CATHERINE OF SIENA, SAINT
(1347–1380)
Saint Catherine of Siena (Caterina di Iacopo di Benin-
casa) was a signifi cant force in the Italian church and
Italian society of the late fourteenth century. Catherine
was the twenty-fourth of twenty-fi ve children of a
Sienese wool-dyer. She adopted a fi erce asceticism in
early childhood, determined never to marry so that she
might belong entirely to God. In her late teens she was
admitted into the lay third order of Saint Dominic, which
until then had been composed only of widows. There-
after she lived in almost total seclusion in her parents’
home until, when she was about twenty years old, she
experienced a dramatic conversion: her prayers led her
to the realization that her love for God could no longer
be detached from service of others.
Catherine then began to work with the poor and sick
of Siena, but her infl uence soon extended to the civic and
ecclesiastical spheres as her powerful personality and
her gift for conciliation were recognized. She attracted
disciples, many of whom were her seniors in age and
her superiors in education and status. She found an ideal
mentor—intellectually, spiritually, and politically—in
the Dominican Raymond of Capua, who in 1374 was
appointed by the Dominican order (an appointment later
confi rmed by the pope) to be her confessor and the direc-
tor of her public activities. In partnership with Raymond,
she became deeply involved in attempts to mediate
and resolve the growing tension and rifts between the
republics of the Italian peninsula and the Avignonese
papacy. This confl ict was basically political, but because
it threatened the unity of the church, it represented for
Catherine a religious crisis in which she repeatedly felt
compelled to intervene. Her efforts took her to Pisa,
Lucca, and Florence and eventually to Avignon, where
in 1376 she persuaded the hesitant Pope Gregory XI to
return with his curia to Rome. However, her own politi-
cal naïvete, when Raymond was not actually at her side,
often complicated matters, and her realization of this
fact was a heavy psychological burden to her.
Catherine passionately promoted Gregory’s projected
crusade against the Turks, convinced that the venture
would not only unite the rebellious republics with the
pope in a common defense of Christian lands but would
also bring converted Muslims into the church as a leaven
of needed reform.
After Gregory’s death on 27 March 1378, a tumul-
tuous election brought to the papal throne Urban VI.
Urban’s violent ways soon caused the majority of the
cardinals to disavow him and elect an antipope, Clement
VII, thus bringing about the Great Schism. Catherine,
however, considered Urban the legitimate pope and
supported him vehemently, even while urging him to
moderation. At his invitation she moved with a number
of her disciples to Rome in November 1378, to support
his cause. By this time, however, her health was failing
as a result of her extreme asceticism. (Her early patterns
of fasting had led to an inability to eat normally, which
she regretted but was unable to reverse.) In addition, the
apparent failure of her dearest causes became a crushing
load that she actually felt as a physical weight. Still, she
continued to preach, write, pray, and fast in defense of
the church’s unity until she became totally disabled early
in 1380. She died on 29 April of that year.
Though unschooled, Catherine had learned to read
during her years of solitude. At some later time, she
probably learned to write, but she usually found dic-
tation a more effi cient vehicle for her prolifi c mind.
Several of her disciples served as her secretaries, and
to them we owe the preservation of her letters, a book,
and a collection of her prayers.
From the early 1370s on, nearly until she died, Cath-
erine wrote a vast number of letters to counsel others
and to infl uence them in favor of her causes. To date,
382 of her letters have been discovered and published.
They are addressed to a remarkably wide variety of
her contemporaries: two popes, several cardinals and
bishops, two kings, two queens, numerous lesser public
offi cials, her religious and lay associates, her family
and friends, her disciples, and an assortment of others,CATHERINE OF SIENA, SAINTDomenico Beccafumi (1486–1551). Saint Catherine of Sienna
receiving the stigmata. © Scala/Art Resources, New York.