The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

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f Siena. She was born on March 25th, 1347, the youngest of a large family of sons and daughters that Monna Lapa bore to her husband, Giacomo Benincasa, a dyer of the contrada of Fontebranda. The family of the Beninca

her clad on the walls of so many of Siena's churches and palaces. She still remained in her father's house, though for the next three years she lived apart from her family and utterly severed from the outer world: "Within her own house she found the desert, and a solitude in the midst of people." She never left the house save to go into San Domenico-especially that chapel known as the Cappella delle Volte, so full still of the aroma of her sweet spirit. Wondrous revelations came to her of the Divine Beauty; she smelt the fragrance of unearthly lilies, and heard the celestial music of Paradise, led by Mary Magdalene, singing con voce alta e con grazia di singolar dolcezza. In her visions Christ stood continually by her side; with Him she walked familiarly; with Him she talked as friend to friend, or recited the psalms in her little room, as one religio

than the person of her Lord. She sought Him then in the streets and broadways of her native city, and she found Him in the hospitals of the lepers, and wherever sickness had assumed its most terrible and repulsive forms."[18] Her ecstatic trances grew more prolonged, her wondrous visions more continuous; she suffered intolerable pains in all her frame, and appears gradually to have come to live without nourishment of ordinary food and drink. All that approached her were struck by her mirthfulness and never-failing bright spirits; "ella è sempre lieta

r man. A little later she seemed to be dying, or actually dead. In this suspension of her life or mystical death-call it what you will-she beheld the spiritual lives of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, and was bidden to return to the world, to convince it of sin and error, to warn it of impending peril. "The salvation of many souls demands thy return," said the voice of the Divine Spouse in her heart, "nor shalt thou any longer keep that way of life that up to now thou hast kept. No longer shalt thou have thy cell for dwelling-place; nay, thou

inners, like that singolare ribaldo Andrea di Naddino Bellanti, were m

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Giacomo Tolomei, laid aside their fury and went humbly to confession. When the pestilence raged in Siena in 1374 and many fled the city, Catherine was foremost in tending the stric

Caffarini's book is in the main an abridgement. There were devout women too, who robed themselves in the same black and white habit of penance, some of them from the noblest families of Siena: Alessia Saracini and Francesca Gori, the two whom we see with her in Bazzi's frescoes; several of the Tolomei; and, later, Lisa, the widow of Catherine's brother Bartolommeo. Presently there were added to these several young men of noble birth, who acted as her secretaries and legates, united to her by what seems a wonderful blending of religious enthusiasm and spiritualis

ldo, attached to the household of the Senator of Siena, was sentenced to be beheaded for some rash words against the government of the Riformatori. In his prison he abandoned himself to desperation and despair-he was a mere youth,

pectation, creating in him so great affection and love in the desire of God, that he could not stay without Him, saying: 'Stay with me, and do not leave me. So shall I fare not otherwise than well; and I die content.' And he laid his head upon my breast. Then I felt an exultation and an odour of his blood and of mine too, which I desired to shed for the sweet spouse Jesus. And as the desire increased in my soul and I felt his fear, I said: 'Take comfort, my sweet brother; for soon shall we come to the nuptials. Thither shalt thou go, bathed in the sweet blood of the Son of God, with the sweet name of Jesus, the which I would not that it ever leave

n head upon the block, either dreaming of martyrdom or to make herself one in spirit with him at the dread moment. She besought Mary to give him light and peace of heart

, sweet brother mine! for soon shalt thou be in the eternal life.' He placed himself down with great meekness; and I stretched out his neck and bent down over him, and reminded him of the B

saw the soul received by its Maker, and saw it, in the first tasting of the divine sweetness, turn back to thank her. "Then did my soul repose in peace and in quiet, in so great an odour of blood,

ival branches of that great clan with each other, makes peace between the head of the House, her friend Agnolino (the son of the great Giovanni di Agnolino Salimbeni) and his factious kinsman Cione. While staying at the Rocca, she appears to have learnt to write-it is said by a miracle.[22] Be that as it may, the greater part at least of her extant letters (and, so far as the knowledge of the present writer extends, all those of which the original autographs have been preserved), were dictated to her secretaries. We possess nearly four hundred of them, thes

rch, "the Vicar who holds the keys of the blood of Christ crucified."[24] She bids the proud lady of Lombardy robe herself with the robe of burning Charity and make herself the means and instrument to reconcile her husband "with Christ sweet Jesus, and with His Vicar, Christ on earth."[25] Her prayers are effectual, and a truce is proclaimed. The Vicar Apostolic in the Papal States writes to her for counsel in the name of the Pope. She bids him destroy the nepotism and luxury that are ruining the Church. Better than labouring for the temporalities of the Church would it be to strive to put down "the wolves and incarnate demons of pastors, who attend to nought else save eating and fine palaces and stout horses. Alas! that what Christ won upon the wood of the Cross should be squandered with harlots."[26] Then comes the news that the Sovereign Pontiff is meditating a crusade. She throws herself heart and soul

bled with continual ecstasies that they thought her at the point of death. Here, on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, she is said to have received the Stigmata-the wounds of Christ's Passion-in her

orming no part of the Papal States, saw her liberties threatened. The refusal of the Legate of Bologna, although he had letters to the contrary from the Pope, to allow corn to be sent from his province into Tuscany in time of famine-followed, as it was, by the appearance of Hawkwood in the territories of the Republic-precipitated matters. War broke out in the latter part of 1375. The Florentines appointed a new magistracy, the Eight of the War, to carry it on, and sent a banner, upon which was Libertas in white letters on a red field, round to all the cities, offering aid in men and money to any who would rise against the Church. Città di Castello began; Perugia followed; and in a few days all central Italy was i

ldly goods, "as though to show that He wished that Holy Church should return to its primal state of poverty, humility, and meekness, as she was in that holy time, when they attended to nought save to the honour of God and the salvation of souls, caring only for spiritual things and not for temporal." Let him come straightway to Rome, "like a meek lamb, using only the arms of the virtue of love, thinking only of the care of spiritual things;" for God calls him "to come to hold and possess the place of the glorious shepherd St Peter." He may claim that he is bound to recover and preserve the treasure and the lordships of the cities that the Church has lost; far more greatly is he bound to win back so many "little sheep, who are a treasure in the Church." Let him choose between the temporal power and the salvation of souls; let him win back his children in peace, and he will surely have what is due to him. He can conquer only with benignity and mildness, humility and patience. "Keep back the soldiers that you have hired, and suffer them not to come." Let him come as soon as possible, come uomo virile e senza alcun timore; but "look to it that you come not with a power of armed men, but with the Cross in your hand, like a meek lamb."[29] But to the Signoria of Flore

e before the Sovereign Pontiff. In June she reached Avignon-that city of luxury and corruption, that nido di tradimenti upon which Petrarch had invoked the rain of fire from heaven. The Pope received her graciously. "In order that thou mayest see clearly that I desire peace," he said, "I put it absolutely into thy hands; but be careful of the honour of the

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Rome. Catherine-in spite of the paintings that you may still see in Rome and Siena-did not accompany him to the Eternal City. She met him again at Genoa, wh

Maconi, the mother of her Stefano, she writes: "Take comfort sweetly and be patient, and do not be troubled, because I have kept Stefano too long; for I have taken good care of him. Through love and affection I have become one thing with him, and therefore have I taken what is yours as though it were mine. I am certain that you have not really been distressed at it. For you and for him I would fain labour even unto death, in all that I shall be able. You, mother, have given birth to him once; and I would fain give birth to him and you and all y

om shall I have recourse, if you abandon me? Who will aid me? to whom shall I fly, if you drive me away? If you abandon me, conceiving displeasure and indignation against me, I will hide myself in the wounds of Christ crucified, whose vicar you are, and I know that He will receive me, because He wills not the death of the sinner. And if He receives me, you will not drive me away; rather shall we stay in our place to fight manfully with the arms of virtue for the sweet Spouse of Christ."[34] Her last extant letter to Gregory, pleading for peace with the Italians and for the punishment "of the pastors and officers of the Church when they do what they should not do," recommending to him

h whom she had now to deal) to take his stand upon true and perfect Charity.[36] A few weeks later the terrible rising of the populace, known as the Tumult of the Ciompi, burst over Florence. The adherents of St Catherine, as associated with the hated Parte Guelfa, were specially obnoxious to the mob, and her own life was threatened. A band of armed men came into the garden where she knelt in prayer, crying out that they would cut her to pieces. She prepared for martyrdom as for a joyous feast, and wept bitterly when she was left unharmed, declaring that the multitude of her sins had prevented her from being suffered to shed her blood for Christ. She wrote in this strain to Frate Raimondo, saying that she would begin a new life that day, in order that these sins of hers might no longer withdraw her from the grace of martyrdom; her only fear was lest what had happened might in some way influence the Pope against a speedy peace.[37] At the end of July peace was signed; Florence and the other cities of Tuscany we

. It consists of four mystical treatises on Discretion, Prayer, Divine Providence, and Obedience, in the form of a dialogue between God and a soul "panting with greatest desire for the honour of God and the salvation of souls." This Dialogue and her Letters repre

s and his words." The abrupt violence with which he began his work enraged and alarmed all the Curia, and within a few months of his election he was left alone. The French Cardinals fled to Anagni, and took the Breton mercenaries into their pay. When the Pope nominated twenty-six new cardinals, they held a conclave at Fondi, and, on the plea that the election of Urban had been extorted by force and fear of t

nty months of life that remained to her she battled for him to the death. Letter after letter did she send to him, full of evangelic counsels, urging him-in the boldest possible language-to begin the reform of the Church in his own person. Savonarola himself hardly surpasses the passion of her invective against the corruption of the ecclesiastical world. Urban is at first offended by her frankne

of Christ. To simple nuns she wrote imploring them to storm Heaven with prayers for his cause; to monks and hermits, bidding them leave their cells and convents, rally round the Sovereign Pontiff in the Eternal City, or do battle for him in the haunts and abodes of men. "Ye fools," she wrote to the three Italian Cardinals who were striving to remain neutral, "fools, worthy of a thousand deaths"-but the epistle must be read in its entirety, for it is one of the most amazing documents of the epoch.[41] Other epistles secured the adhesion of the Republics of Siena and Florence, of Venice and Perugia. To the Queen of Naples, as chief supporter of Clement (whom she presently received as Sovereign Pontiff on his way to Avignon), she pleads Urban's cause with calm reason, turning off the arrows of her words to strike the hostile Cardinals; and in like manner to Onorato Gaetani, Count of Fondi, who had protected the schismatic conclave with

t (strange reflection on the pomp of the Curia!) as something that had not been seen for ages. To the magistrates of the Roman Republic she wrote a letter on behalf of the victorious soldiery, which Tommaseo characterises as "worthy of the name of Rome."[43] Then, flushed with victory, she addresses the King of France, in hopes that he may still be won over; she makes one more flaming, impassioned appeal to the Queen of Naples, and then-sole blot, I think, in all this blameless life-co-operates with Urban, in her letters to the King Louis and his cousin, Charles of Durazzo, in his attempt to raise the power of Hungary and Poland upon Giovanna's head.[44] Her last extant le

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eive the sacrifice of her life in the mystical body of the Church. Praying in San Pietro on Sexagesima Sunday, it seemed to her that the Navicella-the Ship of the Church-was laid upon her shoulders, and that it crushed her to death. The few weeks of life that remained to her were one prolonged martyrdom, out of which we have her last letter[46]-written o

law; and to each of the others, she gave a separate charge as to their mode of life after she should be dead. "And she prayed with such great affection that not only our hearts as we listened, but the very stones could have been broken. Finally, making the sign of the Cross, she blessed us all; and so to the last and most desired end of life she drew near, persevering in continual prayer and saying: 'Thou, Lor