_Saint Catherine of Siena_
The closing years of this great republican epoch are lit up by the
genius and the inspiration of one of the most wonderful women in the
history of Italy: Caterina Benincasa, now more generally known as St
Catherine of Siena. She was born on March 25th, 1347, the youngest of a
large family of sons and daughters that Monna Lapa bore to her husband,
Giacomo Benincasa, a dyer of the contrada of Fontebranda. The family of
the Benincasa belonged to the Monte de' Dodici. Until the death of
Giacomo in 1368, his children all lived together with him in the house
still shown--one of the most revered sanctuaries of Siena--in the valley
below San Domenico.
In her childhood Catherine began to see visions, to practise almost
incredible austerities. Her talk already seemed full of a wisdom and a
prudence not her own. "It would have been enough," writes one of the
friars of San Domenico, who frequented Giacomo's house, "for any of the
wisest servants of God." For a long while her family opposed her
abnormal mode of life; but they were at last overcome by her sweetness
and perseverance. Her father especially, who had seen a white dove
hovering over her head while she knelt at prayer, was convinced that she
was acting in accordance with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and
bade the others leave her in perfect liberty to live as she chose. At
the age of sixteen or seventeen she took the habit of the Dominican
Sisters of Penance--the white robe of purity and the black mantle of
humility in which we still see her clad on the walls of so many of
Siena's churches and palaces. She still remained in her father's house,
though for the next three years she lived apart from her family and
utterly severed from the outer world: "Within her own house she found
the desert, and a solitude in the midst of people." She never left the
house save to go into San Domenico--especially that chapel known as the
Cappella delle Volte, so full still of the aroma of her sweet spirit.
Wondrous revelations came to her of the Divine Beauty; she smelt the
fragrance of unearthly lilies, and heard the celestial music of
Paradise, led by Mary Magdalene, singing _con voce alta e con grazia di
singolar dolcezza_. In her visions Christ stood continually by her side;
with Him she walked familiarly; with Him she talked as friend to friend,
or recited the psalms in her little room, as one religious is wont to do
with another. At last the divine voice spoke in her heart: "I will
espouse thee to Myself in perfect faith." On the last day of the
carnival, while all Siena was riotously feasting and making merry,
Christ appeared to her as she knelt in prayer in her cell, and the voice
in her heart spoke again: "Now will I wed thy soul, which shall ever be
conjoined and united to Me with most sincere faith, as I promised thee
before." Then seemed it to her that the Blessed Virgin came, gloriously
attended, to give her in mystical marriage to her Divine Son, who,
"gladly accepting, espoused her on the finger with a most noble ring,
which had a right wondrous diamond set in the midst of four goodly
pearls." "When this most certain vision passed away, the virgin saw
continually this ring when she looked at her finger, albeit to us it was
invisible."[17]
After this vision, Catherine, being now about twenty years old, joined
once more in the family life of her home, and began to mix with men and
women of the outer world. She chose for herself all the menial offices
of the house, was assiduous in the service of the poor and in tending
the sick. She became, to adopt her own phrase, _serva e schiava de'
servi di Gesù Cristo_. "Catherine," writes the best of her modern
biographers, "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
broadways 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."[18] Her ecstatic trances grew more prolonged, her
wondrous visions more continuous; she suffered intolerable pains in all
her frame, and appears gradually to have come to live without
nourishment of ordinary food and drink. All that approached her were
struck by her mirthfulness and never-failing bright spirits; "ella è
sempre lieta e ridente," wrote one that saw her. The Benincasa were
prosperous then, and her father allowed Catherine to dispense to the
poor, at her own discretion, all that was in his house. But Giacomo died
in 1368, and in the revolution of the following year his family suffered
heavily. The three sons only saved their lives by the intervention of
their sister, who led them in safety, through an armed mob of their
enemies, to take refuge in the Spedale on the opposite hill. Shortly
after, the three left Siena for Florence, where they became Florentine
citizens.
The same year that her brothers left Siena, 1370, marks an epoch in
Catherine's life. "Do you not see, father," she said to Frate Tommaso
della Fonte, "that I am no longer she who I was, but that I am changed
into another?" Praying as usual in the Cappella delle Volte in San
Domenico, her Divine Spouse had appeared to her in vision, and drawn
forth her heart from her side, placing His own, _uno cuore rubicundo e
lucidissimo_, therein instead. Meditating upon the Passion, she began to
endure in her body and in her soul what Christ had endured for man. A
little later she seemed to be dying, or actually dead. In this
suspension of her life or mystical death--call it what you will--she
beheld the spiritual lives of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, and was
bidden to return to the world, to convince it of sin and error, to warn
it of impending peril. "The salvation of many souls demands thy return,"
said the voice of the Divine Spouse in her heart, "nor shalt thou any
longer keep that way of life that up to now thou hast kept. No longer
shalt thou have thy cell for dwelling-place; nay, thou shalt go forth
from thy own city for the utility of souls. I shall be ever with thee: I
shall guide thee, and lead thee. Thou shalt bear the honour of My name,
and shalt give spiritual teaching to small and great, to the laity no
less than to clerics and religious; for I shall give thee such speech
and wisdom that no one shall be able to resist. I shall bring thee even
before Pontiffs and before the rulers of the Church and of the Christian
people, to the end that, as is my wont, I may by means of the weak
confound the pride of the strong."[19]
Henceforth her work was done in the light of the world. Incorrigible
sinners, like that _singolare ribaldo_ Andrea di Naddino Bellanti, were
moved to repentance by her prayers; felons, dying in torments under
the
[Illustration:
_Lombardi, Siena_
ST CATHERINE OF SIENA
(ANDREA DI VANNI)]
red-hot pincers of the executioners (_attanagliati_ in the horrible
phrase of the epoch), turned their despairing blasphemies to words of
joy and comfort; fierce faction leaders, like Giacomo Tolomei, laid
aside their fury and went humbly to confession. When the pestilence
raged in Siena in 1374 and many fled the city, Catherine was foremost in
tending the stricken, in encouraging the dying, preparing them for
death, even burying them with her own hands. "Never," writes one of her
friends, "did she appear more admirable than at this time."
Gradually a little band of followers and disciples, of both sexes,
gathered round her. At first these were mainly Dominican friars, headed
by Frate Tommaso della Fonte, her confessor and a friend of her father's
family, and Frate Tommaso Nacci Caffarini, who wrote the beautiful book
known as the _Leggenda minore_; and, a little later, the famous Frate
Raimondo delle Vigne da Capua, a strenuous labourer in God's vineyard
and a man of apostolic spirit, who succeeded Frate Tommaso della Fonte
as her confessor, and wrote the famous life of her, the _Leggenda_, of
which Caffarini's book is in the main an abridgement. There were devout
women too, who robed themselves in the same black and white habit of
penance, some of them from the noblest families of Siena: Alessia
Saracini and Francesca Gori, the two whom we see with her in Bazzi's
frescoes; several of the Tolomei; and, later, Lisa, the widow of
Catherine's brother Bartolommeo. Presently there were added to these
several young men of noble birth, who acted as her secretaries and
legates, united to her by what seems a wonderful blending of religious
enthusiasm and spiritualised affection: Neri di Landoccio de'
Pagliaresi, a scholar and poet; Francesco Malavolti, a somewhat unstable
youth who at first relapsed at times into his former worldly life, and
whom she recalled to herself in one of her sweetest and most
affectionate epistles, addressing him as "carissimo e sopracarissimo
figliuolo in Cristo dolce Gesù;" Stefano Maconi, who headed a furious
feud of his family against the Tolomei and Rinaldini, until converted by
her to be the most beloved son of all her spiritual family, and
ultimately the sainted prior of the Certosa of Pavia.
One famous episode of this epoch in her life has been perpetuated in a
letter of Catherine's own, that is one of the masterpieces of Italian
literature, and in a famous fresco of Bazzi's. A young nobleman of
Perugia, Niccolò di Toldo, attached to the household of the Senator of
Siena, was sentenced to be beheaded for some rash words against the
government of the Riformatori. In his prison he abandoned himself to
desperation and despair--he was a mere youth, thus doomed to death in
the flower of his age--refused to see priest or friar, would make no
preparation for his end. Then Catherine came to him in his dungeon. Let
her own words that she wrote to Frate Raimondo tell what followed:--
"I went to visit him of whom you know; whereby he received so great
comfort and consolation that he confessed and disposed himself right
well. And he made me promise by the love of God that, when the time for
the execution came, I would be with him. And so I promised and did.
Then, in the morning, before the bell tolled, I went to him; and he
received great consolation. I took him to hear Mass; and he received the
Holy Communion, which he had never received again.[20] His will was
attuned and subjected to the will of God; and there alone remained a
fear of not being brave at the last moment. But the boundless and
flaming bounty of God passed his expectation, creating in him so great
affection and love in the desire of God, that he could not stay without
Him, saying: 'Stay with me, and do not leave me. So shall I fare not
otherwise than well; and I die content.' And he laid his head upon my
breast. Then I felt an exultation and an odour of his blood and of mine
too, which I desired to shed for the sweet spouse Jesus. And as the
desire increased in my soul and I felt his fear, I said: 'Take comfort,
my sweet brother; for soon shall we come to the nuptials. Thither shalt
thou go, bathed in the sweet blood of the Son of God, with the sweet
name of Jesus, the which I would not that it ever leave thy memory. And
I am waiting for thee at the place of execution.' Now, think, father and
son, that his heart then lost all fear, and his face was transformed
from sadness into joy; and he rejoiced, exulted and said: 'Whence cometh
to me so great grace, that the sweetness of my soul will await me at the
holy place of execution?' See how he had come to such light that he
called the place of execution holy! And he said, 'I shall go all joyous
and strong; and it will seem to me a thousand years before I come there,
when I think that you are awaiting me there.' And he uttered words of
such sweetness of the bounty of God, that one might scarce endure it."
She waited for him at the place of execution, with continual prayer, in
the spiritual presence of Mary and of the virgin martyr Catherine. She
knelt down and laid her own head upon the block, either dreaming of
martyrdom or to make herself one in spirit with him at the dread moment.
She besought Mary to give him light and peace of heart, and that she
herself might see him return to God. Her soul, she says, was so full
that, although there was a multitude of the people there, she could not
see a creature.
"Then he came, like a meek lamb; and, when he saw me, he began to smile;
and he would have me make the sign of the Cross over him. When he had
received the sign, I said: 'Up to the nuptials, sweet brother mine! for
soon shalt thou be in the eternal life.' He placed himself down with
great meekness; and I stretched out his neck and bent down over him, and
reminded him of the Blood of the Lamb. His mouth said nought, save
_Jesus_ and _Catherine_. And, as he spoke so, I received his head into
my hands, fixing my eyes upon the Divine Goodness and saying, 'I am
willing.'"
As she knelt with the severed head in her hands, her white robe all
crimsoned over with his blood, Catherine had one of those mystical
visions which she can only tell in terms of blood and fire. She saw the
soul received by its Maker, and saw it, in the first tasting of the
divine sweetness, turn back to thank her. "Then did my soul repose in
peace and in quiet, in so great an odour of blood, that I could not bear
to free myself from the blood that had come upon me from him. Alas!
wretched miserable woman that I am, I will say no more. I remained upon
the earth with very great envy."[21]
Gradually we find Catherine becoming a power in her own city, a factor
in the turbulent politics of Italy, a counsellor in what a sixteenth
century Pope was to call the Game of the World. She dictates epistles,
full of wise counsels, to the rulers of the Republic--to her "dearest
brothers and temporal lords," the Fifteen, Lords Defenders of the city
of Siena, to her "most reverend and most dear father and son" the
Podestà, or to her "dearest brother in Christ sweet Jesus," the Senator.
At Rocca d'Orcia--the chief fortress of the Salimbeni--she reconciles
the rival branches of that great clan with each other, makes peace
between the head of the House, her friend Agnolino (the son of the great
Giovanni di Agnolino Salimbeni) and his factious kinsman Cione. While
staying at the Rocca, she appears to have learnt to write--it is said by
a miracle.[22] Be that as it may, the greater part at least of her
extant letters (and, so far as the knowledge of the present writer
extends, all those of which the original autographs have been
preserved), were dictated to her secretaries. We possess nearly four
hundred of them, these epistles "al nome di Gesù Cristo crocifisso e di
Maria dolce," written--to use her own phrase--"in the precious blood of
Christ" to persons of both sexes, and of every condition of life from
the King of France and the Roman Pontiff to a humble Florentine tailor,
from the Queens of Naples and Hungary to a courtesan in Perugia. Her
philosophy is simple, but profound: strip yourself of self-love, enter
into the Cell of Self-Knowledge--that is the key to it. And all alike,
in appearance at least, pause to listen to her inspired voice, bow
before her virginal will.
There is grim war preparing between Pope Gregory XI., in his luxurious
exile at Avignon, and the tyrant of Milan, Bernabò Visconti. To the
Cardinal Legate of Bologna, who is to direct the campaign, she writes:
"Strive to the utmost of your power to bring about the peace and the
union of all the country. And in this holy work, if it were necessary to
give up the life of the body, it should be given a thousand times, if it
were possible. Peace, peace, peace, dearest father! Do you and the
others consider, and make the Holy Father think of the loss of souls
rather than the loss of cities; for God requires souls rather than
cities."[23] Bernabò and his wife Beatrice each send ambassadors on
their own account to gain her ear. To the tyrant she writes of the law
of love, of the vanity of earthly lordship in comparison with the
lordship of the city of the soul, of the necessity of submission to the
Head of the Church, "the Vicar who holds the keys of the blood of Christ
crucified."[24] She bids the proud lady of Lombardy robe herself with
the robe of burning Charity and make herself the means and instrument
to reconcile her husband "with Christ sweet Jesus, and with His Vicar,
Christ on earth."[25] Her prayers are effectual, and a truce is
proclaimed. The Vicar Apostolic in the Papal States writes to her for
counsel in the name of the Pope. She bids him destroy the nepotism and
luxury that are ruining the Church. Better than labouring for the
temporalities of the Church would it be to strive to put down "the
wolves and incarnate demons of pastors, who attend to nought else save
eating and fine palaces and stout horses. Alas! that what Christ won
upon the wood of the Cross should be squandered with harlots."[26] Then
comes the news that the Sovereign Pontiff is meditating a crusade. She
throws herself heart and soul into the undertaking. She addresses Queen
Giovanna of Naples, the Queen Regent of Hungary and many other princes,
all of whom answer favourably and promise men and money. She cherishes
the design of freeing Italy from the mercenary companies, and sends
Frate Raimondo to the camp of Sir John Hawkwood, with a letter urging
the great English condottiere and his soldiers to leave the service and
the pay of the devil, to fight no more against Christians but "take the
pay and the Cross of Christ crucified, with all your followers and
companions, so that you may be a company of Christ to go against those
infidel dogs who possess our holy place, where the first sweet Verity
reposed and sustained death and torment for us."[27] It is said that
Hawkwood and his captains, before the Friar left them, swore upon the
Sacrament and gave him a signed declaration that, when once the crusade
was actually started, they would go.
In February 1375, Catherine left Siena for Pisa, charged with
negotiations on the Pope's behalf with the latter republic. Here she
stayed, with a band of her disciples, some months, so enfeebled with
continual ecstasies that they thought her at the point of death. Here,
on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, she is said to have received the
Stigmata--the wounds of Christ's Passion--in her body, in the little
church of Santa Cristina on the Lungarno. Be this as it may, a new epoch
in her life begins at this date--the epoch of her two great struggles
for the Church and for Italy.
Since Clement V. removed the papal chair to France in 1305, the Popes
had resided at Avignon. Their court had become a scandal to Christendom;
Rome was abandoned to ruin and ravage. Previously to this date, the
temporal sovereignty of the Popes had been little more than a nominal
suzerainty over the cities of the Papal States, many of which were
either swayed by petty despots or governed themselves as free republics.
But now things were changing. While the Roman Pontiffs remained beyond
the Alps, their legates were attempting to fuse these various elements
into a modern State. At the head of foreign mercenaries they were
subjugating city after city, and building fortresses to secure their
hold. Florence, though forming no part of the Papal States, saw her
liberties threatened. The refusal of the Legate of Bologna, although he
had letters to the contrary from the Pope, to allow corn to be sent from
his province into Tuscany in time of famine--followed, as it was, by the
appearance of Hawkwood in the territories of the Republic--precipitated
matters. War broke out in the latter part of 1375. The Florentines
appointed a new magistracy, the Eight of the War, to carry it on, and
sent a banner, upon which was _Libertas_ in white letters on a red
field, round to all the cities, offering aid in men and money to any who
would rise against the Church. Città di Castello began; Perugia
followed; and in a few days all central Italy was in arms against the
Temporal Power. "It seemed," wrote a contemporary, "that the Papal
States were like a wall built without mortar; when one stone was taken
away, almost all the rest fell in ruins." The republics of Siena and
Arezzo promptly entered the league; Pisa and Lucca wavered. Conciliatory
overtures from the Pope, who offered to leave Città di Castello and
Perugia in liberty and to make further concessions for the sake of
peace, were cut short by the expulsion of the Papal Legate from Bologna.
Florence was solemnly placed under the interdict, and an army of
ferocious Breton soldiers taken into the pay of the Church, under the
command of the Cardinal Robert of Geneva, for the reconquest of the
Papal States.
Even at this moment the more moderate spirits on either side looked to
the dyer's daughter of Siena for light and guidance. Her eloquent
appeal--which has fortunately been preserved to us--secured the
neutrality of Lucca and Pisa.[28] Her whole heart was set upon the
reconciliation of the Pope with Italy, to be followed by the return of
the Holy See to Rome, and a complete reformation of the Church. She
addressed letter after letter to the Sovereign Pontiff, calling him
_dolcissimo babbo mio_, claiming to write "to the most sweet Christ on
earth on behalf of the Christ in Heaven." The wickedness and cruel
oppression of evil pastors and governors have caused this war. Let him
win back his little rebellious sheep by love and benignity to the fold
of the Church. Let him uplift the gonfalone of the most holy Cross, and
he will see the wolves become lambs. Let him utterly extirpate these
pastors and rulers, these poisonous flowers in the garden of the Church,
full of impurity and cupidity, puffed up with pride, and reform her with
good pastors and governors "who shall be true servants of Jesus Christ,
who shall look to nought but the honour of God and the salvation of
souls, and shall be fathers of the poor." The Divine Providence has
permitted the loss of states and worldly goods, "as though to show that
He wished that Holy Church should return to its primal state of poverty,
humility, and meekness, as she was in that holy time, when they attended
to nought save to the honour of God and the salvation of souls, caring
only for spiritual things and not for temporal." Let him come
straightway to Rome, "like a meek lamb, using only the arms of the
virtue of love, thinking only of the care of spiritual things;" for God
calls him "to come to hold and possess the place of the glorious
shepherd St Peter." He may claim that he is bound to recover and
preserve the treasure and the lordships of the cities that the Church
has lost; far more greatly is he bound to win back so many "little
sheep, who are a treasure in the Church." Let him choose between the
temporal power and the salvation of souls; let him win back his children
in peace, and he will surely have what is due to him. He can conquer
only with benignity and mildness, humility and patience. "Keep back the
soldiers that you have hired, and suffer them not to come." Let him come
as soon as possible, _come uomo virile e senza alcun timore_; but "look
to it that you come not with a power of armed men, but with the Cross in
your hand, like a meek lamb."[29] But to the Signoria of Florence she
wrote in another strain: "You know well that Christ left us His vicar,
and He left him for the cure of our souls; for in nought else can we
have salvation, save in the mystical body of Holy Church, whose head is
Christ and we are the members. And whoso shall be disobedient to Christ
on earth, who is in the place of Christ in Heaven, shareth not in the
fruit of the blood of the Son of God; for God hath ordained that from
his hands we have communion, and are given this blood and all the
sacraments of Holy Church, which receive life from that blood. And we
cannot go by another way nor enter by another gate." "I tell you that
God wills and has commanded so, that even if Christ on earth were an
incarnate demon, much less a good and benign father, we must be subject
and obedient to him, not for his own sake, but in obedience to God, as
he is the vicar of Christ." Let them hasten to the arms of their father,
who will receive them benignly, and there will be peace and repose,
spiritually and temporally for all Tuscany, and the war will be directed
against the Infidels under the banner of the Cross. "If anything can be
done through me that may be to the honour of God and the union of
yourselves with the holy Church, I am prepared to give my life, if need
be."[30]
Catherine had already sent first Neri di Landoccio and then Frate
Raimondo to the Pope, and she herself was summoned to Florence. This was
in May 1376. This pale _estatica_, who was believed to live solely upon
the consecrated Host of the Blessed Sacrament, and who seemed already of
the other world, was bidden by the Signoria and the Eight to plead their
cause before the Sovereign Pontiff. In June she reached Avignon--that
city of luxury and corruption, that _nido di tradimenti_ upon which
Petrarch had invoked the rain of fire from heaven. The Pope received her
graciously. "In order that thou mayest see clearly that I desire peace,"
he said, "I put it absolutely into thy hands; but be careful of the
honour of the Church." The embassy was a complete failure; the
Florentines threw her over contemptuously. No trace of personal
resentment was seen in the saint, and she continued to intercede for
them with the Pope, to whom she spoke plainly concerning the infamy of
the place in which he stayed, and the corruption of the Roman Curia,
until even Frate Raimondo was astounded
[Illustration:
_Lombardi, Siena_
LETTER FROM ST CATHERINE TO STEFANO MACONI
(Dictated by her to BARDUCCIO CANIGIANI)]
at her temerity. In one respect she was more successful. Her impassioned
pleading overcame the pusillanimity of Gregory, and in September he left
Avignon for Rome. Catherine--in spite of the paintings that you may
still see in Rome and Siena--did not accompany him to the Eternal City.
She met him again at Genoa, where her indomitable will prevailed over
the counsels of the Cardinals, and prevented him from turning back. Then
he went on his way, and she saw him no more.
At Genoa, many of her company fell sick. Neri di Landoccio was despaired
of by the physicians and Stefano Maconi seemed dying. Both believed that
their spiritual mistress and mother healed them miraculously. Seldom did
Catherine seem sweeter and more loving than at this time, watching by
the bedside of her young disciples, comforting Monna Lapa by letter for
her delay, for "with desire have I desired to see you my true mother,
not only of my body but also of my soul."[31] And to her "dearest sister
and daughter in Christ Jesus," Monna Giovanna Maconi, the mother of her
Stefano, she writes: "Take comfort sweetly and be patient, and do not be
troubled, because I have kept Stefano too long; for I have taken good
care of him. Through love and affection I have become one thing with
him, and therefore have I taken what is yours as though it were mine. I
am certain that you have not really been distressed at it. For you and
for him I would fain labour even unto death, in all that I shall be
able. You, mother, have given birth to him once; and I would fain give
birth to him and you and all your family in tears and in toil, by
continual prayers and desire of your salvation."[32] She was back at
Siena in November, sending another of her flaming letters to Gregory,
who had reached Corneto on his way to Rome, exhorting him to constancy,
fortitude and patience, urging him to obtain peace by making
concessions, recommending her native city to him. "I have no other
desire in this life save to see the honour of God, your peace and the
reformation of Holy Church, and to see the life of grace in every
creature that hath reason in itself."[33]
In January 1377, the Pope made his solemn entry into the Eternal City,
received with a perfect delirium of joy by nobles and people alike. Then
a thrill of horror ran through Italy. The papal forces--the Breton
mercenaries of the Cardinal Robert, with the English companies of
Hawkwood--burst into Cesena, butchering men, women, and children,
committing hideous atrocities of every kind that cannot be set down in
this place. The Pope is said to have kept silence. One more affectionate
letter did St Catherine write to him in her own familiar style, pleading
for peace and the reformation of the Church. Then he turned against her.
"Most holy Father," she wrote to him through Raimondo, "to whom shall I
have recourse, if you abandon me? Who will aid me? to whom shall I fly,
if you drive me away? If you abandon me, conceiving displeasure and
indignation against me, I will hide myself in the wounds of Christ
crucified, whose vicar you are, and I know that He will receive me,
because He wills not the death of the sinner. And if He receives me, you
will not drive me away; rather shall we stay in our place to fight
manfully with the arms of virtue for the sweet Spouse of Christ."[34]
Her last extant letter to Gregory, pleading for peace with the Italians
and for the punishment "of the pastors and officers of the Church when
they do what they should not do," recommending to him the ambassadors of
Siena who came to treat for the restitution of Talamone, which the papal
troops had occupied, is in a colder and more formal tone.[35] Other
sorrows came upon her. The Sienese distrusted her intimacy with the
Salimbeni, accusing her and Frate Raimondo (_poverello calunniato_, as
she called him) of plotting, whereas she declared that the only
conspiracy in which she was engaged was for the discomfiture and
overthrow of the devil. One of her own disciples conceived a guilty
passion for her and fled from her circle, writing that he had become a
vessel of contumely, that he was now "cut off, extinguished and blotted
out of the book in which I felt myself so sweetly fed."
Once more, early in 1378, did Catherine go to Florence to labour in the
cause of peace. She addressed the Signoria in a solemn meeting in the
Palazzo Vecchio, and induced them to meet the Pope half way by
respecting the interdict. "The dawn is come at last," she cried
exultingly: _l'aurora è venuta_. And she prevailed upon the captains of
the Parte Guelfa to offer a firm resistance to the war policy of the
Eight, while endeavouring, through Stefano Maconi, to prevent them from
abusing the power that their right of "admonishing" put into their
hands. She was still in Florence when Gregory died, and the Archbishop
of Bari, Bartolommeo Prignani, was elected Pope amidst the furious
clamours of the Roman populace, as Urban VI. To him Catherine wrote at
once, in the same way as she had done to Gregory, urging him to check
the corruption and wickedness of the clergy, to make good Cardinals, to
receive the Florentines back into the fold of the Church, and above all
(for she knew something of the character of the man with whom she had
now to deal) to take his stand upon true and perfect Charity.[36] A few
weeks later the terrible rising of the populace, known as the Tumult of
the Ciompi, burst over Florence. The adherents of St Catherine, as
associated with the hated Parte Guelfa, were specially obnoxious to the
mob, and her own life was threatened. A band of armed men came into the
garden where she knelt in prayer, crying out that they would cut her to
pieces. She prepared for martyrdom as for a joyous feast, and wept
bitterly when she was left unharmed, declaring that the multitude of her
sins had prevented her from being suffered to shed her blood for Christ.
She wrote in this strain to Frate Raimondo, saying that she would begin
a new life that day, in order that these sins of hers might no longer
withdraw her from the grace of martyrdom; her only fear was lest what
had happened might in some way influence the Pope against a speedy
peace.[37] At the end of July peace was signed; Florence and the other
cities of Tuscany were to be reconciled to the Holy See, and Catherine
returned to Siena. "Oh, dearest children," she wrote, "God has heard the
cry and the voice of His servants, that for so long a time have cried
out in His sight, and the wailing that for so long they have raised over
their children dead. Now are they risen again; from death are they come
to life, and from blindness to light. Oh, dearest children, the lame
walk and the deaf hear, the blind eye sees, and the dumb speak, crying
with loudest voice: Peace, peace, peace! with great gladness, seeing
those children returning to the obedience and favour of the father, and
their minds pacified. And, even as persons who now begin to see, they
say: Thanks be to Thee, Lord, who hast reconciled us with our holy
Father. Now is the Lamb called holy, the sweet Christ on earth, where
before he was called heretic and patarin. Now do they accept him as
father, where hitherto they rejected him. I wonder not thereat; for the
cloud has passed away and the serene weather has come."[38]
Not long did _il tempo sereno_ hold. While it lasted Catherine remained
quietly at Siena, dictating to her secretaries, Neri, Stefano, and a
certain Barduccio Canigiani (a young nobleman who had joined her
spiritual family at Florence), her book--the famous _Dialogue_. It
consists of four mystical treatises on Discretion, Prayer, Divine
Providence, and Obedience, in the form of a dialogue between God and a
soul "panting with greatest desire for the honour of God and the
salvation of souls." This Dialogue and her Letters represent St
Catherine's literary work.[39] It was finished in October. Already the
tempest had burst upon the Church, of which the first rumblings had been
heard during her stay at Florence, and Catherine was now to be summoned
to Rome to fight her last great battle.
Urban VI. had a high reputation for zeal and virtue; he was, in
addition, a good Italian. From the outset he announced his intention of
reforming the Roman Court, of extirpating simony and luxury in the
Church. "They say," the Prior of the Certosa of Gorgona had written to
Catherine on the first news of his elevation, "that this our Holy Father
is a terrible man, and frightens people exceedingly with his acts and
his words." The abrupt violence with which he began his work enraged and
alarmed all the Curia, and within a few months of his election he was
left alone. The French Cardinals fled to Anagni, and took the Breton
mercenaries into their pay. When the Pope nominated twenty-six new
cardinals, they held a conclave at Fondi, and, on the plea that the
election of Urban had been extorted by force and fear of the Roman mob,
and was therefore invalid, they raised the infamous Cardinal Robert of
Geneva to the Popedom as Clement VII. All Christendom was now divided in
its spiritual allegiance between two men, each claiming to be the Vicar
of the Prince of Peace; any earthly prince would have dismissed the one
with ignominy from his service, the other was soon to fall hopelessly
and shamefully from his fair beginning.
But Catherine believed passionately in Urban, threw herself heart and
soul into the struggle. "I have heard," she wrote to him, "that the
incarnate demons have raised up an Antichrist against you, Christ on
earth; but I confess and do not deny that you are the Vicar of Christ,
that you hold the keys of the cellar of Holy Church, where the blood of
the Immaculate Lamb is kept."[40] And in the twenty months of life that
remained to her she battled for him to the death. Letter after letter
did she send to him, full of evangelic counsels, urging him--in the
boldest possible language--to begin the reform of the Church in his own
person. Savonarola himself hardly surpasses the passion of her invective
against the corruption of the ecclesiastical world. Urban is at first
offended by her frankness, rebukes her messengers, and will not listen
to her. Then his heart is touched, and he summons her to Rome. "Pray for
me," she writes to Suor Daniella, a nun of Orvieto, "to the supreme
eternal goodness of God, that He may do with me what shall be to His
honour and the salvation of souls; and especially now that I am to go to
Rome, to accomplish the will of Christ crucified and of His Vicar."
Catherine reached the Eternal City at the end of November 1378, with a
band of her disciples of both sexes, including Alessia, Francesca and
Lisa, Neri di Landoccio and Barduccio Canigiani. Stefano Maconi remained
at Siena, but Frate Raimondo was already in Rome. The city was in a
parlous state. Sant' Angelo was held by the soldiery of the Antipope,
who kept Urban out of the Vatican; the Breton mercenaries threatened the
gates, and there were savage tumults in the streets. Urban would have
Catherine address his new cardinals assembled in the Consistory, after
which he "praised her much in the Lord." In these first few months of
his pontificate, while she yet lived, he seemed an utterly different man
to what he afterwards became. He realised to the full the moral value of
her support, and would not suffer her to leave Rome. On his behalf she
dispatched fiery epistles all over Europe, declaring that he alone was
the true Pope, the Vicar of Christ. To simple nuns she wrote imploring
them to storm Heaven with prayers for his cause; to monks and hermits,
bidding them leave their cells and convents, rally round the Sovereign
Pontiff in the Eternal City, or do battle for him in the haunts and
abodes of men. "Ye fools," she wrote to the three Italian Cardinals who
were striving to remain neutral, "fools, worthy of a thousand
deaths"--but the epistle must be read in its entirety, for it is one of
the most amazing documents of the epoch.[41] Other epistles secured the
adhesion of the Republics of Siena and Florence, of Venice and Perugia.
To the Queen of Naples, as chief supporter of Clement (whom she
presently received as Sovereign Pontiff on his way to Avignon), she
pleads Urban's cause with calm reason, turning off the arrows of her
words to strike the hostile Cardinals; and in like manner to Onorato
Gaetani, Count of Fondi, who had protected the schismatic conclave with
his hired troops. "Where is the just man that they have elected for
Antipope," she writes again to the Queen of Naples, "if in very sooth
our supreme pontiff, Pope Urban VI., were not true Vicar of Christ? What
man have they chosen? A man of holy life? No: a man of iniquity, a
demon; and therefore he does the office of the devils."[42] In December
the adherents of the Antipope were lying in wait to take Frate Raimondo,
whom the Pope was sending on a dangerous mission to France, and the good
friar's courage failed him. Catherine, with her mystic longings for
shedding her blood for the cause, was amazed at his pusillanimity, and
sent him letters of characteristic remonstrance, reminding him that he
need have no fear, because he was not worthy of the grace of martyrdom,
exhorting him to be a man and not a woman, laying all the blame on
herself (as she invariably does in her severest letters), pleading love
as her excuse for rebuking him.
In the meanwhile Urban had hired the Italian mercenaries of the Company
of St George, commanded by Count Alberico da Balbiano. On April 29th
Alberico gained a complete victory over the Breton and Gascon soldiery
of the Clementines at Marino, and the French governor of Sant' Angelo
surrendered to the Senator of Rome, Giovanni Cenci. Catherine is
said--and a passage in one of her letters seems to confirm it--to have
been the means of effecting the surrender. At her instigation the Pope
went barefooted from Santa Maria in Trastevere to San Pietro in solemn
procession, to give thanks before returning to take up his abode in the
Vatican--an act of humility that aroused astonishment (strange
reflection on the pomp of the Curia!) as something that had not been
seen for ages. To the magistrates of the Roman Republic she wrote a
letter on behalf of the victorious soldiery, which Tommaseo
characterises as "worthy of the name of Rome."[43] Then, flushed with
victory, she addresses the King of France, in hopes that he may still be
won over; she makes one more flaming, impassioned appeal to the Queen of
Naples, and then--sole blot, I think, in all this blameless
life--co-operates with Urban, in her letters to the King Louis and his
cousin, Charles of Durazzo, in his attempt to raise the power of Hungary
and Poland upon Giovanna's head.[44] Her last extant letter to Urban
himself is to urge him to adopt a mild and generous policy towards the
Roman People. "You must surely know," she says, "the character of your
Roman children, how they are drawn and bound more by gentleness than by
any violence or by harshness of words; and you know, too, the great
necessity that is yours and Holy Church's, of preserving this people in
obedience and reverence to your Holiness; for here is the head and the
beginning of our faith."[45] A furious riot broke out at the beginning
of 1380. The Roman populace rose in arms and assailed the Vatican,
threatening the Pope's life. Catherine interposed and stilled the
tumult. This was her last public action.
[Illustration: _St Catherine's Lamp_]
She was spared the sight of Urban's fall, and was not doomed to witness
the shame, the blood and the madness in which "her most sweet Christ on
earth" ended his unhappy pontificate. Fearful visions of demons began to
assail her, mingling with the celestial visitations of her Divine
Spouse. Her bodily sufferings became unendurable. She cried to God to
receive the sacrifice of her life in the mystical body of the Church.
Praying in San Pietro on Sexagesima Sunday, it seemed to her that the
_Navicella_--the Ship of the Church--was laid upon her shoulders, and
that it crushed her to death. The few weeks of life that remained to
her were one prolonged martyrdom, out of which we have her last
letter[46]--written on February 15th, 1380--her farewell to Frate
Raimondo, full of mystical exultation in her own sufferings, _tanti
dolci tormenti corporali_. But all who approached her wondered at the
tranquillity and the sweetness with which she spoke, and "albeit she was
excessively afflicted in her body, her face remained always angelical
and devout with a holy gladness."
At last on April 29th, 1380, the Sunday before the Ascension, she passed
away, surrounded by her spiritual family and leaning upon Alessia
Saracini, uttering "certain most profound things," writes Barduccio,
"which because of my sins I was not worthy to understand."[47] To
Stefano Maconi, who had hastened from Siena to stand by her side; to
Monna Lapa, who had taken the habit like her daughter and
daughter-in-law; and to each of the others, she gave a separate charge
as to their mode of life after she should be dead. "And she prayed with
such great affection that not only our hearts as we listened, but the
very stones could have been broken. Finally, making the sign of the
Cross, she blessed us all; and so to the last and most desired end of
life she drew near, persevering in continual prayer and saying: 'Thou,
Lord, dost call me, and I come to Thee; I come not through my own
merits, but through Thy mercy alone, the which mercy I ask from Thee in
virtue of Thy blood.' And then, many times, she cried: _Sangue, sangue!_
At last, after the example of the Saviour, she said: 'Father, into Thy
hands I commend my soul and spirit.' And so, sweetly, with her face all
angelical and glowing, she bowed her head and gave up her spirit."