CHAPTER I.

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A DECADE OF ITALIAN WOMEN.

[Illustration: VITTORIA COLONNA.]

_From an Original Painting in the Colonna Gallery at Rome_

A DECADE

OF

ITALIAN WOMEN.

BY

T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE,

AUTHOR OF "THE GIRLHOOD OF CATHERINE DE' MEDICI."

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

1859.

[_The right of Translation is reserved._]

LONDON:

RADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

PREFACE.

The degree in which any social system has succeeded in ascertaining

woman's proper position, and in putting her into it, will be a very

accurate test of the progress it has made in civilisation. And the

very general and growing conviction, that our own social arrangements,

as they exist at present, have not attained any satisfactory measure

of success in this respect, would seem, therefore, to indicate,

that England in her nineteenth century has not yet reached years of

discretion after all.

But conscious deficiency is with nations at least, if not always with

individuals, the sure precursor of improvement. The path before us

towards the ideal in this matter is a very long one; extends, indeed,

further than eye can see. What path of progress does not? And our

advance upon it will still be a sure concomitant and proof of our

advance in all civilisation. But the question of more immediate moment

is, admitting that we are moving in this respect, are we moving in the

right direction? We have been _moving_ for a long time back. Have we

missed the right road? Have we unfortunately retrograded instead of

progressing?

There are persons who think so. And there are not wanting, in the

great storehouse of history, certain periods, certain individuals,

certain manifestations of social life, to which such persons point as

countenancing the notion, that better things have been, as regards

woman's position and possibilities, than are now. There are, painted

on the slides of Mnemosyne's magic lanthorn, certain brilliant and

captivating figures, which are apt to lead those who are disgusted with

the smoke and reek of the Phœnix-burning going on around them, to

suppose that the social conditions which produced such, must have been

less far from the true path than our present selves. Nay, more. There

have been constellations of such stars, quite sufficiently numerous to

justify the conclusion, that the circumstances of the time at which

they appeared were in their nature calculated to produce them.

Of such times, the most striking in this respect, as in so many others,

is that fascinating dawn time of modern life, that ever wonderful

"rénaissance" season, when a fresh sap seemed to rush through the

tissues of the European social systems, as they passed from their long

winter into spring. And in the old motherland of European civilisation,

where the new life was first and most vehemently felt,—in Italy,

the most remarkable constellations of these attractive figures were

produced.

The women of Italy, at that period remarkable in different walks, and

rich in various high gifts, form in truth a very notable phenomenon;

and one sufficiently prevalent to justify the belief, that the general

circumstances of that society favoured the production of such. But

the question remains, whether these brilliant types of womanhood,

attractive as they are as subjects of study, curiously illustrative as

they are of the social history of the times in which they lived, are

on the whole such as should lead us to conclude, that the true path of

progress would be found to lead towards social conditions that should

be likely to reproduce them?

Supposing it to be asserted, that they were not so necessarily

connected in the relationship of cause and effect with the whole social

condition of the times in which they lived, as that any attempt to

resuscitate such types need involve a reproduction of their social

environment; even then the question would remain, whether, if it were

really possible to take them as single figures out of the landscape

in which they properly stand, they would be such as we should find it

desirable to adopt as models of womanhood? Are these such as are wanted

to be put in the van of our march—in the first ranks of nineteenth

century civilisation? Not whether they are good to put in niches to be

admired and cited for this or that virtue or capacity; nor even whether

they might be deemed desirable captains in a woman's march towards

higher destinies and better conditioned civilisation, if, indeed, such

a progress were in any sane manner conceivable; but whether such women

would work harmoniously and efficiently with all the other forces

at our command for the advancement of a civilisation, of which the

absolute _sine quâ non_ must be the increased solidarity, co-operation,

and mutual influence of both the sexes?

It may be guessed, perhaps, from the tone of the above sentences,

that the writer is not one of those who think that the past can in

this matter be made useful to us, as affording ready-made models for

imitation. But he has no intention of dogmatising, or even indulging

in speculations on "the woman's question." On the contrary, in

endeavouring to set before the reader his little cabinet of types of

womanhood, he has abstained from all attempt at pointing any moral

of the sort. The wish to do so is too dangerously apt to lead one to

assimilate one's portrait less carefully to the original than to a

pattern figure conceived for the purpose of illustrating a theory.

Whatever conclusions on the subject of woman's destiny, proper

position, and means of development are to be drawn, therefore, from the

consideration of the very varied and certainly remarkable types set

before him, the reader must draw for himself. It has been the writer's

object to show his portraits, more or less fully delineated according

to their interest, and in some measure according to the abundance or

the reverse of available material, in their proper setting of social

environment. They have been selected, not so much with any intention of

bringing together the best, greatest, or most admirable, nor even the

most remarkable women Italy has produced, as with a view of securing

the greatest amount of variety, in point of social position and

character. Each figure of the small gallery will, it is hoped, be found

to illustrate a distinct phase of Italian social life and civilisation.

The canonised Saint, that most extraordinary product of the "ages of

faith," highly interesting as a social, and perhaps more so still as

a psychological phenomenon;—the feudal Châtelaine, one of the most

remarkable results of the feudal system, and affording a suggestive

study of woman in man's place;—the high-born and highly-educated

Princess of a somewhat less rude day, whose inmost spiritual nature was

so profoundly and injuriously modified by her social position;—the

brilliant literary denizen of "La Bohème;"—the equally brilliant

but large-hearted and high-minded daughter of the people, whose

literary intimacies were made compatible with the strictest feminine

propriety, and whom no princely connections, lay and ecclesiastical,

prevented from daring to think and to speak her thought, and to meet

with brave heart the consequences of so doing;—the popular actress,

again a daughter of the people, and again in that, as is said,

perilous walk in life, a model of correct conduct in the midst of

loose-lived princesses;—the nobly-born adventuress, every step in

whose extraordinary _excelsior_ progress was an advance in degradation

and infamy, and whose history, in showing us court life behind the

scenes, brings us among the worst company of any that the reader's

varied journey will call upon him to fall in with;—the equally

nobly-born, and almost equally worthless woman, who shows us that

wonderful and instructive phenomenon, the Queen of a papal court;—the

humbly born artist, admirable for her successful combination in perfect

compatibility of all the duties of the home and the studio;—and

lastly, the poor representative of the effeteness of that social system

which had produced the foregoing types, the net result, as may be said,

of the national passage through the various phases illustrated by

them:—all these are curiously distinct manifestations of womanhood,

and if any measure of success has been attained in the endeavour to

represent them duly surrounded by the social environment which produced

them, while they helped to fashion it, some contribution will have been

made to a right understanding of woman's nature, and of the true road

towards her more completely satisfactory social development.

CONTENTS.

ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA.

Born, 1347. Died, 1380.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Her Birth-place 1

CHAPTER II.

The Saint's Biographer 9

CHAPTER III.

The Facts of the Case 18

CHAPTER IV.

The Church View of the Case 32

CHAPTER V.

St. Catherine as an Author 51

CHAPTER VI.

Catherine's Letter to the King of France 67

CHAPTER VII.

Dupe or Impostor? 77

CHAPTER VIII.

The Secret of her Influence 83

CATERINA SFORZA.

Born, 1462. Died, 1509.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Of Catherine's father, the Duke, and of his magnificent

journey to Florence 90

CHAPTER II.

A Franciscan Pope and a Franciscan Cardinal.—A notable

illustration of the proverb concerning mendicants'

rides.—The Nemesis of Despotism 102

CHAPTER III.

Catherine's marriage.—"Petit Courrier des dames"

for 1476.—Four years of prosperity.—Life in Rome

in the fifteenth century.—A hunting party in the

Campagna.—Guilty or not guilty.—Catherine and her

husband leave Rome 121

CHAPTER IV.

From Rome to Forlì with bag and baggage.—First

presentation of a new lord and lady to their

lieges.—Venice again shows a velvet paw to a second

Riario.—Saffron-hill in brocade and ermine.—Sad conduct

on the part of our lieges.—Life in Rome again.—"Orso!

Orso!"—"Colonna! Colonna!"—A Pope's hate, and a Pope's

Vengeance.—Sixtus finally loses the game 140

CHAPTER V.

The Family is founded.—But finds it very difficult

to stand on its Foundations.—Life in Rome during an

Interregnum.—Magnificent Prince short of Cash.—Our

Heroine's Claims to that Title.—A Night Ride to Forlì,

and its results.—An Accident to which splendid Princes

are liable 166

CHAPTER VI.

Catherine in trouble.—"Libertà e Chiesà!" in Forlì.—The

Cardinal Savelli.—The Countess and her Castellano

perform a comedy before the lieges.—A veteran

revolutionist.—No help coming from Rome.—Cardinal

Legate in an awkward position.—All over with the

Orsi.—Their last night in Forlì.—Catherine herself

again.—Retribution.—An octogenarian conspirator's last

day 182

CHAPTER VII.

An unprotected Princess.—Match-making, and its

penalties.—A ladies' man for a Castellano.—A woman's

weakness, and a woman's political economy.—Wanted, by

the city of Forlì, a Jew; any Israelite, possessing

sufficient capital, will find this, &c. &c.—The new Pope,

Alexander VI.—The value of a Jubilee.—Troublous times in

Forlì.—Alliances made, and broken.—Catherine once more a

widow 204

CHAPTER VIII.

Guilty or not guilty again.—Mediæval Clanship.—A woman's

vengeance.—Funeral honours.—Royal-mindedness.—Its

costliness; and its mode of raising the wind.—Taxes spent

in alms to ruined tax-payers.—Threatening times.—Giovanni

de' Medici.—Catherine once more wife, mother, and widow 223

CHAPTER IX.

A nation of good haters.—Madama's soldier trade.—A

new Pope has to found a new family.—Catherine's bounty

to recruits.—A shrewd dealer meets his match.—Signs

of hard times.—How to manage a free council.—Forlì

ungrateful.—Catherine at Bay.—"A Borgia! A Borgia!"—A

new year's eve party in 1500.—The lioness in the

toils.—Catherine led captive to Rome 238

CHAPTER X.

Catherine arrives in Rome; is accused of attempting to

poison the Pope; is imprisoned in St. Angelo; is liberated;

and goes to Florence.—Her cloister life with the Murate

nuns.—Her collection of wonderful secrets.—Making

allowances.—Catherine's death 256

VITTORIA COLONNA.

Born, 1490. Died, 1547.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Changes in the Condition of Italy.—Dark

Days.—Circumstances which led to the Invasion of

the French.—State of things in Naples.—Fall of

the Arragonese Dynasty.—Birth of Vittoria.—The

Colonna.—Marino.—Vittoria's Betrothal.—The Duchessa di

Francavilla.—Literary Culture at Naples.—Education of

Vittoria in Ischia 271

CHAPTER II.

Vittoria's Personal Appearance.—First Love.—A Noble

Soldier of Fortune.—Italian Wars of the Fifteenth and

Sixteenth Centuries.—The Colonna Fortunes.—Death

of Ferdinand II.—The Neapolitans carry Coals to

Newcastle.—Events in Ischia.—Ferdinand of Spain in

Naples.—Life in Naples in the Sixteenth Century.—Marriage

of Pescara with Vittoria.—Marriage presents 287

CHAPTER III.

Vittoria's Married Life.—Pescara goes where glory waits

him.—The Rout of Ravenna.—Pescara in prison turns

penman.—His "Dialogo di amore."—Vittoria's poetical

epistle to her Husband.—Vittoria and the Marchese del

Vasto.—Three cart-loads of ladies, and three mule-loads of

sweatmeats.—Character of Pescara.—His Cruelty.—Anecdote

in proof of it 301

CHAPTER IV.

Society in Ischia.—Bernardo Tasso's sonnet thereon.—How

a wedding was celebrated at Naples in 1517.—A Sixteenth

Century trousseau.—Sack of Genoa.—The Battle of

Pavia.—Italian conspiracy against Charles V.—Character of

Pescara.—Honour in 1525.—Pescara's treason.—Vittoria's

sentiments on the occasion.—Pescara's infamy.—Patriotism

unknown in Italy in the sixteenth century.—No such

sentiment to be found in the writings of Vittoria.—Evil

influence of her husband's character on her mind.—Death of

Pescara 312

CHAPTER V.

Vittoria, a widow, with the Nuns of San Silvestro.—Returns

to Ischia.—Her Poetry divisible into two

classes.—Specimens of her Sonnets.—They rapidly attain

celebrity throughout Italy.—Vittoria's sentiments towards

her husband.—Her unblemished character.—Platonic

love.—The love poetry of the Sixteenth Century 328

CHAPTER VI.

Vittoria in Rome in 1530.—Antiquarian rambles.—Pyramus

and Thisbe medal.—Contemporary commentary on Vittoria's

poems.—Paul III.—Rome again in 1536.—Visit to Lucca.—To

Ferrara.—Protestant tendencies.—Invitation from

Giberto.—Return to Rome 345

CHAPTER VII.

Oratory of Divine Love.—Italian reformers.—Their

tenets.—Consequence of the doctrine of justification

by faith.—Fear of schism in Italy.—Orthodoxy of

Vittoria questioned.—Proofs of her Protestantism from

her writings.—Calvinism of her sonnets.—Remarkable

passage against auricular confession.—Controversial

and religious sonnets.—Absence from the sonnets of

moral topics.—Specimen of her poetical power.—Romanist

ideas.—Absence from the sonnets of all patriotic feeling 356

CHAPTER VIII.

Return to Rome.—Her great reputation.—Friendship with

Michael Angelo.—Medal of this period.—Removal to

Orvieto.—Visit from Luca Contile.—Her determination

not to quit the Church.—Francesco d'Olanda.—His

record of conversations with Vittoria.—Vittoria at

Viterbo.—Influence of Cardinal Pole on her mind.—Last

return to Rome.—Her death 377

APPENDIX:

The Original of the Letter of St. Catherine of Siena to the

King of France 393

NOTES 398

INDEX 410

A DECADE OF ITALIAN WOMEN.

SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA.

(1347–1380.)

CHAPTER I.

HER BIRTH-PLACE.

There are not many chapters of history more extraordinary and more

perplexing than that which relates the story of St. Catherine. Very

perplexing it will be found by any, who may think it worth while to

examine the record;—which is indeed well worthy of examination, not

only as illustrative of one of the most obscure phases of human nature,

but also as involving some highly interesting questions respecting the

value of historic evidence.

Of such examination it has received but little. Among Catholics the

"legend" of the Saint is to this day extensively used for such purposes

as similar legends were intended to serve. Orthodox teachers have

used the story unsparingly as stimulus, example, and testimony. But

orthodox historians have passed over it with the lightest tread and

most hurried step; while such Protestant readers as may have chanced

to stray into the dim, despised wilderness of Romish hagiography, have

in all probability very quickly tossed the volume aside, compendiously

classing its subject in their minds with other dark-aged lumber of

martyrs, who walked with their heads in their hands, and saints who

personally maltreated the enemy of mankind.

Yet a very little consideration of the story will show, that it

cannot with fairness be thus summarily disposed of. After seeing

large solid masses of monastic romance and pious falsehood evaporate

from the crucible of our criticism, there will be still found a very

considerable residuum of strangely irreducible fact of the most

puzzling description.

It is to be borne in mind, moreover, that the phenomena to be examined

are not the product of the dark night-time of history, so favourable

to the generation of saints and saintly wonders. Cock-crow was

near at hand when Catherine walked the earth. The grandsons of her

contemporaries had the printing-press among them; and the story of

her life was printed at Florence in the ninety-seventh year after

her death. While the illiterate Sienese dyer's daughter was working

miracles, moral and physical, Petrarch and Boccaccio were still

writing, and Dante had recently written. Giotto had painted the panels

we still gaze on, and Niccolò of Pisa carved the stones we yet handle.

Chroniclers and historians abounded; and the scene of the strange

things recorded by them was at that time one of the centres of human

civilisation and progress. We are there in no misty debateable land

of myth and legendary song; but walk among familiar facts of solid

well-authenticated history, studied for its lessons by statesmen, and

accepted as the basis of theories by political philosophers. And yet,

in the midst of these indubitable facts, mixed with them, acting on

them, undeniably influencing them, we come upon the records of a story

wild as any tale of Denis or Dunstan.

[Sidenote: SIENA.]

When once launched on the strange narrative, as it has come down to

us, it is somewhat difficult to remember steadily how near we are

all along to the solid shore of indisputable fact. Holding fast to

this, therefore, as long as may be, we will approach the subject by

endeavouring to obtain some idea of the material aspect of the "locus

in quo."

No one perhaps of the more important cities of Italy retains the

visible impress of its old republican medieval life to so remarkable

a degree as Siena. Less favoured by fortune than her old enemy, and

present ruler, Florence, she has been less benefited or injured by

the activity and changes of modern days. And the city retains the

fossilised form and shape which belonged to it at the time when its

own stormy old life was finally crushed out of it. The once turbulent,

energetic, and brave old city, sits there still, on the cold bleak

top of a long spent volcano—emblem meet enough of her own nature and

fortunes—grim, silent, stern, in death. The dark massy stone fronts,

grand and gloomy, of old houses, built to defy all the vicissitudes

of civic broils, and partisan town-fighting, still frown over narrow

streets, no longer animated by the turbulent tide of life which filled

them during the centuries of the city's independence.

The strange old "piazza," once the pulsating heart, whence the hot tide

of the old civic life flowed through all the body of the little state,

still occupies its singular position in the hollow of what was in

some remote ante-Etruscan time, the crater of a volcano. Tall houses

of five or six stories stand in a semicircle around this peculiar

shell-shaped cup, while the chord of the arc they form, is furnished

by the picturesque "palazzo pubblico," with its tall slender tower of

dark brick, and quaintly painted walls. Like the lava tide, which at

some distant period of the world's history flowed hence down the scored

sides of the mountain, the little less boiling tide of republican war

and republican commerce, which Siena was wont to pour out from the same

fount, is now extinct and spent. But such lazy, stagnant, unwholesome

life as despotism and priestcraft have left to Siena, is still most

alive in and around the old piazza.

Up the sides of this doubly extinguished crater, and down the

exterior flanks of the mountain, run steep, narrow, tortuous and

gloomy, the flagstone-paved streets of the old city. So steep are

they in some parts, that stairs have to take the place of the sloping

flagstones, which are often laid at such an angle of declivity as

to render wheel-traffic impossible. On the highest pinnacle of the

rim, overlooking the hollow of the once crater, stands the Cathedral,

on such uneven ground, that its east end is supported by a lofty

baptistery, built underneath it on the rapid descent. In the most

ornamented style of Italian-gothic architecture, and picturesque,

though quaint, in its parti-coloured livery of horizontal black and

white stripes in alternate courses of marble, the old church still

contains a wonderful quantity of medieval Sienese art in many kinds.

Carving in wood and in stone, painting in fresco and in oil, inlaid

work and mosaic, richly coloured windows and gilded cornices, adorn

walls, floor, and roof, in every part. The whole history of art

from the early days, when Sienese artists first timidly essayed to

imitate barbaric Byzantine models, to its perfect consummation in

those glorious ages which immediately preceded the downfall of Italian

liberty, is set forth in this fine old church, as in a rich and

overflowing museum. Some half dozen popes sleep beneath sculptured tons

of monumental marble in different parts of it,—among them two of the

very old Sienese family of Picolomini.

[Sidenote: FONTEBRANDA.]

On another peak, or spur, of the deeply seamed mountain, stands

the huge unornamented brick church and monastery of St. Dominic,

so situated, that between it and the Cathedral is a steep gorge,

the almost precipitous sides of which the old city has covered with

stair-like streets. Deep at the bottom of this gorge, near a gate in

the city wall, which runs indefatigably up and down the mountain ridges

and ravines in its circuit around the spacious city, now a world too

wide for its shrunken population, is that old fountain, which one

passing word of the great poet has made for ever celebrated. Here is

still that Fontebranda,[1] which, with all its wealth of sparkling

water, the thirst-tormented coiner in the thirtieth canto of the

Inferno, less longs for than he does to see in torment with him those

who had tempted him to the deed he was expiating.

The Dantescan pilgrim, who, among his first objects at Siena, runs

to visit this precious fountain, finds, not without a feeling of

disappointment, a square mass of heavy ugly brickwork, supported on

some three or four unornamented arches on each of its four sides.

Within is a large tank, also of brick, the sides of which rise about

two feet above the level of the soil; and this is perennially filled

by a cool and pure spring from the sandstone side of the mountain,

which there rises in a broken cliff immediately behind the ungraceful,

though classic building. Descending the steep street in search of this

poet-hallowed spot, with the Cathedral behind him, and St. Dominic's

church high on its peak above and in front of him, the visitor finds

that he is passing through a part of the city inhabited by the poorer

classes of its people. And near the bottom of the hill, and around the

fountain itself, it is manifest to more senses than one, that a colony

of tanners and dyers is still established on the same site which their

forefathers occupied, when Giacomo Benincasa was one of the guild.

The general aspect of this remote and low-lying corner of the city

is squalid and repulsive. Eyes and nose are alike offended by all

around them. And the stranger, who has been attracted thither by the

well-remembered name of "Fontebranda," hastens to reclimb his way to

the upper part of the town; probably unconscious, perhaps uncaring,

that within a few yards of him lies another object of pilgrimage,

classic after another fashion, and hallowed to the feelings of a far

more numerous body of devotees. For a little way up the hill, on the

left hand side of the poverty-stricken street, as one goes upwards,

among the miserable and filthy-looking skin-dressers' houses, is still

to be seen that of Giacomo Benincasa, in which his daughter Catherine,

the future Saint, was born, in the year 1347, and lived dining the

greater portion of her short career.

[Sidenote: CATHERINE'S BIRTH-PLACE.]

The veneration of her fellow citizens during the two centuries

which followed her death, has not permitted the dwelling to remain

altogether as it was when she inhabited it. The street front has been

sufficiently altered to indicate to any passenger, that it belongs to

some building of more note than the poor houses around it. Two stories

of a "loggia," or arcade, of dark brick, supported on little marble

columns,—four arches above, and four below,—run along the front of

the upper part of the building. On the ground-floor, a large portal,

like that of a chapel, such as in fact now occupies the entire basement

story, sufficiently shows that the building within is no longer a poor

dyer's habitation. On the side is a smaller door opening on a handsome

straight stone staircase, eight feet wide. By this entrance visitors

are admitted to gratify for an equal fee their Catholic devotion or

heretic curiosity.

The whole lower floor of the house, once, as tradition, doubtless

correctly, declares, the dyer's workshop (as similar portions of the

neighbouring houses are still the workshops of modern dyers), is now a

chapel. "Virginea Domus," is conspicuously carved in stone above the

portal, somewhat unfairly ignoring the existence of poor Giacomo in

his own workshop. The walls are covered with frescoes by Salimbeni and

Pachierotti, and a picture by Sodoma adorns the altar. Ascending the

handsome flight of stone stairs, the visitor finds most of the space

on the first floor occupied by another chapel. This was the living

room of the family, and is nearly as large as the workshop below. But

at the end of it, farthest from the street, and therefore from the

light also, there is a little dark closet, nine feet long by six wide.

It is entered from the larger room by a very low door, cut in a very

thick wall, and has no other means of receiving light or air. This was

Catherine's bedchamber. The pavement of the little closet is of brick,

and on this, with a stone—still extant _in situ_—for a pillow, the

future Saint slept. The bricks, sanctified by this nightly contact with

her person, have been boarded over to preserve them from the wear and

tear of time, and from the indiscreet pilfering of devout relic-hunters.

Various treasures of this sort, such as the lamp she used to carry

abroad, the handle of her staff, &c., are preserved on the altar of

the adjoining chapel: and one or more other oratories have been built

and ornamented in and about the Saint's dwelling-place. But the only

spot which has any interest for a heretical visitor is the little dark

and dismal hole—Catherine's own chamber and oratory—the scene of the

young girl's nightly vigils, lonely prayers, spiritual struggles, and

monstrous self-inflictions.

"Surely," cries the pious pilgrim, "as holily penetential a cell, as

ever agonized _De profundis_ rose from to the throne of Grace!"

"Truly," remarks the philosophic visitor, "a dormitory well calculated,

in all its conditions, to foster and develop every morbid tendency of

mind or body in its occupant!"

CHAPTER II.

THE SAINT'S BIOGRAPHER.

A great number of devout writers have occupied their pens on "legends"

and biographies of St. Catherine, more or less complete in their scope

and pretensions. The public library at Siena contains no less than

seventy-nine works, of which the popular Saint of the city is the

subject. Almost all of them, however, seem to be based more or less

directly and avowedly on the work of "the Blessed" Raymond of Capua.

Perhaps some heretic's untutored mind may be so ignorant as not to know

that the adjective joined to Raymond in the preceding sentence is not

only an epithet, but a title. "Beatification," is a spiritual grade

inferior to "sanctification," conferred by the same unerring authority,

and implying different and inferior privileges and position.

Childish trash enough it seems. Yet may not possibly some disciple of

that modern school of moralists, which teaches that happiness is not,

or should not be man's highest and ultimate aim, see in this assertion

of the superiority of "sanctification" to "blessedness," one of the

many instances in which Rome's pettifogging formalism and unspiritual

materialism have fossilised a lofty thought into a low absurdity?

Be this as it may, Raymond of Capua was never in Rome's hierarchy "more

than blessed."

This "Beato Raimondo" was "in the world" Raimondo delle Vigne,

great-grandson of Pietro delle Vigne, the celebrated Chancellor of

the Emperor Frederick II., who right royally rewarded his life-long

services by putting his eyes out. Raymond his great-grandson was a

Dominican monk; and became[2] twenty-fourth general of the order, in

1578, at the time when a schism in the Church, divided between two

popes, produced a corresponding schism in all the monastic orders.

Raymond governed that portion of the Dominican fraternity which

recognised the Pope, subsequently acknowledged by the Church as the

true one.

Having been sent, in 1367, to preside over the Dominican convent

in Siena, he was there by divine[3] intervention, say the learned

historians of the literature of the order, appointed confessor and

confidant to St. Catherine. The superior sanctity of the penitent was

however soon made manifest. For when Siena was ravaged by a pestilence,

in 1372, and Prior Raymond having caught it, while ministering to the

sick, lay dying, he was miraculously restored to health by the prayers

of St. Catherine.

The General of the Dominicans, as he shortly afterwards became, was

a man of mark, moreover, beyond the limits of his own Society; for

he was employed on several missions and negotiations by the Pope.

With such qualifications and opportunities, he certainly would seem

to have been the most competent person imaginable to give the world

an account of his saintly penitent's career. This he has done in a

work often reprinted, and most recently at Milan, in two good-sized

octavo volumes, in 1851. The "Life of Saint Catherine of Siena, the

Seraphic spouse of Jesus Christ" forms volumes nine and ten of an

"Ecclesiastical Library," brought out at a very cheap rate, as a

means of supplying the people of Italy in the nineteenth century with

wholesome and profitable mental food.

[Sidenote: POPULAR LITERATURE.]

A glance at the nature and quality of this work is desirable for

several reasons. In the first place, it is necessary to ascertain

how far we can implicitly rely on its statements of matters of fact

respecting Catherine's history. In the second place, a knowledge of

the mental calibre and intellectual standing of the Saint's confessor,

confidant, and friend, cannot but assist us in estimating her own

character. And lastly, it is no little interesting to observe what

spiritual and intellectual provender is provided in these days for the

population of Italy by those who have the education and guidance of her

people in their hands.

This widely circulated work is an Italian translation from the

original Latin of Father Raymond, executed by Bernardino Pecci, Bishop

of Grosseto. In the notice of St. Catherine, in the "Biographie

Universelle," it is stated, among a singularly large number of other[4]

errors, that Raymond translated into Latin the Life of the Saint from

the Italian of Fra Tommaso della Fonte, who preceded him in his office

of confessor, making some additions to the original text. But a very

cursory examination of the book would have sufficed to show the French

writer that, although Father Raymond frequently cites Fra Tommaso as

the authority for some of his statements, the entire composition is

wholly the work of the former.

An equally short glance at this "Life" will also suffice to convince

any one in search of the facts of the Saint's career, that little

assistance is to be got from Father Raymond. It is indeed very evident,

that the author did not write with any intention of furnishing

such. He rarely gives any dates, and scarcely makes any pretence of

observing chronological order. He says, that he writes in his own old

age, long after the events occurred; owns that he forgets much; and,

though carefully and ostentatiously winding up every chapter with a

reference to his authorities for the statements contained in it, is

yet avowedly throwing together a mass of anecdotical recollections, as

they occur to him. He rarely, if ever, records any unmiraculous and

unsaintly doings;—mentions, for instance, that she performed such

and such miracles at Pisa, or discoursed in such and such terms at

Genoa; but does not give the slightest hint why she went thither, or

when. In short, the whole scope and object of the book is devotional,

and in no degree historic. It is written for the promotion of piety,

and especially for the glory of the Order of St. Dominic, and of the

Dominican St. Catherine. The wonders related are evidently intended to

cap other wonders. They constantly consist of performances essentially

similar to those recorded of older saints, but enhanced by some

added circumstance of extra impossibility. And the writer, in his

competitive eagerness, often pauses in his narration to point out, that

no former recorded miracles have come up to that he is relating in

outrageousness of contradiction to the laws of nature.

[Sidenote: FATHER RAYMOND'S WORK.]

Were it not, however, for these and such like evidences of the _animus_

of the writer, and were it not also, it must be added, for the

exceeding difficulty of supposing that an undoubtedly distinguished

man, a contemporary of Petrarch and Boccaccio, could have believed

the monstrous impossibilities he relates as facts,—the tone of the

book would seem to be that of sincerity. In a subsequent chapter, the

reader will have an opportunity of examining some specimens of these

extraordinary relations. For the present, as a taste of the quality of

this remarkable book, _reprinted in 1851 for wide circulation among the

readers of Italy_, and as a means of judging how far it is possible

to credit the writer with simple-hearted sincerity, he may take the

following passages from a long prologue of thirty pages, which the

learned author opens with a quotation from the Apocalypse, "I saw an

angel descending from Heaven, having the key of the Abyss and a great

chain in his hand;"—and in which he points out the application of

these words to St. Catherine. Having shown at much length that she

may well be considered an angel descending from Heaven, he proceeds

thus:—[5]

"Finally we find added to the words of St. John, which have been taken

as a foundation for this prologue, the following phrase: '_Et catenam

magnam habens in manu suâ_;' which, like those that precede them, adapt

themselves to our subject, and explain the significance of her name.

What wonder is it, that Catherine should have a chain,—_catena_? Is

there then no agreement in the sound of the two words? Since if you

pronounce 'Caterina' with a syncope, you have 'Catena;' and if to

'Catena' you join a syllable, you have the name of 'Caterina.' Shall

we attach ourselves then to words and appearances only, neglecting the

things and the mysteries signified by these words? Not only the words,

but also the things themselves point out to us the applicability.

Since _catha_ in the Greek tongue signifies that which in the Latin

is _universe_.[6] Hence also the Catholic Church is from the force of

the Greek word properly called in Latin Universal. Caterina therefore

and Catena signify in our tongue University; which thing also a

chain—_catena_—manifests in its very nature."

After many pages of such extraordinary nonsense, he arrives at the

conclusion, that Caterina certainly means Universality, and that in

this name, made Catena by syncope, "lies hidden perhaps no small

mystery!"

It does seem wholly incredible, that this should be the best product

of the mind of one, chosen out to be the foremost of the Dominicans

of his day, and selected by the Pope to be entrusted with important

missions. It is difficult not to suspect, that this great-grandson

of Frederick II.'s famous Chancellor was a very different man, when

subtly diplomatising in Rome's interest with courts and princes, or

when considering in council the interests of his order, from what

he shows himself when addressing the people. Surely the _Concio ad

Populum_ must have differed from the _Concio ad Clerum_ as widely as

any sect's esoteric ever did from its exoteric doctrines. And the "no

small mystery of Caterina cut down by syncope to Catena," was, we may

well believe, not the subject of very serious meditations behind the

screen on the priestly side of the altar. Is it indeed possible to

abstain from the conviction, that we have detected the reverend figure

of Father Raymond of Capua, General of the Dominicans, very decidedly

laughing in his sleeve at that poor ill-used people, to whose proneness

to be deceived, Rome has ever answered with so ready and so hearty a

_decipiatur_?

[Sidenote: POPULUS VULT DECIPI; DECIPIATUR.]

One other specimen of the quality of this Dominican monk's work may not

be superfluous in enabling the reader to make up his mind respecting

him and his teaching.

He tells us[7] that Catherine, when in her seventh year, retired one

day into some corner of the house, where she could not be seen or

overheard, and thus prayed:—

"O most blessed and holy Virgin, first among women to consecrate by a

perpetual vow thy virginity to the Lord, by whom thou wast graciously

made mother of His only begotten son, I pray of thy ineffable goodness,

that without considering my merits or my weakness, thou wouldst be

pleased to do me the great favour[8] of giving me for husband Him, whom

I desire with all the passion of my soul, thy most Holy Son, our only

Lord Jesus Christ; and I promise to Him and to thee, that I will never

receive any other husband, and that with all my power I will preserve

for Him my purity ever unblemished."

"Do you perceive, O reader!" continues the biographer, "with what

order all the graces and virtuous operations of this Holy Virgin are

powerfully and sweetly regulated by that Wisdom which disposes all

things? In the _sixth_ year of her age, while yet seeing her spouse

with the eyes of the body, she gloriously received his benediction.

In the _seventh_ year, she made the vow of chastity. The first of

these numbers is superior to all others in perfection: and the latter

is called by all theologians, the number of Universality. What then

can be understood from this, if not that this Virgin was destined to

receive from the Lord the _Universal Perfection_ of all the virtues;

and consequently to possess a perfect degree of glory? Since the first

number signifies Perfection, and the second Universality, what can they

signify, when put together, other than Universal Perfection? Wherefore

she was properly called Catherine,[9] which signifies, as has been

shown, Universality."

This, and some three or four hundred closely printed pages of similar

material, has recently (1851) been published at a price, which only a

very large circulation could make possible. "And yet," cry the priests

and priest-ridden rulers of the nations for whom this spiritual food

is provided, "we are accused of keeping our people in ignorance, and

discouraging reading! On the contrary, we carefully teach our flocks,

and seek but to provide them wholesome instead of poisonous mental

food. Here is reading, calculated to make men good Christians, good

subjects—and to keep them quiet."

[Sidenote: IMMORTALITY OF FALSEHOOD.]

Volumes might yet be written, and not superfluously, though many have

been written already, on the deliberate, calculated, and intentional

soul-murder perpetrated by this "safe" literature! And it is curious

to mark how this poor sainted Catherine, and her "blessed" confessor

are still active agents for evil nearly five hundred years after the

sepulchre has closed on them!

"Like vampyres they steal from their tombs,

To suck out life's pith with their lying,"

as a poet sings, who has well marked the working of saints and

saint-worship in that unhappy land.

Truth is immortal! as is often said. Yes! but men do not perhaps

so often consider, that, as far as human ken may extend, falsehood

unhappily is in its consequences equally immortal.

CHAPTER III.

THE FACTS OF THE CASE.

Little reliable information as to the real unmiraculous events of

Catherine Benincasa's life is to be obtained, as has been seen, from

the pages of her professed biographer. But there is another pietistic

work, forming part of the same "Ecclesiastical Library," in which

Father Raymond's book has been recently reprinted, that offers somewhat

better gleanings to the inquirer into the facts of the case. This is

a reprint in four volumes (Milan, 1843–4) of the Saint's Letters,

with the annotations of the Jesuit, Father Frederick Burlamacchi.

These letters had been already several times published, when the

learned Lucchese Jesuit undertook to edit them in the beginning of the

eighteenth century. The former editions were imperfect, incorrect,

and uncommented. But the Jesuit, jesuitlike, has done his work well;

and his notes, appended to the end of each letter, contain abundant

information respecting the persons to whom they are addressed, the

events and people alluded to in them, and, wherever attainable, the

dates at which they were written. To the labours therefore of Father

Burlamacchi is due most of the information thrown together in the

following concise account of Catherine's career; in which it is

intended, leaving aside saintship and miracles for a moment, to give

the reader a statement of those facts only which a sceptical inquirer

may admit to be historical.

[Sidenote: ACCEPTANCE BY THE "MANTELLATE."]

Thus denuded of all devotional "improvement," and of all those portions

of the narrative which alone clerical writers have for the most part

thought much worth preserving, the story can present but a very

skeleton outline indeed; for the notices of the Saint to be met with in

contemporary lay writers are singularly few and scanty.

Catherine was one of the youngest of a family of twenty-five children.

Her twin sister died a few days after her birth. At a very early age

she was observed to be taciturn, and solitary in her habits; and was

remarkable for the small quantity of nourishment she took. At about

twelve years old she manifested her determination to devote herself to

a religious life. The modes of this manifestation, and the difficulties

she encountered in carrying her wishes into execution against the

opposition of her family, as related by her biographer, are curious;

but cannot be admitted into this chapter of "facts."

Some few years later than this, it should seem,—but Father Raymond's

aversion to dates does not permit us to ascertain exactly at what

age,—Catherine, with much difficulty, and being confined to her

bed by illness at the time, persuaded her mother to go to certain

religious women attached to the order of St. Dominic, and prefer to

them her petition to be admitted among them. These devotees were

termed—"Mantellate di S. Domenico,"—"the cloaked women of St.

Dominic;" and they appear to have been bound by the vows of chastity,

poverty, and obedience. But they were not strictly nuns, as they

were not cloistered, but lived each in her own habitation, and went

about the city freely. On these grounds the Mantellate made much

difficulty about receiving Catherine into their society; alleging,

that they conferred their habit only on widows, or elderly single

women, as scandal would be caused by a young woman leading a single but

uncloistered life. On being further urgently entreated, however, on the

behalf of Catherine, they agreed to send a deputation of their body to

visit the sick girl, promising to receive her, if it should be found

that, though young, she was not pretty. The deputed judges came; and to

Catherine's great delight pronounced favourably as to the absence of

any disqualifying personal charms; though the more gallant confessor

insinuates, that their decision was in great part influenced by the

effects of illness on the candidate's appearance. She was accordingly

made a sister of St. Dominic, and placed under the spiritual guidance

and direction of the friars of that order.

Then we have exceedingly copious accounts of penitences, austerities,

and abstinence, which, though in all probability true to a frightful

degree, yet, certainly cannot, as related by Father Raymond, be

accepted as unmiraculous truths. One circumstance mentioned by him,

however, at this point of his narrative, does not seem liable to any

suspicion, and is worth noting. Her early confessors, he says, did not

believe the miraculousness of her fasts and sufferings.

From this period to the end of her life we have accounts of her

frequent, apparently daily, "ecstasies," or fits. And it is interesting

to observe, that the descriptions of these seizures given by her

biographer on more than one occasion, show them to have been very

evidently of a cataleptic nature. The Dominican monk of course has

not, or at least does not manifest, the least suspicion that these

"ecstasies" were attributable to any other than a directly miraculous

cause. But his account is sufficiently accurate to render the matter

satisfactorily clear to modern readers.

[Sidenote: FATHER RAYMOND'S DOUBTS.]

The passage, in which he first speaks of these fits, of his own doubts

concerning the nature of them, and especially of the mode he adopted to

arrive at a correct decision on this point, is sufficiently curious.

"Shortly[10] afterwards," he says, having been telling the story of

some vision, "she lost the use of her corporal senses and fell into

ecstasy. Hence proceeded all the wonderful things that subsequently

took place, both as regards her abstinence, such as is not practised

by others, her admirable teaching, and the manifest miracles, which

Almighty God, even during her lifetime, showed before our eyes.

Wherefore, since here is the foundation, the root, and the origin of

all her holy works.... I sought every means and every way, by which I

might investigate whether her operations were from the Lord, or from

another source,—whether they were true or fictitious. For I reflected,

that now was the time of that third beast with the leopard's skin, by

which hypocrites are pointed out; and that in my own experience I had

found some, especially among the women, who easily deceive themselves,

and are more readily seduced by the enemy, as was manifested in the

case of the first mother of us all. Other matters also presented

themselves to my mind, which constrained me to remain uncertain and

dubious concerning this matter. While I was thus in doubt, unable

to acquire a strong conviction on either side of the question, and

anxiously wishing to be guided by Him, who can neither deceive nor be

deceived, it struck me, that if I could be certain, that by means of

her prayers I had obtained from the Lord a great and unusual sense of

contrition for my sins, beyond anything I was wont to feel, this should

be for me a perfect proof that all her operations proceeded from the

Holy Ghost."

He then recounts at length, what may be as well told in a few

words,—how he besought her to pray for him, telling her, that he

desired to have a proof of the efficacy of her prayer by being

conscious of an unusually strong sense of contrition within

himself,—how she promised that he assuredly should have this

proof,—how he was next day confined to his bed by illness, and so weak

as to be hardly able to speak; and how, being then visited and exhorted

by Catherine, who herself left with difficulty a sick bed to come

to him, he _did_ feel especially and unusually contrite; and so the

required proof was complete, and he was ever after ready to accept any

amount of miraculous performance on the part of the Saint with perfect

faith in its reality and sanctity.

Did the diplomatist General of the Dominicans really think that he had

obtained the _proof_, he says he wished for? Were the other women, whom

he had deemed impostors or dupes of the evil one, equally devoted to

and in the hands of the Dominican Order, equally fervent and promising

in their vocation of saintship, and equally endowed with the strength

of character and will, which united to her physical infirmities,

rendered Catherine so rarely and highly valuable an instrument for the

promotion of "religion" and the glory of the order?—questions, which

must be left to the consideration of the reader. On a subsequent

occasion, Father Raymond describes[11] more at length the nature of the

seizure, to which Catherine was subject. We are told that,—

[Sidenote: HER ECSTASIES.]

"Whenever the remembrance of her sacred husband,"—by which phrase

thousands of times repeated in the course of his work, the monk always

alludes to our Saviour,—"became a little refreshed in that holy mind,

_she withdrew herself as much as she could_ from her corporal senses;

and her extremities, that is to say, her hands and her feet became

contracted and deadened; her fingers first. Then her limbs became so

strongly fixed both in themselves, and attached to the places which

they touched, that it would have been more possible to break them to

pieces than to remove them in any wise. The eyes also were perfectly

closed; and the neck was rendered so rigid, that it was not a little

dangerous to her to touch her neck at such moments."

The frequency and duration of these attacks appear to have increased.

At a later period[12] of his narrative, Father Raymond tells us that

"the inferior and sensitive part of her nature abandoned her for

the greater part of her time, and left her deprived of sensation.

Of which," he says, "we are assured a thousand times by seeing and

touching her arms and her hands so rigidified, that it would have been

easier to break the bone, than remove them from the position in which

they were. The eyes were completely shut; the ears did not hear any

sound however great, and all the bodily senses were entirely deprived

of their proper action."

These passages will leave little doubt on the minds of any who have

witnessed the phenomena of catalepsy, that Catherine was habitually

subject to attacks of that complaint. The hint to be derived from

the writer's declaration, that she threw herself into this state "as

much as she could," is worthy of notice; and will not seem surprising

to those who have studied this form of disease. Those also, who have

watched the physical phenomena of animal magnetism, will not fail to

remark the similarity of the facts recorded of Catherine, to those they

have been accustomed to observe.

For several years of her life after her profession, and previous to

1376, we find various undated intimations of her being in different

cities of Tuscany; and Father Raymond has recorded her complaints,

that people both secular and of "the order," had been scandalised by

her frequent travelling, whereas she had never gone any whither, she

declares, except for the salvation of souls. But when it is remembered

what travelling was in those days, and that to go from Siena to

Florence, Pisa, or Lucca, was to cross the frontier of her own country,

and traverse the dominions of foreign and often hostile states, it

seems strange, that a young girl of obscure origin, and necessarily

with small pecuniary resources at her command, should have found the

means of travelling about the world, accompanied, as she appears

always to have been, by a suite of confessors and other ecclesiastical

followers. To render these journeyings yet more difficult and puzzling,

we find contemporary mention of her frequent illness. She is again and

again confined to her bed by fever, and "her ordinary infirmities,"

and "accustomed sufferings;"—a state of things that would seem to put

out of the question for her the wandering mendicant friar's ordinary

inexpensive mode of locomotion.

[Sidenote: THE PAPAL SEE AT AVIGNON.]

Not a word, however, is to be found throwing light on any such

difficulties; and they must be left to the reader, as they present

themselves. It may be noted, however,—rather, though, to the increase

than to the lessening of the strangeness of the circumstances,—that

by special Papal Bull she was permitted to carry with her a portable

travelling altar, and the confessors who accompanied her were specially

licensed to absolve all such penitents as came to the Saint for

spiritual advice and edification.

In the year 1376 Catherine was in her twenty-ninth year; and we then

come to the most important and most remarkable incident in her career.

At that time Gregory XI., the last of seven French popes, who had

succeeded one another in the chair of St. Peter, was living at Avignon,

where for the last seventy-three years the Papal Court had resided to

the infinite discontent and considerable injury of Italy. To put an

end to this absenteeism, and bring back the Pontiff, and all the good

things that would follow in his train, was the cherished wish of all

good Italians, and especially of all Italian churchmen. Petrarch had

urgently pressed Gregory's predecessor, Urban V., to accomplish the

desired change; Dante had at an earlier period laboured to accomplish

the same object. But it was not altogether an easy step to take. The

French Cardinals who surrounded the Pope at Avignon were of course

eager to keep him and the Court in their own country. The King of

France was equally anxious to detain him. The French Pope's likings and

prejudices of course pointed in the same direction. Rome too was very

far just then from offering an agreeable or inviting residence. The

dominions of the Church were in a state of almost universal rebellion.

The turbulence of the great Roman barons was such, that going to live

among them seemed as safe and as pleasant as finding a residence in a

den of ruffians.

Thus all the representations of the Italian Church, and all the

spiritual and temporal interests, which so urgently needed the ruler's

presence in his dominions, had for some years past not sufficed to

bring back the Pope to Rome. Under these circumstances Catherine, the

obscure Sienese dyer's illiterate daughter, determined to try her

powers of persuasion and argument on the Pontiff, and proceeded to

Avignon for that purpose in the summer of 1376. In the September of

that same year, the Pope set out on his return to Rome! The dyer's

daughter succeeded in her enterprise, and moved the centre of Europe

once more back again to its old place in the eternal city!

It should seem, that she was also charged by the government of

Florence, then at war with the Pope, to make their peace with him. And

this object also, though it was not accomplished on the occasion of her

visit to Avignon, she appears to have subsequently contributed to bring

to a satisfactory termination. But it is remarkable, that in none of

the six letters to Gregory, written in the early months of 1376, does

she speak a word on the subject of Florence. The great object of her

anxiety is the Pope's return to Rome. There are four letters extant

written by her[13] to Gregory, while she was in Avignon. But neither

in these is the business of the Florentines touched on. So that we

must suppose, says Father Burlamacchi in his notes to Letter VII.,

that this affair was treated by the Pope and the Saint in personal

interviews,[14] or in other letters now lost.

[Sidenote: HER LETTERS TO POPE GREGORY.]

But it seems strange, that she should write elaborate letters to a

person inhabiting the same town, and with whom she was doubtless in

the habit of having frequent personal intercourse. And the suspicion

naturally arises that these compositions were intended, at all events

in great measure, for the perusal of others besides the person to whom

they were avowedly written. One of them is extant in the form of a

Latin translation by Father Raymond. It is true, that that language was

probably the only medium of communication between the Italian Saint

and the French Pope. Nevertheless, the question,—Did this letter ever

originally exist in any other form than the Dominican's Latin presents

itself.

The following testimony however of the historian Ammirato, who wrote

about two hundred years after the events of which we are speaking,

seems to show decisively, that from her own time to that of the author,

she was generally considered to have been the principal cause of the

restoration of the Papal Court to Rome.

"There was living," he writes,[15] "in those days a young virgin born

in Siena, who from the great austerity of her life, from the fervour of

her zeal of charity, and indefatigable perseverance in all good works,

was even in her lifetime deemed holy by all, and is so by the writer of

these lines, though the reader may perceive, that he has no special

devotion to her. Nor was this opinion conceived without the appearance

to many persons of wonderful signs of a miraculous and supernatural

character." Having briefly described these wonders in words, which

certainly do not reveal any disbelief of them in his own mind, he

continues thus:—

"It came into the minds therefore of those, who then governed Florence,

that she might be of use in effecting a treaty of peace with the Pope.

And if they had themselves no really sincere desire for this, yet the

employment of her in the matter served to prove to others, who were

opposed to the war with the Pope, that no efforts were wanting on

their part to obtain peace. Being, therefore, urged by the war[16]

commissioners to proceed to Avignon on this mission, she did not refuse

to undertake it, but went thither, as is related by herself in one

of her letters. And it is a certain fact, not only that she was well

received and affectionately listened to by the Pope, but that by her

instances he was induced to restore the Apostolic seat to Rome."

Not having been able to bring the negotiation for peace to a

conclusion, she returned to Florence in the autumn of 1376, and

remained there living in a house provided for her by Niccolò

Soderini[17] and others connected with the government, while she

continued to use her influence in every possible way for the conclusion

of a treaty. Becoming thus well known to the Florentines, she was, says

Ammirato, "considered by some to be a bad woman, as in more recent

times, similar opinions have been held respecting Jerome Savonarola."

[Sidenote: SHE RESTORES THE POPE TO ROME.]

It should seem, however, that Catherine must have been favourably known

in Florence some years before this time from an incidental notice

of the chronicler, Del Migliore, who has recorded that in 1370 her

brothers were publicly presented with the freedom of the city. And it

is difficult to suppose that such an honour could have been conferred

on them on any other grounds than the celebrity of their saintly sister.

Muratori also testifies,[18] that Catherine contributed much to the

restoration of the Papal Court to Rome, saying that she wrote to the

Pope on the subject. He appears not to have been aware that she went

thither.

Again, Maimbourg, who took the contrary side in the great schism, which

so soon afterwards divided the Church into two camps, and who is far

from being prejudiced in favour of Catherine, admits that the Pope,

"resolved at last to re-establish the see in Rome, in consequence of

the urgent and repeated solicitations of St. Catherine of Siena."[19]

The Abate Ughelli bears his testimony[20] also to the efficacy of

Catherine's exertions in this matter.

"The greatest part," he says, "of the praise due to Gregory's return

to Rome belongs to Catherine of Siena, who with infinite courage made

the journey to Avignon, and at last induced the Pontiff to return, and

by his presence dispel those evils which had shockingly overrun all

Italy in consequence of the absence of the popes. So that it is not

surprising, that writers, who rightly understood the matter, should

have said that Catherine, the virgin of Siena, brought back to God the

abandoned Apostolical seat oil her shoulders."

It should appear, then, that it must be admitted, strange as it may

seem, among the _facts_ of the Saint's life, that the restoration of

the Pope and his Court to Rome, that great change so important to

all Europe, so long battled and struggled for and against by kings,

cardinals, and statesmen, was at last brought about by her.

Without pausing at present to look further into a result so startling,

it will be better to complete this chapter, by briefly adding the few

other authentically known facts of her story which remain to be told.

Gregory XI. died on the 27th of March, 1378. On the 7th of April

sixteen cardinals entered into conclave for the election of his

successor. Of these, eleven were Frenchmen, and all of course anxious

to elect a Frenchman. But seven out of the eleven being Limousins, were

bent on creating one of their number Pope. The other four Frenchmen

were opposed to this; and by favour of this dissension the Italians

succeeded in placing an Italian, Bartolomeo Prignani, in the sacred

chair, who took the name of Urban VI.

This took place while Catherine was still at Florence. There are two

letters written by her thence to the new Pope. In one of them she

alludes to a "scandalo," which had occurred; and was in truth nothing

less than a city tumult, in which some turbulent rioters of the

anti-church party had threatened her life. It is recorded,[21] that

the Saint intrepidly presented herself before the mob, saying, "I am

Catherine. Kill me, if you will!"—on which they were abashed and slunk

off.

[Sidenote: HER DEATH.]

Two other letters to Urban VI. follow, which appear to have been

written from Siena; and on the 28th of November, 1378, in obedience

to the Papal commands, she arrived in Rome. There are then four more

letters written to the Pope after that date; and on the 29th day of

April, 1380, she died at the age of thirty-three, after long and

excruciating sufferings.

Father Raymond was at Genoa at that time; and declares that in that

city at the hour of her death, he heard a voice communicating to him a

last message from Catherine, which he afterwards found she had uttered

on her death-bed, word for word as he heard it. "And of this," he adds,

solemnly, "let that Eternal Truth, which can neither deceive nor be

deceived, be witness." Nevertheless, some may be inclined to think that

this statement has no right to be included among the _facts_ of the

case. Such sceptics may, however, be reminded that it is a certain and

not altogether unimportant fact, that Father Raymond makes this solemn

assertion.

The extant letters of the Saint, 198 in number, are also facts, of

a very singular and puzzling nature. But it will be more convenient

to defer any examination of this part of the subject to a future and

separate chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHURCH VIEW OF THE CASE.

Authentic history, conceiving herself justified, probably, in leaving

a saint in the hands of her own professional advisers and chroniclers,

has meddled so little with Catherine biographically, that it was easy

to give within the limits of a short chapter a tolerably complete

summary of all that can be said to be really known of her story. The

professional records of her career as Saint and Thaumaturgist on the

other hand are exuberant, minute in detail, and based on abundance of

that sort of evidence to their veracity, which the writers of such

narratives are wont to consider as most irrefragable and conclusive.

And these stories are by no means deficient in interest even to those,

whose habits of mind lead them to distinguish widely between such

and the materials for what they would admit to be history. For it

is a genuine historical fact, and one of no light importance, that

these things _were_ believed, were written by men of learning, and

are _still_ believed by thousands. It is an historical, as well as a

very curious psychological fact, that the statements in question were

considered by the writers and thousands of readers of them during many

generations to have been proved to be true by the evidence adduced. And

it is an historical question, far more interesting, unfortunately, than

easy to be solved, who were the believers of the officially received

narrative, and who were not.

[Sidenote: HER AUSTERITIES.]

For these reasons the Church view of the case, is at least as important

a part of any satisfactory account of the Saint as the lay view,

which was the subject of the last chapter. But all attempt to state

the former with the completeness with which it has been sought to lay

the latter before the reader, would, within any limits endurable by

Englishmen of the nineteenth century, be wholly futile. It will be

necessary to proceed by way of specimen-giving. And in the present case

that compendious mode of examination will not be so unsatisfactory as

it sometimes is found to be. For the masses of visions, penitences,

revelations, and miracles recorded, with their respective confirmatory

evidences, are so perfectly homogeneous in their nature, that the

handful may very confidently be accepted as a fair sample of the

contents of the sack.

The austerities and self-inflictions by which she prepared herself for

her career internally, and at the same time gave proof of her vocation

externally to those around her, began at an almost incredibly early

age, and went on increasing gradually in intensity and monstrosity

till they pass from the probable to the highly improbable, and thence

to the manifestly impossible and miraculous. The line of demarcation

which limits the latter, will be differently drawn by different minds.

But the perfectly authentic records of human achievement in this

department, are such as warn us against absolutely refusing our belief

to any horrible self-torment under which life may possibly be retained.

At _five_ years old, it was her practice in going up stairs to kneel at

each step to the Virgin.

She habitually flogged herself, and induced other children to imitate

her in doing so, at six years of age. At seven, she deprived herself

of a great portion of her food, secretly giving it to her brother, or

throwing it to the cats. At the same age, she would watch from the

window to see when a Dominican monk passed, and as soon as ever he had

moved on, she used to run out and kiss the spot on the pavement on

which he had placed his feet.

[Sidenote: HER GREAT SIN.]

At twelve years old, being then marriageable, her mother begged her to

comb her hair and "wash her face oftener." But this she steadfastly

refused to do, till her mother having requested a married sister for

whom Catherine had the warmest affection, to use her influence with

her, she yielded, and began to pay some attention to the cleanliness

of her person and the neatness of her dress. "When she afterwards

confessed this fault to me," says the "Blessed" Raymond, "she spoke

of it with such sighs and tears, that you would have supposed she had

been guilty of some great sin. And as I know that, now that she is in

heaven, it is lawful for me to reveal such things as redound to her

praise, though they were heretofore secret, I have determined to insert

here what passed between her and me on this subject. For she frequently

made a general[22] confession to me, and always when she came to this

point, she bitterly accused herself with sobs and tears. So that

although I knew that it is the peculiarity of virtuous souls to believe

that sin exists where in truth it does not,"—(observe the morality

and think a little of the practical and psychological consequences of

it)—"and to deem it great, where it is in fact small, nevertheless,

since Catherine accused herself as meriting eternal punishment for the

above fault, I was obliged to ask her, whether in acting as she had

done, she had at all proposed or wished to violate her vow of chastity?

To which she replied, that no such thought had ever entered her heart.

I again asked her, whether, since she had no intention of transgressing

her vow of virginity, she had done this in order to please any man in

particular, or all men in general? And she answered that nothing gave

her so much pain, as to see men, or be seen by them, or to be where any

of them were. So that whenever any of her father's workmen, who lived

in the house with him, came into any place where she chanced to be,

she used to run from them, as if they had been serpents, so that all

wondered at her." (Note the general state of manners and individual

state of mind indicated by the fact, that such conduct should be deemed

a praiseworthy proof of maidenly purity!) "She never," she said,

"placed herself at the window, or at the door of the house to look at

those who passed."—(Surely the Saint forgot her pious habit of looking

out for the Dominicans, in order to kiss their footsteps.)—"Then I

asked her in reply, for what reason this act of having attended to

her dress, especially if it were not done in excess, merited eternal

punishment? She answered, that she had loved her sister too much, and

appeared to love her more than she loved God, for which reason she wept

inconsolably, and did most bitter penance. And on my wishing to reply,

that, although there might have been some excess, yet seeing that there

had been no bad or even vain intention, there was nothing contrary to

divine precept, she lifted up her eyes and voice to God, crying, 'O

Lord my God, what kind of spiritual father have I now, who excuses my

sins? Was it right then, Father, that this bad and most worthless

creature, who without labour or merit of her own has received so many

favours from her Creator, should spend her time in adorning this putrid

flesh, at the instigation of any mortal? Hell, I think, would have been

no sufficient punishment for me, if the divine mercy had not shown

me pity.' Thereupon," concludes the conscientious confessor, "I was

constrained to be silent." He felt that his penitent's view of her sin

was the just one, as indeed was sufficiently shown by the following

conclusion of the story of the Saint's temporary backsliding.

Her sister continued to persuade her to pay attention to her person.

"But the omnipotent Lord not being able any longer to endure that his

chosen bride should in any way be kept at a distance from him, removed

that obstacle which prevented her from uniting herself to God. For

Bonaventura, the Saint's married sister, who instigated her to vanity,

being near the time of her confinement, died in child-birth, young as

she was. Observe, O reader, how displeasing and hateful to God it is

to impede or divert those who wish to serve him. This Bonaventura was,

as has been said, a very worthy woman, both in her conduct and in her

conversation; but because she endeavoured to draw back to the world her

who wished to serve God, she was smitten by the Lord, and punished with

a very painful death." Take care, therefore, what you do, all mothers

and sisters, of any who may seem to have a vocation for the cloister,

lest you share the fate of Bonaventura Benincasa, doomed by God to a

fearful death for having persuaded her sister to wash her face!

And to such practical teaching is the Saint's story moralised to this

day even as 500 years ago!

[Sidenote: HER FASTING.]

At about this period of Catherine's life—to return to the series of

her penances and mortifications—she wholly abandoned the use of animal

food. At fifteen she left off wine. At twenty she gave up bread, living

only on uncooked vegetables. She used to sleep but one quarter of an

hour in the twenty-four; always flogged herself till the blood streamed

from her three times a day; and lived three years without speaking.

She wore a chain of iron round her body, which gradually eat its way

into her flesh. And finally, she remained wholly without food for many

years. This Father Raymond declares to have been the case within his

own knowledge, and adds with much triumph, "that we know from Scripture

that Moses fasted twice during a space of forty days, and Elias once,

and that our Saviour accomplished the same, as the Gospel tells us: but

a fast of many years has not hitherto been known."

Passing from the Saint's achievements in this kind, we find her equally

distancing all competitors in the matter of personal and familiar

communication and conversation with the Deity.

She began to have visions at six years old. Returning home one day

about that time, through the streets of Siena, she saw in the sky

_immediately over the Dominican's church_ a throne, with Christ sitting

on it dressed in Papal robes, accompanied by St. Paul, St. Peter, and

St. John.

At a later period, Christ appeared to her daily as soon as she

retired to her cell, as she informed Father Raymond, for the purpose

of teaching her the doctrines of religion, which, said she to her

confessor, "no man or woman ever taught me, but only our Lord Jesus

Christ himself, sometimes by means of inspiration, and sometimes by

means of a clear bodily appearance, manifest to the bodily senses, and

talking with me, as I now talk with you."

Again, a little farther on in her career, we read that "the Lord

appeared to Catherine very frequently, and remained with her longer

than he had been wont to do, and sometimes brought with him his most

glorious mother, sometimes St. Dominic, and sometimes both of them:

but mostly he came alone and talked with her, as a friend with a most

intimate friend; in such sort, that, as she herself secretly and

blushingly confessed to me, the Lord and she frequently recited the

Psalms together, walking up and down the chamber, as two monks or

priests are wont to recite the service. Oh, marvel! Oh, astonishment!

Oh, manifestation of divine familiarity unheard of in our times!"

exclaims the biographer: as he truly well might!

Very soon after this, having tried in vain, as she informed her

confessor, to learn to read, she one day prayed God, that, if it was

His will that she should read, he would teach her at once, to avoid

further loss of time in learning. She rose from her knees perfectly

well able to read any writing as readily and quickly as any learned man

could. This Father Raymond heard her do; but on asking her to spell

the words she could not, and did not know the letters; a proof, says

the confessor, of the reality of the miracle! In another place it is

incidentally mentioned that she read especially the _Psalter_. Does

not this, joined to the Dominican's _proof_ of the miracle, seem to

indicate, that what passed for reading was in fact repeating by heart?

[Sidenote: HER MARRIAGE.]

On a subsequent day, in carnival time, while the others in the Saint's

family were carousing, and she was alone in her chamber, Christ

appeared to her, and said that he was come to keep his promise of

marrying her. Then appeared the Virgin, St. John, St. Paul, and St.

Dominic, and David with a harp, on which he played very sweetly. The

Virgin then took Catherine's hand in hers, and holding out the fingers

towards her son, asked if he would deign to espouse her "in the faith.

To which the only begotten Son of God graciously consented, and drew

forth a golden ring, with four pearls and a magnificent diamond in

it, which ring he placed with his own most holy right hand on the

ring-finger of the right hand of Catherine, saying, 'Behold I marry

you in the faith to me your Creator and Saviour.'" After adding some

further exhortations, the vision disappeared; but as a proof of its

reality, there remained the ring on the finger of Catherine! It was

not indeed visible to any eyes but those of the Saint herself, adds

Father Raymond with perfect composure and contentment; but she saw

it, inasmuch as she has many times confessed to me, though with many

blushes, that she always continued to see the ring on her finger, and

was never long without looking at it.

One day while she was praying to God to _renew her heart_, Christ

suddenly appeared to her—or, in the words of the biographer, her

eternal spouse came to her as usual—opened her side, removed her

heart, and carried it away with him. So truly was this done, that for

several days she declared herself to be without any heart, pointing out

to those who objected that it was impossible, that with God nothing

is impossible. After some days Christ again appeared, bearing in his

hand what seemed a human heart, red and shining, again opened her side,

put the new heart in, and closed the aperture, saying, "See, dearest

daughter; as I took from you the other day your heart, so now I will

give you mine, with which you will always live!" And as a proof of the

miracle, there remained evermore in her side the scar, as she herself

and her female companions had often assured Father Raymond. A further

confirmation of the fact was moreover to be seen in the remarkable

circumstance, that from that day forth, the saint was unable to say, as

she had been wont, "Lord, I commend to thee my heart," but always said,

"Lord, I commend to thee thy heart."

Another time the first person of the Trinity appeared to her "in a

vision," and she seemed to see him pull from out his mouth our Saviour

Christ in his human form. Then he pulled from out his breast St.

Dominic, and said to her, "Dearest daughter, I have begotten these two

sons, the one by natural generation, the other by sweet and loving

adoption." Then the Almighty enters into a detailed comparison between

Christ and St. Dominic, and ends by saying, that the figure of the

latter had now been shown her "because he resembled much the body of my

most holy naturally begotten and only son."

Once when she was carrying some comforts to a sick poor woman, Christ,

"joking with her," suddenly made the things so heavy that she could

hardly carry them. Then, when she wished to leave the sick woman,

still jesting, he took from her the power of moving. Being troubled,

therefore, and yet at the same time smiling, she said to her heavenly

spouse, who was jesting with her, "Why, dearest husband, have you thus

tricked me? Does it seem to you well to keep me here, and thus mock and

confuse me?" She adds more remonstrances of this sort, and at last,

"the eternal husband seeing the secret annoyance of his wife, and not

being in a manner able to endure it, he restored to her her previous

strength."

[Sidenote: THE BEGGAR-MAN.]

Upon another occasion, when she was at her devotions in the church of

the Dominicans, a poor beggar, _who appeared to be about thirty-two or

thirty-three years old_, implored her to bestow on him some clothing.

The Saint bade him wait a minute; and returning into a private chapel,

she drew off by the feet, "cautiously and modestly," says Father

Raymond, an under garment without sleeves, which she wore under her

outer clothing because of the cold, and very gladly gave it to the poor

man. Upon which the beggar replied, "Madonna, since you have furnished

me with a woollen garment, I pray you to provide me with one of linen

also." To which she willingly consented, saying, "Follow me, and I will

readily give you what you ask." So she returned to her father's house,

followed by the poor man, and going into a store room, where the linen

clothing of her father and brothers was kept, she took a shirt and

pair of drawers and joyfully gave them to him. But he, when he had got

these, did not desist from begging, saying, "Madonna, what can I do

with this garment, which has no sleeves to cover the arms. I beg you

to give me some sleeves of some sort, that so my whole clothing may be

your gift." Upon this, Catherine, not the least displeased with his

importunity, searched all over the house to find some sleeves to give

him. And finding by chance, hanging on a peg, a new gown belonging to

the servant, which she had never yet worn, she instantly stripped the

sleeves from it, and gave them to the beggar. But he, when he had taken

them, still persevered, saying, "See now, Madonna, you have clothed

me, for which may He reward you, for love of whom you have done it.

But I have a companion in the hospital, who is in extreme want of

clothing. If you will give him some garment, I would willingly carry

it to him from you." Upon which, Catherine, in no wise displeased at

the poor man's reiterated demands, or cooled in the fervour of her

charity, bethought her how she could find some clothing to send to the

poor man in the hospital. But, in the words of the biographer monk,

"remembering that all the family, except her father, disapproved of

her almsgiving, and kept all they had under lock and key, to prevent

her from giving the things away to the poor, and further discreetly

considering that she had taken away enough from the servant, who was

herself poor, and therefore ought not to have everything taken from

her, she found that her resources were confined wholly to herself.

She, therefore, seriously discussed in her mind the question, whether

she ought to give the poor wretch the only garment which remained to

her. Charity argued for the affirmative; but maidenly modesty opposed

a negative. And in this contest charity was overcome by charity. That

is to say, the charity which pities the bodies of our neighbour, was

conquered by the charity which regards their souls; since Catherine

considered that great scandal would arise if she were to go naked, and

that souls ought not to be scandalised for the sake of any alms to

the body." Accordingly, she told the beggar, that she would willingly

have given him that, her only covering, if it had been lawful to do

so—but that it was not permissible. "I know," said he, smiling, "that

you would give me anything you could. Adieu!" And so he went. On the

following night, however, Christ came to her, holding in his hand the

garment she had given the poor man, now all adorned with pearls and

gems, and said, "Dost thou know this gown? Thou gavest it to _me_

yesterday, and charitably clothedst me when I was naked, saving me from

the pain of cold and shame. Now I will give thee from my sacred body a

garment, which, though invisible to men, shall preserve both thy body

and soul from cold." So saying, he pulled from out the wound in his

side a garment of the colour of blood, exceedingly resplendent, and

clothed her with it. And, in fact, so perfectly did it fulfil, though

invisible, the purpose for which it was given, that the Saint never

afterwards wore any under garment, either in summer or winter, nor did

she ever more suffer from the cold.

[Sidenote: THE HEAVENLY GARMENT.]

It occurred frequently, that the most hardened sinners were reclaimed

by her intervention, but not by the means of exhortation or

persuasion—(in this there would have been nothing worth telling)—but

by direct application to God, and asking the required conversion as a

favour to herself. There was a certain inveterate reprobate in Siena,

who having led an exceedingly wicked life, was near his death, and

obstinately refused to confess, or humble himself in any way. "Fallen

into final impenitence, he continually committed that sin against the

Holy Ghost, which is not forgiven either in this world, or the world

to come, and thus deservedly was going down to eternal torments," says

Father Raymond. In short, if he had lived anywhere but in Siena, or if

his parish priest had not bethought him of applying to Catherine in the

difficulty, he would infallibly have perished eternally. But what luck

some people have! Catherine, on being applied to, undertook the case

immediately, but found it a rather more difficult one than usual; for,

on praying to Christ to rescue the dying sinner, he answered her by

saying, "The iniquities of this man, horrible blasphemer as he is, have

risen up to heaven. Not only has he blasphemed with his mouth me and my

saints, but he has even thrown into the fire a picture, in which was my

image, and that of my mother, and others of my saints. It is, therefore

just that he should burn in eternal fire. Let him alone, my dearest

daughter, for he is worthy of death." Catherine, however, replied with

many arguments, given at length by her biographer; but, nevertheless,

for a long time she could not prevail. From five in the evening till

the morning, Catherine, watching and tearful, disputed with the Lord

for the salvation of that soul, he alleging the sinner's many and

grave sins, which justice required to be punished, and she insisting

on the mercy, for the sake of which he had become incarnate. At last

the Saint conquered, and at dawn of day Christ said, "Dearest daughter,

I have granted your prayer, and I will now convert this man, for whom

you pray so fervently." So from that hour all went well. The sinner

began to confess, the priest began to absolve him, and he died within

a few hours. But it was a very near run thing. For the priest who had

applied to Catherine had found on reaching her house, that she was in

a trance or ecstasy, and could not be spoken with. He waited as long

as he could, and when he could wait no longer, he left a message with

a companion of Catherine's to the desired effect. As it was, all went

well. But it is clear that if a few hours more had been lost, if the

Saint's trance had lasted longer, or her long argument on the subject

had not been concluded when it was, or if the woman with whom the

message was left, had made any blunder about the matter, or forgotten

it, the man's evil life would have produced its natural consequences

according to God's eternal law, and he would have been damned.

[Sidenote: MIRACLE DONE ON HER MOTHER.]

It has been suggested by some, eager to exercise the candour which can

see whatever of excellence there may be in every system, that the many

stories of Catherine's successful efforts to convert the most hardened

sinners, are a proof of her having possessed that confidence in the

latent good in every human heart which is one of the best results of

a truly philosophic faith in God; and which would in truth go far to

show that her heart unconsciously, if not her intellect consciously,

had placed her in advance of the ethics and theology of her day. But

the story just related fatally destroys any such agreeable theory. The

conversion of the sinner was to be achieved not by any human action on

his heart, but by wholly different means. The Saint did not even seek

to see or speak with him. The conversion was to be a miracle, worked as

a special favour granted to her. The dying sinner's moral capabilities

had nothing whatever to do with the matter.

There is another even more remarkable instance in which the Saint

prevails with God to work a miracle, which He declares at the time

to be hurtful to the person who is the subject of it. Catherine's

mother, Lapa, was dying, but was most unwilling to die. Her daughter,

therefore, prayed that her health might be restored to her, but was

answered that it was better for Lapa that she should leave this life

then. With this answer she returns to her mother, and endeavours to

reconcile her to the necessity of then dying, but in vain. Thus the

Saint became mediator between the Lord and her mother, supplicating the

one not to take Lapa out of the world against her will, and exhorting

the other to be resigned to the disposition of the Lord. But Catherine,

who with her prayers, constrained, as it were, the Omnipotent, could

not, by her exhortation, bend the weak mind of her mother. So the Lord

said to his wife, "Tell your mother that if she will not leave the body

now, the time will come when she shall greatly desire death, and not

be able to find it." Lapa, however, could not make up her mind to die,

nor would she confess in preparation for death; and, accordingly, died

unshriven. Then her daughter cried to God, and said, "Oh, Lord God! are

these then the promises you made me, that no one of this house should

perish? * * * * * And now I see my mother dead without the sacraments

of the church! By thy infinite mercy I pray thee, do not let me be

defrauded in such a manner! Nor will I move hence for an instant as

long as I live, until thou shalt render back my mother to life." So

God, although he knew that it was bad for her mother, recalled her

again to life; and she lived to be eighty-nine years old, surviving all

her numerous children, tried by much adversity, and often longing for

that death which she had before so unwisely rejected.

[Sidenote: THE STIGMATA.]

One of the most remarkable miraculous events which occurred to her was

the following, related by Father Raymond as having happened at Pisa in

his presence. Catherine had received the sacrament, and was, as usual

with her at such times, in a trance. Her confessor and some others were

awaiting her recovery from it, when they saw her suddenly rise with a

start to a kneeling posture, with her arms stretched out horizontally,

and in a minute or two more fall prostrate. Soon afterwards she came

out of her trance, and immediately calling aside her confessor, said,

"Be it known to you, my father, that I now bear on my body the marks

of the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ." "And I," says the monk,

"having told her that I had observed as much from the movements of her

body while she was in her trance, asked her in what manner the Lord

had performed that miracle? And she said, 'I saw the crucified Lord

descending towards me with a great light, which caused me, from the

impetus of my soul to meet its Creator, to raise up my body, then I saw

five bloody rays descending from the scars of his most holy wounds, and

directing themselves to the hands and feet and heart of my body. Upon

which, knowing what the mystery was, I exclaimed, "O Lord my God, let

not, I pray you, the scars appear externally on my body; it is enough

for me to have them internally." Then, while I was yet speaking, the

rays, before they reached me, turned from blood-colour to a pure and

splendid light, and touched the five parts of my body, that is, my

hands, my feet, and my heart.' I asked her further, 'Do you now feel

in those spots any sensible pain?' To which, with a deep sigh, she

replied, 'So great is the pain I feel in all those five places, but

especially in my heart, that it appears impossible to me to live many

days, unless the Lord perform some further miracle.'"

To appreciate the importance and bearing of this miracle, the fierce

and bitter rivalry which existed between the Dominicans and Franciscans

must be borne in mind. St. Francis had received these five wounds,

the counterpart of Christ's wounds, in the same way. The marks

are familiarly known among hagiographers and their readers as the

_stigmata_, and the having received them was the crowning glory of St.

Francis, and the proud and exclusive boast of his Franciscans: and now

the Dominicans were even with them. The Sienese Pope, who canonized

Catherine, Pius II., gave his approbation to a service, in which this

reception of the _stigmata_ was prominently asserted. And so severely

was the blow felt by the indignant Franciscans, that they obtained from

the next Pope but one, Sixtus the Fourth, himself a member of their

Order, a decree to the effect that St. Francis had an exclusive right

to, and monopoly of that special miracle, and that it was accordingly

forbidden to represent St. Catherine receiving the _stigmata_ under

pain of ecclesiastical censures!

Whether the opposition monk, Sixtus, intended by this decree to assert

that no such miracle was performed on Catherine, or that it ought not

to have been performed in justice to St. Francis, or that having been

unfortunately performed, nothing ought to be said about it, is left to

the very unsatisfactory conjectures of indiscreet inquirers.

The tendency observable in many of the austerities and miracles related

of St. Catherine, to outdo the austerities and miracles of other

saints, is especially remarkable in this of the _stigmata_. The degree

in which it served the purpose of the Dominicans, is the measure of

the suspicion attaching to it. But as there is nothing incredible in

the supposition that Catherine may have imagined all she related in

her trance, so it is by no means unlikely that such diseased dreamings

may have been the natural product of a waking fancy filled with, and

dwelling on this much envied manifestation. Perhaps the condition

so providently introduced, as it seems, that the scars were not to

be visible, may be suggestive of a fraudulent intention. But, on

the other hand, it should seem, that if fraud had been planned, it

would have been very easy, for one who subjected her body to so much

self-inflicted torment, to submit to the required wounds beforehand.

[Sidenote: OTHER MIRACLES.]

In another instance there seems to be emulation of a higher model.

Wishing to give wine away to the poor against the desire of her

family, she miraculously causes a barrel to become for a long while

inexhaustible, the wine drawn from it being, at the same time, of a

much superior quality to that originally put into it.

Many details are recorded of her ministry to the sick; but, strangely

enough, the most prominent circumstances in each case, are those which

go to prove her readiness to encounter whatever was most loathesome;

and some of the particulars of her victories over the natural

repugnances of mind and body in this respect—often of a nature in no

wise conducive to, or connected with the well-being of her patient—are

far too revolting for reproduction on any English page.

The reader has now an abundant—perhaps he may think a superfluously

abundant—specimen of that part of Catherine's history which the Church

most loves to preserve, contemplate, and enlarge on, and of the kind of

teaching she draws from it—draws from it, be it again observed, for

this is an important part of the subject—at this present day.

The morality set forth by example in the tales of the Saint abstracting

the property of her relatives to give it to any mendicant who begged of

her, is more largely and accurately reduced to systematic precept in

the "Manual for Confessors," now in use as the rule for those who have

the guidance of the popular conscience. It is there laid down, that a

wife or son may "take" from the goods of a husband or father, who will

not give for the purpose, what is requisite for "good works!"

The stories which represent the Creator as capriciously reversing

his decrees with the unconscientious levity of an earthly potentate

ruled by an exacting favourite, and inflicting undeserved torment and

miserable death in accordance with the suggestions of evil passions

wholly fiend-like, are still shaping the Italian peasant's conception

of the Almighty, and thus poisoning the master well-head of all

spiritual and moral amelioration.

The depravation, or rather the annihilation of the natural conscience,

which necessarily results from attributing fearful sinfulness to

trifling and absurd omissions and inadvertences, and from installing an

admiration for useless, and often mischievous practices on the throne,

which should be occupied in the human soul by reverence for man's

homely duties, and homely affections, is still doing its appointed work

as busily and as surely as it did five hundred years ago, and has been

doing ever since,—with what results, we see.

But it is sufficient to have indicated to the reader the importance,

from this point of view, of this story of a Saint, who, alas! but

too truly "being dead, yet speaketh." It would require an analysis

extending over the whole field of national character, to trace all the

ramified evil produced by the views of God and man involved in such

stories as those related in the preceding pages. And if there were no

other reason against here attempting such an essay, it might assuredly

be urged, that such considerations have no place in a chapter devoted

to the Church view of the case.

CHAPTER V.

ST. CATHERINE AS AN AUTHOR.

The literary phase of Catherine's career and character, especially as

seen in her letters, is by no means its least curious and suggestive

aspect. The indications of what she herself was, and yet more, the

evidences obtainable from them of the undeniably exceptional and

extraordinary position she held among her contemporaries, are valuable,

and yet at the same time not a little puzzling.

Her works consist of a treatise occupying a closely printed quarto

volume, which Father Raymond describes as "a Dialogue between a Soul,

which asked four questions of the Lord, and the same Lord, who made

answer, and gave instruction in many most useful truths;" of her

letters, three hundred and seventy-three in number; and of twenty-six

prayers.

This Dialogue is entitled, "The book of Divine Doctrine, given in

person by God the Father, speaking to the mind of the most glorious and

holy Virgin, Catherine of Siena, and written down as she dictated it in

the vulgar tongue, she being the while entranced, and actually hearing

that which God spoke in her." It is stated to have been dictated by the

Saint in her father's house in Siena, a little before she went to Rome,

and to have been completed the 13th of October, 1378. This dialogue

has been divided into five parts, though no such division existed in

it, as it fell from her lips. The first part treats of Discretion; the

second of Prayer; the third of the Divine Providence; the fourth of

Obedience; and the fifth of Consummate Perfection. The four first exist

in manuscript in the original Italian, as they were taken down from the

lips of the entranced Saint; though these ancient manuscript copies

abound, we are told by the modern editor of them, Girolamo Gigli, with

such errors as frequently not only to alter the sense, but to render

it inconsistent with true orthodoxy. Of course nothing but the purest

doctrine could have been uttered by the Saint, and these dangerous

errors have been corrected. But the fifth treatise is not extant in the

original, but only in Father Raymond's Latin translation of it, from

which the published Italian version has been re-translated.

[Sidenote: HER "DIALOGUE."]

The French oratorian, Father Casimir Oudin,[23] in his Supplement of

Ecclesiastical writers, omitted by Bellarmine, quietly says, "She

wrote, or Raymond de Vineis wrote in her name, a work inscribed," &c.

&c. It is very possible, that the Frenchman's suspicion may be just.

But, with the exception of some allusions and subtleties, indicating,

perhaps, a greater acquaintance with scholastic theology than the Saint

may be thought to have possessed, there is nothing in the work itself

to belie the origin attributed to it. It could not, indeed, have been

written down from the Saint's dictation, as it professes to have been,

in the form and sequence in which we have it printed; because it is

intermingled (without any typographical or other advertisement, that

the reader is about to enter on matter of a different authorship and

pretensions)—with long passages descriptive of the Saint's mode of

receiving the revelation, written in the person of the secretary, and

bearing a strong likeness to Father Raymond's style and phraseology.

But the Saint's own utterances are exactly such as might have been

expected from such a patient, and much resemble in many respects those

which many readers have probably heard in these latter days, from

persons in all likelihood similarly affected in greater or less degree.

As the latter have often been found to bear a singular resemblance in

quality and manner to the verbose and repetitive inanities of some very

slenderly gifted extempore preacher, so these ecstatic outpourings of

St. Catherine are like the worst description of the pulpit eloquence of

her day and country. Low and gross as the taste and feeling of the age

were, especially in matters spiritual and theological, it is difficult

to imagine that Catherine could have gained any part of the great

reputation and influence she undeniably exercised in high places from

this production. The reader may see from the following passage, taken

quite at haphazard from its pages, whether his impression on this point

agrees with that of the writer.

Catherine dictates these sentences as hearing them word for word as she

repeats them, from the mouth of God!

"Know, O daughter! that no one can escape from my hands, because I am

He, who I am; and ye do not exist by yourselves, but only in so far

as ye are created by Me, who am the Creator of all things that have

existence, except only Sin, which does not exist, and therefore has

not been created by me. And because it is not in me, it is not worthy

of being loved. And therefore the Creature offends, because he loves

that which he ought not to love, which is sin, and hates Me, whom he

is bound and obliged to love; for I am supremely good, and have given

him existence by the so ardent fire of my love. But from Me men cannot

escape. Either they fall into my hands for justice on their sins, or

they fall into my hands for mercy. Open therefore the eyes of your

mind, and look at my hand, and you will see that what I have said to

you is the truth." _Then she raising her eyes in obedience to the

supreme Father_, "_saw_ enclosed in his hand the entire universe," &c.,

&c.[24]

It is evident, that this could not have been written from the Saint's

dictation. But the work may have been composed from notes taken down

while she poured forth her trance-talk. And such an hypothesis would

not be incompatible with Oudin's supposition, that the book, as we

have it, was composed by Father Raymond. In any case the staple of

its contents, if not inferior to the generality of the theological

literature of the time, shows at least no such superiority to it as

to place the author in the high and exceptional position Catherine is

proved to have occupied.

Twenty-six prayers have been preserved among the works of Saint

Catherine; and it might be supposed, that such a record of the secret

outpourings of an ardent heart in its communion with the infinite

God, sole object of its fervent aspirations and daily and nightly

meditations, would have been calculated to throw considerable light on

the character, capabilities, and mental calibre of the worshipper. But

these documents afford no glimpse of any such insight. They are not

the sort of utterances that could ever bring one human heart nearer

to another: and no assimilating power of sympathy will enable the

reader of them to advance one jot towards a knowledge of the heart from

which they proceeded. The impression they are calculated to produce,

is either that the Saint was a self-conscious actor and pretender, or

that they are not her compositions. And the latter, perhaps, may be

considered the more probable hypothesis.

[Sidenote: HER PRAYERS.]

Though addressed in form to the Deity, there is little that can

be accurately called prayer. The speaker, or writer rather,

seems continually to forget his avowed object, and runs off into

long statements of the nature and attributes of the Deity, and

ecclesiastical propositions based thereon, evidently prompted rather

by didactic views on mortal hearers, than by effort to hold communion

with the Almighty. It is all dry, cold, repetitive, verbose theology,

instead of the spontaneous warm utterances of either a thankful or a

contrite heart;—neither the expression of an earnest spirit, nor the

production of an eloquent writer.

There remain the letters, by far the most interesting and valuable of

the Saint's reputed works. They are 373 in number, and form two stout

quarto volumes of the Lucca edition. In the four octavo volumes of the

cheap Milan reprint before mentioned, only the first 198 are given;

though there is no word of notice or explanation to indicate, that the

work is not complete. On the contrary, the fourth volume is entitled

"fourth and last;" and we are left to the hopeful conjecture, that the

devout editors found the speculation so bad a one commercially, that

they thought fit to close the publication suddenly, and leave their

subscribers to discover as late as might be, that they had purchased

an imperfect book.

The 373 letters of the entire collection have among them many addressed

to kings, popes, cardinals, bishops, conventual bodies, and political

corporations, as well as a great number written to private individuals.

And it seems strange, that among so many correspondents of classes,

whose papers are likely to be preserved, and many of whom, especially

the monastic communities, would assuredly have attached a high value

to such documents, no one original of any of these letters should have

been preserved.

[Sidenote: ORIGINALS OF HER LETTERS.]

Girolamo Gigli, the editor of the quarto edition of the Saint's works,

printed at Lucca and Siena, in 1707-13, an enthusiastic and laborious

investigator and collector of every description of information

regarding her, gives in his Preface to the letters, a careful account

of the manuscript collections from which they have at different times

been printed, but has not a word to say of any scrap of original

document. "As soon," he writes, "as the saintly Virgin had ascended

to heaven in the year 1380, some of her secretaries and disciples

collected from one place and another some of her letters and writings."

But the words which follow this seem to indicate that even these

earliest collectors did not possess any of the original manuscripts,

but made copies of them, in most cases probably from other copies.

"The blessed Stefano Maconi," he says, "having transcribed the book of

the Dialogue, added at the end of it some epistles; and another larger

collection was made, also by him as I think, in a certain volume which

exists in the library of the Certosa at Pavia. Buonconti also collected

not a few, as may be seen by an ancient copy in his writing, which was

among the most notable things left by the Cardinal Volunnio Bandinelli,

and now belongs to the Signor Volunnio, his nephew and heir. We have

another abundant collection in an ancient manuscript preserved in the

library of St. Pantaleo at Rome; and this is one of the most faithful

of all those I have seen in its orthography and style; and as far as

can be judged by the character of the writing, the scribe must have

been contemporary with the Saint. But the blessed Raymond of Capua,

her confessor, left to the Dominicans of Siena two very large volumes

of her letters neatly copied out on parchment, in which nearly all

those collected by the others are contained. And these most precious

documents are rendered more valuable by the testimony given to their

authenticity by the blessed Tomaso Caffarini in the above cited reports

made at Venice."[25]

The epistles were first printed by Aldus in 1500, just 180 years

after Catherine's death, and afterwards in many other editions, all,

according to Gigli, exceedingly incorrect, and requiring much critical

care both in the restoration of the text to its original Tuscan purity,

and in the arrangement of the letters, as far as possible, in their

due chronological order. This, however, is made subsidiary in Gigli's

edition to a division of them according to the persons to whom they

were addressed. Thus those to the two Popes, Gregory XI. and Urban VI.,

come first; then those written to cardinals; then those to bishops

and other ecclesiastical authorities; and lastly those to private

individuals.

And this is the substance of all the Sienese editor has to tell us

respecting the texts, manuscript and printed, on which his own has been

formed. But the Saint's confessor, and one or two of her disciples,

have recorded some circumstances respecting the lost originals of these

letters which require to be noticed.

It is stated in perfect accordance with all probability, that Catherine

had never learned to read or write, as was in those days the case

with the great majority of women in stations of life far superior

to her own. Her biographer's account of her miraculously acquiring

the power of reading by sudden endowment has been related in the

preceding chapter. And at a later period of her life we are told that

she similarly acquired the power of writing, "in order that she might

be able," writes Girolamo Gigli in his Preface to the Letters, "to

carry out the office of her apostolate by more agencies than one,

and in more places than one, at the same time, Christ gave her by

a wonderful method the use of the pen, in the short schooling of a

trance, and by the teaching of St. John the Evangelist, and of the

blessed Doctor, Aquinas, as the Saint herself affirms in a letter to

the above-mentioned blessed Raymond her confessor."

One of the most interesting points of inquiry in the life of St.

Catherine turns on the question, more fully examined in a subsequent

chapter, how far was she, or was she not, entirely sincere in her

statements and pretensions. Now if she makes the statement attributed

to her respecting her acquisition of the art of writing, it must

be concluded that she was guilty of wilful imposture. No possible

self-deception could have misled her as to the fact of her previous

ignorance of writing, and as little as to that of her writing after

the trance. It will be well therefore to observe accurately what

she really does say herself upon the subject. In 1377, when she was

in the thirtieth year of her age, after her return from Avignon, and

before her final journey to Rome, she was inhabiting a villa belonging

to the noble Sienese family of Salimbeni, situated on an isolated

eminence overlooking the road to Rome, and called "Rocca d'Orcia."

Hence she wrote a very long letter—the longest probably in the whole

collection—occupying, as it does, twelve full octavo pages—to Father

Raymond; and concludes it with the following lines.

[Sidenote: HER POWER OF WRITING.]

"This letter, and another which I sent you, I have written with my

own hand from this isolated fortress, with many sighs and abundance

of tears, so that seeing with my eyes, I did not see. But I was full

of admiration at myself, and at the goodness of God, considering his

mercy towards creatures, who have reason in them, and his providence,

which abounded upon me, giving and providing me with the aptitude for

writing for my comfort, I having been deprived of that consolation,

which by reason of my ignorance I knew not. So that on descending

from the height (does this mean 'on coming out of my trance,' or 'on

leaving this fortress?') I might have some little vent for the feelings

of my heart, so that it should not burst. Not being willing to take

me as yet out of this darksome life, God formed it in my mind in a

wonderful manner, as the master does to the child, to whom he gives an

exemplar. So that, as soon as ever he was gone from me, together with

the glorious Evangelist John, and Thomas Aquinas, sleeping I began to

learn."

Now the entire value of this incident in the eyes of the fourteenth,

and the entire incredibility of it in the eyes of the nineteenth

century, and consequently its stringency as evidence against the

sincerity of St. Catherine, depends on the length of time intervening

between the moment when she began to learn in her sleep, and that at

which she first wrote. All her own admiration of herself and of God's

providence in the matter, all her own belief in miracle, and her

beginning to learn in her sleep, we may admit without founding thereon

any impeachment of her sincerity. Nor need we be accurate in taking the

sense of her statement, that she then _began_ to learn. Most people

would find it difficult to say when they began to learn most things.

And on the other hand the phrase would seem to express, that she did

not _complete_ her learning to write in that same trance. We have other

indications also of a gradual advance in the art. The long letter,

in which the Saint makes the above statement, is certainly not the

first product of her new acquirement. She speaks of having written a

former letter to the same correspondent. But neither was that her first

writing.

In the evidence given by the Beato Tomaso Caffarini on the occasion

of the examination of her pretensions to canonization, he deposes:

"I further testify, that I heard from Master Stephen,[26] of Siena,"

by means of letters from him, how that this Virgin, after that she

miraculously learned to write, rising up from prayer with a desire of

writing, wrote with her own hand a _little_ letter (litterulam), which

she sent to the said Master Stephen, and in which was the following

conclusion, written, that is to say, in her own vernacular: "Know, my

son, that this is the first letter, which I ever wrote;"—much such a

first attempt as the most unmiraculously taught of penmen might be

likely to make.

[Sidenote: HER FIRST PENMANSHIP.]

Consistently then with all that Catherine distinctly asserts on the

subject, we may believe, that despite her ready credence of her own

environment with the supernatural at every moment of her life, the

only miracle on the occasion of her newly acquired power of writing

was worked by that intensely strong will, which works so many miracles

in this world, and which all Catherine's history shows her to have

eminently possessed.

The same witness further testifies that the above-mentioned Stephen

informed him that Catherine had after that frequently written in his

presence both letters and some sheets of the book[27] she composed in

the vulgar tongue, all which writings he—Stephen—had preserved in the

Carthusian convent of Pontignano near Siena, over which he presided.

And there, according to Girolamo Gigli, "they were known to have been

in existence for many years, until, not long ago," says he, writing in

1707, "they were transported to Grenoble, at the time when the monks of

Pontignano, as well as all those of the Carthusian order, were obliged

to send all their papers to the Grande Chartreuse." And so they vanish

out of our sight.

Further Caffarini testifies, that he saw and had in his own possession

at Venice a prayer, written miraculously, as he says, by Catherine,

with a piece of cinnabar, immediately on waking from a trance; meaning,

apparently, that trance, during which she obtained the faculty of

writing. He gives the prayer in Latin prose. But Gigli says that it

ought to be written in the Tuscan as verse, in the manner in which it

is printed by Crescimbeni in the third volume of his "Volgare Poesia,"

as follows:—

"O Spirito santo, vieni nel mio cuore;

Per la tua potenzia trailo a te, Dio:

E concedemi carità con timore.

Custodimi Christo da ogni mal pensiere,

Riscaldami e rinfiammami del tuo dolcissimo amore,

Sicchè ogni pena mi paja leggiere.

Santo il mio padre, e dolce il mio Signore,

Ora ajutami in ogni mio mestiere,

Christo amore, Christo amore."

This writing, in cinnabar, Caffarini declares is "now," 1411, in the

Dominican nunnery at Venice. But this also has shared the ill fortune

which seems to have attended every scrap of the Saint's writing. For

Gigli states that all his efforts to obtain any tidings of it in his

own time had been in vain.

A few other letters are recorded to have been written by her own hand,

especially one to Pope Urban. But it is admitted, that the great bulk

of the letters were written by her secretaries, of whom she seems to

have kept three regularly employed, besides occasionally using the

assistance of several other of her companions and disciples. A few

of the letters are recorded to have been dictated by her, when in a

state of trance or extasy; but there is nothing in either their matter

or manner to distinguish them from the rest. Whatever may have been

the true physical characteristics of these trances, it is perfectly

clear, that the mind which dictated the letters in question, was

pursuing the habitual tenor of its daily thoughts, neither obscured

nor intensified by the condition of the body. They are neither more

nor less argumentative, neither more nor less eloquent, than the

others of the collection. And it seems strange, that the same state

of abstraction from all bodily clog or guidance, which so often left

her mind impressionable by visions and hallucinations having to her all

the vivid reality of material events, should on other occasions have

been compatible with the conduct of mental operations, in no respect

differing from those of her ordinary waking state. But it is to be

observed, that the authority on which it is stated, that these letters

were dictated by the Saint in a state of extasy, is only that of her

amanuenses; and that, admitting them to have been of perfect good faith

in the matter, nothing is more probable, than that, all agape, as they

were ever for fresh wonders, and evidences of Saintship, any trifling

circumstance, such as long continuance in the same attitude, or closed

eyes, may have been considered sufficient evidence of trance.

[Sidenote: HER LITERARY MERITS.]

The very high reputation, and that not altogether of a pietistic or

ecclesiastical nature, which this large mass of writings has enjoyed

for several centuries has appeared to the present writer an extremely

singular fact. It will justify him however in occupying some pages,

and the reader's attention with a translation[28] of one of the

most esteemed of the collection. Be it what it may, it can hardly

be otherwise than interesting to any reader to see a specimen of

compositions, said to have produced so widely spread and important

results, and praised by so many men of note; and the means, which it

will give him of comparing his impressions of it with those of the

writer, will in some degree lessen the diffidence with which the latter

must express an opinion wholly at variance with so large a quantity of

high authority.

A great deal of the praise bestowed on St. Catherine's writings by

Italian critics has reference to their style and diction. Written at

a time when the language, fresh from the hands of Dante, of Petrarch,

and of Boccaccio, was still in its infancy, and in a city in all times

celebrated for the purity of its vernacular, they have by the common

consent of Italian scholars taken rank as one of the acknowledged

classics of the language;—"testa di lingua," as the Tuscan purists

say. The Della Cruscans have placed them on the jealously watched

list of their authorities; and an enthusiastic Sienese compatriot

has compiled a "vocabalario Caterineano," after the fashion of those

consecrated to the study of the works of Homer and Cicero. Of course

no one from the barbarous side of the Alps can permit themselves any

word of observation on this point. Had no such decisive opinion been

extant to guide his ignorance, it might probably have seemed to a

foreigner, that the Saint's style was loose in its syntax, intricate in

its construction, and overloaded with verbosity. But we are bound to

suppose, that any such opinion could be formed only by one ignorant of

the real beauties of the language: especially as we know how great and

minute is the attention paid to diction by Italian critics.

But these philological excellences are after all the least part of

the praise that has been lavished on Catherine as an author. Her

admirers enlarge on the moving eloquence, the exalted piety, the noble

sentiments, the sound argumentation of her compositions, especially

her letters. And it is not from an Italian, or a Dominican, but from a

French Jesuit and historian, Papire Masson, that we have the following

enthusiastic praise of that letter more especially, which it is

intended to submit to the reader of these pages.

[Sidenote: HER LETTER TO CHARLES V.]

"Several epistles are extant," writes this sixteenth century Frenchman,

"from Catherine of Siena to Urban, and one to King Charles V., written

on the 6th of May, 1379, to uphold that Pope's cause. And certainly

nothing more weighty or more elegant could have been conceived or

written by any man of that time, not even excepting Petrarch, whose

genius I admire, and whose works I generally prefer to those of any

other writer of that age."

To the present writer such an opinion appears perfectly monstrous,

and wholly unaccountable on any simply literary consideration of the

matter. It may be admitted to be no little extraordinary that a poor

dyer's daughter in the fourteenth century should write these letters,

such as they are; that she should possess so much knowledge of the

general state of Church politics in Europe, as they evince; and most of

all that having popes, kings, and cardinals for her correspondents, she

should be listened to by them with respect and attention. Even to the

Pope, she on more than one occasion ventures on a tone of very decided

reproof; and it should seem, that Urban VI., a choleric and violent

tempered man, received from her in good part communications couched in

language such as rarely reaches Papal ears. "The blessed Christ," she

says, in writing to Urban of the vices of the ecclesiastics, a topic to

which she returns again and again, "complains of this, that his Church

is not swept clean of vices, and your Holiness has not that solicitude

on the subject which you ought to have." Again, when there had been

riots in Rome, in consequence of the Pope having failed to keep certain

promises he had made to the people, she "humbly begs him to take care,

prudently to promise only what it will be possible for him to perform

in its entirety."

All this is curious enough, and abundantly sufficient to prove that

Catherine was an influential power in her generation. It will be the

business of a following chapter to offer some suggestions as to the

explanation of this remarkable fact. But let the causes of it have been

what they may, it is difficult to suppose that they can be found in

the persuasive eloquence, or literary merit of her appeals to those in

power.

CHAPTER VI.

CATHERINE'S LETTER TO THE KING OF FRANCE.

The letter selected as a specimen of the vast mass of the Saint's

correspondence is perhaps the most specially celebrated of the whole

collection. It was to Charles V. of France, on the 6th of May, 1379, on

the subject of the favour shown by him to the party of the Anti-pope

Clement VII., and runs as follows:—

"Dearest father in sweet Christ Jesus, I Catherine the slave of the

servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in his precious blood, with the

desire to see in you[29] a true and entirely perfect light, in order

that you may know the truth of that which is necessary to you for your

salvation. Without this light, we shall go into darkness; darkness

which will not permit us to discern that which is hurtful to the soul

and to the body, from that which is useful to us; and thus destroys the

perceptions of the soul, so that good things are made to seem bad, and

bad things good, that is to say, vice. And those things, which lead us

to sin, appear to us good and delightful; and virtue, and that which

leads us to virtue, appears to us bitter and of great difficulty. But

he, who has light, knows well the truth; and accordingly loves virtue,

and God, who is the cause of all virtue; and hates vice, and his own

sensuality, which is the cause of all vice. What is it, that takes

from us this true and sweet light? The self-love which a man has for

his own self, which is a cloud that obscures the eye of the intellect,

and hides from the pupil the light of the most holy faith. And thus a

man goes as one blind and ignorant, following his own frailty, wholly

given up to passion, without the light of reason, even as an animal,

which, because it has no reasoning powers, allows itself to be guided

by its own sensations. Great pity is it that man, whom God has created

in his own image and likeness, should voluntarily by his own fault

make himself worse than the brute animal, that like an ungrateful and

ignorant creature, neither knows nor acknowledges the benefits of God,

but attributes them to himself. From self-love proceeds every evil.

Whence come injustice, and all the other faults? From self-love. It

commits injustice against God, against itself, against its neighbour,

and against Holy Church. Against God it commits injustice, in that

it does not render glory and praise to his name, as it ought to do.

To itself it does not render hatred and dislike of vice, and love of

virtue; nor to its neighbour benevolence; and if it is found in a

ruler, it does not do justice to its neighbour, because it does so[30]

only according to the pleasure of human creatures, or for its own

natural pleasure.[31] Nor to the Church does it render obedience, or

assistance, but continually persecutes it. All is caused by self-love,

which does not permit a man to know the truth, because he is deprived

of light. This is very manifest to us, and we see it, and have proofs

in ourselves every day that it is so.

[Sidenote: HER LETTER TO CHARLES V.]

"I would not, dearest father, that this cloud should take the light

from you; but I wish that there should be in you that light, which is

able to make you know and discern the Truth. It appears to me, from

what I hear, that you begin to allow yourself to be guided by the

counsel of evil men; and you know, that if one blind one leads another,

both fall into the ditch. So will it happen to you, if you do not

find some better remedy than what I hear of. It is a matter of great

wonder to me, that a Catholic man, who is willing to fear God, and

to be manlike, should let himself be guided like a child, and should

not see how he leads himself and others into so great ruin, as is the

contaminating the light of the most Holy Faith according to the word

and counsel of those whom we see to be members of the devil, corrupt

trees, whose faults are manifest to us by the poison of heresy they

have recently disseminated, saying that Pope Urban VI. is not truly

Pope. Open the eye of your mind,[32] and see that they lie in their

throats,[33] may be put to confusion by their own showing, and be seen

to be worthy of heavy punishment, from whatever side we turn ourselves.

If we turn to those, who, as they say, elected Urban Pope from fear of

the fury of the people, they say what is not the truth, since they, in

the first instance, had elected him by an election so canonical and

orderly, that never was any other supreme pontiff so elected. They

in truth gave out, that they proceeded to elect for fear the people

should rise, but not that from this fear they elected Bartholomew,

Archbishop of Bari, who is now Urban VI. And this much I confess is

the truth, and do not deny it. He whom they elected by fear was the

Cardinal of St. Peter,[34] as is evident to every one; but the election

of Pope Urban was made in a legitimate manner, as has been said. This

election they announced to you, and to us, and to the other rulers

of the world, manifesting by their deeds, that which they told us in

words, doing reverence to him, that is to say, adoring him as Christ on

earth, and crowning him with all solemnity, and by remaking anew the

election with great unanimity. From him, as from the supreme Pontiff,

they besought favours, and used them. And if it were not true that

Urban is Pope, but that he has been elected under the constraint of

fear, would not they be worthy eternally of confusion? That the pillars

of Holy Church, set up for the spreading of the faith, should for fear

of bodily death, be willing to consign themselves and us to eternal

death, by showing us as our father one who was not so. And would they

not be thieves, taking and using[35] that which they had no right to

use? Indeed, if that were true, which they now say, as true it is not,

still Urban VI. is truly Pope. But fools and blinded madmen as they

are, they have shown and given to us this truth, and hold a lie for

themselves. This truth they confessed so long as his Holiness delayed

to correct their vices. But as soon as he began to attack them, and to

show that their wicked mode of life was displeasing to him, and that he

was minded to put an end to it, they immediately raised their heads.

And against whom have they raised them? Against the holy faith. They

have acted worse than renegade Christians.

[Sidenote: HER LETTER TO CHARLES V.]

"Oh! miserable men! They and those who follow them know not their own

ruin; for if they knew it, they would seek the Divine aid; they would

acknowledge their fault, and not be obstinate as the devils, as devils

they in truth appear, and have taken on them the office of such. The

office of the devils is to pervert souls from Christ crucified, to

withdraw them from the way of the truth, to lead them into lies, and

to gather them through pain and through punishment to himself, who is

the father of lies, giving them that fate which he has for himself. In

like manner these men go subverting the truth which they themselves

have given us; and returning to lies, have introduced division into the

whole world. And that evil which they have in themselves, that they

propose to us. Have we the will to know thoroughly this truth? Let us

look now and consider their life and conduct, and what following they

have of themselves, who are followers of the vestiges of iniquity;

since one devil is not contrary to another, but on the contrary they

agree together. And pardon me, dearest father (for such I will consider

you, as long as I see you to be a lover of truth, and confounder of

lies), for I speak thus, because grief for the damnation of them and

of others, and the desire I have for their salvation, causes me to do

so. I say this not in disparagement of them, as God's creatures, but in

disparagement of vice and of the heresy which they have sown throughout

the world, and of the cruelty of which they are guilty towards

themselves, and towards the humble souls that perish by their means,

for which they must give an account to the Supreme Judge. For if they

had been men having the fear of God, or if not the fear of God, respect

for the opinion of the world, they would patiently have borne the worst

that Pope Urban could have done to them, or even greater contumely, and

would have preferred a thousand deaths to doing what they have done;

for to greater shame they cannot come, than to appear to the eyes of

mankind schismatics, and heretical despisers of the holy faith. If I

look to spiritual and corporeal loss, I see them by heresy deprived

of God as regards his mercies, and in the body reasonably deprived

of their dignities; and they themselves have done it. If I look to

the Divine judgment I see it close upon them, if they do not lift

themselves out of this darkness; for every fault is punished, and every

good deed is rewarded. It will be hard for them to kick against God, if

they possessed the greatest possible human power. God is the supreme

strength, which fortifies the weak who confide and trust in Him. And it

is the truth; and the truth is that which makes us free. We see that

only the truth of the servants of God follows,[36] and holds this truth

of Pope Urban VI., confessing him to be truly Pope, as he is. You will

not find a servant of God, who _is_ a servant of God, that holds the

contrary.[37] I do not speak of such as wear outside the garment of

lambs, but inside are ravenous wolves. And do you suppose that, if this

were not the truth, God would endure that His servants should walk in

such darkness? He would not endure it. If He endures it in the wicked

men of the world, He would not endure it in them; and therefore He

has given them the light of His truth, for He is no despiser of holy

desires but is the accepter of them, like a kind and merciful Father as

He is. I would that you would call to you such men as these, and cause

them to declare this truth to you; and that you would not choose to

walk so ignorantly. Let not your private interest move you; for that

would be worse in you than in any other. Have pity on the many souls

which you cast into the hands of the devils. If you will not do good,

at least do not evil; for evil frequently turns more to the hurt of

him who does it, than of him whom the doer of it wishes to injure. So

much evil comes of it, that by it we lose the grace of God, temporal

wealth is consumed, and the death of men follows from it. Alas me! And

it does not seem that we[38] see the light; for the cloud of self-love

has taken from us the light, and does not let us see. For this reason

we are apt to receive any evil information, that may be given to us

against the truth by lovers of themselves. But if we have the light

it will not be so; but with great prudence and holy fear of God, you

would be willing to know and investigate this truth by means of men

of conscience and knowledge. If you choose, ignorance need not fall

upon you, since you have where you are the fountain of knowledge,[39]

which I fear you may lose if you continue in your present course; and

you know well how your kingdom will fare, if they shall be men of good

consciences, who will not follow a human will with servile fear, but

will maintain the truth. They will declare it to you, and will put

your mind and soul at rest. Now act not so any more, most dear Father!

consult your own conscience; think that you must die, and that you know

not when; put before the eye of your intellect, God and his truth, and

not interest, or love of country; for as regards God, we ought not

to make any difference between one country and another, since we all

proceed from His holy mind, are created in His image and likeness, and

redeemed by the precious blood of His only-begotten Son. I am certain

that if you have light you will do this, and will not wait for time,

for time does not wait for you; and will invite them[40] to return to

their holy and true obedience, but otherwise not. And for this reason

I said that I desired to see in you a true and perfect light, in order

that with the light you may recognise and love and fear the truth. My

soul will then be made happy by your safety, at seeing you come out

from so great an error. I say to you nothing further. Remain in the

holy and sweet love of God. Pardon me if I have been too heavy on you

with my words. My desire for your safety urges me to say them to you by

my mouth in your[41] presence, rather than by writing. May God fill you

with His most sweet grace. Jesus is sweet; Jesus is love."[42]

[Sidenote: HER LETTER TO CHARLES V.]

Such is the composition pronounced to be unsurpassed for weight of

reasoning and eloquence, and to be equal to the writings of Petrarch!

Can it be supposed that, putting out of the question any influence

exercised by the character of the writer, any human mind was ever

persuaded to do or to think anything by such an address? As argument it

is surely worse than in any other point of view. With the exception of

the passage pointing out the insincerity of the cardinals who raised

objections to the election of Urban, there were perhaps never strung

together so many absurdly glaring instances of begging the question.

And as for rhetorical power, surely in this waste of pleonastic

phrases, redundant tautology, and trite common-place hack-preacher's

topics, there is no faintest trace even of that untaught eloquence

which strong feeling and earnest conviction are apt to command.

And yet looking at the matter in hand from the fourteenth century

point of view, what a subject it was to call forth an awful and

heart-stirring appeal! If a true Pope be anything, how tremendous

and infinitely horrible a phenomenon must an Anti-pope be. Think of

the adulteration of the infallible with the fallible, of the doubts

engendered, where certainty is imperatively needed, of the sacraments

nullified, and the one half of sacred Christendom cheated into eternal

perdition, as the necessary result of void ordinations, void baptisms,

and void absolutions, and think for a moment how Petrarch, or still

better how Dante, would have written on such a subject!

But Catherine must have sincerely believed that her utterances were the

utterances of inspiration, and must necessarily have effect as such.

For that she bestowed on this long and important letter none of the

ordinary care and labour which such a composition would naturally claim

from a merely human author, is curiously shown by the record which has

preserved the fact, that the Saint dictated three other long letters

on the same 6th of May on which she composed this! It is recorded

also that she occasionally dictated as many as three letters to three

secretaries at the same time. Her biographer and commentators consider

the excessive outpouring of words one of the most remarkable proofs of

her supernatural claims and powers. And more sceptical minds may admit

it as at least a proof of wonderful energy, and indomitable strength of

volition.

CHAPTER VII.

DUPE OR IMPOSTOR?

The official accredited story of this undoubtedly extraordinary and

exceptional woman contains, as has been sufficiently seen, a large

number of statements, which probably every reader of these pages will,

without hesitation, pronounce to be false. Many of the events stated

to have happened undoubtedly never did happen; but the question will

still remain, how large a portion of the tale must be deemed fraudulent

fiction by those who cannot believe things to have happened which

contradict the known laws of nature. And when this shall have been

answered as satisfactorily as may be under the difficult circumstances

of the investigation, it will yet remain to be decided _who_ is to be

deemed to have been guilty of fraud.

Before entering on these questions; it may be just suggested to the

reader,—as a caution to be borne in mind, not as a point intended

to be dwelt on in considering the matter,—that we are perhaps not

altogether so well aware what _are_ the laws of nature in the case of

persons afflicted as Catherine was, as some of us are apt to imagine.

Looking at the matter, however, from the most ordinary points of view,

it may perhaps be found, that as regards Catherine herself, it is not

so necessary to consider her an impostor, as it may at first sight of

the matter appear.

Of the austerities, mortifications, and abstinences recounted, all

perhaps may be admitted to have been possible,—especially bearing in

mind that Catherine's life was neither a long nor a healthy one—except

the fasting for years, and the sleeping only one quarter-of-an-hour

per diem. As to the fasting, it is mentioned incidentally in another

part of Father Raymond's book, that she was sustained only by the

sacramental bread, which she seems to have been in the habit of taking

daily. May it not be possible, that the idea of her living without

food, may have been generated by some talk of hers, in quite her usual

strain, of this Holy Eucharist being her only nourishment, etc., etc.,

meaning spiritual nourishment? But then was Father Raymond deceived by

any such expressions? Did he really believe that she lived for years

without taking food? For in his account, no mistake of meaning is

possible. He, at all events, intends his readers to believe the simple

fact in its naked absurdity.

As for the sleep, it maybe remarked that in the case of a person

subject to daily trances and states of insensibility, it is very

difficult to say how many hours are passed in sleep, and what is sleep,

and what not.

In the next place, all the relations of visions seen in "extasy," and

of conversations held, and sensations suffered during them, may—due

consideration being given to what we know of the patient—be accepted

as not only possible but exceedingly probable. And this category will

comprise the greatest part of the whole budget of wonders. Even in

those cases, in which an abiding evidence of what had happened to her

in trance is said to have remained appreciable only by her own senses,

as in the case of the marriage ring, and the pain after the infliction

of the stigmata; those most able to form an opinion on such matters,

will not think, probably, that it is attributing too much to the

imagination of a cataleptic patient, living on raw vegetables, wholly

without active occupation, and engrossed by a series of highly exciting

thoughts on one ever-present subject of a mystical and transcendental

nature, to suppose that she may have in all sincerity imagined herself

to see and to feel as she described.

[Sidenote: POSSIBLE EXPLANATION OF MIRACLES.]

Of many of the miracles, including some of those most insisted on and

boasted of by her biographer,—as for instance of the restoration of

her mother to life,—a natural explanation, not necessarily involving

any intentional falsehood, is so obvious, as to need no pointing. And

others may, without any great improbability, be referred to mistake,

inaccuracy, or exaggeration. On the whole, I do not think that the

evidence constrains us to convict Catherine of falsehood or imposture

in her miraculous pretensions. The impression of her innocence of this

cannot, however, I think, be stated in any more forcible form. Few

persons, probably, will obtain from an impartial consideration of the

story, any satisfactory conviction that she was wholly sincere. We

find her guilty of falsehood to her mother at an early period of her

life, when she represents herself as frequenting certain hot baths

with a different purpose than the real one, which was to burn herself

by their heat, as a means of discounting eternal burning hereafter.

This deception is related by her confessor as a holy and praiseworthy

act. And the whole tenor of his morality, and of that of the school

to which he belongs, forbids the idea, that a high reverence for

truth, as truth, formed any part of their teaching. There is nothing

in all we know of Catherine, either from her own writings, or from

those of her biographer, to indicate that her spiritual conceptions,

religious system, or theory of morals, differed in any respect from the

standard orthodoxy of her time and country. We find no more elevated

notions of Deity, no saner views of duty, no nobler beau-ideal of human

excellence. Her history may be regarded as the culminating expression

of the ascetic divinity of that age. She lived wholly surrounded by,

and devoted (very literally) body and soul, to a fiercely fanatical

community, eager and conscientiously bound to advance their system and

the glory of their order by all and every means. Their thoughts were

her thoughts, their interests her interests, and their views of all

things in heaven and earth, her views. And it must be admitted, that

these considerations make it very difficult to suppose, that she would

have felt the least scruple in lending herself to any scheme of pious

fraud, which might appear calculated to promote the "glory of God," and

of the order of St. Dominic. If she could have felt any such scruple,

she assuredly would have been far in advance of the moral theories and

feelings of her day; and this, as has been seen, there is every reason

to think that she was not.

[Sidenote: FATHER RAYMOND'S INSINCERITY.]

The same consideration of the story, as it has been handed down to us,

which, despite the suspicion that a pupil of Father Raymond and the

Dominicans of the fourteenth century could not have had any very strict

ideas of the sacredness of truth, leads us nevertheless to believe it

more probable that Catherine was no conscious impostor, by no means

points to the same conclusion respecting the monk, her biographer

and confessor. Of course he could have had no means of ascertaining

the reality of the visions she represented herself to be in the daily

habit of seeing, beyond the natural probabilities of the case. And

it is likely enough, that the cataleptic trances and convulsions

witnessed by him, may have appeared to him, as to the generality of his

contemporaries, the signs and consequences of supernatural communion

with, and especial favour of, heaven. But there remain other portions

of the narrative, in which facts are stated as having occurred within

the writer's knowledge, which he must have known to be untrue. He

could not have been deceived into supposing that Catherine lived for

many years without food, though her own expressions on the subject,

as has been pointed out, may have been equivocal. In one passage of

her letters, referred to as containing authority of her own for the

statement, the Saint, in speaking of the bodily sufferings she had

recently endured, says that her body remained without food. But she

says no word to indicate how long her fast lasted, and the reference is

clearly a dishonest one.

Among the vast number of miracles related, it is difficult to find

cases on which a charge of wilful fraud against the Dominican

biographer can be safely pressed to conviction. In so many instances

mistake may have been possible. In so many others, whatever he may have

been inclined to believe in his own heart, he had no means of testing

with certainty the truth of her statements to him; and, therefore,

cannot be _convicted_ of falsehood for repeating them. He _may_ have

believed them to be real facts. But one case of fair conviction is

enough; and that we have in the statement of the total abstinence from

food for many years. It should seem then, that although we may acquit

Catherine of conscious deception, we must believe her confessor,—the

Barnum, who "brought out" the wonder, introduced her to the world, and

reaped the profit of her,—to be a rogue and impostor.

Such a subject as this enthusiastic strong-willed cataleptic girl,

was a rare and most valuable catch for the Dominican Order, and was

to be turned to the best account accordingly. A real producible

miracle-working Saint, who did veritably pass daily into a state

of rapt extasy, and whose excitable and diseased brain was in that

state ever prompt to impose on her imagination as realities whatever

phantasmagoria of hallucinations her ghostly instructors chose to

ply her waking fancy with, was a treasure calculated to bring much

grist, spiritual as well as temporal, to the Dominican mill. In that

remarkable case of the stigmata, which so admirably supplied the sons

of St. Dominick with exactly what they needed, to enable them to hold

their own against the rival Order of the Stigmatised St. Francis, how

readily may be conceived the sort of conversation and suggestions,

which must have prepared the mind of Catherine to reproduce the miracle

for them as soon as her infirmity should set free her imagination from

the world of reality!

And this capability of being played upon, rendered her, it is to be

observed, a far more valuable instrument in the hands of those who

touched the keys than if she had been a mere accomplice of imposture.

Such an every-day cheat would hardly have accomplished the feats, and

held the position, which are the most remarkable facts in this strange

story, and which present an enigma, that requires some examination in

the closing chapter of it.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SECRET OF HER INFLUENCE.

The recent reprint, and large circulation of the "Legend" and Letters

of St. Catherine, give a present interest to her story, which it would

otherwise want, and indicate but too clearly, that her influence is

not a mere thing of the past, but a living and active fact. But the

causes and nature of this influence are far from being a secret to

those who have paid any attention to the present condition of Italy,

and who understand the _modus operandi_, and policy of a church, the

whole purpose, scope, and meaning of whose being, is the preservation

of its own existence, and that of the sovereigns, its partners and

accomplices in the subjugation and plundering of the people. And the

direct and indirect uses of Saintly literature towards this end,

however well worthy of being studied, form no proper part of the

present subject. The influence, far more difficult to be accounted

for, which Catherine cannot be denied to have exercised over Popes and

Kings, her contemporaries, is what should be here explained, as far as

any explanation can be found for it.

That none such must be sought in the literary qualities of her

writings, has probably been made sufficiently manifest. When every

allowance has been made for the intellectual difference, which may

be supposed to exist between a fourteenth century and a nineteenth

century reader, it still remains incredible, that such missives, as

that above translated from the Saint's Italian, should, irrespectively

of any otherwise manifested claims of the sender of them, have been

found powerfully persuasive by those to whom they were addressed. We

have no proof, indeed, that this especial letter did produce any effect

on the King of France. And with regard to the letters written to Urban,

after the breaking out of the schism, it may be argued, that, whatever

he may have privately thought of Catherine's pretensions and powers,

he was no doubt too well aware of the importance an enthusiastic, well

accredited Saint, might be of to his party, to think of throwing cold

water on her zeal and exertions. The success of her mission to Avignon,

however, and the employment of her intercession with the Pope by the

rulers of Florence, testify abundantly to the esteem in which she was

held.

Can it be supposed, that the wide-spread reputation she acquired, and

the marvellous power she exercised, were derived from the impression

made on her contemporaries by her virtues, the purity of her life, the

earnestness of benevolence, and the zeal of her charity? But that would

be to attribute to mere goodness a power over one of the most corrupt

generations in the history of the world, which it has never been seen

able to exert over any age. It would be to attribute to the virtue of

Catherine a triumph, which the infinitely more perfect virtue of One

infinitely greater than she failed to achieve.

[Sidenote: HER MORAL NATURE.]

Of all possible solutions this would be the least compatible with the

conditions of the age in which she lived. But the low morality, to

which mere purity of life would have appealed in vain, was especially

favourable to the powerful and successful operation of another class

of the Saint's pretensions. In proportion as the intellectual and

moral darkness of men make a spiritual conception of Deity more and

more impossible to them, are they prone in the desolation of their

unacknowledged, but none the less effective atheism, to accept with

ready awe and reverential fear any such gross material manifestations,

as profess to reveal to them a God sufficiently ungodly not to be

disturbingly out of place in their scheme of life and eternity. Those

"ages of faith," therefore, whose title to that appellation consists

in their eager readiness to accept and believe any quantity of such

miracles as could be conceived to proceed only from the will of a

God created in the likeness of a very unspiritual man, were probably

as little faithful to any spiritually profitable ideal of the Divine

nature, as any generations since the dawn of Christianity.

To such ages Catherine was admirably adapted to appeal with remarkable

force and success. Her strength of will, and her infirmity of body,

both contributed to produce the effect to be explained. The first, as

evidenced by the unflinchingly persevering infliction of self-torments,

such as would have been wholly intolerable to a weaker will, and

by continued exertion under suffering, weakness, and malady, made

a large and important part of the saintly character; as the same

qualities differently evidenced would have led to eminence in any

career, and in any age. But joined to this potent strength of will

may be observed evidences of a very remarkable degree of spiritual

egotism, and "the pride that apes humility." The poor Sienese dyer's

daughter must have been one of those rare natures, to whom the quiet

obscure career marked out for them, as it might seem, irrevocably by

the circumstances of their birth, was an intolerable impossibility.

A woman, poor, plebeian, unlettered, frail in health, and in the

fourteenth century! Surely no possible concatenation of circumstances

could be devised, from which it would appear so impossible to emerge

into power and celebrity! But the "_Io Caterina schiava dei servi di

Dio_," of the letters, who thinks that entire nations shall be accepted

or rejected as reprobate by the Eternal in accordance with the measure

of HER merits or demerits, and who bargains with God to bear

in HER own person the sacrilegious sin of a whole revolted

people!—this Caterina was one whom no position could doom to the

obscurity intolerable to such idiosyncrasies. And she rushed forth with

uncontrollable determination on the one only path open to her;—not

by any means necessarily with the conscious intention of making

hypocritical use of the profession of sanctity for the achievement of

distinction; but driven by the unrecognised promptings of ambition to

the determination to excel in the department of human endeavour, which

all contemporary opinion pointed out to her, as the highest, holiest,

and noblest, open to mankind.

But the peculiar infirmity to which she was subject contributed a part

of her extraordinary adaptability to the career she was to run, fully

as important as any of the elements of strength in her character.

Not only did her frequent cataleptic trances obtain from the people

the most unhesitating belief in her supernatural communion with God,

and in the miraculous visions which she related, in all probability

with perfect sincerity, as having taken place therein; but they had

as powerful a subjective as an objective effect. The Saint arose

from each of these abnormal conditions of existence, nerved for fresh

endurance, armed with increased pretensions, and animated with renewed

enthusiasm, the result of hallucinations produced by the intensity of

her waking wishes, imaginations, and aspirations.

[Sidenote: THE DOMINICAN ORDER.]

To these fortunately combined elements of success must be added a

third, perhaps hardly less essential to it than either. Catherine,

with her equally valuable and rare gifts and infirmities, fell from

the outset of her career into hands well skilled and well able to make

the most of them. She was from the beginning a devoted member of the

great Order of St. Dominick; and it may be doubted on which side lies

the balance of obligation between the Saint and her order. If she was

to them a fruitful source of credit, profit, and power, they afforded

her a status, worldly-wisdom, and backing, without which she could

not have attained the position she did. She had for her confessor and

special adviser one whom we must suppose to have been the most notable

man among the Dominicans of his time, inasmuch as he became their

General. And we have seen enough of this able monk in his quality of

Saint-leader, to authorise the belief, that he was quite ready to

supply as much of the wisdom of the serpent, as might be needed to

bring to a good working alloy the Saint's dove-like simplicity. In what

exact proportions the metal was thus run, that was brought to bear on

the Popes and other great people so strangely influenced by Catherine,

it is impossible to say. But there will be little danger of error in

concluding, that the effect of either ingredient solely would not have

been the same.

Finally, should it still seem difficult to believe, that two

fourteenth century Popes, one a mild Frenchman, and the other an

overbearing and choleric Italian, should have accepted the Sienese

Virgin as a special messenger from Heaven, have really credited her

miraculous pretensions, and have accorded a respect to her epistles on

the score of their being inspired (which they assuredly would not have

yielded to them as simply human compositions), it may be suggested,

that men placed in the position of those Popes may possibly not have

sincerely believed all that they deemed it politic to seem to believe.

The miracle-working Saint, who came with such a man as Father Raymond

to prompt her, backed by all the power and interest of the Dominican

Order, with the ambassadorial credentials of the revolted and dangerous

community of Florence in her hand, and with almost unlimited power of

moving and directing the passions of large masses of the populace,

was not a personage to be set at nought by a prudent Pontiff in the

position of either Gregory XI. or Urban VI.

The history of Catherine's Saintship since her canonisation has been

too much the same, as that of all her brethren and sisters of the

calendar, to make it at all interesting to enter into details of the

"_dulia_"—not worship! observe Protestant reader!—offered to her.

She has her chapels, her relics, her candles, her office, her day, her

devotees, like the rest of Rome's holy army. But what she could not be

permitted to have, despite the recognition of Urban VIII., in 1628,

was a claim to blood-relationship with the noble family of Borghese.

Whether the Saint's heraldic backers were correct in attributing to

her such an honour, or those of the Borghese right in disputing the

fact, it is clear that that remarkably noble family had not sufficient

respect for saintly reputation, however exalted, to endure that a

dyer's daughter, let her have been what she might, should mar by her

vicinity the nobleness of the many barbarous barons and worthless

knights who have borne the family name. So great was the outcry they

raised, that Urban VIII. was obliged infallibly to unsay his previous

saying on the subject.

[Sidenote: ANECDOTE OF THE PRESENT POPE.]

By way of a conclusion, which, while it shows, that in the case of

Catherine at least, there is an exception to the rule that excludes a

prophet from honour in his own country, proves also that the subject of

her Saintship is not a matter of mere historical interest, but aspires

to the dignity of an "actualité," an anecdote may be told of the

present Pope's recent journey through Tuscany.

Arrived at Siena, he too, like his predecessors, either thought it

holy, or thought it politic, to pay due attention to the popular Saint

in her own city. He accordingly directed the Saint's head, in its

setting of silver and precious stones, to be brought from the Dominican

church to his lodging in the Grand-ducal palace. But the populace of

the city, especially the women of the ward in which the Saint was born,

estimated the value of the precious relic so much more highly than they

did the honesty of the Pontiff, that they insisted on not losing sight

of their treasure, and could hardly be persuaded that Pio Nono had no

burglarious intentions respecting it.

CATERINA SFORZA.

1462.-1509.

CHAPTER I.

Of Catherine's father, the Duke, and of his magnificent journey to

Florence.

The latter years of the fifteenth century, up to 1494, were a time

of unusual prosperity in Italy. Never since the fall of the Roman

empire, one thousand years previously, says Guicciardini,[43] had she

enjoyed a period so flourishing and happy. "Reposing in perfect peace

and tranquillity," continues the great historian, "cultivated in the

more sterile and mountainous regions, as well as in the plains and

fertile districts, subject to none save her native rulers, she not

only abounded with inhabitants, trade, and wealth, but was especially

adorned by the magnificence of a great number of princes, by the

splendour of many noble and beautiful cities, by the majesty of the

supreme seat of religion, and by the excellence of her great men in

every art, pursuit, and science."

Of these noble and wealthy cities, Milan was one of the noblest and

wealthiest; and Galeazzo Maria Sforza, its Duke, was one of the princes

who most notably "adorned Italy with his magnificence." The Visconti

had reigned there from 1277, till the death of Filippo, the last

Duke of that race, in 1447, without heirs male. He had, some years

before his death, given his daughter Bianca, and the succession to his

duchy, to the celebrated soldier of fortune Francesco Sforza. And the

magnificent Galeazzo, whose lot fell on the halcyon times described by

Guicciardini, was the son of Francesco and Bianca, and succeeded his

father in 1466.

[Sidenote: JOHN PETER LANDRIANO.]

Now, in the smiling and happy city of Milan, in these merry days of the

good old time, there lived, eating his polenta, paying church-dues and

taxes, and so pursuing, as quietly as he might, his way to dusty death

among a crowd bound for the same bourne, a citizen named John Peter

Landriano. To this John Peter, also, it might have been permitted to

sleep in tranquil oblivion together with the others of his probably

polenta-eating, and certainly tax-paying, fellow-citizens, instead

of being still, after now four hundred years, thus extant, despite

his "fallentis semita vitæ," had not Mnemosyne marked him for her

own, by right of one small fact. He was the husband of a remarkably

beautiful wife, named somewhat unhappily Lucretia, on whom it pleased

his magnificent Highness Galeazzo Maria to look with condescension in

the year 1462. In a later part of that same year, the family of John

Peter Landriano was increased by the birth of a female child, named

Catherine, whom his Highness was so good as to consider and educate as

his own.

This splendid prince, who was, as Catherine's priestly biographer,[44]

Burriel, informs us, more bookishly inclined than could have been

expected from a person of his exalted rank, took care that her

education should be sedulously attended to by some of the learned

persons who abounded in his court. And he had reason to be so well

contented with the promise of her early years, that shortly after

she had reached the age of eight, he caused her to be "legitimatised

"—a curious process, which would seem to prove that, though not Jove

himself has power o'er the past, Holy Mother Church possesses it.

Thenceforward Catherine's education was conducted under the

superintendence of the Duchess Bona, a princess of the house of

Savoy, whom Duke Galeazzo married in 1468 after the death of his

first wife, Dorotea Gonzaga, by whom he had no child. It is to be

supposed, probably, that the process of "legitimation," among its other

mysterious virtues, had that of inspiring a good church-woman with

maternal feelings for the offspring of another; for the Duchess Bona,

who seems to have been a kind and gentle rather than a royal-souled

lady, appears to have affectionately welcomed the little stranger as

a princess of the noble house of Sforza, and to have done her best to

prepare her duly for the high fortunes to which her father destined

her, as a means of extending the connections and assuring the greatness

of his house.

[Sidenote: THE BALANCE OF POWER.]

Such schemes, and others directed to the same end, formed the principal

serious occupation of the Italian princes of that time, and were

the fruitful source of atrocities and abominations innumerable, as

the reader of Italian history well knows. To a certain degree such

ambition found its excuse in the great law of self-preservation. For in

the perpetually shifting scene produced by the alliances, jealousies,

leagues, ruptures, friendships and treasons, of a crowd of petty

potentates, it was well nigh impossible for any family of princely

rank to hold its own, neither encroaching itself, nor encroached on by

others. The fortunes of each were ever on the rise, or on the decline.

And at the period of our heroine's appearance on the scene, the

peace, which Italy was then enjoying, was preserved only by a careful

maintenance of the balance of power between some four or five of the

leading princes of the peninsula.

How large a portion of the labours and of the abilities of statesmen

has been devoted to the perpetual trimming of this troublesome balance,

at a later period of the world's history on the great theatre of

Europe, we all know. And it is interesting to observe how thoroughly

the theory was understood, and how perfectly and sedulously reduced

to practice by exceedingly accomplished professors of the art of

state-craft, in the miniature world shut off from the rest of Europe

by the Alps. Indeed, the smallness of the objects to be weighed

against each other rendered the task of keeping the scales even in

that microcosm a peculiarly delicate one. Where very small matters

were capable of disarranging the adjustment of the balance, only great

dexterity and prudence could preserve the equilibrium. And accordingly,

the game of checking and counter-checking, far-sighted schemes of

attack, and still more cunningly devised means for future defence, was

carried on upon that small chess-board with a perfection of duplicity,

vigilance, and small vulpine sagacity, which might give a lesson to

most modern professors of the same art.

Ferdinand of Aragon at Naples, Popes Paul II., and his successor

Sixtus IV. at Rome, Lorenzo the Magnificent at Florence, Galeazzo

Maria Sforza at Milan, and the Republic of Venice,[45] were the powers

between whom and by whom the balance of power, the peace of Italy, and

the possessions of each of them, were to be preserved. The first four

of these were, at the time in question, united in a common course of

policy by the necessity of watching and keeping in check the ambitious

Queen of the Adriatic, far more powerful than any one of the four,

though much less so than all of them together. The rest of Italy, not

comprised in the above five states, consisted of a crowd of petty

principalities, which served singularly to complicate the game played

by the great players, and to increase the interest of its vicissitudes.

If endowed with any military talent, these small princes of a city

and its immediate neighbourhood would take service as generals of the

forces, in the pay of one or other of their more powerful neighbours.

And in this way several of them became important elements in the

calculations of those potentates. Some, again, would die without heirs

male, and leave their female successors, daughter or widow, a prize to

be scrambled for by the royal crowd always on the look out for such

windfalls. Others were perpetually at feud with their own subjects, and

thus gave an opportunity to some neighbour to intervene on behalf of

one or the other party, with the same ultimate result. Finally, (and

this was perhaps the way in which they most seriously compromised the

tranquillity and influenced the destinies of Italy)—they formed the

material from which each new Pope, who was anxious to be the founder

of a princely family sought to carve out a dominion for his "nephews"

by any of those arts of fraud or intimidation, of which Rome was so

consummate a mistress.

[Sidenote: PROJECTS OF MARRIAGE.]

No sooner had Catherine's legitimation given her the value of a piece

on the political chess-board, than she became involved in the moves

of the game. At a very early age she had been promised in marriage

to the Count Onorato Torelli, scion of a noble family, which had in

the preceding generation given valuable support to the Sforzas, ere

their star was so decidedly in the ascendant. But Catherine became a

princess; the young Onorato very conveniently died; and Duke Galeazzo

conceived schemes for selling his daughter in a better market. The

Manfredi were lords of Imola, a neat little city, situated in the midst

of a rich alluvial territory between the foot of the Apennines and the

Adriatic, about twenty miles to the south of Bologna; a compact and

very desirable little sovereignty in short, with taxes capable of an

increased yield in the hands of an enterprising possessor.

Now it so happened, that Tadeo Manfredi, the reigning prince, was

involved in a dangerous quarrel with Guidazzo, his son, who complained

that his spendthrift father was loading "the property" with an

unconscionable amount of debt. And this uncomfortable state of things

was talked over at the splendid court of Milan. Whereupon Duke Galeazzo

came forward with a proposition, which he hoped would prove acceptable

to all parties. He would assign within the limits of his duchy an

appanage to Tadeo, would pay that extravagant old gentleman's debts,

and would give his daughter Catherine, with the lordship of Imola,

which was thenceforth to be his, to Guidazzo. The bargain certainly

appeared advantageous enough to the Manfredi. The debts would be paid,

and Guidazzo the heir, would after all be lord of his father's state;

and whether in his own right, or that of his wife, would not so much

signify.

But that little lady was, at the time she was thus disposed of,

scarcely more than eight or nine years old. Poor Guidazzo had therefore

to content himself with the promise of her hand, when she should have

reached a marriageable age. And never was there period in the world's

history, or clime on its surface, where slips between cup and lip were

more abundant than in those good old times on the sunny side of the

Alps.

Meanwhile old Tadeo is shelved on the estate of Castelnuovo, near

Alessandria; Imola and its territory has passed into the hands of Duke

Galeazzo; and young Guidazzo is dangling about the gay and magnificent

court of Milan, and deems his fortune is a ripening, while his promised

bride is daily growing in grace, beauty, and princely accomplishments,

under the hot-house influences of the same splendid and dazzling

environment.[46]

Dazzling indeed was the pomp, and ostentatiously reckless the

expenditure of wealth, amid which Catherine passed those years of her

life, when the impressions eagerly received from external objects

are the most busy in forming the taste, and modifying the character.

For the age was one of rapidly increasing luxury and riches. And the

parvenu sovereign of Milan was especially bent on eclipsing his peers,

and proving his right to his position among them by an unrivalled

display of all that tailors, upholsterers, mercers, and jewellers can

do towards creating the majesty that should hedge a king.

[Sidenote: A DUCAL JOURNEY]

It was very shortly after he had concluded the arrangements for

Catherine's future marriage, that, fired with this right royal

ambition, Galeazzo determined on a festal journey to Florence, Lucca,

Pisa, and so home by Genoa. Lorenzo, "the Magnificent," was sovereign

in all save name at Florence, and now he was to be shown that Milan's

Duke could advance a better claim to so proud a title. The Duchess Bona

accompanied him. And from the provision of no less than twelve litters,

it may be concluded that the other female members of his family, and

doubtless Catherine among them, were of the party. These litters are

called by a contemporary writer,[47] carts—"caretti"—but he adds that

they were _carried on_ mules over the mountains. The carts were covered

with awnings of cloth of gold, embroidered with the ducal arms; and the

"mattresses and feather beds" which were laid in the bottoms of them,

were some of cloth of gold, some of silver, and some of crimson satin.

All the great feudatories who held of the Duke, and all the members

of his council, each followed by several splendidly dressed servants,

attended him. All the members of the ducal household were clothed

in velvet. Forty footmen were decorated with golden collars, and

other forty with embroidery. The Duke's grooms were dressed in silk,

ornamented with silver. There were fifty led horses, with housings of

cloth of gold, and gilt stirrups; an hundred men-at-arms, "each dressed

as if he were a captain;" five hundred foot soldiers, all picked men;

an hundred mules, covered with cloth of gold; and fifty magnificently

caparisoned pages. Two thousand other horses, and two hundred more

mules, all covered with rich damask, carried the baggage of the

multitudinous host. Five hundred couples of hounds, with huntsmen and

falcons and falconers in proportion, together with trumpeters, players,

mimes, and musicians, made part of the monstrous cortège.[48]

Let the reader picture to himself this gilded and velvet covered

army, slowly wending in long slender file, glistening dazzlingly in

the southern sun, but grievously tormented under their ponderously

magnificent trappings by the same, as they laboured over the steep and

sinuous Apennine paths, by which alone they could reach mountain-girt

Florence. For only a difficult bridle-path then crossed those

mountains, over which the traveller now rolls in his carriage between

Modena and Florence. Let him imagine, too, the camp of the brilliant,

but wayworn host, pitched for the night amid the shelter of a chestnut?

forest, in the midst of those wild hills, where even now, and much less

then, there is neither town nor village capable of housing a tithe

of such a multitude. And further, while amusing his fancy with such

gorgeous and picturesque imaginings, let him not forget, that every

yard of this cloth-of-gold, and richly-tinted velvet, represented

the value of some horny palm's hard labour, the sweat of some weary

brow, wrung from the wronged labourer by the most cruel and lawless

severities of extortion.

[Sidenote: READING ROMAN HISTORY.]

But while the Duke and his Court were startling the world with the

glories of this unprecedented cavalcade, making awe-struck peasants

wonder, emulous peers envy, and angels weep, there were three young

nobles, who had remained at home at Milan, engaged in reading "certain

passages of Roman history" with their schoolmaster, one Cola Montano.

Their names were Giovanni Andrea Lampugnano, Girolamo Olgiato, and

Carlo Visconti; and, I dare say, descendants of theirs, whether under

those names or others, may yet be found in the fair city of Milan; and

perhaps they may be equally fond of reading the Roman history,—an

occupation, it might be supposed, as innocent, though not so fatiguing,

as riding over the Apennines in a suit of cloth of gold. Yet the

reverend and right-minded historian,[49] who mentions the circumstance,

speaks of their occupation with much disgust and indignation. Perhaps

he is right. Perhaps "certain passages of Roman history" are not

wholesome reading for the subjects of splendid princes.

For the present, however, we will let Galeazzo ride on in his glory,

and the young gentlemen pursue their story-fed meditations in

tranquillity at Milan.

The Duke arrived at Florence on the 13th of March, and was

magnificently received by the magnificent Lorenzo, who entertained

him and his family in his own house, while the enormous body of his

retainers and followers were lodged and fed at the cost of the city.

The Florentine historian, Ammirato,[50] after having enumerated all the

particulars of the pomp detailed above, goes on in the true spirit of

the old Italian city-patriotism to maintain, that Galeazzo, "for all

that, young and proud, and the minion of Fortune, as he was, found

himself obliged to admit that all his splendour was outdone by the

magnificence of Lorenzo," inasmuch as the precious treasures of the

Medici were far more admirable from the artistic excellence of the

workmanship, than from the mere value of the material. "He could not

but confess," continues the partisan of the Italian Athens, "that art

had a higher value than mere costliness, as being attainable only by

more arduous labour, and with greater difficulty; while he declared,

that in all Italy he had not seen so great a number of paintings by the

first masters, of gems, beautiful vases, statues ancient and modern,

bronzes, medals, and rare books, as he now saw collected in the palace

of the Medici;—treasures which he should esteem cheaply purchased by

any quantity of silver or gold."

Florence did all she could for the amusement of her princely guests.

But as it was in time of Lent, she could not, as she did twelve years

previously, when Galeazzo had visited the city as a boy, show him a

"hunt," as the historian calls it,[51] of wolves, boars, lions, and

a giraffe, on the Piazza of Santa Croce! To be "like the time," it

was necessary that the dissipations should be of an ecclesiastical

character. So the gallant company were treated to a representation of

the Annunciation in the church of St. Felice, to the Ascension in the

church of the Carmine, and to the descent of the Holy Ghost on the

Apostles, at the church of the Santo Spirito.[52] The souls of the

Lombards, says Ammirato, were filled with admiration of the wonderful

artifices and ingenuity displayed on this occasion. And all passed off

with the greatest éclat, save that the church of Santo Spirito was

burned to the ground by the forked tongues of fire.

[Sidenote: EFFECTS OF A DUCAL VISIT.]

This little accident was the only circumstance, that tended, says

the historian, to mingle some flavour of bitterness with the general

rejoicing. But the graver citizens of the republic complained that the

brilliant Duke, when he started two days after this disaster on his

return to his own states, full of compliments and admiration at his

hospitable reception, left behind him among the young Florentine nobles

a taste for profusion and display, which was a far greater evil than

the enormous expense to which the city had been put, including the cost

of rebuilding their burned church.