medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Catherine (Caterina Vigri or Vegri) was a mystic and visionary, a monastic founder, a prolific writer, and an at least occasional painter. She was born in Bologna, where her mother belonged to the city nobility, but spent most of her life at Ferrara, where her father was an agent of the Este court. Educated along with Niccolò III d'Este's illegitimate daughter Margherita, Catherine received instruction in Latin, in music, and in manuscript painting. In the later 1420s after service as a lady in waiting she left the court to join an already existing community of pious women. After that had broken apart on the death of its founder, Catherine entered (in 1431) Ferrara's convent of Corpus Domini, founded in 1406 as an Augustinian house and now being transformed into a Clarissan one. In addition to various domestic duties Catherine served at this house as mistress of novices and in that capacity wrote her best known work, _Le sette armi spirituali_ ("The Seven Spiritual Weapons"). Her reputation for holiness was such that she was regarded as a living saint.
In 1455/56 Catherine founded in Bologna its own also Clarissan convent of Corpus Domini. She served as its abbess until her death in 1463. Post-mortem miracles were attributed to her and when, not long afterward, her body was exhumed it was found to be incorrupt. Catherine was canonized in 1712.
Between 1477 and 1480 Catherine's convent of Corpus Domini in Bologna erected a new church. Renovated within in the late seventeenth century, it preserves its original facade:
http://tinyurl.com/yot3uy
The church is known popularly as the chiesa della Santa because Catherine may be seen in an adjoining cell, fully dressed and sitting upright on an ornate chair:
http://tinyurl.com/honu2uf
http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/31550/31550B.JPG
http://tinyurl.com/hlzmxuy
Not exactly poikilothron' athanat' Aphrodita [Sappho, fragment 1, line 1].
Some period-pertinent images St. Catherine of Bologna:
a) as depicted by Guglielmo Giraldi in the later fifteenth-century Gualenghi-d'Este Hours (ca. 1469; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, ms. Ludwig IX 13, fol. 185v):
http://tinyurl.com/glz9xcy
b) as depicted by the Master of the Baroncelli Portraits in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1470-80) in the Courtauld Gallery, London:
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/gallery/c5deb393.html
Best,
John Dillon
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