Thorold's translation available online. After God had shown all
He has done for humans, the soul responded:]
O eternal, infinite Good! O mad lover! And you have need of your creature? It seems so to me, for you act as if you could not live without her, in spite of the fact that you are Life itself, and everything has life from you and nothing can have life without you.
Why then are you so mad? Because you have fallen in love with what you have made! You are pleased and delighted over her within yourself, as if you were drunk for her salvation. She runs away from you and you go looking for her. She strays and you draw closer to her: You clothed yourself in our humanity, and nearer than that you could not have come. [p.325]
=======================================================================
[This is a print version of the abridged Algar Thorold translation of Libro della divina dottrina that is online:]
The dialogue of the seraphic virgin, Catherine of Siena, dictated
by her, while in a state of ecstasy, to her secretaries, and
completed in the year of Our Lord 1370. Together with an account
of her death by an eye-witness; translated from the original
Italian, and preceded by an introduction on the life and times
of the saint, by Algar Thorold. A new and abridged ed.
Westminster, Md., The Newman bookshop, 1943. (3 p. l., 344 p.)
LC#: BX4700.C4 A27 1943
=======================================================================
[Catherine's disciples wrote down some of the prayers that she said aloud. Suzanne Noffke has translated 26 of these, all composed during the last four years of Catherine's life. As always, Noffke's introductions, notes, and detailed index are helpful. A 2nd edition was published in 2001, with minor changes to the text and more substantial changes to the introduction and notes "in light of my continuing research" (p. xvii). The excerpt below is from the 1983 edition. (See the table of contents of the 2001 edition online.):]
The prayers of Catherine of Siena / edited by Suzanne Noffke.
New York: Paulist Press, c1983. (vi, 257 p.)
LC#: BV245 .C3813 1983; ISBN: 0809125080
Bibliography: p. 249-250.
[2nd edition: San Jose: Authors Choice Press, c2001. ISBN: 0595180604]
--------------------------------------------------
"A heart such as his tends to be proud."
--------------------------------------------------
[All but six of the collected prayers are from the last year and a half of Catherine's life, when she was living in Rome. Almost all of these include an appeal to God for Pope Urban VI, whom she quickly came to realize was not the Christ-like figure she had hoped for; he was determined to destroy his enemies (as they in turn were determined to destroy him). This is from her second last prayer, composed in January 1380, four months before her death:]
I see that you have endowed your vicar
by nature
with a fearless heart;
so I humbly, imploringly beg you
to pour the light beyond nature
into the eye of his understanding.
For unless this light,
acquired through pure affection for virtue,
is joined with it,
a heart such as his tends to be proud.
Today again let every selfish love be cut away
from those enemies of yours
and from the vicar
and from us all,
so that we may be able to forgive those enemies
when you bend their hardness.
For them, that they may humble themselves
and obey this lord of ours,
I offer you my life
from this moment
and for whenever you wish me to lay it down
for your glory. [pp.217-18]
=======================================================================
[Between 1385 and 1395 Raymond of Capua wrote Legenda. It is traditional hagiography, but in passing it quotes Catherine's conversations with Raymond and others. It also gives us details given nowhere else --- for example, about the opposition that Catherine met in Siena --- and it reveals Raymond's view of his relationship with Catherine. This translation by George Lamb has a helpful introduction:]
Raymond, of Capua. The life of St. Catherine of Siena. Translated
by George Lamb. New York, P. J. Kenedy [1960] (384 p. illus.)
LC#: BX4700.C4 R3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"It must therefore be in me, and it must come from me."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
[One passage near the beginning of Legenda gives Catherine's explanation of the spiritual inadequacy that she felt throughout her life. The "I" is Raymond:]
I once asked her how she could possibly say and believe, for example, that she regarded herself as the cause of all the wrong-doing that was committed by sinners. She did not modify that statement, but affirmed that it was the simple truth.
"For," said she, "is it not a fact that if I were truly on fire with the love of God, and really prayed to my Creator with a soul enkindled with the love of him, he, being Mercy itself, would grant his mercy to all those people, and would in his goodness bring it about that they would all be set on fire with that same fire of love which ought to be enkindled in myself?
"What is it that prevents that happening? Obviously, nothing but my sins. The fault cannot be that of the Creator himself, for in him there can be no defect. It must therefore be in me, and it must come from me." [First Prologue, p.12]
=======================================================================
[This is a print version of the 1521 book that includes the selection from Legenda available online:]
The Cell of self-knowledge: early English mystical treatises
/ by Margery Kempe and others (Spiritual classics). New York:
Crossroad, 1981. (128 p.: ill.)
LC#: BV4500 .C44 1981; ISBN: 0824500822
=======================================================================
[F. Thomas Luongo's study of Catherine's political activities through 1378 as revealed through her letters and contemporary documents shows her establishing her authority in both civic and ecclesiastical areas. One chapter provides a close reading of the 1374 letter on the execution of Niccolo di Toldo; another discusses the 1377 letter on the experience which led to the writing of Diologo. Luongo gives his own translation of all quoted passages (with the original given in the notes). The book's introduction and notes constitute a useful survey of critical opinion over the centuries. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Luongo, F. Thomas. The saintly politics of Catherine of Siena.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006. (xiii, 233 p.:
ill., maps)
LC#: BX4700.C4 L86 2006; ISBN: 0801443954
Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-223) and index
-------------------
[This detailed study of Catherine's themes and images by her
modern editor, Giuliana Cavallini, includes extensive quotations,
translated by Cavallini, from Diologo and from Catherine's
letters (including those not yet published in English translation).
The book includes a useful chronology and index. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Cavallini, Giuliana. Catherine of Siena (Outstanding Christian
thinkers). London; New York: G. Chapman, 1998. (xxvii, 163 p.)
LC#: BX4700 .C4 C383 1998; ISBN: 0225667673
Includes bibliographical references and index
[Published in paperback 2005; ISBN: 0826476627]
-------------------
[This collection includes Jane Tylus' essay, "Caterina
da Siena and the Legacy of Humanism," which sees Catherine's
letters as illustrating her participation in the growing civic
humanism of the 1300s, especially in her urging of women to manifest
themselves in public life. Quotations from the letters are given
in Tylus' own translation. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Perspectives on early modern and modern intellectual history:
essays in honor of Nancy S. Struever; edited by Joseph Marino
and Melinda W. Schlitt. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester
Press, 2001. (xii, 509 p.: ill.)
LC#: CB367 .P47 2001; ISBN: 1580460623
Includes bibliographical references (p. [502]-506) and index
--------------------
[One essay in this collection, "Mystical Death, Bodily
Death: Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua on the Mystic's
Encounter with God," by Karen Scott, compares Catherine's
visionary experiences as described in her letters and as described
in Legenda. In the process, Scott translates passages
from later letters not yet published in English; the original
Italian is given in the notes. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Gendered voices: medieval saints and their interpreters /
edited by Catherine M. Mooney; foreword by Caroline Walker Bynum
(The Middle Ages series). Philadelphia: University Pennsylvania
Press, 1999. (xi, 276 p.)
LC#: BX4662 .G46 1999; ISBN: 0812234855, 0812216873
Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-259) and index
------------------
[A later essay by Scott, "Catherine of Siena and Lay Sanctity
in Fourteenth-Century Italy," shows that it was Catherine's
status as a lay person that made her career --- traveling, teaching
--- possible. Scott also shows how Raymond of Capua tried to
deal with that status in Legenda. As above, Scott gives
both her own translations and the originals of the excerpts she
quotes. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Lay sanctity, medieval and modern: a search for models / Ann
W. Astell, editor. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, c2000. (x, 250 p.)
LC#: BX1920 .L39 2000; ISBN: 0268013306
-------------------
[This collection contains three English-language essays
on Catherine: (1) Scott's "Candid Oranges, Vinegar, and
Dawn: The Imagery of Conversion in the Letters of Caterina of
Siena," analyzes three 1378 letters. (2) Suzanne Noffke's
"The Physical in the Mystical Writing of Catherine of Siena,"
discusses Catherine's images of Christ. (3) Claudia Rattazzi
Papka's "The Written Woman Writes: Caterina da Siena Between
History and Hagiography, Body and Text," describes the differences
between the Catherine presented in the Legenda and that
revealed by her own writing. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Women mystic writers / edited by Dino S. Cervigni (Annali d'italianistica;
v. 13). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, c1995. (540 p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ4001 .A6 v.13
Includes bibliographical references. English and Italian.
-------------------
[In this earlier collection, Scott's essay, "Io Catarina": Ecclesiastical Politics & Oral Culture in the Letters of Catherine of Siena," analyses the style and content of Catherine's letters. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Dear Sister: medieval women and the epistolary genre / edited
by Karen Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus ( Middle Ages series).
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, c1993. (viii,
215 p.)
LC#: PN6131 .D4 1993; ISBN: 0812231708, 0812214374
Includes bibliographical references (p.[193]-206) and index
--------------------
[This second volume of Prudence Allen's major study on the
philosophy of gender includes a useful section (pp. 380-98; 428-37)
on Catherine's presentation of philosophical thought through
analogy. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Allen, Prudence. The concept of woman. Volume 2, The early
humanist reformation, 1250-1500. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans
Pub., c2002. (xxiv, 1161 p.: ill.)
LC#: BD450 .A4725 2002; ISBN: 0802847358
Includes bibliographical references (p. 1091-1129) and index
--------------------
[Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski's study of the schism that Catherine worked so hard to avoid includes a section (pp.42-54) on her unsuccessful efforts. Passages from Catherine's letters to the popes and other ecclesiastics are given in Noffke's translation and (from 1378 on) in Blumenfeld-Kosinski's; the originals are also given. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate. Poets, saints, and visionaries
of the Great Schism, 1378-1417. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania
State University Press, c2006. (x, 240 p.: ill., maps)
LC#: BX1301 .B53 2006; ISBN:0271027495
Includes bibliographical references (p. [213]-232) and index
---------------------
[John W. Coakley's study of the ways that male writers presented
the women they wrote about from the 1100s through the 1300s includes
a chapter, "Managing Holiness: Raymond of Capua and Catherine
of Siena," which discusses Raymond's Legenda. Coakley
looks at the purpose and structure of the work, and shows how
its content differs (sometimes radically) from what Catherine
herself tells us in her letters. Quoted passages are given in
Coakley's translation, with the Latin original in the notes.
(See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Coakley, John Wayland. Women, men, and spiritual power: female
saints and their male collaborators. New York: Columbia University
Press, c2006. (x, 354 p.)
LC#: BV5083 .C55 2006; ISBN: 0231134002, 0231508611
Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-344) and index
----------------------
[Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner has translated I miracoli di Carerina di Jacopo da Siena, written by an anonymous Florentine. He met Catherine during her six-week stay in Florence in the summer of 1374, began to write of her while she was there, and completed his brief account in the fall of that year. In it he tells of what he saw and what he heard from Catherine's women companions. It is of interest because some of the stories chosen defend Catherine at a time when "here in Florence people, not only the laity but the religious as well, were complaining about her extraordinary life" (p.97). (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Dominican penitent women / edited, translated, and introduced
by Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner, with contributions by Daniel E. Bornstein
and E. Ann Matter; preface by Gabriella Zarri (The classics of
Western spirituality). Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2005. (xv,
316 p.)
LC#: BX2353 .D57 2005; ISBN: 0809105233, 0809139790
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Updated 11-09-08