3 182202461 2715
 
 UN VERS TY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO 
 
 3 182202461 2715 
 
 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 AND HER TIMES
 
 ST. CATHERINE OK SIENA 
 
 BY ANDREA VAXNI
 
 SAINT CATHERINE 
 OF SIENA 
 
 AND HER TIMES 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF " MADEMOISELLE MORI " 
 
 WITH TWENTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 METHUEN & CO 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 
 LONDON
 
 First Published in 1906
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD .... i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO . * . . 25 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 A THORNY PATH . / * . . . SO 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CATHERINE AS PEACEMAKER ... . 75 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN . , . 93 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS . . . . . 1 16 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON . . . . . 135 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS . c . . . 157
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 POPE AND SAINT . . . , ' . . 180 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE . . 2OO 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 GATHERING STORMS 
 
 22 3 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 A LAST JOURNEY .... .243 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME ..... 263 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 A GOOD FIGHT WON ....
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ST CATHERINE OF SIENA .... Frontispiece 
 By Andrea Vanni 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SAN DOMENICO AT SIENA . . . 12 
 
 ST CATHERINE IN ADORATION .... 23 
 
 By Beccafumi 
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE ORATORY IN ST CATHERINE'S HOUSE 
 
 AT SIENA ....... 38 
 
 ST CATHERINE ....... 51 
 
 By Cozzarelli 
 
 ST CATHERINE CURES MATTEO DI CENNI OF THE PLAGUE 55 
 
 By G. del Pacckia 
 
 THE ECSTASY OF ST CATHERINE . . . . 60 
 
 By Sodoma 
 
 A LETTER OF ST CATHERINE ..... 69 
 
 ST CATHERINE'S HOUSE AT SIENA . . . .79 
 
 BRONZE RELIQUARY OF ST CATHERINE AT SIENA . . 90 
 
 ST CATHERINE RECEIVING THE STIGMATA ... 103 
 
 By Sana di Pietro 
 
 ST CATHERINE (ON THE RIGHT) IN ADORATION . . 115 
 
 By Gerolamo di Benvenuto 
 
 ST CATHERINE CHOOSES THE CROWN OF THORNS . . 123 
 
 By A. Franc hi 
 
 ST CATHERINE . . . . . , .136 
 
 From a picture by Francesco di Giorgio 
 
 STATUE IN WOOD OF ST CATHERINE . . . 151 
 
 By Neroccio Sandi
 
 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ST CATHERINE ....... 160 
 
 By Sodoma 
 
 THE SWOON OF ST CATHERINE .... 175 
 
 By Sodoma 
 
 ST CATHERINE PERSUADES THE POPE TO RETURN TO ROME 177 
 By Sebastiano Conca 
 
 RETURN OF GREGORY XL TO ROME ACCOMPANIED BY 
 
 ST CATHERINE ...... 191 
 
 By Niccolo Franchini 
 
 ST CATHERINE PRAYING FOR THE SOUL OF AN HERETIC 2o6 
 
 By Sodoma 
 
 ST CATHERINE ....... 2K8 
 
 By Lorenzo di Pietro Vecchietta 
 
 ST CATHERINE AND THE CONFRATERNITY OF THE 
 
 MISERICORDIA ..... 22O 
 
 By Sana di Pietro 
 
 STATUE OF ST CATHERINE ..... 236 
 
 By Neroccio 
 
 THE FOOT OF THE DEAD ST AGNES SALUTES ST CATHERINE 253 
 A PAGE OF ST CATHERINE'S MISSAL . . . 273 
 
 RELICS IN ST CATHERINE'S HOUSE AT SIENA . 287 
 
 LEFT SCENT BOTTLE, LANTERN, AND STAFF-HEAD 
 CENTRE VEIL AND HAIR ; SHIRT 
 
 RIGHT SACK IN WHICH HER HEAD WAS BROUGHT FROM ROMK 
 
 ST CATHERINE'S HEAD AT SAN DOMENICO IN SIENA . 292 
 THE CANONISATION OF ST CATHERINE BY POPE PIUS II. . 295
 
 SAINT CATHERINE 
 OF SIENA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 
 
 IN the year A.D. 1348 Siena lay in the grip of the 
 Black Death. It had been brought some months 
 earlier to Genoa by certain galleys " full of the cor- 
 ruption of overseas," according to the chronicle of Agnolo 
 di Tura, who goes on to relate how " great pestilence fell 
 on the city, sent by Heaven in those accursed galleys, 
 because the Genoese had despatched them to the Turks, 
 and had committed cruelties on Christians worse than 
 those done by Saracens. For this reason the great de- 
 struction spread from town to town, and slew three parts 
 and more of all Christian folk. And the father scarce 
 stayed to look on the son, and the wife abandoned her 
 husband, for it was said that the sickness could be taken 
 by mere looking on those stricken, or breathing their 
 breath. . . . And none were found to bury even for hire. 
 Relations went not with the dead, nor friend, nor priest, 
 nor friar, nor were prayers said over them, but when any 
 died, whether by day or night, he was straightway borne 
 to a church and buried, covered with a little earth that 
 the dogs might not eat him. Ditches very great and 
 deep were dug in many parts of the city. . . . And I, 
 Agnolo di Tura, buried five of my children in one of
 
 2 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 them with mine own hands, and so did many others. 
 . . . And no bell tolled, and no one wept for any matter, 
 for all expected death, since things went so that folk 
 believed none would remain, and many thought and said, 
 ' This is the end of the world.' " 
 
 Some months before this terrible moment Lapa, the 
 wife of Giacomo Benincasa, a well-to-do dyer in the 
 ward of Siena known as the Contrada dell" Oca, or Ward 
 of the Goose, so called as some say from the flocks of 
 geese kept there, gave birth to twins, who were named 
 Giovanna and Catarina. The former lived but a short 
 time ; the latter grew up to be the pride of Siena, and 
 the most distinguished woman saint of the great 
 Dominican Order. 
 
 Early biographers, to whom all connected with St 
 Catherine seemed touched by the supernatural, regarded 
 her survival of the plague as the first of many miracles 
 connected with " la beata popolana," as the Sienese 
 lovingly call her, one of many fond names by which she 
 is known in her native city. 
 
 Of her childhood there is little to tell. Born on Palm 
 Sunday, she would certainly be carried on Easter Eve 
 to the Duomo to be christened, with all the other 
 children whose birthdays fell after Whitsunday in the 
 preceding year, for though sickly babies might be 
 baptised at home, the custom was to christen one and 
 all at Easter or Pentecost. Thus, while some were new 
 born, others would be almost a year old, as is shown 
 in the graffiti on the pavement before the Baptistery, 
 where some of the children are represented as infants, 
 while others hang back, or walk beside their mothers. 
 At one time there was but a single Baptistery for the 
 whole diocese, " conformable to the saying of St Paul, 
 ' One Lord, one faith, one baptism,' " and even when 
 the extreme inconvenience of this arrangement caused
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 3 
 
 fonts to be introduced into country churches, all the 
 children of Siena were carried to the Duomo, as is still 
 the case. The first boy christened there in Catherine's 
 day was always called Giovanni, and the second, Martino, 
 after one of the patron saints of the city, while the first 
 girl was named Maria, after which the infants received 
 whatever names their relations chose. 
 
 Very curious they sometimes were. Noble families 
 who claimed descent from an ancient Roman stock 
 would take classic names, such as Ascanio, Scipione, 
 Tullia and Livia. The middle class often chose them 
 from romances of chivalry ; registers and pedigrees give 
 Alicander, Rinaldo, Biancafiori, Diamante, and others of 
 the same sort, together with names more difficult to 
 account for, such as Uscilia, Cameola, and Leggiera. 1 
 
 The Benincasa contented themselves with every day 
 names for their twenty-five children, common sense rather 
 than sentiment distinguishing both parents. Lapa seems 
 to have been an active housewife, affectionate, but sharp- 
 tongued and imperious, with little sympathy for anything 
 beyond her own range of thought, but unwearied in doing 
 her duty as far as she saw it. Her hasty temper was 
 sometimes gently checked by her husband, who is de- 
 scribed by Catherine's confessor and biographer, Raimondo 
 da Capua, as " good, simple-minded, just, nourished in 
 the fear of God, and over and above other virtues, gifted 
 with gentleness and meekness of heart," severe only if 
 in that household of many sons, daughters, and apprentices, 
 any one spoke a loose or profane word. This he never 
 passed over, though an almost incredible licence of speech 
 prevailed among both men and women, and in spite of 
 the statute against blasphemy, imprecations were heard 
 on all sides such as shocked and grieved the right 
 thinking. So strongly was Benincasa's rule impressed 
 
 1 Zeekaner, " Vita privata del Dugento."
 
 4 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 on his family that when his young daughter Bonaventura 
 married into one where oaths and coarse talk were 
 common, she drooped so that her husband, Nicolao, asked 
 the cause of her saddened looks. " I never heard this 
 kind of talk before," was her explanation, and to his 
 credit be it said that he accepted the innocent reproof, 
 and put a stop to light and profane conversation in his 
 house. 
 
 Some of Catherine's biographers assert that her family 
 were poor, but this was certainly not the case at her 
 birth. Lapa had money of her own, for we find her 
 standing surety for a son who hired a shop, and besides 
 what trade brought in, like most of his fellow citizens 
 Giacomo owned land. His " podere " was at some dis- 
 tance from the gates ; it later passed to a widowed 
 daughter-in-law, that Lisa so loved by Catherine, who 
 calls her " my sister-in-law after the flesh ; my sister in 
 Christ." The little property still bears her name. 
 
 Another proof that the Benincasa were in easy circum- 
 stances is found not only in the assertion of Raimondo, 
 who must have known all about it, that for their station 
 Catherine's family were abundantly provided with 
 temporal goods, but in the fact that no one who begged 
 at the Fullonica the dyer's house was ever sent empty 
 away. Though until after the Black Death there could 
 have been no great poverty in Siena, since almost every 
 one could pay an income tax, from that date there was 
 much want in the city, besides which outsiders came in 
 whose cottages had been burned by Freelances, and 
 their cattle driven off, or misfortune overtook some 
 home, and the strain on private charity was great Far 
 from being ill off, the Benincasa were so prosperous that 
 Catherine prayed they might become less so, for fear 
 their hearts should be set on earthly things, a prayer for 
 which perhaps they were hardly grateful when misfortunes
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 5 
 
 came and dispersed the family. Large as it was, it 
 became extinct rather more than a century later, and one 
 of the descendants of Giacomo Benincasa was supported 
 by the city. 
 
 He and his wife belonged to that race of plain, honest 
 citizens whom Dante praises, 1 the salt of any city, sell 
 respecting and respected, sensible and religious, but, as 
 far as is known, there was nothing in the Benincasa to 
 account for such a woman as Catherine. Imagination 
 she may possibly have inherited from her maternal 
 grandfather, Muccio or Puccio di Piacente, a forgotten 
 versifier of the I4th century, but the ballata by him 
 which Crescembeni quotes in his " storia della Volgai 
 Poesia," addressed to a certain disdainful Gualtera, is 
 exactly like numbers of others by Trecento writers, with- 
 out a spark of originality. From both father and mothei 
 she would inherit the practical good sense which served 
 her so well, but in truth, like Dante and Leonardo da 
 Vinci and Shakespeare, she seems to be without spiritual 
 ancestry, nor any more than in their case did her genius 
 reappear in a later generation. In every way she was 
 accurate when she said, as she did more than once, " My 
 only teacher was God," words which are curiously like 
 those of an earlier mystic, the nun Mechtild in the 
 convent of Helfta, who referred all her knowledge to the 
 direct teaching of God, and in this and many other ways 
 resembled Catherine of Siena. 
 
 It is remarkable that one of so large a family should 
 have been so dreamy and fond of solitude as was 
 Catherine, especially as she led a free and happy life, 
 and that joyousness which never forsook her made her a 
 great favourite with the neighbours in her contrada, and 
 with her child contemporaries. Already she exercised 
 the gift which all felt who came in contact with her, that 
 
 1 Paradise, Canto xv. 11. 112-17.
 
 6 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 mysterious, indefinable power, which for want of a better 
 word is called charm, a gift more powerful than beauty 
 itself, and far more lasting. Education she had none ; it 
 was thought objectionable even for girls in a much higher 
 class. " Set them to sew, not to read ; it befits not a 
 woman to know how to read, unless she is to be a nun," 
 says Fra Filippo d' Aguzzari ; and San Bernadino, who was 
 born on the day of Catherine's death, and from whose 
 sermons so much of the views and tendencies of her 
 century may be gathered, says hardly less grudgingly, 
 "If thou knowest how to read, read good and holy things ; 
 learn the office of our Lady, and delight thyself therein." 
 " Dio ti guarda da nobil poverino, O di donna che sa 
 latino," * says the Tuscan proverb to this day. When, after 
 she was grown up, Catherine's efforts to learn to read and 
 write were crowned with a measure of success, it seemed 
 a miracle to those about her. There was of course no 
 thought of a girl of her station learning the accomplish- 
 ments of playing on the lute or harp, for which girls of 
 noble birth had masters when they came to a marriageable 
 age, making up for beginning late by taking lessons twice 
 a day, and, as San Bernadino declares, often having love 
 letters slipped into their hands by their teachers, a use of 
 reading and writing which went some way to justify the 
 general suspicion of feminine education. 
 
 As far as Catherine was concerned, she never attained 
 readiness of penmanship, and always dictated by prefer- 
 ence, but in her later life books were read to her, and as 
 a child she saw the paintings in the churches of Siena, 
 and learned the legends connected with them, and heard 
 discourses from the pulpit, and at that time painting and 
 preaching had great importance, standing in a measure 
 in the place now held by literature and the press, and 
 though preaching had very generally become dully con- 
 
 1 From a poor noble and a woman who knows Latin, Heaven keep thee !
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 7 
 
 ventional, and, in spite of the admonitions of Popes and 
 Councils, was much neglected, it was carefully cultivated 
 among the Dominicans and Franciscans, the former 
 bringing learning to bear upon it, and the latter using all 
 means to gain the ear of the uneducated. Catherine had 
 also other means of education. She would hear city 
 politics and the relationship of Siena to other towns, 
 friendly or hostile, discussed in her home, where her 
 brothers and the apprentices brought in news, and traders 
 came to do business with her father, and she listened 
 eagerly to the friars, always welcomed at the Fullonica, 
 and heard them speak of the need of reform in the 
 Church, the measures taken against heretics Siena had 
 its tribunal of the Inquisition, which sat in San Francesco, 
 and ruled even beyond Sienese territory of the desir- 
 ability of a crusade, and above all, the injury done to the 
 Church and to Italy by the absence of the Popes from 
 Rome. 
 
 Friars played a great part in Catherine's life from the 
 time when as a little child she would run out and kiss 
 the traces of their passing footsteps s Her first Confessor, 
 Delia Fonte, was a relation, and partly brought up among 
 the Benincasa household, and a document still existing 
 shows that for benefits received, her mother's family had 
 a right to special prayers in one of their communities. 
 The respect shown them in the Fullonica speaks well for 
 the Preaching Friars of Siena, but they were not so well 
 treated everywhere. San Bernadino relates how a woman 
 flung the bread which he had asked for so hard that it 
 hurt him sharply, and that stale scraps were often tossed 
 contemptuously out of a window. In fact, that decadence 
 of the Mendicant Orders which Dante noted merely a 
 century earlier had become recognized. In early days 
 their influence had been entirely for good, and Sir James 
 Stephen justly asserts that " nothing in the histories of
 
 8 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Wesley or Whitfield could be compared to the enthusiasm 
 which everywhere welcomed them, or with the immediate 
 result of their labours." One of the most unexpected 
 testimonies of their merit comes from high authority. 
 When a Consistory at Avignon loudly demanded the 
 suppression of the Preaching Friars, Clement VI. answered 
 with scorn, " And if the Friars were not to preach the 
 Gospel, what would you preach ? Humility ? You, the 
 proudest, the most disdainful, the most magnificent among 
 the estates of men, who ride abroad on your stately 
 palfreys ! Poverty ? you who are so greedy and set on 
 gain that all the prebends and benefices will not satiate 
 your avidity ! Chastity ? of this I say nothing ; God 
 knows your lives, and how your bodies are pampered 
 with pleasure. ... Be not surprised," he added, with a 
 shrewd guess at the cause of the outcry, " that the Friars 
 received bequests in the time of the fatal mortality, they 
 who took charge of parishes deserted by their pastors, out 
 of which they drew converts to their houses of prayer 
 houses of prayer and honour to the Church, not seats of 
 voluptuousness and luxury." 
 
 Agnola da Tura must have written in too great bitter- 
 ness of heart to be just when he declared that no friars 
 were found to attend the dead and dying in the great 
 plague, for Bernardo Tolomei came down with his white- 
 robed Olivetans from their monastery among the olive 
 trees, and, with many of his community, died among those 
 whom they had come to nurse and comfort. 
 
 But though the fearless devotion of the Friars in Siena 
 and other places had re-awakened gratitude and admira- 
 tion, there was an increasing distrust of them. Many, 
 no doubt, were like Fra Niccolo Tino, " whose face was 
 like that of Moses, so did love and charity burn in his 
 heart when he washed the sores of the poor with warm 
 wine, or faced a cruel foe," or whose life ended as beauti-
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 9 
 
 fully as that of another, who after a life which was a long 
 hymn of love and goodness, feeling death approach, 
 thankfully knelt down, laying his tired head on the 
 Gospels, and so passed away. Others there were who 
 called high and low fearlessly to repentance, like Fra 
 Filippo da Aguzzari, or the Friar of Bergamo who caused 
 a great revival of religion, and led his following to Rome, 
 penitents " orderly and good, white robed, with red and 
 white hoods and a dove with an olive branch embroidered 
 on their breasts, and a silken banner, green and long and 
 wide, which was laid up in Santa Maria sopra Minerva 
 after he had preached to all Rome at the Capitol." All 
 those friars who were Catherine's friends were saintly 
 men, such as these, but yet the old fervour, the first 
 eager striving after holiness was dying out, and from the 
 Rhymes of Bindo Bonichi, urging the need of keeping 
 away from friars, no matter what habit they wore, " men 
 who one and all take the left way while praising the 
 right," and describing how in life, Avarice and Gluttony 
 held a meeting presided over by Satan to settle what 
 Friars each should have as vassals, to the chronicle of 
 Salimbene of Parma, himself a friar, we find the same 
 accusations, the same warnings to the laity to beware of 
 the Mendicants. Catherine herself in after years shared 
 the general view ; we find her writing to a young niece, 
 who had taken the veil, bidding her leave the church the 
 instant that her confession was made, and to avoid inter- 
 course with monk or friar, but as a child she could regard 
 one and all with happy reverence, and they had very 
 much to do with shaping her life and character. From 
 them she heard the praises of St Dominic, for it would 
 seem that those who came to the Fullonica were chiefly 
 of his Order how he went about teaching and preaching, 
 how he abhorred heretics, how kind he was to his com- 
 munity, even leaving prayer to visit the dormitories, and
 
 io SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 lay his mantle over any one who was cold, how careful 
 he was as to personal cleanliness and neatness. Her 
 after life shows how deeply she was impressed by what 
 she heard ; it is evident that she took Dominic for her 
 model, and that her mind constantly dwelt on his life, 
 divided almost equally between prayer and work, and on 
 his view that the ideal Christian life consisted primarily in 
 love of God and one's neighbour, and secondarily in 
 discipline, fasts, and ceremonies, not as meritorious in 
 themselves, but as aids in reaching an exalted spiritual 
 ideal. 
 
 Although Dante highly praises Dominic, he clearly 
 preferred St Francis, but Catherine was a woman, and 
 the robuster character of the Spanish monk appealed to 
 her. She constantly prayed in the church dedicated to 
 him, which overlooks the Contrada Dell' Oca, a great, 
 austere building which the architect was bidden to make 
 of the greatest possible size at the least possible cost, 
 with no piers to hinder the preacher from being heard 
 nor hide the congregation from him, for this church, like 
 that of San Francesco on another hill, belonged to the 
 Preaching Orders, and was for use, not beauty, since the 
 orders were " principally and essentially designed for 
 preaching and teaching, that they might thereby com- 
 municate to others the fruits of contemplation and procure 
 the salvation of souls." l Yet, changed and modernized 
 though both churches are, they have a solemnity and 
 grandeur which is most impressive. 
 
 Catherine's devotion to St Dominic and her desire to 
 lead a life under rule began very early, and as a little 
 child she planned that when older she would disguise 
 herself as a man and enter a monastery, an idea probably 
 suggested by the wild legend of St Euphrosyne, which 
 must have been familiar to the Sienese, since her name 
 
 1 Dominican Constitutions.
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 11 
 
 was often given by neighbours to the little girl on account 
 of her grace and 'gaiety. Another scheme was partially 
 carried out, namely to find a cave and lead a hermit life. 
 Hermits abounded in Sienese territory, and the self- 
 devotion of the Olivetans was still a recent thing. She 
 actually set out with this purpose, but with the practical 
 sense which was always combined with her mysticism, 
 she took a loaf of bread in case the angels should delay 
 coming to feed her. It would seem as if she surely 
 would have taken the path from her father's house which 
 leads past the dark arches of Fontebranda, in whose 
 waters the were-wolves reported to haunt certain streets 
 of Siena bathed to recover human shape, for but a little 
 way beyond rise wooded sandstone cliffs with miniature 
 caves just fitted for a child hermit. But instead she went 
 all the way to the now closed gate of St Ansano, a road 
 familiar enough, being the one which led to the house of 
 her brother-in-law Nicolao, who lived in the district 
 known as Vallepiatta, " because it was neither high nor 
 low, but pleasantly sloping." l She found her cave in 
 rocks some way below the high red walls of the city, and 
 stayed there till evening, happy in the belief that she had 
 reached the place where once dwelt the Fathers of the 
 Desert, but with coming night and its solitude her mood 
 changed ; she thought of the Fullonica, and of her 
 parents' grief when they could not find her, and became 
 convinced that God did not mean her to leave them. 
 To run home was obviously the right thing to do, and 
 she got back before any one had grown uneasy : she was 
 apt to wander, and her family had supposed her with 
 her sister. How in such times of street broils children 
 could be allowed to stray about is difficult to understand, 
 but that it was so is again shown by her returning from 
 Vallepiatta with no companion but her little brother 
 
 1 Bentivoglienti.
 
 12 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Stefano on the evening when she had that first vision 
 which was followed by so many others. 
 
 The two had come to high ground whence they could 
 see San Domenico stand dark against the sky, and looking 
 up there Catherine seemed to see our Lord above it, in 
 mitre and pontifical vestments, accompanied by three 
 Apostles. Stefano, suddenly perceiving that she had 
 stopped behind, turned and saw her intently gazing at 
 the sky, and called her. She took no notice until he ran 
 back and shook her roughly, on which, weeping in childish 
 fashion and wrath, says her biographer Raimondo, she 
 exclaimed, " Oh, if you could have seen the beautiful thing 
 which I saw, you would not have done that ! " 
 
 And thenceforth she became much graver, and loved 
 to escape to quiet places where she could say her little 
 prayers undisturbed, or gather her small companions and 
 make discourses to which they listened as later did 
 crowds of grown-up people. Raimondo tells of miracles 
 related to him concerning her childish doings, but we 
 may conclude that these stories sprang up after she 
 became famous, otherwise her family would have regarded 
 her as marked out for conventual life, too holy, too blessed 
 by Heaven for aught else. Instead of this, by the time 
 she was twelve years old they were planning a marriage 
 for her, unaware that she had vowed herself to a heavenly 
 Bridegroom, and her mother was both distressed and 
 angered by her aversion to the project and her indifference 
 to her personal appearance. She was not beautiful ; 
 " nature had not given her a face over fair," Raimondo 
 admits reluctantly, but it was so bright and sweet, her 
 smile was so lovely, her expression so sympathetic and 
 frank she always looked every one in the face, " even 
 though it were a young man " in short she was so 
 winning that no one ever thought her anything but 
 delightful. See had a blessed gift of good spirits, sang
 
 THE CHURCH OF S. DOMENICO AT SIENA
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 13 
 
 at her work, laughed with all her heart, could scold too 
 if necessary, and was most unlike the drooping, conventual, 
 nun-like figure which painting mostly gives as her likeness. 
 And she had one undoubted beauty in her long, golden 
 brown hair. Perhaps however it was not of the then 
 fashionable shade, such as Sienese ladies sought to attain 
 as their Venetian sisters did, by sitting on their roofs in 
 the blazing sunshine to bleach their locks, burning their 
 brains at the same time, according to Fra Filippo, who 
 denounces this folly in one of his terrible " Assempri," 
 or else using a receipt still preserved in the public library 
 of Siena. It was this receipt that Lapa urged Catherine 
 to try, and when she refused, her much loved sister 
 Bonaventura was called in to persuade her to take more 
 pains to set off her person. 
 
 To some extent she yielded, but soon came to look 
 on the concession as such a falling away that never after 
 could she speak of it without tears, and when her confessor 
 pointed out that as she had not acted from any desire of 
 admiration, the fault was venial, the girl exclaimed in 
 deep distress, " What a ghostly Father is this who excuses 
 my sins ! " 
 
 The anecdote recalls Dante's comment on Virgil's 
 remorse for having let him linger on the road to purifica- 
 tion : 
 
 " O dignitosa coscienza e netta, 
 Come t' e picciol fallo amaro morso ! " 
 
 It was not the special failing over which Catherine grieved, 
 but because when she had set herself to give up worldly 
 things she should never let herself be drawn aside at the 
 very outset, and her remorse was deepened by the early 
 death of her sister, which Raimondo takes as a token of 
 divine displeasure. " Observe," he writes, " O reader, 
 how displeasing and hateful it is to God to hinder or 
 turn aside those who would serve Him. This Bonaventura
 
 14 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 was in herself of very right life, both as to words and 
 ways, but since she sought to draw back to the world her 
 who desired to serve God, she was smitten of the Lord, 
 and chastised by a very painful death." He adds 
 however that through Catherine's prayers she was soon 
 delivered from Purgatory, but if such a point of view as 
 his was placed before Catherine, her grief for her sister's 
 loss must indeed have been cruel. 
 
 A time of tribulation for Catherine followed. Her 
 family were urgent that she should marry a man who 
 would be a useful connection, a plan, Raimondo observes, 
 prompted by the enemy of souls, and as, singularly 
 enough, she had no vocation for the cloister, her opposi- 
 tion to the married life which then seemed the only 
 alternative could only appear flat disobedience, and dis- 
 obedience to parents was then a high crime. In the 
 pathetic epitaph over Petrarch's daughter Francesca in 
 the Duomo of Treviso it is recorded among her merits 
 that she was " absolutely submissive " to her father. 
 And we need only read the chronicle of Salimbeni to see 
 to what perils unmarried girls were exposed, so that any 
 husband seemed better than none, besides which, sons 
 and daughters were still regarded as the property of their 
 fathers, and marriages were but a move in the game 
 which their elders were playing. Choice had usually 
 nothing to do with marriage on the bride's part, and very 
 little on that of the bridegroom. If love did enter in, it 
 usually brought tragedy, as in the case of Imelda 
 Lambertazzi, whose lover was slain with poisoned daggers 
 by her brothers : she sucked the wounds, and was found 
 dead on his dead body. Public sympathy was rarely 
 with the lovers. When Altobianco degli Alberti was 
 betrothed to Maddalena Gianfigliossi the two became 
 deeply attached, but the Alberti becoming involved in 
 political troubles, the engagement was broken off. For
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 15 
 
 five years the lovers remained faithful, though the girl 
 received very rough treatment from her father. At 
 length, seeing her health fail, he yielded, but " amid the 
 blame of the whole city." 
 
 Very occasionally a girl ventured to reject a suitor, 
 and San Bernardo tells of one whose aspirant came by 
 her brother's desire to inspect her. They certainly did 
 not attempt to set off her charms, for they brought her in 
 bareheaded and barefooted. " Does she please you ? " 
 they asked. "Much," was the reply. She looked down 
 on the small man from her stately height. " But thou dost 
 not please me," she said. It is probable that neverthe- 
 less she had to accept him. 
 
 When a couple had been united in the hope of 
 reconciling two families who had been at feud, the wife's 
 position was singularly difficult and painful, and at the 
 best there was generally indifference on both sides. Yet 
 usually the wife at least was faithful and a good mother, 
 nor were there wanting husbands as considerate as Pietro 
 Pettignano, whose prayers, Dante tells us, helped the 
 unamiable Sapia through Purgatory, and who used 
 " carefully to avoid causing his wife any annoyance, 
 saying to friend or customer when due at home, " Go in 
 peace ; my mistress awaits me." In Catherine's own 
 home she saw an affectionate and united pair, and her 
 respect for marriage is shown in her letters. There is not 
 a trace in them of that over exaltation of celibacy and 
 belittling of marriage which was so general in her time, 
 nor does she ever encourage a wife to desert her home 
 for the cloister. But for herself she would none of the 
 married state, though all her family brought pressure to 
 bear upon her, and to break her spirit she was allowed 
 no room of her own, was constantly and sharply 
 rebuked, and all the hardest housework was put upon 
 her.
 
 16 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 That so loving a heart must have keenly felt the 
 displeasure of her relations cannot be doubted, but too 
 much must not be made of what her biographers are apt 
 to call " persecution." Domestic discipline was severe 
 then and long afterwards in all countries. Examples of 
 harsher treatment would be easy to find in England even 
 much later, witness Agnes Paston and Lady Jane Grey, 
 the one imprisoned in her room and beaten by her 
 mother for having plighted her troth without leave ; the 
 other systematically ill-used for no reason at all except 
 that severity was supposed to be wholesome for the 
 young. Catherine did not meet with exceptional 
 harshness. In that large household the women folk 
 must as a matter of course have helped in the daily 
 work, and she was remarkably strong until austerities 
 broke down her constitution. It is told that she could 
 run from top to bottom of the Fullonica and the 
 steps are many and steep, " with an ass's load on her 
 back." 
 
 Nor can her mother's efforts to check her austerities be 
 fairly called persecution, even if there were hasty words, 
 and possibly blows ; these are suggested as beneficial for 
 women in medieval sermons, and indeed are strongly 
 urged by Fra Filippo as due from husbands to wives who 
 paint their faces. But popular opinion was against this 
 form of domestic discipline. " Only asses should be 
 beaten," says Orlandino, and the " Tractate on governing 
 a family" lays down that with sons authority, not blows, 
 should be exercised, while servants should not be beaten, 
 but treated with kindness to make them loving and 
 faithful. After all, Catherine was Lapa's favourite child, 
 the only one whom she had nursed, for even in the class 
 of Popolani the bad habit of employing a Balia, or send- 
 ing babies out to be nursed, prevailed, as it unfortunately 
 still does, and to find that the girl forcibly kept herself
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 17 
 
 awake almost all night, ate hardly enough to maintain 
 life, and scourged herself cruelly three times daily, 
 once for herself, once for the living, once for the dead, 
 after the use of St Dominic, might well wring the 
 mother's heart. " Ah, daughter ! daughter ! " she once 
 exclaimed with what Raimondo calls a burst of carnal 
 love, " already I see thee dead. Without doubt thou 
 wilt kill thyself. Alas ! who has taken my daughter 
 from me ? " 
 
 And she would tear her hair and shriek with all the 
 violence of an Italian of the people, deaf to consolation, 
 and vehemently reproach the girl, who listened humbly 
 but unmoved, going cheerfully about her tasks, and 
 learning by the way the secret of leading a contemplative 
 life within an active one. 
 
 She was debarred from any place which she could call 
 her own, and a strict rule existed in Siena that the rooms 
 of married couples were for them alone and must not be 
 entered by other members of the family, a rule observed 
 in this Fullonica, though with so numerous a family, even 
 if the apprentices slept in the shop, as they probably did, 
 it is inexplicable how they were all housed. Stefano 
 however had a little nook of his own, and while he was 
 away at work Catherine found a refuge there where she 
 could pray undisturbed. At other times she went about 
 doing whatever she was bidden, and full of happy dreams 
 and fancies, as many a maiden has done before and since, 
 only hers were all of a spiritual life. While busy with 
 household work she would picture to herself that her 
 father represented our blessed Lord, her mother, Mary, 
 her brothers the Apostles and disciples, and that she 
 was working for them in the Temple, " so cheerfully 
 and gladly that the household wondered greatly 
 thereat." 
 
 Her father, watching her unperceived, saw this, and 
 B
 
 1 8 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 became convinced that hers was no passing, girlish fancy 
 for a conventual life, and was prepared to let her do as 
 she would even before Catherine, encouraged by a dream 
 in which St Dominic bade her take courage and enter his 
 Third Order, called together all her family, and told 
 them how from childhood she had vowed to have no 
 earthly bridegroom. She must keep her vow even if 
 driven from her home. 
 
 All listened amazed by the courage and resolution 
 with which she spoke, " and tears came more readily than 
 words." Her father was the first to speak. " Heaven 
 forbid, most sweet daughter," he said, " that we should in 
 any way oppose God from whom comes your most holy 
 design. Therefore, since by long trial we have perceived, 
 and now know for certain, that you are moved by no 
 youthful fancy, but by the Holy Ghost, be free to keep 
 your vow," and, after bidding her pray constantly for her 
 kinsfolk, he added, turning to those present with all the 
 unquestioned authority of the head of a household, 
 " henceforth let no one trouble or hinder my most sweet 
 daughter in any way ; let her freely serve her Bridegroom 
 and pray to Him for us. Never could we find an 
 alliance such as this, neither ought we to lament if 
 instead of a mortal man we receive a God and a man 
 who is immortal." But Lapa could only answer by 
 tears. 
 
 The little room familiar to visitors to the Fullonica 
 was now given up to Catherine, and here, with one interval, 
 she spent at least three years in solitude, only broken by 
 visits from her confessor and her mother, who would not be 
 excluded, and sometimes insisted on her leaving the planks 
 on which she slept, and lie beside her on a comfortable 
 bed, but as soon as she was asleep Catherine would leave 
 her side and kneel in prayer, choosing if possible the 
 hours when the Dominicans in their monastery overhead
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 19 
 
 were sleeping, so as to fill up as it were the spaces 
 between their services. 
 
 In her cell she gave herself up to concentrated medita- 
 tion, such as is hard to realise in the present century, 
 with complex interests rushing in on every side. In the 
 1 4th century religion permeated the whole of life ; it was 
 the one great subject of thought and inquiry, orthodox or 
 otherwise, taking much the place intellectually as science 
 does now, and it satisfied not only Catherine's heart and soul 
 but also her strong intellect. Her austerities were ceaseless, 
 practised not only to bring her strong young body into 
 subjection, but because she believed that since we are 
 members one of another, her sufferings could help the 
 souls of others. Her view was that by the godly life of 
 one member, all the others were strengthened, but it 
 followed logically that the sins and shortcomings of each 
 react on all, a belief which made her own failings 
 exquisitely painful to her, and which explains her other- 
 wise incomprehensible self-accusations of causing mis- 
 fortunes and failures in the Church. The unseen came 
 very near her ; the ardent enthusiasm so early shown was 
 all centred on the supernatural ; visions of saints gladdened 
 her ; she believed that her Lord stood in her cell and 
 spoke with her ; she realised divine things with extra- 
 ordinary vividness, walking with God as His saints have 
 done from Enoch downward, but it is only honest to say 
 that no revelations are found in her visions ; she saw just 
 what it was natural she should see, and added nothing 
 original to the stock of spiritual knowledge. When as a 
 young child she was convinced that she saw Christ in the 
 sky He wore pontifical robes, the Pope being the 
 stateliest figure she knew by painting or description, 
 and in her strange and materialistic vision of St 
 Dominic it was natural that he should have the well- 
 known traditional features, though to the naive imagina-
 
 20 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 tion of the Trecento it was a proof of the reality of 
 her vision. 
 
 Although Catherine had no inclination for the cloister, 
 she ardently desired to join the secular Tertiaries of St 
 Dominic, called Mantellate, from their black mantles, who 
 must not be confounded with the Servite Sisters, an 
 enclosed order with the same name. They were the 
 outcome of a lay order, founded by Dominic "to 
 combat heretical depravity, and defend the rights of the 
 Church " even at the cost of life. The members were 
 at first all men, often married, in which case their wives 
 swore never to hinder their work, and to forward it all 
 they could. At first the order was called " The Militia of 
 Jesus Christ," but when " that crowd of little foxes who 
 sought to ravage the vineyard of the Lord " were 
 exterminated by fire and sword and prison the need for 
 such open warfare lessened. The order however lived 
 on, and many women continued to join it, either of 
 mature age, or working with their husbands, or widows. 
 They lived at home and did not take the three ordinary 
 vows. At a later time these were taken, but after this 
 the number of members declined. They led a retired 
 life, at once contemplative and active, guided by a Prioress, 
 elected by themselves, who was responsible for them to 
 the Dominicans. There were about ninety in Siena when 
 Catherine was born, but some years later the plague again 
 swept the city, and forty of these devoted women died 
 while nursing the sick. Naturally, young girls were not 
 eligible among them, and Catherine's request for admission 
 met with a decided refusal. Why, they must have 
 argued, should an exception be made for the dyer's 
 daughter ? Jealousies would be aroused ; they would be 
 blamed as rash and partial ; the thing could not be, and 
 Lapa, who carried the request, did not plead very 
 heartily.
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 21 
 
 Meanwhile Catherine's health broke down. In the 
 absence of dates which are very rarely given by Raimondo, 
 it is very difficult to fix the time at which minor events 
 in her life occurred, and the difficulty is increased by the 
 vagueness of chronology in this century, Siena, Florence 
 and Pisa reckoning the New Years from Lady Day, Rome 
 and Milan from Christmas, while in Venice the legal 
 year began on March I st and the ordinary one on the first 
 of January. 1 To add to the confusion, it is never certain 
 that any of these dates are exactly followed, but it seems 
 as if it were during the three years commonly supposed 
 to have been spent in her little cell that the interlude 
 came when her parents insisted on her accompanying 
 them to the baths of Vignona, both on account of 
 health and to see if indeed the world had no attraction 
 for her. 
 
 She went, but it must have cost a great effort to break 
 into her chosen life, and the gay and noisy scene must 
 have been most alien to her. It was characteristically 
 Italian. In other countries the middle class rarely left the 
 shelters of city walls, but in Siena nobles and popolani alike 
 frequented the baths and mineral springs near the town, 
 the rich travelling on horseback or some rough vehicle, 
 the aged and sick in litters, while the less well-to-do came 
 in carts drawn by reluctant buffaloes or the great mouse 
 coloured oxen with wide horns such as are still among 
 the beautiful characteristics of Siena. 
 
 Tents and rough lodgings sheltered the visitors, who 
 spent their time in bathing, the women in a place at some 
 distance from the men, with a high wall between them on 
 which the law required to be painted " in good colour " a 
 fresco of the Virgin, our Lord, St James and St Philip 
 or in sleep during the hot hours, or listening to minstrels, 
 playing chess and backgammon, or hawking and hunting. 
 
 1 Burlamacchi.
 
 22 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 No one was allowed to carry arms, a most necessary pre- 
 caution, but in the long, idle days not a few quarrels were 
 started or embittered which had tragic results when the 
 disputants returned to Siena, and there was so much vice 
 in these places that it is strange to find good people like 
 the Benincasa frequenting them, especially with a young 
 daughter. 
 
 Lapa's hope that Catherine would be attracted by the 
 gaities of the bathing season were vain, nor did her 
 health improve ; with an exaggeration of self-discipline, 
 which when older and more experienced she would have 
 condemned, she scalded herself with the water from a hot 
 spring, and returned home only to fall dangerously ill. 
 Lapa was much alarmed, and when Catherine assured her 
 that if she would not spare her to be a mantellata, God 
 would take her away altogether, the mother pleaded so 
 earnestly with the Prioress that four of the most discreet 
 among the sisters were sent to report on the girl, with a 
 promise that if not too pretty, she should be received 
 among them. They found her wasted and disfigured by 
 something like chicken-pox ; she answered their questions 
 with the utmost modesty and good sense, and was 
 accepted. 
 
 As soon as she was well enough she went with her 
 family to San Domerico, where, in the Cappella delle 
 Volte, she was blessed and invested with the cloak of 
 the mantellata, and returned, full of thankful joy, to her 
 cell. 
 
 Reaction followed, such as many a devout nun has ex- 
 perienced. Opposition over, the spirit is no longer roused 
 to combat, and she realises how much she has given up, 
 what a long stretch of monotonous days lies before her, 
 and if the sacred laws of health have been outraged, as in 
 Catherine's case, the struggle will be yet more violent. 
 She suddenly found herself beset with evil thoughts ; pro-
 
 ST. CATHKRINK IN ADORATION 
 
 BY BECCAFUMI
 
 A SAINT'S GIRLHOOD 23 
 
 fane words, such as she could never remember to have 
 heard, rang in her ears ; tempting visions, longing for 
 earthly joys, horrified and racked her ; temptation came 
 upon her to bethink herself that even now it was not too 
 late to have a glad life like other girls. Her cell seemed 
 swarming with fiends, one of whom she called Malatasca, 
 a name recalling Dante's Malabranche ; wild longings 
 seized her to run over hill and dale away from these fiends 
 and fiendish thoughts which pursued her even in church, 
 tempting her to despair. Her only refuge in this horror 
 of great darkness was to repeat, " I trust in my Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and not in myself." 
 
 Out of the depth she cried, seemingly unheard, she to 
 whom prayer had been such joy and strength ! But help 
 came. She had a vision of the Saviour, stretched on the 
 Cross, saying, " My own daughter Catherine, see'st thou 
 how much I have suffered for thee? be it not hard for 
 thee to suffer somewhat for Me." And she, all thrilled 
 by the loving words, " My own daughter Catherine," 
 asked, "Where wert thou, Lord, when my heart was filled 
 with such impurity ? " and the answer came, " In thy 
 heart." 
 
 In the " Legenda " of Raimondo da Capua, which is the 
 main source of our knowledge of Catherine, a long dis- 
 course is given, supposed to have been spoken by Christ. 
 It could not possibly have been written down at the time, 
 and suggests, as in many other instances, either that her 
 vivid realisation of spiritual intercourse made it seem to 
 her literal fact (see her striking letter, No. XVI. in 
 Tommaseo's edition), or that it was a meditation, or 
 possibly that her biographer filled out her recollections. 
 That he did not feel tied to literal accuracy appears in his 
 alterations of expressions and phrases which Catherine 
 gave him to put into Latin, an instance of which is given 
 by Tommaseo. We have also to recollect that much of
 
 24 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 the Legenda is composed from the lost notes of her con- 
 fessor Delia Fonte, a humble, good, unlearned man, in- 
 capable of consciously inventing anything about her, but 
 equally incapable of sifting evidence or weighing state- 
 ments, and these notes were used by Raimondo in the 
 spirit in which they were written.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 
 
 TO understand the character and history of St Catherine 
 of Siena it is necessary to realise her surroundings 
 and the influences amid which she grew up. But 
 to us who live in the 2Oth century the difficulty of doing 
 so is great. We are perplexed by the violent contrasts 
 which meet us at every step unblushing vice and saintly 
 lives among both laymen and clerics ; unbridled extrava- 
 gance and frugal economy; lawlessness side by side with 
 submission to statutes which interfered with freedom of 
 action at every turn ; furious revolts and personal quarrels 
 filling the streets with uproar and bloodshed, and quiet 
 every-day occupations. There are usurers and gamblers, 
 religious revivals, when a crowd of two thousand persons 
 would stand for five or six hours listening to the appeals 
 and reproaches of a friar with every sign of contrition, and 
 on the other hand there was the scornful indifference 
 shown in the verses of a contemporary of Catherine's, 
 " Let the mad priests preach, with their small truth and 
 many lies." Chronicles and sermons of that day give an 
 appalling picture of shameless wickedness, prodigality and 
 crime, often apparently committed for crime's sake. There 
 were men like Giovagnolo, captain of the troops of those 
 Conti di Santa Fiore whose stronghold was on Monte 
 Amiata, and who brought yearly tribute to Siena, a man 
 " most evil, traitorous, perfidious, merciless and cruel 
 beyond all diabolical imagination, who took more delight 
 
 35
 
 26 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 in slaying than did many wild beasts," and who would 
 not even make the usual death-bed confession, refusing to 
 listen to a priest, " since he still hoped to take vengeance 
 on several persons." There were others who did not 
 hesitate to remove an enemy by dagger or poison, a 
 means known significantly in England as " the Italian 
 crime," and though the story of thirteen Tolomei invited 
 to a banquet at a place still called Mala Merenda and 
 there poisoned, is probably mere legend, the fact that it 
 was believed, and the story handed down, shows that such 
 deeds were thought perfectly credible. 
 
 On the other hand Siena had so many holy men and 
 women that she has been called the ante-chamber of 
 Paradise. There was Nera dei Tolomei, who like 
 Catherine could read hearts, and foretold the Great 
 Schism, and the more famous Bernardo of the same 
 family ; Fra Filippo d' Aguzzari, whose sermons were a 
 trumpet of no uncertain sound, bidding the sinful and 
 luxurious see to their ways, and Bernadino, born indeed 
 in Massa, but closely connected with Siena, who must not 
 be confounded with another yet more celebrated friar of 
 the same name, but with the addition of " Ochino," being 
 born in the Contrada dell' Oca, a man who deserves a 
 better record than Gigli's in the " Diario Sanese," as one 
 " who would have left behind him great renown in litera- 
 ture and merit in the Church had he not blackened his 
 name by falling into the errors of heresy." Nor must we 
 omit Colombini, who " espoused most high poverty," and 
 preached with such effect that he was banished from 
 Siena lest the number who desired to become monks 
 should lessen the population too greatly, and only no 
 one thought of that at the time withdraw all the best 
 men into the cloister, leaving lay society without their 
 good influence. 
 
 Besides all these there were countless good and
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 27 
 
 religious people who led quiet and honest lives, leaving 
 no record beyond the incalculable effect which such lives 
 have on their own and on succeeding generations. Some- 
 times however we obtain a glimpse of them. It was 
 through the example of his wife that Colombini changed, 
 as Malavolti relates, " to the marvel of all the city from a 
 proud man to one most humble, from a seditious to a 
 pacific, from a miser to an almsgiver, and from a wolf to 
 a meek lamb," and repeatedly in Catherine's letters she 
 writes to mothers and wives who ruled their households 
 wisely and well and reaped their reward. Her own family 
 show the sound, healthy life in the middle class of Siena, 
 industrious and godly, keeping aloof as far as might be 
 from civil strife, yet taking due part in the affairs of their 
 city, or when Giacomo Benincasa accepted office in the 
 Government. 
 
 It is one of the problems hard to solve how it is that 
 every-day life goes on in times of revolution and unrest ; 
 yet it does. It did so in the very heart of the French 
 Revolution, when with the Terror prevailing, and no man's 
 head safe from the guillotine there still was marrying and 
 trading, and dancing and play-going, and it did so in the 
 Middle Ages in spite of violent changes of fortune and 
 the calamities involved by feuds all the more envenomed 
 because they were penned into such narrow bounds, 
 where families who had hated one another for generations 
 lived on opposite sides of the street and could never get 
 out of one another's sight ; when there were no intellectual 
 interests, and a man's country meant his native town. 
 
 Probably the dulness of life had much to do with the 
 turbulence and crimes of the time. It was distinctly dull 
 among the upper class, especially when they were excluded 
 from the magistracy. And the Sienese had a craving for 
 amusement, and were a light-hearted race ; their neigh- 
 bours called them crazy madcaps, an accusation rebutted
 
 28 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 by Delia Valle, writing A.D. 1782. " I do not deny that 
 the Florentines are firmer and more constant in their 
 matters," he says with an acrimonious touch, which recalls 
 the long grudge between the two cities, a grudge by no 
 means dead even in a " united Italy," " but that comes 
 from their climate, or to speak plainly, from the heavy, 
 turbid air which oppresses them in the hollow where they 
 lie, while the greater quickness and light-hearted gaiety, 
 and the amenity of Siena comes from the pure and ever- 
 moving air which they breathe ; moreover, one can be 
 crazy (pazzo) either from extreme gaiety or extreme 
 seriousness, so the Sienese, in spite of the name given 
 them by the Florentines, have often reduced the latter to 
 receive laws and conditions of peace from them. Nor am 
 I sure that if the Florentines had gained the battle of 
 Monteaperto they would have shown such kindness of 
 heart as did the Sienese, who, content with what they 
 had gained, pardoned even the men of Montalcino who 
 had rebelled against their sworn fealty." 
 
 Not content however with calling the Sienese " pazzi," 
 the Florentines taunted them with vanity, and when 
 Dante speaks of " vain folk " he is repeating a popular 
 Florentine saying, "Vainer than the French," and the 
 taunt rankled, for Tomasi, in his history of Siena, alludes 
 to him with amusing indignation as " a writer who pro- 
 ceeds very arrogantly to blame and praise all things after 
 his own manner, nor did it suffice him to deal with the 
 living, but he also spoke of those who are beyond man's 
 judgment, assuming more power than the fables of the 
 ancients gave to Radamanthus, by filling hell and heaven 
 with persons as pleased him best." 
 
 Certain it is that notwithstanding feuds, pestilences, wars 
 and popular tumults Siena was never long without amuse- 
 ments. The upper class hawked and hunted, and the 
 whole population, high and low, were passionately
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 29 
 
 interested in certain games which became so much of a 
 free fight that they had to be prohibited by law. Such 
 was Elmora, played with wooden swords and lances, and 
 pugna, so beloved of the people that it was played long 
 after an edict forbade it, in consequence of the number of 
 people killed and wounded when the players' blood got 
 hot, and fisticuffs no longer contented them as the old 
 rivalry between the Terzi, or triple division of the city, 
 blazed up. Siena is a Hill Queen, built on three heights, 
 with deep depressions between them, and the inhabitants 
 have their rivalries to this day, and keep distinct, though 
 they have long abandoned the costumes which distinguished 
 their male inhabitants, red for the Terzo di Citta, green 
 for San Martino, and white for Camellia. 
 
 Pugna was all the dearer to the Sienese because after 
 that great victory over Florence which dyed the Arbia red 
 and made the name of Farinata degli Uberti and his de- 
 scendants abhorred in Florentine ears, it was held to 
 represent the defeat of the rival city. Urghieri however 
 shows that it had a much earlier origin, writing thus, 
 " And that it may be known how this game arose in 
 Siena we must remember that our chroniclers say among 
 the streets of Siena there is one . . . where formerly 
 various things were sold, especially victuals, and even yet 
 the pork butchers keep food to sustain man, such as 
 cheese, sausages and so forth, though in process of time 
 traffic in nobler things has mixed with them. And when 
 people of the City ward passed that way, they were full 
 often hindered by others who would not that they should 
 come and sell in their district. From words they would 
 come to quarrelling, and from quarrelling to fisticuffs and 
 to battle, people running from every side to help their 
 own friends, and the conquerors carried off cheese, eggs, 
 hens and all that had given rise to the strife. This would 
 be chiefly in the last days of Carnival, when such things
 
 30 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 are most consumed, and dearest. And these scuffles 
 were represented in Carnival as one of various games, all 
 forbidden except at that season, and in the Piazza. " 
 namely the Campo, whose historic name has been changed 
 to the commonplace Vittorio Emanuele, with the incom- 
 prehensible indifference to ancient associations which 
 distinguishes modern Italian municipalities. " And at 
 that time it was lawful for any who found his adversary 
 to assail and strike him," but it was understood that even 
 if wounds or death ensued, no vengeance must be taken, 
 and for many years pugna was encouraged as making 
 men ready in war, and more disposed to fight for their 
 city. "And of this game heroically has sung the noble 
 poet Vittorio da Campagnatico of Siena." 
 
 Pugna and pallone have had their day, but the Palio 
 races survive, as all know who have visited Siena in July 
 or August. It is still an interesting sight, though shorn 
 of its mediaeval splendour. The races are said to have 
 been instituted in honour of the Virgin Mary, whose 
 figure appears on the banner (palio) which is the prize of 
 the winner, and from the excitement which they still 
 arouse, we can imagine how keen it was in Catherine's 
 day. " Every one takes the side of his own contrada, 
 (city ward), the wife, if not of her husband's, returns home 
 for that day to work or weep according to the success or 
 non-success of his banner. That day, the Sienese do not 
 eat, nor have they slept the previous night, but spend the 
 time in going from house to house, shops, streets, piazza, 
 to consult, take counsel, encourage one another, and 
 intensify the hatred between ward and ward. At the 
 hour of the race all the city is afoot, men, women and 
 children, old patricians, plebeians, peasants from ten miles 
 round come into the city. They crowd the platforms 
 erected round the piazza, terraces, windows, roofs and 
 towers. And while the horses gallop round for the first
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 31 
 
 time not a whisper is heard in all the crowd, but during 
 the second and third rise mingled shouts, everyone 
 encouraging and applauding his own rider, and cursing 
 the rival one, and when the horse reached the goal, a 
 great howl of joy from the victorious side fills the air. 
 Horse and rider are taken into the church of Provenzano, 
 where the latter is blessed, as were all the jockeys before 
 the race, and thence he is borne to the church of his own 
 ward, passed over the heads of the people from hand to 
 hand and set on the altar, while all the building echoes 
 with a great inarticulate thanksgiving." 1 
 
 As a child Catherine must have seen the Palio run, 
 and shared in the anxiety that her Contrade d' Oca should 
 win, but in her time the races were run on foot. 
 
 Spring, summer and autumn each had its diversions, 
 but time must have hung heavily on the hands of the 
 upper class in the long hours of winter when out-of-door 
 occupations were uninviting. The merchant and artisan 
 had his business, or was engaged with the affairs of 
 his city, or went on journeys, but the noble, unless he 
 became a trader, as was often the case, had no sedentary 
 occupation, rarely travelled, and had no indoor amuse- 
 ments except chess, backgammon and zara, a game in 
 which at every throw of the dice a number was called out, 
 success depending on having chanced to name the ones 
 thrown. ..- 
 
 " Quando si parte il giuco della zara 
 Colui che perde si riman dolente, 
 Ripetendo le volte, e triste impara," 
 
 but he could only learn the imprudence of gambling, since 
 the game is purely one of chance. 
 
 Gambling was one of the great vices of Siena, and of 
 Tuscany in general, though mediaeval legends abound in 
 
 1 Aquarone, who maintains that the Palio took the place of Pugna after 
 Monteaperto.
 
 32 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 warnings that gamblers will have their souls carried off 
 by demons, and their bodies dragged by them out of holy 
 ground. Was there not a soldier whose habit it was not 
 only to play games of chance, but to accompany each 
 throw of the dice with curses on all the saints of life 
 eternal and their heavenly Court, and did not two forms, 
 exceeding dark, suddenly appear and carry him off, body 
 and soul, to the place whence they came ? And was it 
 not seen by all present ? But such tales were beginning 
 to lose their effect in Catherine's time, and though 
 preachers still often used them, she never once alludes to 
 them in any of her writings. 
 
 Statutes were vainly passed to restrain gambling ; the 
 love of it was in the blood, and the Sienese threw away 
 their money on games of chance just as their descendants 
 do on the lottery. Intellectual interests were absolutely 
 wanting ; reading has never counted much in Italian 
 households, and in the I4th century books were scarce 
 and dear, existing of course only as manuscripts. In 
 certain homes there would be some religious works ; we 
 hear how the wife of Colombini offered him the " Lives of 
 the Saints " on one occasion in his unregenerate days to 
 fill up the time when dinner was late, and how he threw 
 it at her. A few women learned Latin enough to read 
 the Vulgate and the Fathers, but usually fathers and 
 brothers were suspicious of female education, a woman's 
 vocation being to look after her maids and keep the 
 family wardrobes in good order, taking especial care that 
 moths did not get into the clothes. She had also to lay 
 out carefully the money which her husband gave her for 
 household expenses, and submit to his better judgment in 
 all things. Though the cult of the Virgin was increasing 
 by leaps and bounds, and poets praised their ladies to the 
 skies, women counted for little in daily life. Agnolo 
 Pandolfini expresses the general view when he states
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 33 
 
 complacently that although his wife was endowed with all 
 graces befitting a gentlewoman, good habits, intelligence 
 and industry, all this came from his teaching and 
 discipline. Nor did he ever, under any circumstances, 
 tell her anything about his business, "for," he writes, 
 " much doth it displease me that any husband take 
 counsel with his wife," and on principle he never talked 
 with her on any matter but such as concerned his house- 
 hold. This was the burgher view ; we find the ecclesi- 
 astical in one of the earliest books in Italian, written by a 
 friar, one Fra Paolino, who quotes Theophrastus to 
 strengthen his position. A grievous thing it is, he 
 declares, for man to enter wedlock, for no one can attend 
 both to learning and a wife. Moreover it is no small 
 matter to satisfy her longing for costly garments, gold 
 adornments, precious stones, maids and divers other 
 things. And she is full of laments and says " Such a one 
 goes more fairly decked than I, and such another is more 
 honoured, while I, poor wretch, am despised by all. Why 
 do you talk with your neighbour, or the maid ? . . . A 
 grievous thing again it is to spend for a poor woman, and 
 a grievous again to support the pride of a rich one. And 
 there is nothing in which a man can be more lightly 
 deceived, for all others that he would buy he tries before- 
 hand, but till he has her he cannot tell if a wife please or 
 displease, and only after marriage can learn if she be 
 good or bad, meek or wrathful and so forth. Again, be 
 she ugly, hard it is to love : be she fair, hard it is to 
 guard her." 
 
 And though Petrarch sang Laura, no one could speak 
 more contemptuously of women than he does in several 
 of his letters meant for posterity. All the reverence for 
 woman set forth in poems of the time seems empty words 
 beside such views of her, and the advice in sermons to 
 beat a wife shows that such discipline was known, but St 
 c
 
 34 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Bernadino uplifts his voice indignantly against it even 
 among the peasants, to whom his exhortations against 
 over-zeal in correcting their womankind of slovenly habits 
 seem addressed, since the pig to which he unflatteringly 
 compares them would not have been admitted to houses 
 of a higher degree. " How is it that thou considerest not 
 thy duty ? " he demands. " See'st thou not the pig which 
 always squeals and always clamours, and always befouls 
 thine houses, yet thou sufferest him till the time cometh 
 when he is fit to kill. This forbearance thou showest only 
 that thou mayest have his flesh to eat. Consider, thou 
 pitiful rascal, consider the noble profit of the woman, and 
 have patience. Not for every trifle should'st thou beat 
 her." However preachers and husbands regarded them, 
 the ladies in Siena seem to have had more freedom than in 
 many other places. In Venice during the fourteenth century 
 they were kept in almost oriental seclusion, rarely leaving 
 their palaces except on very special occasions, and often 
 hearing mass in their private chapels under their own 
 roofs so as to avoid going out of doors. In Rome too 
 they were hidden away with jealous care, quite needful in 
 that turbulent city, and were not even allowed to leave 
 their own part of their palaces, lest they should come in 
 contact with the fierce and lawless retainers and soldiers 
 kept by their male relations. Florentine married women 
 had much more freedom, but this did not extend to girls ; 
 as late as the middle of the sixteenth century Grazzini urges 
 that the music at Carnival time should be " large and 
 gay," and the processions as rich and beautiful as possible, 
 accompanied at night with torches so that all should find 
 pleasure in them, even the young girls well hidden behind 
 a shutter or curtain in their father's houses. In Siena 
 girls were less confined, and married women had con- 
 siderable liberty paying visits to neighbours, and chatting 
 to them from windows and balconies in the narrow streets,
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 35 
 
 while to this day no Roman lady would dream of appear- 
 ing even at a window except at the Carnival. And there 
 was the walk with fathers or husbands in the little Piazza 
 Prusierla or in the Campo, and the daily mass for the 
 religious, while one and all on a high day would go to the 
 fashionable church outside Porta Romana, where, it is 
 whispered, love letters were not unfrequently slipped into 
 the nosegays so respectfully offered by students and 
 soldiers. 
 
 When winter came and snow fell on window ledges and 
 balconies, the ladies rolled it into balls and flung them 
 across the street at one another, just as the boys were 
 doing in the street below, and there were public entertain- 
 ments where they went, but it had to be done openly and 
 frankly, for if a lady appeared there masked or veiled, the 
 officer appointed to watch over public morals (a thank- 
 less task) promptly asked her name, and to give a false 
 one was a grave offence. 
 
 Very much time was filled up by matters belonging to 
 the toilette. " You paint yourselves more than any women 
 I know," thundered San Bernadino, " not perceiving that 
 you spoil your looks and make yourselves hated of men," 
 while for the ever changing fashions of hair dressing, he 
 cannot find words fiery enough to denounce them. Now 
 it was loose on the shoulders, now towering up like the 
 Mangia we may be sure that he was preaching in the 
 Campo, under the slender and lofty tower of that name, 
 as he often did or the locks were false, or stuffed out 
 with sHk, or else with hair from the tails of the great 
 Tuscan oxen, or he denounced the use of perfumes, needed 
 partly to conceal the woeful lack of personal cleanliness of 
 which not only peasants in their wretched huts, but the 
 upper classes were guilty. Baths were unknown, and the 
 minute washing basins on their tripods gave the measure 
 of water thought necessary then and later.
 
 36 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 In common fairness the men should have been as 
 sharply lectured as the women, for the young fops of 
 Siena were not a whit behind Petrarch, who confesses in 
 one of his letters that in youth he had been painfully 
 anxious to look elegant, changing his attire morning and 
 evening, studying every fold of his robe, building up his 
 hair, and diligently avoiding any touch or hasty movement 
 which might spoil the effect. He owns too that he wore 
 shoes too tight for him, and often got burned by curling 
 irons. 
 
 Old pictures show how gorgeous dress in the Trecento 
 could be, but we must not suppose them worn in every- 
 day life. The dresses of a bride were rarely brought out 
 after her marriage ; usually they lay in the " cassa," the 
 great chests found in all old Italian houses, cupboards and 
 shelves being modern inventions in Italian bedrooms. 
 Clothes were regarded as things to be handed down to 
 the next generation, and were received as a welcome gift ; 
 a robe of scarlet cloth was an offering for a king, and 
 they are always carefully enumerated in inventories of 
 household goods. In a record existing in the Public 
 Library of Siena it is mentioned that at the knighting of 
 a young noble, his father wore a grass green robe, with a 
 row of golden buttons down to his feet, and that among 
 the many gifts given and received by the son the chief 
 were silken robes, lined with squirrel fur, and tied with a 
 silken cord, and another of green Douay stuff which 
 seems to have been especially valued, not to speak of furs, 
 hoods, caps and gloves. There was also a doublet 
 adorned with gold, a coverlet embroidered with shields 
 probably the arms of the new-made knight, made of very 
 fine crimson cloth, and three pairs of stockings of stout 
 saye. 
 
 The extravagance in dress seriously preoccupied the 
 municipality, all of whom were probably husbands and
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 37 
 
 fathers, and had to pay the bills, and many statutes 
 were passed to check it. Now only a certain number of 
 gold buttons might be used on a lady's dress ; now un- 
 married girls must not wear cloth or velvet except for a 
 headdress or sleeves, nor might more than a fixed number 
 of yards of scarlet cloth be put into a gown for their 
 mothers, while no woman of the middle class was per- 
 mitted to wear a train. The archives of Siena record that 
 a heavy fine was imposed on the wife of a pork butcher 
 who appeared in San Cristofero with a long train to her 
 cloth dress. Her husband appeared before the magistrates 
 in her place, and pleaded that she had not wilfully broken 
 the law, but had carried the train in her hand or hooked 
 it up, and if it had trailed, she was unaware of it. The 
 plea was set aside, and the fine had to to be paid. 
 
 This is but one of the innumerable instances of the 
 way in which statutes interfered in daily life. It 
 aggrieved no one. A man was a citizen first and 
 foremost, a private individual only in the second place. 
 Personality was little recognised in the Middle Ages. 
 What concerned the city was all-important, and, as a 
 citizen, what touched him touched the city. This was 
 why at one time all betrothals took place publicly in the 
 Campo, before the Palazzo Publico. There was some- 
 thing of conventual rule both in public and private life. 
 Statutes regulated both. Until the Sovrana, the great 
 bell of the Duomo, rang at dawn no one might leave his 
 house, nor might the gates be opened to the country 
 people, coming to buy and sell, or to the belated merchant 
 who had had to camp with his laden mules outside the 
 city all night at the risk of being fallen on by robbers or 
 the wolves which lurked in the forests sweeping up to the 
 very walls, forests strictly preserved, as they were believed 
 to purify the air from the marshes, as well as supplying 
 wood for private use in various trades. Again, no one
 
 38 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 might go out after Curfew rang from the Campo, at nine 
 o'clock in winter and ten in summer, and whoso was out 
 after dark must carry a wax candle, whose size was fixed 
 by law, a very sensible rule when there were no lights in 
 the steep and narrow streets winding among lofty palaces 
 and convents, except where an occasional lamp was set 
 before a shrine. The nobles usually were accompanied 
 by servants with torches ; humbler folk carried a lantern ; 
 the one used by Catherine when she went at night to 
 some sick bed is still kept in the Fullonica, so changed 
 from what it was in her time that it is almost impossible 
 to imagine the busy life in it, with Catherine in her little 
 room, praying or listening for the first sound of the 
 Sovrana, eager to carry help to some poor family, and 
 hurry back before she could be recognised. 
 
 Bells played a great part in daily life before there were 
 clocks. After the Sovrana had roused the city came the 
 one which at 7 A.M. announced that the Palazzo Publico 
 was open for business, and if the officials were not there 
 before the sound ceased, they were fined. The hours of 
 divine service were proclaimed by the bells ; the 
 " Misericordia " tolled when a prisoner was led to execu- 
 tion, and the sounds of bells called the citizens to 
 extinguish fire, or to fight. 
 
 Another measure of time was a candle, used in case of 
 emergency. When in the beginning of the fourteenth 
 century the furious enmity of the Tolomei and Salimbini 
 set Siena in an uproar, the magistrates put a lighted taper 
 in the Palazzo del Governo, where they then sat, and 
 made proclamation that if the men of the rival families 
 had not come to make peace before it was burned out, 
 they would be imprisoned and their property forfeited. 
 The same means was taken on a very different occasion 
 when the enemies of the saintly Colombini prevailed on 
 the magistracy to banish him on pain of death before
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE ORATORY IN ST. CATHERINE'S HOUSE AT SIENA
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 39 
 
 a small candle was burned out. It was a common way of 
 meting out time to offenders. When Clement VII. was 
 induced to expel the Capuchins from Rome in 1534, he 
 ordered that one and all should leave the city before the 
 taper kindled as he spoke should burn down. On 
 receiving the command they instantly left the monastery 
 where they had been living, and taking only their 
 breviaries and a large wooden cross, went forth in silent 
 obedience. Among them was the Sienese friar Bernadino 
 Ochino. 
 
 The years following the birth of Catherine Benincasa 
 saw Siena unprosperous. Commerce had been severely 
 checked by the Black Death ; fortunes were lessening, 
 workmen scarce, and many of the wisest and best citizens 
 had died, leaving incompetent men to govern. For a 
 considerable time previous to the pestilence there had 
 been great prosperity, and the change was not immediately 
 apparent. Even private feud, and the jealous discontent 
 inevitable where a single class governed, and the measures 
 taken ignored the needs and desires of great part of the 
 population, seemed more or less dormant. Siena rose 
 to the zenith of her power, though even then, to judge by 
 the comparatively rare occurrence of her name in con- 
 temporary chronicles, she had little importance compared 
 with Genoa or Florence, Pisa or Venice. Yet she ruled 
 over two hundred towns, villages and castles, who yearly 
 sent tribute of banners and money and great wax tapers 
 to the Duomo, each deputy coming forward with his 
 offering as the name of the place he represented was 
 called by the Chamberlain of the Duomo from the marble 
 pulpit overlooking the crowd of farmers and villagers. 
 They stood side by side with the fierce Ardingheschi, lords 
 of Campidoglio and the Aldobrandeschi, who boasted that 
 they owned more towns and villages than there were days 
 in the year, a stock whence sprang Gregory VII., and who
 
 40 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 nevertheless did homage to Siena for Monte Amiata. 
 Theirs too was the race of the proud " Latino " whom 
 Dante meets on his way to purification, 1 and besides these 
 was many another great noble, with whom Siena had not 
 a few tough struggles. Each of her own citizens too 
 was bound to bring a taper of a size in proportion to 
 his income, except the very poor, the sick, and singular 
 exception ! those who had a grave feud with an enemy. 
 The wax thus brought was partly sold for the benefit of 
 the Duomo, partly used there, and in the evening Siena 
 rejoiced ; torches gleamed from the Mangia ; bonfires blazed 
 below in the Campo and on the surrounding hills, light- 
 ing up the dark forests and the wild and tumbled volcanic 
 country. On Monte Amiata an especially great one was 
 kindled, for those who dwelt there were bound to make 
 it visible at Siena. 2 Whoever has been in the city when 
 the Palio is run can picture something of the mad excite- 
 ment as one fire glowed out far and near, for this part of 
 the ancient ceremony is preserved on the feast of the 
 Assumption, but in old times there was the exultation of 
 knowing that every one of the fires confessed the over- 
 lordship of Siena. 
 
 During all the earlier part of the fourteenth century 
 her power increased ; wealth flowed in from commerce 
 and banking, in which now even the noblest families 
 engaged. Besides home trades they had imports of 
 Flemish cloth, eastern goods, pepper, ginger and spices. 
 The profits shared among the sixteen families who formed 
 the clan of Salimbena were in A.D. 1337 one hundred 
 thousand gold florins, and the next year their agent 
 made a most profitable venture in " cloth of silk 
 embroidered with golden leaves and fruit, stars and moon, 
 and girdles of silk and gold of Sorian fashion," brides' 
 purses, also of silk and gold, and many other things, all 
 
 1 Purg. xi. 1. 58. 3 Gigli.
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 41 
 
 of which were displayed in the Salimbeni palaces before 
 being distributed to the salesmen employed by the family, 
 who by the year's end had disposed of all or nearly all 
 the goods. The purses seem especially to have taken 
 the ladies' fancy, since 180 were sold to brides of noble 
 birth in one month, not to count those bought by lesser folk. 
 " And," comments Malavolti, " this fact is sufficient proof 
 of the great riches and the great nobility then existing in 
 Siena, for I do not believe that in any Italian city there 
 could now be made in one year eighty alliances of great 
 families, or at least of questionless nobility." 
 
 This valuable cargo arrived safely, but the obstacles 
 in conveying goods from place to place were great. 
 Those brought by sea encountered storms and pirates 
 and galleys of hostile towns : by land there was the hard- 
 ness of the roads, swollen rivers, heavy tolls levied by 
 nobles, past whose castles the caravan went ; taxes for 
 entering a town, for setting up booths, all hampered 
 commerce. Robbers lay in wait, often men of gentle 
 birth, like that Rinaldo dei Pazzi who is among the thieves 
 in Dante's " Inferno." Worse still, every time a band of 
 Freelances was unemployed, they went about burning, 
 plundering, seizing any merchant with mules or wares 
 whom they met. Froissart gives a lively portrait of a 
 Freelance captain who could not forgive himself for having 
 repented too soon. " How light-hearted we were," he 
 exclaimed, " when we rode hither and thither, and found 
 by the way a rich abbot or prior, or a troop of mules 
 laden with Brussels cloth, or fur from the fair of Landit, 
 or spice from Bruges, or silken goods from Damascus or 
 Alexandria ! All was ours, and ransomed at our will. 
 Every day we had fresh money. The peasants of 
 Auvergne and the Limousin provided for us, and brought 
 to our stronghold wheat and flour, baked bread, barley 
 for the horses and litter, good wine, fat sheep and poultry.
 
 42 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 We were kept like kings, and when we rode forth all the 
 countryside trembled before us. ... Comrades, that was 
 a fair life and a desirable ! " 
 
 Repeatedly goods coming or going from Siena were 
 thus intercepted, and in 1336 it was necessary to place 
 a troop of horsemen in Grosseto to protect the traders 
 going to the port of Talamone. The Free Companies 
 were the curse of Italy, and we shall find Catherine 
 Benincasa anxiously seeking to occupy them more harm- 
 lessly. Still, for many years, wealth poured into Siena, but 
 at the cost of rousing keen jealousy in Florence, whose 
 hostility was caused far more by commercial rivalry than 
 by different political interests. Florence was Guelf as 
 long as it suited her, and Siena looked to the Emperor 
 for support against the great lords in her territory, but 
 both held loosely to their parties, prizing their prosperity 
 above all, and regarding the prosperity of other towns as 
 a misfortune. If Florence tried to crush Pisa, it was 
 because she barred the way to the sea, if she were jealous 
 of Siena it was because Sienese commerce extended far 
 and wide, and she held one of the chief roads to Rome. 
 
 The wealth of Siena did not depend solely on trade. 
 Up to the time when Rome was deserted for Avignon, 
 Sienese merchants had banks in London and many other 
 cities, and lent money on interest, in plain words they were 
 usurers, known as Caorsini, a name used to distinguish 
 Christian from Jewish money-lenders, the name being 
 taken from Cahors, a French town famous in the wars of 
 the League, where usurers abounded. Readers of Dante 
 will recollect the scorn with which he regards the miserable 
 group sitting on the edge of the burning plain, and fondly 
 regarding the money-bags slung around their necks, and 
 Matthew Paris shows the same contemptuous dislike of 
 them, complaining that they carried themselves with a 
 high air in London, where the support of the Pope, for
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 43 
 
 whom they collected Peter's pence, baffled all the efforts 
 of the Bishop to keep them out of his diocese. 
 
 But later the papal banking business was transferred 
 to Florence ; the London banks were closed, and the 
 prosperity of Siena never recovered the check, which 
 came when the riches gathered by the fathers were 
 leading among their sons to a luxury and extravagance 
 hitherto unknown in the merchant city. It found its 
 most reckless expression in the Spendthrift Brigades, 
 one of which is branded by Dante. 1 Its members met 
 to feast in a house still known as La Consuma, near 
 the gate of San Lorenzo ; the dwelling now looks as much 
 out of elbows as did the prodigals when they had wasted 
 all they had under the belief that the world was coming 
 to an end. "They lived amid banquets and delights," 
 wrote Tizio, and flung their gold and silver plate and 
 drinking vessels into the street after each repast, and shod 
 their horses with silver, outdoing Filippo Argenti 
 the Florentine, inasmuch as they ordered them to be 
 loosely shod, and forbade their servants to pick up any 
 shoes that dropped. After ten months of riotous living 
 they were beggared, and two popular songs exist which 
 commemorate their folly. Who the pair on whom Dante 
 conferred a scornful fame really were is now unknown ; 
 some old writers identify one as a Salimbeni. 
 
 Unlike most Italian cities Siena counted wealth as 
 nobility. Not till the people governed did nobles pay 
 taxes ; the first imposed on them was the hearth tax, 
 paid also by the middle class and the poor, then followed 
 the Lira, and the community was divided into the greater 
 and lesser citizens. Naturally ambition awoke to belong to 
 the former class, and there sprang up a number of ennobled 
 families, looked down on of course by the older ones, and 
 resentful of their attitude, as was the case in France 
 
 1 Inf. xiii. 11. 115-129.
 
 44 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 before the Revolution, and the ill-will between them was 
 a new cause of weakness in Siena. Patriotism slackened, 
 and, while private feuds were as bitter as ever, the war- 
 like spirit declined ; it seemed better to hire mercenaries 
 to fight for the city than to risk one's own life. At 
 one time the ruling thought of the citizens was to make 
 their town great. No sacrifice was counted for that end. 
 When Florence sent as haughty a message as ever did 
 the Thirty Cities to Rome, and the fate of Siena trembled 
 in the balance, Messer Salimbene dei Salimbeni appeared 
 at the head of his kinsfolk and retainers, escorting a car 
 covered with scarlet cloth, and, entering the little Church 
 of San Cristofero where the magistrates sat in gloomy 
 silence, took from it 1 00,000 florins, which he poured on 
 the pavement, bidding them spend the money for the 
 defence of the city, and not spare, for more would be 
 forthcoming if needed. But in Catherine's day the 
 citizens thought more of their own welfare than that of 
 Siena, and evil times found an enfeebled generation to 
 encounter them. 
 
 With all the luxury, the encouragement of Art, the 
 religious revivals, there was a background of almost in- 
 credible violence and cruelty in the fourteenth century which 
 must be realised as part of the surroundings of St 
 Catherine. Even allowing for the colours being strongly 
 laid on, what a picture it is that we see in chronicles and 
 sermons ! "If there were a thousand Guelfs, and one 
 day a small child were born of a Ghibelline, immediately 
 one and all would hate him," says Bernadino, and in 
 another place he gives an appalling description of the 
 savage cruelty and murders of women and children in 
 faction fights. Dante records the venomous hatred of 
 Sapia for the party who had banished her from Siena, 
 and her exultation at seeing them routed. She is a 
 portrait of the partisan of that day, passionately resenting
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 45 
 
 private wrongs, and triumphing in her opponents' fall. 
 Women in these fights were always ready to egg on the 
 men. " I have heard," Bernadino says, " of women so 
 bitter against the opposite party that they would put 
 a lance into the hand of their little child, that he might 
 slay and take vengeance. And there was a woman so 
 cruel that when she saw another of the other party 
 escaping she cried to her people, ' Such a one is escaping ; 
 a certain fellow has set her on his horse, and is carrying 
 her away,' and running after them she cried, ' Set her 
 down if thou would'st not die/ and when she was set 
 down that woman murdered her." 
 
 He gives more details, too horrible for quotation, 
 though preached to a great congregation, and then 
 observes, " Verily so great ills have been done through 
 faction that what I have said is almost nothing." 
 
 The streets of Siena are quiet enough now, but the 
 city looks so ancient Taine called it a mediaeval Pompeii 
 that a visitor might fancy it unaltered since the days 
 when Catherine lived in it. But many of the buildings 
 which look so old were then new, or did not exist. The 
 Palazzo Publico and the Mangia were there, though a 
 story lower than at present ; the Cappella di Piazza below 
 them was only erected in the year after her birth, as a 
 thanksgiving for the cessation of the plague, with two 
 golden florins in the foundation as a charm against earth- 
 quakes : the Churches of San Domenico and Francesco 
 were not completed for another century. Among buildings 
 already old were the palaces of the Tolomei and Salimbeni, 
 rival families, " filled with very bloody enmity, on account 
 of their might, their close neighbourhood, and their 
 opposite parties," for the Tolomei were a house more 
 devoted to Florence than any other in Tuscany, 1 while 
 the Salimbeni were strong imperialists, and their rivalry 
 
 1 Malavolti.
 
 46 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 was so serious that about 1317 Florence interfered, " to 
 the wonderful satisfaction not only of the city, but of 
 the Florentine Republic, who sent ambassadors to persuade 
 them, and used great diligence to do so, since the 
 hostility of these two families kept all the city disunited, 
 and might cause great harm not only to the city of Siena, 
 but to the Guelf cause." l 
 
 Unfortunately promises of peace between rival families 
 were what Italians call " mariners' vows," broken as soon 
 as opportunity offered. " Close neighbourhood " was 
 hard to avoid, though at first each palace stood in a clear 
 space, within which were the shops of its merchants, 
 stables for the horses of the masters and men-at-arms, 
 and the mules which carried merchandise. Sometimes 
 the palaces of allied families were united by a covered 
 passage high above the street, and many had lofty towers 
 " forming," we hear, " a spectacle of surpassing beauty," 
 though it must be owned that a print of mediaeval Siena, 
 now in the Uffizi, suggests a town full of factory chimneys. 
 Tomasi says they were mostly built by citizens who 
 obtained leave to do so in token of proud nobility or 
 for offence and defence, " when the injured people 
 sought to cast down the power of the great." Sometimes 
 they had a more honourable origin. The family whose 
 name was changed to Incontrati by public decree, 
 because they " encountered " the foe with such extra- 
 ordinary valour in the fight with Florence at Monte 
 Maggio, had a tower built at public expense, known as 
 " The Tower of Victory," and it was decreed that any 
 Sienese who distinguished himself in battle or civic life 
 might build one. The oldest bit of masonry in Siena is 
 the Rocchetta tower, where St Ansano is said to have 
 been imprisoned. 
 
 The palaces of Siena look grimly down, but whereas 
 
 1 Malavolti.
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 47 
 
 those of Rome have often great dungeons, with an oubliette 
 or perhaps a secret passage to the Tiber, none in Siena 
 had any prisons below them, and even the public jails 
 were small. The prisoners were offenders against the 
 law, or supposed to be such, and were there by order of 
 the magistrates, not at the pleasure of private individuals. 
 Fines played a great part in civic punishments, and only 
 heretics were imprisoned for life. Siena is said to have 
 been less cruel as to torture than most mediaeval towns, 
 but it was common. Executions took place in the 
 Campo, until, annoyed by the cries of the mutilated and 
 by the sight of bodies hanging from a gibbet or burned 
 at the stake, the dwellers in the houses near got the place 
 of punishment removed to the Poggio delle Forche, out- 
 side the city, whither the victims were led through the Via 
 dei Malcontenti, a name which has a cruel touch of irony. 
 It is unsatisfactory to find that as time went on, prisoners 
 were treated worse, for whereas early in the fourteenth 
 century they had a chapel and a priest, and the prison 
 was supplied with water, later they lost these privileges. 
 " Justice is a holy thing," wrote Catherine, who was much 
 troubled about them, " but not to be exercised with 
 cruelty." 
 
 Many palaces were built in the prosperous time before 
 the Black Death, and there were handsome brick houses 
 of the middle class, and wooden ones for the poor, which 
 often took fire ; statutes strictly forbade inflammable 
 matter being thrown into the streets, nor might hay or 
 straw be piled in them. At the first alarm of fire a great 
 bell rang fast and loud, and the guild sworn to help in 
 such case hurried to the spot, shouting " Fire," while 
 other citizens ran to carry water and save life and property, 
 while a guard kept order as far as possible, and looked 
 after what was saved, but sometimes feuds interfered 
 with help, or malcontents seized the opportunity of making
 
 48 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 a tumult. If the house belonged to a poor man, it was 
 rebuilt at public cost ; if to a member of an Art, his guild 
 subscribed to help him. 
 
 Fire was the more dreaded because water was scarce. 
 Dante mocks at the efforts of the Sienese to find the 
 Diana, a stream believed to flow under the city which 
 was only supplied with water by " bottini," pipes carried 
 underground from a very early time for a great distance 
 to the nineteen fountains in the city. These had a 
 drinking-place for animals, and one for washing clothes, 
 as well as a guazzatorium, or baths which the public could 
 use at stated times; the rich citizens had their own 
 bathing place, and the water was used by various trades ; 
 Fontebranda was originally made for the refugees from 
 Milan who brought their Art to Siena when Barbarossa 
 sacked their city and sowed the ground with salt. In 
 1339 the Leathermakers also petitioned to use it. The 
 request was addressed to the Operajo del Duomo, who 
 looked after the fountains, each of which had its guardian. 
 Private citizens had water carried to their houses by 
 donkeymen. Though the Diana was never found, at last 
 a plentiful supply of water was discovered, which answered 
 almost as well. 
 
 When the " Sixteen " ruled Siena, a real improvement 
 was made ; the main streets were paved, and rain rushed 
 down and cleansed them instead of soaking in, but there 
 remained countless lanes and alleys winding in and out 
 among the houses, steep and crooked and very dirty, the 
 city pigs and the half- wild, masterless dogs who probably 
 suggested the idea of " lupi mannari " were-wolves 
 being the only scavengers. The filth was great, though 
 slops might only be pitched into the streets at certain 
 hours, and the archives record cases of fine when this law 
 was disobeyed. A hint of the state of the city is found 
 in names yet remaining, such as Via Pantenato, Marsh
 
 SIENA IN THE TRECENTO 49 
 
 Street, or Via Infangato, Muddy Street. The terzi were 
 divided into contradi or wards, every one with its own 
 Church and banner Catherine's is said to have been 
 called the Oca from the large flocks of geese brought up 
 there, but all the names were taken either from animals 
 or natural objects. Every ward was closed at night by a 
 gate, each with its tower ; there were at one time thirty- 
 six gates, and the city is encircled by grand old walls, 
 built as much to prevent any one from leaving it as to 
 keep enemies out. Had Petrarch been a student in Siena 
 instead of Bologna, he and his gay companions could not 
 have come back late at night, climbing the stockade which 
 served to enclose the town. No such pranks are recorded 
 of students attending the University of Siena, which was 
 famous long before Florence founded one, and which 
 grudged nothing to attract eminent teachers. At the 
 beginning of the Trecento, when most of the Professors 
 from Bologna left their posts in protest against one of 
 their number having been very deservedly executed by the 
 Podesta, Siena paid 6000 florins to redeem the books 
 which they had pledged, paid all expenses of bringing 
 them and their goods to her University, and promised an 
 annual salary of 300 golden florins among them, and free 
 lodging for six months. But their claims were too exorbi- 
 tant to be satisfied, and the next year they departed. 
 All Universities were subject to these violent changes, 
 and sieges and war often dispersed both professors and 
 students.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A THORNY PATH 
 
 THERE are Sardinian girls in the present century 
 who lead much such a life as that which Catherine 
 Benincasa had chosen. Taking the three vows com- 
 mon to all monastic orders, they enter no convent but live 
 at home in a little room set apart for them, having no 
 communication with the outer world except when visited 
 by their confessor ; their food is silently handed in t to 
 them, and they are supposed to spend their lives in 
 meditation and prayer. Such an existence may end in 
 apathy, or early death, or insanity, or again, where there 
 is the mystic temperament, it may rise to intense 
 devotion, and the happy visionary may be enraptured by 
 heavenly sights and sounds, as was Catherine, after the 
 hard struggle which for a time racked soul and body. 
 The three years spent after that time were a period of 
 exquisite peace and joy, during which she grew more and 
 more in knowledge of herself and of heavenly things. But 
 suddenly on her reluctant mind was forced the conviction 
 that she must renounce this life of contemplation, and, 
 returning to the daily round, seek to help and teach her 
 fellow townsmen. It was a repetition on a far larger 
 scale of her childish perception that instead of being a 
 hermit she must go home. She strove hard not to 
 believe it, praying with tears to be spared this trial. 
 How could she teach and exhort, she pleaded, weak and 
 liable to temptation as she was, of no rank or importance, 
 so
 
 ST. GATHER INK 
 
 BV CUZZAKKI.I.I
 
 A THORNY PATH 51 
 
 and only a woman ? "I have a mission for thee," the 
 inward Voice answered, " and it is My will that thou 
 should'st appear in public. Wherever thou goest I will 
 be with thee and never leave thee." Then Catherine 
 submitted, saying through tears, " Thy will be done in 
 all things, Thou art light and I am darkness ; Thou art, 
 and I am not." 
 
 And she came among her family, and outwardly lived 
 their life, though in her heart she ever conversed with 
 God. 
 
 Thus to resume daily life showed great moral courage. 
 Her apparent renunciation of what she had striven so 
 hard three years earlier to obtain must have exposed her 
 to much unkind and mocking comment, for there would 
 be many to believe that she was simply weary of seclusion 
 and self-denial, and, as she foresaw, her age and sex 
 were a serious obstacle to good works outside her father's 
 house. It was true that before her day there had been 
 women who though entering no convent had led lives 
 which caused them to be counted as saints. Such was 
 Donolina Salimbeni, who " lived in the world chastely and 
 religiously, having given herself to a heavenly Bridegroom, 
 with special devotion to St Francis of Assisi, and almost 
 all day she spent in the Church of the Minorites, and 
 none spoke ill of her. And thirty ladies of Marseilles," 
 where she lived, " were her disciples, some noble, some 
 of the middle class, whose mistress and lady she was." 
 But Donolina was a great lady, could do what a dyer's 
 daughter could not, except at the cost of affronting public 
 opinion, and that the Church, while allowing women who 
 devoted themselves to the religious life to be called 
 nuns, regarded them doubtfully is shown by the 
 severe tone taken towards them in the Rule of St 
 Benedict. Catherine in fact lived by a rule of her own 
 which roused not only the inevitable opposition of evil
 
 52 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 to good, but even caused much scandal. For an unmarried 
 girl to put herself forward in any way was contrary to all 
 custom, and the Mantellate watched her uneasily, though 
 she only very gradually began the work which was to 
 grow so far beyond what she or any one could have fore- 
 seen, content at first with helping poor families near the 
 Fullonica, both with alms, and loving words which 
 induced them to lead a better life, and her influence 
 became so strong that she was several times able to 
 interpose in the violent disputes which began to break 
 out between masters and workmen, every one of which 
 increased the tension between the two parties, and drove 
 away trade. Her name gradually became known far 
 beyond the ward of the Oca ; her voice, lovely both in 
 speech and song, soothed dying beds ; her touch and 
 prayers healed the sick ; it was told that the daughter of 
 Giacomo Benincasa cured when the doctor had said 
 there was no hope, and with each sufferer restored to 
 health her fame grew. 
 
 That she had what to herself and all around her 
 appeared miraculous power is beyond doubt, and even 
 if we admit that her cures were made through natural 
 laws, her power was none the less divinely given, nor 
 does it detract from the reverence and admiration due to 
 her to accept a natural explanation of much that could 
 only seem miraculous in a century which knew nothing 
 of laws which even now are only dimly apprehended. It 
 is however a safe rule that " we should never convert an 
 event into a miracle when there is a satisfactory explana- 
 tion within the fixed laws of nature." 
 
 Precisely how Catherine was able to cure we cannot 
 tell, any more than we can how Father John does so in 
 Russia now, but we all know something of the power of 
 mind over body, and how great a tonic is hope. Catherine 
 was in the most favourable position possible to effect faith
 
 A THORNY PATH 53 
 
 healing ; she had herself a magnificent gift of faith, never 
 doubting that, if it were for the good of the sufferer, her 
 prayers would cure him, and she possessed the full confi- 
 dence of her patients. Raimondo, who witnessed many 
 cases when she healed the sick, gives a remarkable instance 
 in that of Matteo di Cenni, head of the Spedale, the great 
 hospital of Siena, which had been founded in the twelfth 
 century by a noble Sienese and had its own staff 01 
 attendants, who wore brown robes and black caps. 
 Catherine constantly visited the sick there, and the little 
 room is still shown where she slept when detained too 
 late to return home. In 1408 the building was made 
 over to the University when all the charitable foundations 
 in Siena were united together, and the Dominicans had 
 the charge of it, but it was less well looked after than in 
 Catherine's day, for a century and a half later we find 
 Bernadino Ochino writing to exhort them to attend better 
 to the sick in the hospital, where they were now " only 
 waited on by hirelings, without self-denying love or 
 exhortation, so that their souls were often more sick than 
 their bodies," and a month later he writes again, in words 
 that Catherine might have used, "Visit the poor sick, or 
 rather, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the hospital,, 
 doing it as may be easiest to each, and in fixed order." 
 
 No such exhortations were needed in Catherine's time, 
 though when Messer Matteo lay at death's door, the self- 
 devotion of its staff was tried to the utmost. For the 
 third time in less than thirty years the piteous wail was 
 heard in Siena, " Ahime, sento il grosso " (alas, I feel the 
 swelling ! ) the sign that plague was again in the city. 
 All the old, miserable scenes were repeated ; a brother and 
 sister of Catherine's died of it, and so did six of the eleven 
 grandchildren whom Lapa was bringing up. Catherine 
 laid them herself in the grave, saying amid her tears, 
 " These I can never lose." The Dominicans worked
 
 54 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 unflinchingly, only at first refusing to let young novices 
 visit the plague-stricken ; this restriction however had to 
 be withdrawn as one after another of the older men died 
 at his post, and it is noteworthy that as an encouragement 
 to the young workers, they were told that they should 
 have Catherine as a companion. " Such a reward is 
 splendid ! " exclaimed one of them, Simone da Cortona, 
 " beside Catherine all work is rest." He was one of the 
 few who escaped from the plague, shaking it off through 
 his confidence in her healing powers. " The dead fell like 
 rotten apples," says Tomasi in his " Historic di Siena." 
 
 Catherine had just been through a most painful time 
 of unjust suspicion and calumny ; she repaid her fellow- 
 citizens by dauntless self-devotion, tending the sick, laying 
 out the dead, encouraging, exhorting, comforting. It 
 was at this time that she became acquainted with 
 Raimondo, who was to be her devoted friend and con- 
 fessor. He was of the ancient family of Delle Vigne, 
 and therefore had as an ancestor the faithful, ill-used 
 Chancellor Pietro, who once " held the keys of his 
 master's heart," until " whispering tongues did poison 
 truth," and Frederic II. drove him to suicide by his 
 mistrust, an innocent and slandered servant, as Dante 
 tells in the " Inferno." 1 Raimondo had just been sent to 
 the Dominican convent at Siena, and worked as fearlessly 
 among the plague-stricken as did Catherine herself, 
 though he owns that at this time he was in a cold and 
 indifferent state as to religion, from which his acquaintance 
 with her roused him. He paid daily visits to the hospital, 
 and on one occasion found with consternation that the 
 Director had been taken ill, and his case was already 
 desperate. He left the bedside of Messer Matteo in deep 
 sorrow, and went to minister to others in the wards. 
 Meanwhile Catherine, who had heard the sad news, walked 
 1 Inf. xiii. 11. 58-63.

 
 z 
 z 
 
 8 < 
 5 
 
 o " 
 a j
 
 A THORNY PATH 55 
 
 in bright and energetic. " Get up, Father Matteo, " she 
 exclaimed cheerfully, " this is no time to be lying idle in 
 bed," and as the sick man heard her, something of her 
 own vitality seemed to pass into him. Raimondo, 
 knowing nothing of this, met her as she was leaving 
 the house, and stopped her. " Will you let one so dear 
 to me, so useful to others die ? " he exclaimed. Catherine 
 was startled and displeased. " Am I like God to deliver a 
 man from death ? " she asked reprovingly. But Raimondo, 
 " beside himself with grief," persisted. " I know that you 
 obtain from God whatever you will," he said. Catherine 
 stood with bent head, smiled a little, and presently, looking 
 him frankly in the face, she said, " Courage, he will not 
 die this time," and went away, while he hurried back to 
 Messer Matteo, who was no longer lying in bed at death's 
 door, but risen on the way to recovery. " Do you know 
 what she has done for me ? " he cried. A meal was laid 
 for him, of which he partook with most encouraging 
 appetite. This event forms the subject of one of the 
 frescoes in the Church which is now part of the Fullonica. 
 Raimondo too experienced her power of healing. Worn 
 out with incessant toil among the sick, he fell worn out 
 on her threshold ; she took his head between her hands 
 and, refreshed by her magnetic touch, he slept for two 
 hours. " Now, father, go back to your work," she said 
 gaily when he woke. 
 
 This outbreak of plague was in 1374, and Catherine 
 had returned to everyday life and active charity in 1367. 
 The years had been full of trial to her and to Siena. 
 From the day when the magistracy of the Novi were 
 expelled there had been constant changes of government 
 and tumults, and the cry was never long silent of " Death 
 to the popolo grasso," raised by the popolo magro, as 
 the lower bourgeoisie were very significantly called, the 
 word "popolo" including professional classes, traders and
 
 56 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 artisans, between all of whom and the " popolo minuto," 
 the lowest class in Siena, there was a sharp distinction, 
 while the peasantry did not count at all ; the " common 
 man " had no political, hardly any civil rights ; in all 
 Dante's great portrait-gallery he finds no place, and 
 chroniclers hardly acknowledge his existence, or hear a 
 word of pity for his sufferings, though no class endured 
 such misery as the peasants in the Hundred Years' War 
 in France, or the raids of the Free Companies in Italy. 
 
 The Novi, who on the whole had governed with good 
 sense and patriotism, were driven out in 1355 by a con- 
 spiracy organised by certain noble families who would no 
 longer endure their exclusion from the government, and the 
 excited populace murdered several magistrates, burned the 
 public records, and sought to have their families excluded 
 for ever from taking any part in ruling the city. The 
 conspiring nobles gained little by their ill-doings, for the 
 Dodici (Twelve) who were now appointed came entirely 
 from what Malavolti calls the " numero medio," or middle 
 class, and the gentlemen elected to take counsel with them 
 were mere figure heads. The chief alteration was that the 
 officer called the Captain of the People, hitherto an out- 
 sider, should be a Sienese, his office only lasting two 
 months, a fruitful source of intrigue. Andrea Vanni, a 
 friend of Catherine's, held the offices at one time, and 
 she wrote to him bidding him recollect that if ever the 
 city was to have peace, justice must be observed ; it was 
 for lack of this that so much ill had befallen, wherefore 
 she earnestly wished to see him a just and true ruler, a 
 desire repeated in her letter to the Podesta, Pietro del 
 Monte, " Be true judge and lord in the state to which God 
 has called you, and give rich and poor their due, always 
 tempered by mercy." The year 1368 saw revolution in 
 Siena. On a smaller scale there was an outbreak like the 
 one organised ten years later by the " Ciompi " in Florence,
 
 A THORNY PATH 57 
 
 in which Catherine nearly perished. The Sienese up- 
 rising was started by some three hundred of the wool 
 carders, who belonged to the popolo minuto, and who 
 formed an association which they called after the cater- 
 pillar on the banner of their ward " la compagnia del 
 Bruco." Led by one Domenico, a retail vendor of woollen 
 stuffs, they paraded the city, reinforced by the Compagnia 
 del Popolo, " wanting to be masters themselves," and to 
 shake off the yoke of their guild. They seem to have 
 been wretchedly poor, and they went from house to house, 
 threatening and demanding food. Three of the leaders 
 were quickly arrested, tortured and condemned to death. 
 It was the signal for a rising which for a fortnight kept 
 Siena in uproar, thanks less to the artisans than to the 
 Salimbeni, who did not indeed espouse the cause of the 
 people, but fought for their own hand to recover their old 
 power. The Salimbeni and the artisans alike failed to get 
 what they aimed at, but the city suffered severely, and trade 
 was for the time at a standstill. While Siena was thus 
 impoverished, a severe strain on its resources was imposed 
 on it by the Emperor Charles IV. He had been there 
 when the Novi were deposed ; he now returned with a troop 
 of Germans, under pretext of putting down disorders. 
 Siena had no pleasant recollection of his former visit, and 
 though nominally Ghibelline, she never forgot that she was 
 one of the earliest Italian cities to become a free town, and 
 when a rumour probably not ill founded spread that 
 Charles meant to seize and sell it to the Pope the bells in- 
 stantly called the citizens to arms, and desperate street fight- 
 ing ensued. They were led by their brave Captain of the 
 People, Manzano, " a man of a great soul and very valorous 
 although a plebeian," says the aristocratic Malavolti with 
 unconscious insolence, and the German soldiery gave way. 
 Charles fled to the Salimbeni palace in abject fear. He 
 wept, sobbed, excused himself, embraced every one, declar-
 
 58 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 ing that he had been betrayed by the Salimbeni, offering 
 forgiveness unasked, and many more favours than any one 
 wanted. Trembling and terrified, without power and with- 
 out money, his soldiers beaten, his prestige gone, he only 
 desired to have Siena, but as soon as Manzano came to 
 terms with him, he resumed his former haughty tone, and 
 demanded 20,000 florins, to be paid in four years. The 
 first instalment was paid at once, on condition that 
 he should immediately leave the city, which he gladly 
 did. 1 Siena had small reason to love Charles IV. He 
 left behind him an impoverished town, families mourning 
 their dead, stagnant trade, and a great hatred of the nobles 
 who had sided with him, more especially of the Salimbeni. 
 
 Catherine's tender offices were needed on all sides, so 
 she had to put private sorrows aside, but they were heavy. 
 Her good father died in the autumn of 1368, and the 
 fall of the Dodici which came soon after caused a new 
 sedition and an onslaught upon their supporters. Her 
 brothers were among them, and a friend hurried to warn 
 them that they were in danger, advising them to escape 
 to the Church of Sant' Antonio, where others of their 
 party had taken refuge, but Catherine hastily interposed. 
 " They are not to go, and sorry am I for those who are 
 there," she said, and, putting on the cloak which marked 
 her as a Mantellata, she led them out into the midst of 
 their enemies. Had they gone alone they would have 
 risked death, but Catherine was at once recognised by 
 the crowd, who bowed respectfully to her and made way 
 for them to pass. 
 
 All who took refuge in Sant' Antonio were murdered 
 or imprisoned ; the Benincasa escaped with a heavy fine, 
 but their means were so crippled and their position so 
 uncertain, though none of them seem to have taken a 
 prominent part in public events, that three found it 
 
 1 Neri di Donati.
 
 A THORNY PATH 59 
 
 advisable to emigrate to Florence, where they already had 
 a branch trade, and with her husband went Lisa, the 
 favourite sister-in-law of Catherine, not to return until she 
 was a widow. A niece seems to have continued the 
 business in Siena, but poverty now came upon the family, 
 and the brothers in Florence neglected their old mother ; 
 Catherine's letters remind them of their duty toward her 
 as undone, and there is a hint of family dissensions in her 
 urgency that they should be at peace together. Although 
 one at least, Benincasa, who is always called by his family 
 name, and indeed seems to have been christened by it, 
 returned to Siena from time to time to see those of his 
 relations still there, the brothers in Florence renounced 
 their native city, and were enrolled as Florentine citizens, 
 and this branch remained as members of the rival republic 
 until a century later when they petitioned Siena to take 
 them back. Soon after this the name disappears, and 
 the family apparently became extinct. Families were apt 
 to die out, however numerous, in days when war and 
 feuds put an end to men so readily, and when convents 
 absorbed so many of both sexes, as in the case of the 
 De Beaufort, whence sprang Gregory XL, with whom 
 Catherine was to have so much to do. He belonged to 
 a family where an uncle had already been Pope, and 
 another uncle, two nephews and five cousins, cardinals. 
 Two or three early deaths among those left might easily 
 extinguish such a family. 
 
 Another trouble which fell on Catherine about this 
 time was the illness of her mother, with its attendant 
 circumstances, for the stout-hearted old woman maintained 
 that she should recover, would see no priest nor receive 
 the last sacraments, and told Catherine that she would 
 do better to pray her back to health, than to exhort her 
 to make a pious end. She did recover, and lived to be 
 over eighty, surviving her daughter by many years, and
 
 60 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 becoming a Mantellata. Raimondo is greatly scandalised 
 by her determination to live, and points out how many 
 trials and sorrows came upon her as a chastisement, but 
 Lapa was still full of life and energy, had grandchildren 
 to bring up, and a daughter to care for who she must have 
 felt needed some one to look after her as far as she 
 would allow any one to do so, nor could she wish to 
 leave her unprotected after the cruel slanders which had 
 been spread concerning her. Popular though she was in 
 the city, that very popularity roused jealousy and illwill 
 and even dislike. Her austere life was a reproach to 
 more easy-going Mantellate ; her fasts were disbelieved in ; 
 " she eats well enough in secret," said her enemies ; her 
 frequent communions were a thing very unusual at that 
 time, and roused especial disapprobation ; her long prayers 
 were held as a sign of hypocrisy, and a sneering disbelief 
 was shown as to the ecstatic states in which she stood or 
 knelt insensible to earthly sights and sounds. So high 
 ran the feeling that once, at some time between 1370-74, 
 she was dragged while in trance out of San Domenico, 
 kicked and flung into the burning sun, unconscious of 
 what was done to her until she at length came to herself, 
 and found her friends weeping over her. 
 
 Even the friars seem to have sided against her at 
 this time, ordering that as soon as Mass was over she 
 should leave the Church, and her confessor, Delia Fonte 
 alarmed and perplexed, advised her to modify her aus- 
 terities rather than cause scandal, but finally admitted 
 that she was right in paying no attention to the storm 
 raging against her. All her life there were those who 
 slandered and taxed her with hypocrisy ; even Raimondo, 
 who, as he says, had had to do with many visionary and 
 silly women, was at first doubtful of her. 
 
 In the early days of her work in Siena other, and very 
 dangerous charges were brought against her. Outside
 
 THE ECSTASY OF ST. CATHERINE 
 
 BV SODOMA
 
 A THORNY PATH 61 
 
 Porta Romana stood a leper house which she visited, 
 though not only was leprosy dreaded as contagious, but 
 those afflicted by it were supposed thus stricken on 
 account of some great sin, and so were doubly shunned. 
 Leprosy was terribly common, and the lazar houses 
 provided were quite insufficient to contain the sufferers. 
 Those who found a refuge there were the least unfortunate ; 
 the rest wandered about in parties, dreaded, ill-used, driven 
 away, yet still returning. If an epidemic broke out, the 
 lepers were accused of poisoning the fountains that all 
 might be as miserable as themselves, and a burst of savage 
 fury was the result. 
 
 Among the inmates of the Sienese lazar house was a 
 certain Francesca or Cecca, a mass of loathsome sores. 
 When all others shrank from her, Catherine would wash 
 her wounds with fearless tenderness, while, trying, as she 
 always did, to awaken repentance and faith in her patient. 
 Possibly the woman resented her exhortations, or wearied of 
 them Catherine was still very young and inexperienced, 
 and may have pressed them too much upon her. In 
 any case this Cecca persuaded herself that " the Benincasa " 
 attended her merely to expiate some secret and grievous 
 sin. Her foul suspicions found vent in taunts ; if her 
 kind attendant came a few minutes late, she was greeted 
 with, " Welcome, Queen of Fontebranda ! Oh, the fine 
 Queen who stays all day long in the Friars' church ! 
 Look me in the face, my lady ; have you been spending 
 all this time with the Friars ? One sees you cannot have 
 enough of friars." 
 
 The venomous words were of course heard by the 
 other inmates of the lazar house, and how venomous they 
 were we only understand on realising what was the 
 popular belief as to the immorality both of the 
 mendicants and the priests. Fra Bernadino, himself a 
 friar, strongly warns his female listeners to beware of
 
 62 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 them. Even respectable widows should "talk neither 
 with good nor bad ones, but stay at home, and not go 
 too often to Church." " If a widow be seen talking to 
 a friar, seven will murmur against her." Catherine knew 
 well what was meant, but she continued to nurse her 
 until she died and went to her own place, as Raimondo 
 significantly puts it. Her kindness cost her dear, for 
 her hands became for a time affected by what was 
 called leprosy, and the verdict of her enemies was, " served 
 her right " " Bene le stava ogni male." The disease 
 was probably cutaneous ; every skin affection was apt to 
 be classed as leprosy in the Middle Ages, just as all forms 
 of lunacy were held to be demoniacal possession, and 
 she entirely recovered. 
 
 A yet more cruel enemy was Andrea, a Mantellata, 
 whom she attended when dying of cancer. She circulated 
 slander against Catherine's fair fame to such purpose 
 that she was called before a meeting of the Sisters, and 
 sharply reproached and questioned. She answered very 
 briefly and simply, and escaped being expelled, but 
 there are indications of her having been called before a 
 Chapter of the Order at Florence to defend herself. 1 In 
 the Strozzi Library in that city a MS. exists which notes 
 that in May, A.D. 1374, a certain Catherine of Jacopo of 
 Siena, a member of the " pinzochere " of St Dominic, was 
 summoned before a Chapter of the Friars Preachers, but 
 she was not yet famous, and the tantalising notice tells 
 no more. Nor does Raimondo speak of it. She seems 
 to have visited her brothers, and after this several letters 
 are addressed to a young niece, Nanna, the daughter of 
 one of them, and apparently it was at this time that she 
 made the acquaintance, afterwards so important, of 
 Soderini, who remained her firm friend. Lapa, furious at 
 the accusations of Andrea, vehemently forbade Catherine 
 
 1 Gigli, Voc. Cat. p. ii.
 
 A THORNY PATH 63 
 
 when she came home to have anything more to do with 
 her. " How often have I told thee not to serve that 
 wretched old woman ? " she cried, " she has foully 
 slandered thee among all the Sisters, and God knows if 
 thou wilt ever clear thyself." Catherine thought it over, 
 and presently came to her. "Sweet mother," she said, 
 " do you think our Lord would be pleased with us if we 
 left works of mercy undone because our neighbour is 
 unthankful ? When our Saviour hung on the Cross and 
 heard the ungrateful talk of the people around, did He 
 for their cruel words abandon the work of their redemp- 
 tion ? Good mother, you know very well that if I left 
 the old sick woman, she would die of neglect, for no one 
 would come and do such things as one in her condition 
 needs, and so I should cause her death." 
 
 And she added with joyful confidence that in the end 
 Andrea would own that she had lied, which indeed she 
 did, with deep repentance, but calumnies do not easily die 
 out, and the jealousy of the Mantellate, together with 
 their readiness to believe evil is not a pleasant picture. 
 
 A new enemy sprang up in Palmerina, a sister who 
 had bestowed her property upon the Order, and who 
 bitterly resented her importance being lessened by 
 Catherine's rising fame. She could not hear her name 
 without an outburst of angry spite, and constantly spoke 
 against her. Catherine could only pray with all her 
 heart that she might not be an occasion of sin to one of 
 the Mantellata, and, to her deep and thankful joy, 
 Palmerini sent for her, and weeping asked her forgive- 
 ness, publicly confessing her jealous injustice. Mr 
 Jameson suggests that the nun in Sassoferrato's picture 
 who kisses Catherine's hand is meant for Palmerina. 
 
 None the less, slander continued. " They who sur- 
 rounded her measured not her words and deeds by God's 
 rules, but their own," exclaims Raimondo. " Ah, Lord
 
 64 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 my God, how often was it said of her, ' She casts out 
 devils through Beelzebub, prince of the devils,' in other 
 words, ' These visions come not from God, but from the 
 Evil One.' " Even her patriotism was questioned, and at 
 a much later time, when her character had long been 
 established. Rarely indeed does she allow personal 
 feeling to appear in her letters, but it is shown touchingly 
 in one written to a friend who had warned her of the 
 reports spread in consequence of her friendship with the 
 Salimbeni of Rocca d'Orcia. " She is assured," she says, 
 " that she is doing right, though for well doing she receives 
 evil ; for the honour which she seeks to do her fellow- 
 citizens she receives shame ; in return for life they give 
 her death." 
 
 Catherine must have been moved indeed when she 
 allowed herself to write this. Usually she tried to ignore 
 slander, and keep her partisans from taking her part too 
 vehemently. A letter to some Florentine ladies in 1376 
 after a visit to their city shows that again ill tongues had 
 not spared her, and that her friends showed more zeal 
 than discretion in defending her. " I shall scold you 
 well, my dear daughters, for forgetting what I told you. 
 I bade you have nothing at all to say to those who might 
 speak against me. Now recollect I will not have you 
 begin it all over again." 
 
 It is bravely written, with a ring of gaiety in it. 
 Catherine is said to have had a French ancestor, 1 and had 
 a blessed gift of cheerfulness which may have come 
 down from a Gallic source, and she was very human, 
 though a great saint. She sang over her work ; she 
 loved making nosegays, and gathering flowers ; she had a 
 special affection for the mantle with which she had been 
 invested in San Domenico, and patched and mended it to 
 make it last, and she took the pain caused by her 
 
 1 Mignaty Vie de St Catherine de Sienne.
 
 A THORNY PATH 65 
 
 wrecked health gaily, but she was hardly more than a 
 girl, and fatherless when the worst storm of calumny 
 broke upon her, and the courage and patience which she 
 showed during a time made doubly hard by the distress it 
 gave her mother cannot be overestimated. 
 
 By degrees the storm died down, and admiration and 
 respect surrounded her. Legends began to be told exalt- 
 ing her charity, and showing with what favour she was 
 regarded in Heaven, some trivial, some poetic. One of 
 the latter was the story of how while she was praying in 
 San Dominico a poor man asked alms, and she gently 
 answered that she would go home and fetch him some 
 help. He answered that he could not wait, and she cast 
 about for what she could bestow on him, and finding 
 nothing but her little silver cross, gave it, and he went 
 his way. That night she had a vision of Christ holding 
 the cross, but now it was adorned with many gems, and 
 He said, " Daughter, know'st thou this ? " " Yes, Lord," 
 she replied, " right well, but it was not so adorned when 
 I had it." Then He said, " Yesterday thou did'st give 
 Me this with a cheerful heart and a great love, and these 
 stones signify them. And I promise that at the Day of 
 Judgment I will show it before men and angels to the 
 increase of thine everlasting joy and glory, for I will not 
 let such deeds of charity be hidden as are done by thee." 
 
 Raimondo relates this as actual fact, but we cannot 
 imagine Catherine telling a story so redounding to her 
 own honour even to her confessor, and it may safely be 
 classed among the many legends which gathered round 
 her lovely memory. 
 
 As yet her work had lain among the poor, but an 
 event happened destined to bring her into general 
 prominence. A young knight named Tuldo was con- 
 demned to death for small cause. Furious at the 
 injustice of his sentence, he refused to prepare for death.
 
 66 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Catherine begged leave to see him, and her sympathy 
 and loving words brought him to another mind. The 
 story must be told in her own striking words, as related 
 in a letter to Raimondo, now her confessor, but absent 
 from Siena. " I went to see him whom you know " some 
 correspondence must have passed between them about the 
 unfortunate man "through which he was greatly com- 
 forted, saw Fra Tomaso and confessed in a very right 
 state of mind, and he made me promise to be with him 
 at the hour of execution, for the love of God. I 
 promised, and did so. In the morning, before the bell of 
 the Campanile rang, I was with him to hear Mass and 
 communicate, which till then he had not done. 1 He was 
 quite resigned to the will of God, only fearing that he 
 might not be strong at the last, but the Saviour in His 
 boundless mercy so strengthened him, and so filled him 
 with the longing for His presence that he kept saying, 
 1 Lord, be with me ; Lord, do not leave me ; if Thou 
 wilt be near, all will be well with me, and I shall be 
 content.' As he prayed thus he leaned his head against 
 my breast. . . . The longing of my soul increased to 
 shed also my blood with him for my beloved Saviour, 
 and perceiving that he still feared, I said, Be comforted, 
 sweet brother ; we are soon going to your marriage ; you 
 will go bathed in the precious blood of the Son of God, 
 with the dear name of Jesus on your lips. ... I will 
 await you at the place of execution. Then think of it, 
 dear Father ! every trace of fear seemed gone, and a 
 great light came into his heart ; he who had so rebelled 
 now called the place of execution holy ; he seemed to 
 exult, and asked, ' how comes such grace to be shewn to 
 me ? and will you, joy of my soul, indeed await me at 
 that holy spot ? ' . . . Before he came I laid my own 
 neck on the block . . . over it I prayed, and said, 
 
 1 " At this time " must be implied, or since his first communion."
 
 A THORNY PATH 67 
 
 ' Mary ! ' for I wanted to obtain the grace that at this 
 moment light and peace might enter his heart, and then 
 I saw him coming. My soul was so filled that though 
 there was a great crowd I saw no one. . . . And he came 
 like a meek lamb, and seeing me he began to smile, and 
 bade me sign the cross over him, and then I said, ' To 
 the bridal, gentle brother ; soon you will attain eternal 
 life.' He knelt down with great meekness, and I bend- 
 ing low, laid his neck in place and reminded him of the 
 blood of the Lamb. His lips spoke no word but ' Jesus,' 
 and ' Catherine.' And therewith I received his head in 
 my hands, and closing my eyes in God, I said, ' I will/ " 
 meaning, says Tomaso, that she joined in submission to 
 the Divine will, but the passage is obscure. And as she 
 knelt lost in fervent prayer that this soul might enter 
 Paradise, it seemed to her that she saw it pause as a bride 
 might do on the threshold of the bridegroom's house, to 
 look back and sign her thanks to those who had accom- 
 panied her thither, and " clear as daylight I saw the Son of 
 God receive into His bosom that sweet soul ; full of love 
 and mercy He received him who had so meekly accepted 
 a criminal's death, not for aught he had done, but only 
 out of love ... so dear was his blood to me that I could 
 not bear it to be washed off my dress. ... I envied him 
 who had gone before." 
 
 This letter is especially valuable, not only for what it 
 reveals of Catherine's work and character, but because it is 
 one of the very few in which she tells of anything that 
 concerned her personally. Nearly four hundred letters 
 dictated or occasionally written by herself have been pre- 
 served. They are addressed to all sorts and conditions of 
 men, to her own family, to the Queen of Naples, to Sir John 
 Hawkwood, the leader of Freelances who appears in Italian 
 chronicles as Giovanni Aguto or, with a desperate effort 
 to get the name right, as Haukebbode, to cardinals and
 
 68 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 hermits, to Dominican friars and Mantellate. No less 
 than twenty-four are written to a Florentine tradesman 
 and his wife, friends probably made during her visit to 
 Florence, another, especially noteworthy, is addressed to 
 the terrible Bernabo Visconti, the scourge of northern 
 Italy, who boasted that in his own domains he was Pope, 
 Emperor and King, for there not even Heaven could do 
 contrary to his will, and there is one to his wife, so proud 
 that she claimed to be addressed as Queen, exhorting her 
 to patience and humility, for Catherine could be frank to 
 bluntness, though never needlessly so, since, as she says, 
 " Truth is mute when it is well to be mute, and her 
 silence cries with the cry of patience." 
 
 The many letters to Gregory XI. treat of matters 
 which concerned all Christendom, while others are ad- 
 dressed to obscure individuals, whose souls were as 
 valuable in her sight as those of the greatest of her 
 correspondents. Her loving interest in all with whom 
 she came in contact appears in such letters as those " to 
 a father of a family," to a friar who had deserted his 
 convent, or to a poor sinner of the class of women who 
 sat by the stream of Bulicame, 1 and how tenderly she 
 could write to her friends is shown by such counsels as 
 she sends to the high born young Tuscan, Neri di 
 Landoccio dei Pagliaresi, a man of a sensitive, self 
 tormenting character, the antipodes of her other young 
 follower, the harum-scarum, and delightful Stefano 
 Maconi, but equally devoted to her interests. 
 
 There is an astonishing combination of lofty spirituality 
 and practical sense in Catherine's letters ; they are a 
 striking example of the peculiar quality of Italian 
 mysticism which, like Wordsworth's lark, while soaring 
 " to the last point of vision and beyond," still kept its 
 nest upon the ground in mind. German mysticism is 
 
 1 Inf. cxiv. 79-80.
 
 1 
 
 4
 
 A THORNY PATH 69 
 
 touched with gloom ; French mysticism often runs into 
 vagueness and sentiment ; Italian mysticism combines the 
 Leah and Rachel of Dante's vision. It took indeed many 
 forms and was found in characters as different as light 
 and dark in the Trecento, and sometimes those have been 
 called mystics who had small right to the name. Catherine 
 lived in ineffable communion with the unseen, that 
 true communion which consists not only in rapturous 
 prayer and meditation, but in perception of being heard 
 and answered ; to her to die seemed gain, because she 
 would so come nearer to Christ. Petrarch has been 
 counted a mystic too, and in certain moods he also wished 
 to die, and be free from temptations and weaknesses, but 
 nothing could be less like true mysticism than his oc- 
 casional fits of nervous discomfort as to how his account 
 stood with Heaven. He knew nothing of that inner life, 
 that contemplation of God which the real mystic exists in, 
 and which breathes through Catherine's letters, side by 
 side with excellent commonsense which must strike even 
 those to whom their spirituality may not appeal. For 
 instance, writing to a friar troubled in mind by having 
 read an unorthodox book, she shows no displeasure at his 
 weak faith, but simply bids him, if he is incapable of 
 meeting the arguments, to turn his thoughts elsewhere, 
 and not afflict himself, since there had been no intentional 
 sin in reading the book. Again, though herself full of 
 enthusiasm, and knowing well how valuable a quality it 
 is, when she saw danger of it running riot she checked it 
 at once, as in her letter to Donna Agnesca da Toscanelli, 
 who appears to have been of an hysterical temperament, 
 craving visions and revelations and exaggerated penances, 
 a mood common enough in the Middle Ages, where she 
 warns her almost sternly to control herself. Nor did she 
 recommend pilgrimages, nor go on any herself. She was 
 emphatic on home duties ; we find her reminding her
 
 70 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 friend Alessia dei Saracini to plan out her day, talk with 
 moderation, and whatever she did or did not do, to come 
 in of an evening and look after her old mother, " without 
 negligence, providing what she needed." 
 
 Gossip is strongly condemned by her ; she must have 
 approved of the statute forbidding women to stand at 
 their doors with their distaffs, the aim being to prevent 
 chatter, though no statute ever framed can bridle tongues, 
 whether male or female, unless indeed it were to prevent 
 distaffs being used as weapons in a quarrel. 
 
 She is equally frank in writing to great potentates as 
 to her own disciples, and how much courage this implied 
 it is now hard to realise. Giovanna of Naples was quite 
 capable of having any one who offended her assassinated, 
 and her support of the crusade which was one of Catherine's 
 dearest hopes was all important, yet the letters to her, 
 though courteous, for Catherine does not forget that she 
 is addressing royalty, have a note of warning worthy of 
 a prophet of Israel, and some to great and formidable, 
 ecclesiastics are as severe as Dante's memorable epistle 
 to the Conclave of Carpentras. All the letters are 
 counsels and exhortations ; they deal with souls, 
 not accidental circumstances. She tells nothing of her 
 impressions in her voyage to Gorgona, though that her 
 first sight of the sea impressed her deeply is evident from 
 the many metaphors taken from it which after that time 
 appear in her writings ; nothing of what she saw in Pisa 
 or Florence ; there is no word of what she thought of 
 Avignon, or the Pope who to her was " the Christ on 
 earth." We look in vain, and are tempted to regret that 
 it is so, for any of the personal details which her con- 
 temporary, the B. Colombini freely gives in such letters of 
 his as have been preserved. He tells of the troublesome 
 enthusiasm of his women disciples ; of his ill-reception on 
 the lands once his ; of ill health, of his escape from ruin ;
 
 A THORNY PATH 71 
 
 of his want of faith in rubbing his feet with pitch to make 
 walking barefoot less painful, and how he was deservedly 
 pricked with thorns, while his companion, who had greater 
 faith and used no precautions did not feel them at all. 
 But for a feminine grace and tact in them, Catherine's 
 letters might have been written by a man, and Colombini's 
 by a woman. In him we have the revivalist, with the 
 fervid ejaculations, the emotional appeals which the 
 personality of the man made at the time all powerful ; in 
 hers there are arguments and thoughts, infused at times 
 by a passion the more felt that it is restrained. Her mind 
 was full of her two beautiful dreams of a reformed Church 
 and peace in Italy ; she not only forgets personal matters, 
 but only alludes to politics when they concern these great 
 hopes. Possibly however letters on less weighty matters 
 were not preserved or went astray, like those entrusted 
 to the careless hands of Alexander VII. by the Certosini 
 of Pavia ; it is difficult to believe that one described as con- 
 stantly gay and smiling should never relax into playfulness 
 with any correspondent, but on the other hand her time 
 was so overfilled, and she was so constantly appealed to 
 by high and low that she might have forestalled the 
 humorous complaint of San Bernadino, who exclaims, 
 " You will have me be Pope, Bishop, Rector, Officer of 
 Mercanzia do everything which is other people's work ! 
 I cannot do everything, not I ! I might be studying, and 
 composing a fine discourse to the honour of God, and 
 here are you stopping me so that I cannot study, and all 
 because I have to listen to you ! " 
 
 But perhaps the chief reason for lack of personal de- 
 tails in Catherine's correspondence was indifference to 
 what concerned herself, and absorption in the important 
 matters of which she wrote. Moreover, letters were taken 
 seriously in her day, and seldom written unless there was 
 a real call to do so. It is true that Petrarch's are full of
 
 72 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 small details, but the admiration which surrounded him 
 induced both himself and his friends to believe that 
 nothing that concerned him could be trivial, and his 
 letters were in fact compositions intended for posterity, 
 touched and retouched as carefully as were his poems, 
 while Catherine did not study composition at all ; she 
 only sought to convey her meaning in the clearest, most 
 forcible way, with the result that they count among 
 Italian classics. She dictated, and here and there the 
 secretary may have shaped a sentence or suggested an 
 allusion, but the stamp of individuality is on all her 
 letters. If ever a thought was taken from something she 
 had heard or read, she made it her own. Another great 
 mystic with whom she has much in common had written, 
 " Thou hast created man for Thyself, and he cannot rest 
 until he rests in Thee," l but it was out of her own 
 energetic conviction that Catherine declared, " Man is 
 placed above all created beings, and therefore he cannot 
 rest nor be satisfied save in something greater than him- 
 self. But there is nothing greater than man save God, 
 and therefore it is that God alone can satisfy him." 
 
 It is uncertain whether occasional coincidences between 
 passages in her letters, and others in the Divina Corn- 
 media imply a knowledge of the poem. Her secretary, 
 Neri di Landoccio, was a student of Dante, and in spite of 
 the hard words flung by the great poet at Siena, the city 
 was proud of having sheltered him, and preserved the tra- 
 dition that he had leant for long hours on the window 
 ledge of a shop in the Campo, absorbed in a book which 
 he had found there, all unconscious that a great tumult 
 was going on around him. But probably such coinci- 
 dences merely arise from a likeness in the line of thought 
 of the two great mystics. To both came celestial visions ; 
 both felt, as men now have almost forgotten to feel, the sin- 
 
 1 St Augustine.
 
 A THORNY PATH 73 
 
 fulness of sin ; both were keenly aware of the greatness and 
 responsibility of the gift of free will. To both God was 
 the sea which surrounds all things, itself motionless ; the 
 food which satisfies, yet never satiates. Both were pro- 
 foundly convinced that He can do as He will, and can 
 only will what is good. Each denounces simony, the 
 vices of the clergy, and the decadence of the Mendicant 
 Orders with equal passion, and to both the absence of the 
 Popes from Rome seemed fatal to Christendom. They 
 are alike too in their want of political foresight, both 
 looking back instead of forward. Each was in certain 
 ways singularly emancipated from the prejudices of the 
 day, yet each was shackled by them. 
 
 But there is one remarkable difference between these 
 lofty spirits, alike in so much. We look in vain in Dante 
 for that intense personal love of Christ which was the main- 
 spring of Catherine's life. There is acknowledgment of 
 the Saviour throughout the Divina Commedia, and of His 
 work for man, but Dante does not feel Him walking in 
 daylight beside him, the Lord of love, nor recognise the 
 guiding, prompting, restraining spirit in all events of life 
 as does Catherine, though both belong to the noble 
 company of mystics. 
 
 It is impossible to calculate the influence exerted by 
 Catherine's letters, but if we would measure something of 
 the distance between the fourteenth century and our own, 
 let us imagine how a modern statesman would feel on 
 receiving such an epistle as she addressed to the King of 
 France, or the magistrates of Siena the astonished 
 amusement, the careless contempt, if even it were read 
 through, the impossibility of its stopping a war or causing 
 a change of policy, even though another St Catherine 
 wrote it ! It is very difficult to throw our minds back to 
 a time when such things were, and though it may be 
 possible to realise the active side of her character, no one
 
 74 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 to whom mysticism is alien will ever comprehend or 
 believe in that contemplative side of it which made her 
 what she was, all earthly things being hushed for her, as 
 with Augustine and his mother in their ever memorable 
 conversation at Ostia, so that like them she would hear 
 the Divine voice speaking, though not through any tongue 
 of flesh, nor angels, nor sound of thunder, nor in the 
 dark riddle of a similitude, till, passing through all things 
 bodily, even this very heaven whence sun and moon 
 shine upon the earth, soaring as it were beyond her own 
 mind, she touched Divine wisdom, and returned to earth 
 with a sigh. 1 
 
 1 Confessions of St Augustine.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CATHERINE AS PEACEMAKER 
 
 NO address or discourse made by Catherine has been 
 preserved, but that at times she spoke in public 
 is certain. Raimondo mentions having seen her 
 surrounded by a crowd of over a thousand people, citizens 
 of Siena and others, come in from the surrounding 
 country, sometimes from distant places, listening en- 
 tranced by the sweet full voice which, in common with 
 most speakers who have moved great audiences, she 
 possessed. So eloquent and persuasive, too, were her 
 looks and gestures that even those on the skirts of the 
 crowd who only heard imperfectly were often excited to 
 confession and repentance by the mere sight of them. 
 We also hear of her running out of the Fullonica, holding 
 up a crucifix in times of popular uprising, and calming 
 the angry mob by her expostulations, and Stefano 
 Maconi relates that when she visited Florence at the time 
 that it lay under the interdict which roused such furious 
 resentment that the city all but forestalled the schism of 
 Urban VI.'s time, on the very day she arrived, she wrote 
 three "noteworthy and most beautiful discourses, and all the 
 city was moved, and admired her wholesome counsel. And 
 those who had despised the Interdict began to observe it." 
 But if she had habitually preached to the Sienese, 
 surely some of her followers would have recorded 
 something of what she said, especially as sermons had 
 then a weight and importance only lessened when print- 
 
 75
 
 76 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 ing made books generally accessible. The sermon of a 
 popular preacher was an event that stirred a whole city. 
 San Bernadino preached in the Campo four hours at a 
 time to an unwearied audience, who stood around to hear 
 him. Fra Filippo's " Assempri " were listened to with 
 equal eagerness, and no one seems to have been startled 
 by them, though the crudeness of speech and topics is 
 such, even for that age, that when he rebukes mothers for 
 letting their daughters lie in bed instead of bringing them 
 at dawn to hear him, we incline to think that it was the 
 best thing they could do. 
 
 We can hardly imagine Catherine denouncing the 
 vices of her fellow-townsmen as Mendicant Friars might 
 and did. Plain spoken as her letters are, there is a 
 dignified modesty and womanly restraint in them which 
 forbids such a suggestion, though she did not shrink 
 from the frankest remonstrance when occasion called for 
 it, nor did she speak in vain, and she became more and 
 more of a peace-maker in public and private matters, 
 following the good example of the Order to which she 
 belonged, and which was honourably renowned through- 
 out the Trecento as using every effort to reconcile families 
 at feud, and check the civic tumults which perpetually 
 broke out in every city. So widely did her name become 
 known, that Gregory XI. sent her permission, unasked, 
 to go through the Sienese territory attended by three 
 friars, who had special privileges of absolution, to speak 
 to the people who flocked to hear her, and beseech her 
 to cure their diseases. 
 
 To one of these friars special interest attaches, for he 
 had begun by altogether disbelieving in Catherine, and 
 was a man of great weight and importance, being Prior 
 of Lecceto, the very ancient Augustinian monastery at 
 some little distance from Siena, built among the ilex 
 woods whence it took its name. By birth he belonged
 
 CATHERINE AS PEACEMAKER 77 
 
 to the noble Sienese family of Tantucci. " This ignorant 
 woman goes about misleading people with her false 
 expositions of Holy Scripture," he said to his friend Fra 
 Gabriello of Volterra, also a man famed for learning, and 
 one of the best preachers of his day, " she is leading other 
 souls with her own to hell, but we shall take such order 
 in the matter that she shall see her error." " So," says 
 Francesco Malavolti, " after many such talks, they 
 determined to go together on a certain day and by 
 hard questions in theology close her mouth and shame 
 her. But the Holy Spirit who spoke by that virgin 
 disposed things otherwise." And he tells how the two 
 Tantucci, commonly called Giovanni III., because he was 
 the third of that name who had been Prior of Lecceto, 
 and Fra Gabriello, who held no less an office than that of 
 Minister Provincial of the Minorites, went to the Fullonica, 
 where, as it chanced, were a number of Catherine's close 
 friends, Delia Fonte, Landoccio, Alessia and Lisa 
 Benincasa among them, together with Malavolti himself, 
 standing round her and listening to what she said. 
 Suddenly her face lit up and she exclaimed, " Blessed be 
 Thou, O sweet and eternal Bridegroom, who findest out 
 so many new ways to lead souls unto Thyself! " The 
 startled company stood wondering, and Delia Fonte bade 
 her explain what she meant. " Father," she answered, 
 " you will presently see two great fish caught in the nets," 
 and almost at the same moment the two theologians were 
 announced. She went to meet them with great respect, 
 begging them to be seated, while all the rest stood 
 anxiously waiting to see what would happen, well aware 
 that this visit implied something serious. Without delay 
 " the two masters, like raging lions," began to ask the 
 most difficult theological questions in the most difficult 
 way they could devise. Catherine paused to collect 
 herself before replying, looking up to heaven ; then she
 
 78 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 spoke, and they sat amazed at her pertinent answers. 
 Finally she turned on them, with justifiable indignation, 
 thinking perhaps how her Master had been questioned by 
 those who came not to learn but to seek to ensnare Him, 
 and told the two that they were utterly indifferent as to 
 what truth might be, and only sought to win praise and 
 honour from men. " My Fathers, do this no more for 
 the love of Jesus crucified," she concluded, and they sat 
 conscience stricken. Nay, more, Gabriello of Volterra, 
 who was living in luxury absolutely contrary to his Rule, 
 snatched the keys from his girdle, exclaiming, "Is there 
 any here who for the love of God will go and give away 
 all I have in my cell ? " and two present accepted the 
 commission, going straightway to Lecceto, and distributing 
 his books to the students there, while his bed with its 
 silken curtains and other things were given to the poor. 
 All that he kept was his breviary. Prior Giovanni showed 
 his change of mind even more unmistakably, for he 
 became Catherine's firm friend, accepting, as we have 
 seen, the office of constantly attending her in her 
 missionary labours, following her to Avignon, and going 
 with her to Rome when Urban VI. called her thither, 
 and he was moved to wrath which he could hardly 
 restrain when certain prelates, who believed in her as 
 little as he had once done himself tried to entangle her 
 just as he and his companion had done. It is impossible 
 to read the account of the scene without a smile. 
 Another very special privilege was granted her while at 
 Avignon, namely, to have a chapel in her house where 
 she and any others who desired it might hear Mass and 
 communicate, a very unusual permission, probably granted 
 that she might avoid the notice and comment excited by 
 the rapt, ecstatic condition in which she would fall at such 
 times. As the altar at which Mass was celebrated was 
 portable, she could have it with her if she left Siena.
 
 ST. CATHERINE'S HOUSE AT SIENA
 
 CATHERINE AS PEACEMAKER 79 
 
 The room in the Fullonica where it stood is still shown, 
 but it and the whole house is so changed from its old 
 state that it is very difficult to imagine it inhabited by St 
 Catherine and the busy family of Giacome Benincasa. 
 
 It may be asked how a woman with no education in 
 childhood, and who learned to read only after she had 
 grown up, at a time too when books were rare and costly, 
 could have acquired knowledge enough to encounter men 
 like the Prior of Lecceto on his own ground. Some 
 explanation is found in her remarkable memory and a 
 mind extraordinarily susceptible to spiritual things, and 
 free from any distracting interests until the sphere of 
 politics claimed her against her will. And she had learned 
 friends who talked to and read to her. What she read 
 to herself we do not know ; it is doubtful if she owned 
 a Bible ; if she read the Scriptures to herself it was 
 probably in one of those selections of passages from them 
 which were familiar to the Middle Ages the ex-Dominican 
 Ochino of her own contrada, speaks of using one even at 
 his later date, but that she was more or less acquainted 
 with them, and with the writings of the Fathers is clear. 
 But her thoughts are not borrowed ones ; she drew from 
 her own experiences and revelations revelations which 
 gradually seemed to her to be given by her Lord in 
 person. At first she says herself that she knew her 
 visions were framed by her own mind, but her intense 
 realisation of them gradually embodied them in visible 
 shapes. She so dwelt on the goodness and tenderness of 
 her Master, and desired so passionately to have com- 
 munion with Him that soon it seemed perfectly natural 
 He should come to her, and speak face to face. Such 
 experiences are found among other mystics ; they exactly 
 correspond with those of an earlier follower of St 
 Dominic, also a striking personality, Suso. 
 
 Neither Raimondo da Capua nor Caffarini, who helped
 
 8o SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 him to compile his biography of Catherine, and wrote this 
 " legenda minore " himself, explain the rapid rise of her 
 influence. We see her ill-treated, disbelieved in, slandered 
 to the point of nearly being expelled from among the 
 Mantellate, then, almost without apparent transition, one 
 of the most powerful influences in Siena, with an enthusi- 
 astic following, called in to mediate in trade disputes, 
 family quarrels, and even in the bloody feuds which were 
 destroying Siena. Her missionary work is so well known 
 that from Avignon come special privileges to forward it. 
 One of her best biographers, 1 it is true, places this honour 
 after her return from that city, but as far as we know she 
 made no journeys in Sienese territory except in early days. 
 No doubt her healing powers had been talked of through- 
 out Siena, as would be the story of Tuldo, but she seems 
 to have become almost at once famous far beyond her 
 native city. Her letters show how many women, and of 
 what various ranks, looked to her for counsel and 
 guidance, but far more striking is it to see how in a 
 day when women were of so little account, eminent men 
 held it an honour to call Catherine their Mother and 
 mistress. She had a link with the Gesuati, an order 
 founded by Giovanni Colombini, and so called because the 
 name of Jesus was ever on their lips ; her sister-in-law 
 Lisa was of this family, and so was B. Catarina, one of 
 her dearest friends, of whom it was told that as she lay 
 dying she exclaimed, " O blessed Catherine ! O Giovanni, 
 father of my soul, my sweetest patrons, I come to you," 
 and with a great joy on her countenance, passed away. 
 That Catherine should have had many friends among the 
 Gesuati is then natural, but besides these we see her 
 looked up to by monks and hermits all over Italy. 
 Besides the hermits of Lecceto, there was the good Abbot 
 of St Antimo, whom we find her defending from injustice 
 
 1 A. Drane.
 
 8i 
 
 at the hands of the Magistracy of Siena, the monks of 
 Oliveto, and the rough spoken hermit, Don Giovanni delle 
 Celle who lived above the monastery of Vallombrosa ; the 
 Englishman, William Flete, who would do anything for 
 her except leave his ilex woods ; the Spanish director of 
 St Brigitta, the Prior of the rocky islet of Gorgona, who 
 asked her to address his Carthusians, and many more. 
 
 Even more remarkable is it to find learned laymen seek 
 her as adviser and guide, men like the Rector of the 
 Hospital of La Scala, Vanni, Captain of the people, 
 Guidini, who held an important post in the magistracy, 
 together with outsiders from Lucca and Pisa, Milan and 
 other places at so early a time in her career. They, no 
 doubt, were the more struck by her because in the Middle 
 Ages women in religious orders were rarely intellectual. 
 Indeed, study at that time formed no part of the life of 
 either the Dominicans or Franciscans, though naturally 
 they had more knowledge how to deal with their fellow- 
 men, were more in touch with new ideas and were less 
 conservative than the monks. When Catherine sends two 
 novices to the Prior of San Benedetto, we find her asking 
 as a favour that they may be allowed to study, assuring 
 the Prior that he will find this concession repaying. 
 There were no mediaeval nuns in Italy like the Bene- 
 dictine St Hildegard, who in her time was almost as highly 
 esteemed as Catherine, no Dominican like Mhelchtild of 
 Magdeburg, whose strictures on the clergy brought her 
 into such trouble, and whose writings, collected under the 
 title of the " Flowing light of Divinity " ranked high in 
 mediaeval religious literature. 
 
 But it was not through a reputation for learning that 
 Catherine gained her ascendancy. It was not by what 
 she wrote, nor even mainly by what she said that she 
 impressed those around her. Her astonishing spiritual 
 vitality made itself felt on all who came in contact with
 
 82 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 her, sometimes indeed rousing opposition, but oftener 
 calling out a sympathetic response, and the excellence of 
 her advice was soon recognised. The women of Siena 
 quickly learned to turn to her when members of their 
 families were ill to deal with. Among those who early 
 sought her help was the young widow of noble birth, 
 Alessia dei Saracini, who lived with an old father-in-law, 
 and who became Catherine's chosen friend. Hoping that 
 her influence might soften the old man, and induce him 
 to live at peace, Alessia invited her to stay some weeks 
 with them, and Catherine consented. That he liked her 
 may be assumed, since he let her live under his roof, and 
 no doubt she met his rough mockery gaily and tactfully, 
 for after a while he rejoiced both her and his daughter-in- 
 law by listening attentively to what she said, and finally 
 declaring himself disposed to confess and attend Mass, but 
 with the reservation that he must be allowed to kill a 
 certain Prior whom he hated with all his heart. Catherine 
 could by no means consent to this, and in the end her 
 remonstrances prevailed, and he went in a peaceable spirit 
 to the church where his enemy officiated, with his hawk 
 on his fist. Seeing him enter, the Prior fled, and even 
 when assured that he was alone and unarmed would only 
 see him in the presence of a number of friends, and 
 watched his approach suspiciously as he advanced, 
 courteously bending his head, and declaring that he had 
 come to make friends, in token of which he offered him 
 his favourite hawk. This was a real sacrifice, the more 
 that he was a poor man, and the Prior, also devoted 
 to falconry, accepted the bird joyfully. Returning to 
 Catherine the old noble asked what he should do next, 
 and she bade him confess to a certain friar, which he did. 
 In consideration of his repentance and great age no 
 penance was set him, but this did not quite please 
 Catherine, who bade him rise early for a certain number
 
 CATHERINE AS PEACEMAKER 83 
 
 of days, and go to the Duomo, where he must repeat a 
 hundred aves and Paternosters, counting them on a 
 knotted cord, which he obediently did. 
 
 Perhaps a more difficult case was laid before her by 
 Donna Onora, one of the great Guelf house of Tolomei, 
 a good and religious woman who had small comfort in 
 her son Giacomo or her daughters, girls who belonged to 
 the fashionable class, whom San Bernadino denounced as 
 going to church " bedizened, bedecked, begarlanded like a 
 madonna Smirlardina," though one hopes they did not 
 deserve his concluding words, " while at home they were 
 slovens." Troubled by their worldly life, their mother 
 asked Catherine to use her influence with them the 
 Popolana and the daughters of one of the proudest 
 families in Siena ! What passed is not recorded, but so 
 strongly were they moved by what she said that shortly 
 after they became Mantellate. Giacomo was at this time 
 absent from Siena ; on learning what had happened he was 
 as furious as was Corso Donati on hearing that his sister 
 Piccarda had taken the veil, l and he hurried back to take 
 vengeance on all concerned, especially Catherine. His 
 mother in great alarm sent to warn her, but she calmly 
 replied that she should pray for him, and begged two of 
 her friends to reason with him. At first, blind and deaf 
 with rage he would hear nothing that they could say, but 
 to their astonishment his anger suddenly cooled, and 
 finally he agreed to let his sisters follow the way that they 
 had chosen. Late in life he became a Tertiary, and 
 another brother became a Friar Preacher. 
 
 We find Catherine also called in by the Salimbeni, as 
 a friend and honoured guest, not to the satisfaction of the 
 magistracy, for though the head of that powerful family 
 had given proof of his loyalty to Siena, all the members 
 were not so trustworthy, nor was it forgotten that the 
 
 1 Par. c. Hi. 11. 103-8.
 
 84 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Emperor Charles IV. took refuge in their palace at the 
 time of his abortive attempts on the liberties of Siena. 
 The chief of the consorteria or clan Giovanni Agnolo, 
 though head of the Ghibelline party in the city, had caused 
 himself to be enrolled among plebeian families that he 
 might take some part in the government from which as a 
 " Grande " he was excluded, and he was regarded as a 
 great and illustrious man who had served his country, i.e. 
 city, well. l Unfortunately for Siena and his family he 
 was killed some time later by a fall from his horse as he 
 returned from an embassy to Lombardy, and the want of 
 his sense and strong hand was soon felt. Quarrels arose 
 between different branches of the family, an especially 
 troublesome member of which was Cione di Landro whose 
 jealousy had been excited against the chief of his house 
 by the Republic having given him several important castles 
 in token of confidence and gratitude for his services. 
 
 Cione was a born plotter, and one of the least estimable 
 of a family in which were found great virtues and great 
 vices. At the time when Catherine was called in he 
 had endangered himself by claiming certain lands which 
 his family were resolved to keep, and his wife Stricca 
 implored Catherine to come to their castle at Castiglion- 
 cello di Trinoro and mediate between Cione and the 
 present head of the clan, Agnolino, knowing that she had 
 great influence with him. Catherine came, heard all that 
 there was to say for Cione, and then mounted her donkey, 
 and, attended by some of her " college " as she would 
 call those friends and followers who went with her on her 
 journeys, took the steep way to Rocca d' Orcia, then 
 called Rocca di Fontennano, where the great stronghold 
 of the Salimbeni stood on a rock overlooking the valley 
 of the Orcia, with the river of the same name flowing 
 down to join the Ombrone. 
 
 1 Malavolti.
 
 CATHERINE AS PEACEMAKER 85 
 
 She was warmly welcomed by the widowed Contessa 
 Bianca, " a lady of great virtues and gifts, devoted to St 
 Catherine," now mourning not only her noble husband, 
 but a murdered brother, lord of Foligno, whence his family 
 had been driven out. Here too was her son, head of all 
 the Salimbeni, the fiery Agnolino, whose sword was never 
 long in the sheath, and his two young sisters, Benedetta 
 and Isa, both widows and both with sad histories, as 
 indeed most women had in those days. 
 
 Catherine was welcome to all, and her pleading brought 
 peace between Agnolino and his troublesome kinsman, 
 but her influence was less welcome when it took the form 
 of encouraging Benedetta to take the veil instead of 
 making a new marriage. Isa was already a Tertiary of 
 St Francis, but her admiration for Catherine led her to 
 propose changing to being one of St Dominic's instead. 
 Catherine threw cold water on this suggestion. " Better 
 stay under one rule than change about," she said. Never- 
 theless we find Isa later as a Mantellata. That she, like 
 her sister, had difficulty in gaining permission to renounce 
 the world may be gathered from a letter of Catherine's 
 which seems to be addressed to her, though Isa or Lisa 
 was too common a name to prove that it was sent to 
 the daughter of the Salimbeni. The burden of it is 
 " They say. What say they ? Let them say." There 
 was a third sister, Pentasilea, happily married to one 
 of the Farnese family To her Catherine writes in a 
 different strain. Her she bids not to make idols of her 
 children, but to reprove and chasten when needful, taking 
 them regularly to mass and confession, and caring both 
 for their souls and bodies as Catherine grew older and 
 her experience widened she laid comparatively little 
 stress on those austerities which in the first enthusiasm 
 of youth she had thought so valuable. She continued 
 them for herself, but often warned others not to ex-
 
 86 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 aggerate them, nor think they were worth anything in 
 themselves, but only as means to an end. Such practices 
 indeed are no necessary part of the mystic life, though 
 suffering always is, together with the will to suffer. There 
 was a time when morbid fear of all that had given her 
 pleasure turned the most innocent things into temptations, 
 when she shrank from even the caresses of her mother, 1 
 and her one thought was the desire to be chastised for 
 her sins, a state perilously near insanity, but her call to 
 active life saved her, together with her robust common-sense, 
 and while seeking purity as fervently as ever, she re- 
 covered mental balance, and saw good where good was, 
 and that there was no one measure for men. And now 
 she bids Pentasilea bring up her children healthily, and 
 look after their physical needs, " even the beasts do that 
 much," she writes, but above all things she must keep 
 God before her eyes, and do her duty in the holy estate 
 of matrimony. Catherine never cried down marriage, 
 but upheld it as sacred, though less blessed than celibacy, 
 a nun's life being more desirable for the soul. Certainly 
 the convent was often a harbour of safety for both soul 
 and body, lax as the discipline was in many. Ochino, 
 who had left the Roman Communion and wrote in an 
 even laxer day, could declare when old, exiled and treated 
 as a heretic, " To this day I do not regret having spent 
 part of my life in a monastery, for there I was preserved 
 from sins into which as a layman I should probably have 
 fallen," and he goes on to say that " grant there are 
 errors in the scholastic teaching, and that pupils waste 
 much time on things which do not lead to salvation, yet 
 many seeds of truth are planted which may open their 
 minds to a right understanding of Holy Scripture." 
 
 While at Rocca d' Orcia Catherine cured many sick, 
 and the great courtyard was crowded with those who 
 
 1 Flete.
 
 CATHERINE AS PEACEMAKER 87 
 
 came to seek her aid. Among these was a case of 
 lunacy, or possession, as all such were then held to be. 
 It is remarkable that the only occasions mentioned on 
 which she shrank from exerting her healing powers was 
 in cases of madness, whether because she thought that 
 she came in contact with fiends, or that some instinct 
 of danger lurking in her own highly wrought and im- 
 aginative temperament made her recoil it is impossible 
 to say, but she showed both horror and anger when 
 forced to deal with lunacy or hysteria, though three cases 
 are recorded which she treated successfully. To satisfy 
 the modern mind, these should have been studied and 
 followed up, but that was not the method of the Trecento, 
 and there is little evidence as to whether these and 
 other cures were permanent. 
 
 She passed from the Rocca d' Orcia to the abbey of 
 St Antimo, where the abbot was her close friend, and a 
 valuable helper when she came to found her convent of 
 Belcaro, but he was a reformer of morals, and conse- 
 quently unpopular among his monks and fellow priests, 
 and Catherine wrote with some indignation to the 
 Magistracy of Siena, " I hear from the Archpriest of 
 Montepulciano and others that you have passed an unjust 
 judgment on the Abbot of St Antimo, a great servant of 
 God. He has been here a long while, and if you knew 
 him better you would not suspect him. I beg you there- 
 fore not to trouble him, but rather, if need be, to help 
 him. You complain that priests and clerics are not 
 corrected, and then when you get some one ready to do 
 it, you complain and hinder him." The Archpriest was 
 an enemy of the Abbot, and probably had told of the 
 unfavourable judgment with satisfaction ; Catherine knew 
 him well, for she often went to Montepulciano, a place 
 not far from Lake Thrasymene, where in after days two 
 famous men were born, Poliziano and Cardinal Bellarmine.
 
 88 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Two nieces of Catherine were in the convent there, one 
 of whom seems to have needed a good deal of advice. 
 
 Her letter goes on to touch another knotty point. 
 The Magistracy of Siena never liked her to be away 
 from the city, where she was all important, least of all 
 when she was among those whom they suspected ; they 
 had sought to recall her from among the Salimbeni, and 
 instead of returning she was spending six weeks at 
 Montepulciano. Her mother, too, alarmed by the dis- 
 content in the city, and always dissatisfied when left 
 behind by Catherine, wrote to desire her to come back. 
 Catherine was distressed but answered that she could 
 not come. " I beg, though I may stay longer than you like, 
 yet you will be content, for I can do no otherwise. I 
 think, if you knew all, you yourself would send me here. 
 I am going to end a great scandal if I can." 
 
 But she gives no explanation beyond this, and we 
 can only guess that there was something beyond the 
 quarrel among the Salimbeni, as this was public news. 
 Perhaps it had to do with the business concerning the 
 nuns of St Agnes in whose community her nieces were, 
 to which she alludes in writing to the Magistrates. To 
 them she takes an almost imperious tone which shows 
 how strong her position was, for under the rule of the 
 Reformatori short work was usually made with any who 
 disobeyed their orders. But Catherine was beyond their 
 power. 
 
 " As to my return with my college," she writes, " I hear 
 there are murmurs and suspicions on that head too, but 
 do not know whether I ought to believe it. If you care 
 as much about your affairs as we do, you and all the 
 citizens of Siena should shut your ears to such things. 
 We labour ceaselessly for your benefit, sparing ourselves 
 no fatigue. I have so little virtue that I do nothing 
 perfectly, but others, better than I, are doing their
 
 CATHERINE AS PEACEMAKER 89 
 
 utmost. ... I see that the devil is very wrath at the 
 loss of souls which he will suffer by this journey. I have 
 come here only to feed on souls and take them out of 
 his hands, and would sacrifice a thousand lives if I had 
 them. I shall therefore go and act in whatever way the 
 Holy Spirit may inspire me. Be not weary of my letters, 
 but read them with patience." This is a very high tone 
 for the dyer's daughter to take with the worshipful 
 Signoria. The usual want of dates makes it impossible 
 to fix the date of these visits, but they probably took 
 place before Catherine's first visit to Pisa in 1375. As 
 a general rule she put accusations and calumny aside as 
 not worth noticing, but suspicion of her patriotism hurts 
 her keenly, and there is an unusual note of irony in other 
 words written to the Magistrates, " I am sorry that my 
 fellow citizens take such trouble to judge me ; it really 
 seems as if they had nothing to do but to speak ill of me 
 and my companions," and then, with her usual humility 
 she says, "In my case they are right, for I am full of 
 faults, but wrong in the way they judge the others. 
 However, we shall overcome all things with patience." 
 
 To one of her followers in Siena who wrote begging 
 her to come back she tells him that she will do so as 
 soon as she can, and reminds him that it must have 
 been hard for the Apostles to cease living together and 
 with Mary, and go different ways, " yet did they renounce 
 that happiness to seek the honour of God and the salva- 
 tion of souls, and when Mary left them, did not suppose 
 she loved them less or forgot them." The lamentations 
 of her disciples in Siena and elsewhere when they were 
 deprived of her charming presence added not a little to 
 her difficulties. 
 
 A reconciliation even more important than that among 
 the Salimbeni was effected by Catherine in Siena itself, 
 and though it took place at a comparatively late date in
 
 90 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 her public career, it finds its appropriate place here. In 
 the very heart of the plague in 1374 one of those feuds 
 so ruinous to Siena and all concerned had broken out 
 between the Maconi on one side and the formidable 
 Tolomei, backed by the Rinaldini, on the other. Friends 
 of both the hostile parties vainly tried to reconcile them ; 
 the feud raged on. At length a hope of peace appeared, 
 and, as usual in such cases, the hand that held out the 
 olive branch was that of a woman, and it belonged to the 
 mother of Stefano Maconi, a gay and very popular young 
 noble, the life-long friend of Caffarini, who had been 
 dragged unwillingly into the feud, but felt it a point 
 of honour to keep it up. Despairing of other help, his 
 mother suggested calling in Catherine Benincasa ; up to 
 this time she had had no acquaintance with the Maconi, 
 but her success in making peace was known, and her 
 intimacy with the Tolomei gave reason to hope that they 
 would listen to her, and where they went the Rinaldini 
 would follow. The proud young noble did not approve 
 of the suggestion. " A woman of no rank or authority, 
 who had got a reputation for sanctity by sitting in 
 churches and telling her beads ! " However, he was 
 persuaded to visit her, and the effect of her gracious 
 charm was immediate. He felt that " the finger of God 
 was there." She appointed a day for a solemn reconcilia- 
 tion of the hostile families in the Church of San 
 Cristofero which stands in the little square close to the 
 grim Tolomei palace, with the wolf of Siena looking down 
 from its column. But though the Maconi duly appeared, 
 neither the Tolomei nor the Rinaldini were there. This 
 was a new insult, and it speaks unmistakably for the 
 honest desire of the Maconi to make peace that they did 
 not depart at once. " They will not listen to me," 
 Catherine said on finding what had happened, " well, then, 
 they shall listen to God," and she knelt before the altar
 
 BRONZE RELIQUARY OF ST. CATHERINE AT SIENA
 
 CATHERINE AS PEACEMAKER 91 
 
 in fervent prayer, her upraised face illumined by a heavenly 
 light. Moved by an impulse which they could^not under- 
 stand, the members of the other families who had been 
 deputed to treat with the Maconi came from their palazzi, 
 and entered the church, sullen and ready rather to offer 
 insults than to give and accept pardon, and as they came 
 in their eyes fell on Catherine, praying for the city dear 
 to them all and for good will and brotherly love among 
 the citizens, so lost in supplication that she was unaware 
 of their entrance and that the Maconi were gazing at her. 
 Moved and touched, these others too looked, and were 
 ashamed of their thoughts of vengeance, and held out 
 friendly hands to their late enemies, and for a time Siena 
 had peace. 
 
 Many other private enmities were stayed by Catherine, 
 but this was the greatest, and one unexpected result there 
 was not altogether welcome to Stephen's parents there 
 was a father alive, but the mother seems to have been 
 the leading spirit the brilliant young nobleman devoted 
 himself to Catherine, acting as one of her secretaries, 
 helping her in every way he could, careless of all else so 
 that he could be near her and help in her good works, 
 and quite indifferent to the mockery of his friends who 
 laughed at him as " be-Catherined," and sought to draw 
 him back to his old careless life in their company. It 
 was well for him that he resisted. The singular power, 
 call it thought reading or what one will, which Catherine 
 undoubtedly possessed, enabled her to discover that he 
 had been led through sheer thoughtlessness to join in a 
 conspiracy against the Government by contemporaries of 
 his no older nor wiser than he. " O Stefano, my son, 
 what evil are you plotting in your heart ? Is it thus 
 you make God's house into a workshop for treason ? " she 
 asked. The conspirators were accustomed to meet in a 
 vault under one of the churches ; the plot was discovered,
 
 92 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 and the vault closed up, and Stefano's family had reason 
 to thank Catherine for having detached him from them. 
 After this time he appears at almost every step of her 
 career, gay, loving, and a madcap, who delighted and 
 shocked the " college " by turns.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 
 
 THE life of Catherine Benincasa was interwoven of 
 three distinct threads, namely contemplation, active 
 charity and self-immolation. The first and last are 
 constant in the histories of mystics of all creeds, the latter 
 often in an extraordinary degree, as in devotees of some of 
 the sects of India, in the mediaeval saints of whom Peter of 
 Alcantara may be taken as a type, or the German mystic 
 Suso, in Catherine's own century, or the much later 
 founder of the Sacre Cceur, devoured, as she would declare, 
 by an unassuageable fever for suffering. The present 
 century revolts from pain, and the tortures which minds 
 like these inflict on themselves appear absurd and 
 grotesque. To those who were or are possessed with the 
 longing for them, pain appears in quite another light, and 
 their self-immolation, though it may break physical laws 
 now recognized as much God's as are moral ones, and is 
 apt to lead to perilously morbid conditions of mind, has 
 a claim to veneration, and a right to be understood. 
 Should they not, they argue, seek to enter into something 
 of what their Lord bore for them ? Is it not possible to 
 come nearer to Him there : Might it not be that 
 voluntary suffering expiates sin in themselves and others ? 
 Can it not help to free the soul from the shackles of the 
 flesh ? Again, in the Middle Ages when men's passions 
 were so strong and so unbridled that the body might well 
 be regarded as a wild beast which must be subdued by
 
 94 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 force lest it should kill the soul, mortification had its 
 necessary place. Dante, who soared above his contem- 
 poraries like an eagle, meditated on the mystery of the 
 Incarnation, and thus could speak of ''the honourable body," 
 but to almost everyone else in the Middle Ages it was a 
 thing either master or slave. 
 
 Had Catherine never left her cell, it is impossible to 
 say into what state of mind she would have slipped, but 
 her obedience to the call to an active life kept the balance 
 even, and shielded her from two great dangers to which 
 the visionary is exposed, such sensuousness as shocks us 
 in the rhapsodies of the nun Gertrude l and others of that 
 school, both mediaeval and modern, or on the other hand 
 from the equally painful prudery of saints who thought 
 that the very presence of a woman, were she their mother, 
 threatened their purity. There was a noble large minded- 
 ness in Catherine. Thrown into a world of flagrant vice 
 and crime, she faced it as fearlessly and as unharmed as 
 did Beatrice within the gates of the Inferno, and moved 
 in it pure as a lily. She could realise that there are 
 many ways of coming to God, and good in all men, a 
 conviction which gave her a wonderful power over sinners. 
 She knew too that no one system has a monopoly of 
 perfection. Devoted as she was to the Dominicans, she 
 by no means thought their rule desirable for all who chose 
 monastic life, and often recommended another order to 
 those who sought her advice. Again, almost alone in 
 that day she held the word " country " to mean Italy, not 
 merely her own city, and when appealed to by Florence 
 or Pisa she was just as ready to help them as if they had 
 been friends instead of enemies to Siena. This was a 
 view which exposed her to suspicion, and during the 
 first years of that public life which was so short and 
 which contained so much she was obliged more or less 
 
 1 Revelations de Ste. Gertrude, Paris, 1898.
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 95 
 
 to take account of this feeling. The Mantellate of Pisa 
 repeatedly urged her to visit them, but at the time there was 
 great tension between their city and Siena, and she found 
 an only too valid excuse for refusal in her ill-health. Her 
 splendid constitution had given way under the fatigue 
 and anxiety which she endured while the plague lasted. 
 Her austere life tried her, and she had so accustomed 
 herself to live almost without food that now, when 
 finding her abstinence provoked comment and suspicion 
 that she ate in secret, she would fain have eaten like 
 other people, but she could not do it. There was a 
 moment when she seemed dying, and the thought was 
 joy to her, but there was much work to do, and she set 
 her will to recover and did so to a considerable degree, 
 though thenceforward she lived and laboured in constant 
 pain which she could not always hide. Though accepting 
 it gladly she was learning that health and strength are 
 gifts from heaven, not to be cast away, and she who in girl- 
 hood had forced herself to drive sleep from her now wrote 
 to Alessia dei Saracini, " The night for vigil, when thou 
 hast paid the debt of sleep to thy body." To the end of 
 her life Catherine was growing in wisdom and spiritual 
 experience. 
 
 Hesitation as to going to Pisa was cut short by a com- 
 mand from Pope Gregory XI. to go there and undertake 
 certain negotiations with the magistrates, and no difficulties 
 were raised by the authorities in Siena, who could hope that 
 at the same time she might dispose the Pisans to restore 
 a castle in Sienese territory unjustly occupied by them, 
 together with the important port of Talamone. This 
 journey was a far more weighty matter than any one 
 guessed at the time, for with it Catherine stepped from 
 private to public life, and became a leading factor in the 
 sphere of politics. How early in her career she had had 
 any direct communication with Gregory is uncertain, but
 
 96 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 that much earlier than would be supposed from Raimondo's 
 life of her she must have been recognised as important 
 may be gathered from the remarkable fact that as soon 
 as 1372 Gregory asks advice from her through his 
 Legate and Apostolic Nuncio in Tuscany, a kinsman of 
 his own whom he had made Governor of Perugia. His 
 letter has unfortunately disappeared, but as she says, " In 
 reply to the three questions which you ask on behalf of 
 our sweet Christ on earth," it is clear that the Legate 
 wrote to her at the Pope's desire. These questions were 
 apparently as to what measures were most necessary for 
 the new Pope to make, amazing as it is to find the head 
 of Christendom asking such advice not from his Cardinals 
 or his Bishops, but from a woman, and a woman of the 
 people. Her reply is that he must look to two great evils 
 which are corrupting the Church, firstly, excessive nepotism, 
 but this, she hopes, is beginning to disappear, thanks to 
 the prayers offered up that it may cease ; secondly, 
 slackness in checking the vices and luxury in the Church. 
 "In urging you to work for Holy Church," she writes, 
 " I was not thinking of temporal matters ; care for them 
 is all very well, but what you ought chiefly to labour at, 
 together with the Holy Father, is to do everything 
 possible to drive out of the sheepfold those wolves, those 
 demons incarnate, who think only of good cheer, splendid 
 feasts and superb equipages. ... I conjure you, even if 
 it cost your life, urge the Holy Father to stop these 
 iniquities, and when the time comes for choosing pastors and 
 cardinals, let not money and flattery and simony have any- 
 thing to do with their election, but beg him as far as may 
 be to look only to the good qualities of those proposed, 
 heeding not whether they be nobles or peasants." 
 
 The overtenderness of Gregory towards his relations 
 was already patent, and Catherine's outspoken allusion to 
 it must have startled the Legate, who had just benefited
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 97 
 
 by it. Whether the Pope was allowed to hear the whole 
 of her letter we do not know, but until the last months 
 of his life her honesty never offended him. In the same 
 year she wrote to Cardinal Pierre d'Estaing, on his ap- 
 pointment as Legate of Bologna, not Ostia, as by some 
 strange error he is called in the heading of the letters 
 addressed to him, added of course later, by some unknown 
 hand. There is an authority in her tone which confirms 
 the view that she was already accustomed to be heard 
 with respect. " Be strong in Christ, not negligent," the 
 dyer's daughter writes to the Cardinal Legate, "and 
 thereby I shall see that you are a true legate, if you long 
 to see the banner of holy cross at last displayed on high." 
 
 Catherine went to Pisa accompanied by her mother and 
 a number of her " college." She was received with almost 
 royal honours by the Archbishop and the head of the Re- 
 public, Pietro Gambacorta, a man of whom historians give 
 very opposite estimates, but Catherine must have met 
 him with the recollection in her mind of how some years 
 before when he and his family returned from poverty and 
 exile brought on them by their patriotism, even while he 
 knelt before the altar in the Duomo, vowing to live as a 
 good citizen and forget all injuries, some of his party ex- 
 cited the mob to set fire to the houses of his enemies, and 
 how he had rushed among them, and stayed the tumult 
 and destruction, calling to the crowd, " I have pardoned 
 with all my heart I, whose father and friends died un- 
 justly on the scaffold. By what right chen do you refuse 
 to forgive ? " 
 
 He had earnestly desired Catherine's arrival, hoping that 
 she would quiet the factions in the city, and requested her 
 to live in his palace, but she was too prudent to identify 
 herself with any one party, and declined. Nor did she 
 accept the eagerly offered hospitality of the nuns who had 
 so often pressed her to come to them, since a convent
 
 98 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 would not have been convenient when she had secular 
 visitors, and the palazzo of the Buonconti, some of whom 
 she already knew, and who had a cousin held in high 
 honour among the Dominicans, was the place where she 
 and her companions took up their abode. Here lived an 
 old mother with her four sons, who proved strong and 
 faithful friends. Their palazzo, near the little old Church 
 of Sta. Cristina, is still pointed out as the residence of 
 Catherine when in Pisa, but it has passed out of Buonconti 
 hands, and has been altered out of all likeness to its old 
 self. Here Catherine lived during the six months which 
 she spent at Pisa, and it is pleasant to know that often of 
 an evening her friends came there and enjoyed quiet talk 
 and sang and played sacred music as a relaxation from 
 anxious and heavy duties. 
 
 Gregory had sent her to Pisa to use all her influence 
 to keep the town loyal to him, for disputes between 
 Florence and the Papacy had already begun, and much 
 uneasiness was felt in Avignon. On her way she had 
 paused to strengthen the wavering allegiance of Lucca, 
 and had succeeded. To her the right course of action 
 seemed clear, but she experienced at once that difficulty 
 in making Gregory take a decisive step which was so 
 often to vex her heart. In what was the very first letter, 
 as far as is known, which she ever sent him directly she 
 found herself obliged to stir him on. " I beg you to send 
 the Lucchesi and Pisans whatever brotherly words God 
 may inspire you with. Help them all you can, and en- 
 courage them to stand firm and faithful. I am here, 
 doing all I can with the offenders who are leagued 
 against you, but they are in great perplexity, receiving no 
 encouragement from you, while threatened by your 
 enemies. However, so far they have promised nothing. 
 I earnestly implore you to write without delay and 
 kindly to Messer Gambacosta."
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 99 
 
 Delay was indeed most unwise, for both Pisa and Lucca 
 stood in fear of Florence, and were tempted to side with 
 the city which was close by, while Avignon and the Pope 
 were far off. Had Catherine's advice been followed, had 
 Gregory listened to her instead of to his Cardinals, the 
 impending war and the miseries of the Interdict might 
 have been averted, at all events for a time, but Gregory 
 XI. might well have said with the despair of one 
 who saw what his duty is without the strength to do it, 
 " The time is out of joint, O cursed spite that ever I was 
 born to set it right." Very young for his position 
 barely indeed forty years of age, feeble and of " petite 
 complexion," as Froissart has it, pious and devout and 
 learned, with a sincere wish to do right, he was neverthe- 
 less one in whose time Italy suffered as she had rarely 
 yet done, both from that misrule by foreign Legates which 
 drove Tuscany into rebellion, and drew some of the 
 hardest words from Catherine which she ever uttered, and 
 from the atrocities of mercenaries hired by order of the 
 Pope himself to coerce his Italians. A fruitful source of 
 weakness was also that over affection for his family which 
 so early called forth her warnings. In earlier life he had 
 been Archdeacon of Canterbury, and a close friend of 
 William of Wykeham, and English prelates were always 
 welcome at Avignon, but naturally French influence was 
 paramount there, and this fact worked disastrously for 
 Italy. One Cardinal had asserted publicly that it was un- 
 advisable for the world that that country should be at 
 peace, words which Petrarch in hot indignation reported 
 to Rienzi, then in the height of his brief triumph in 
 Rome, bidding him tell the Roman people " in what kind 
 of way these magnates thought of Rome and Italy." 
 Many Italian princes agreed with the Cardinals, and rival 
 commercial interests kept the cities at enmity. " All the 
 world was a place of shadows " of the valley of death,
 
 ioo SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 wrote Neri di Donati in 1373, and the prospect had rather 
 darkened than cleared in 1375 when Catherine went to 
 Pisa, but she set herself undaunted to avert the threatening 
 disasters, though the fatigue of her journey, with the re- 
 ception in Pisa, and the heavy responsibilities which met 
 her there exhausted her afresh, and hours were spent 
 in simply enduring pain. All that tender care could do 
 for her was done in the house of the Buonconti, and on 
 one occasion, according to Raimondo, one of the family 
 bethought himself that her racking headaches might be 
 relieved by bathing her forehead with wine. Accordingly 
 he went to ask some from a merchant famed for having 
 the best which Spain or France could produce. " My 
 cask is empty," was the regretful answer, " come and see." 
 But on tapping the cask, wine flowed out to the surprise 
 of the owner, and the report that Catherine had wrought 
 a miracle ran through the city. The first time she 
 appeared afterwards in the streets a crowd gathered ; 
 curious faces appeared at every door and window. " Let 
 us see this woman who drinks no wine, yet can fill empty 
 casks," was the cry. Catherine, who even if she could have 
 done so, would certainly not have worked miracles for 
 her own advantage, was extremely annoyed : she stood 
 trembling, leaning on her mother's arm, and exclaimed, 
 " Lord, why dost Thou let me be put to confusion, before 
 the people. ... I beseech Thee, put the matter straight, 
 so that all this folly may cease." Raimondo adds that 
 almost at once the wine came to an end, and that the 
 dregs were almost undrinkable. 
 
 Perhaps a suspicion that they had been self-deceived 
 arose among the people, for, according to usual popular 
 justice, a reaction of disfavour set in that same day which 
 spread and increased. The austerity of Catherine's life, 
 unchanged in spite of illness and new surroundings, roused 
 disapproval just as at Siena ; it would have been admired
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 101 
 
 in a nun, but Catherine was not cloistered, and why should 
 she make herself singular ? What business had a woman 
 to put herself so forward ? The matter was thought so 
 grave that the University took it up much as Prior 
 Giovanni III. had done, and sent two of its members, one 
 an eminent physician, the other an equally eminent jurist, 
 who came with the pre-conceived certainty that they had 
 an impostor to deal with whom they should easily un- 
 mask. The physician was the well-known Guttabraccia, 
 " who lectured at Pisa with a salary of two hundred gold 
 florins," says Catherine's biographer with some awe. 
 Raimondo's style of writing is generally dry enough and 
 to spare, but of this scene he gives a description touched 
 with unconscious humour. The defeat of any who 
 questioned Catherine's saintliness was very sweet to 
 him. 
 
 Arrived at the Buonconti Palazzo the two learned 
 Professors asked for her, and with a feigned humility 
 which she perfectly understood, Guttabraccia began by 
 saying that he and his companion, Messer Pietro 
 Albizzi, having heard of her virtue and learning, were 
 come to seek instruction, after which he put various 
 questions of the kind familiar to the schoolmen, such as 
 how to take the statement that God spoke in order to 
 create the world. Had He then organs of speech ? Such 
 questions seem now too trivial to have been seriously 
 asked, but in the Trecento an unadvised reply might very 
 easily have been twisted into heresy, and heresy meant 
 being brought before the Inquisition, perhaps to the 
 stake. Catherine answered with a touch of irony. " I 
 am astonished," she said, " that you, who you say teach 
 others, should come to a poor woman whose ignorance 
 you should rather enlighten. But since you wish me 
 to speak, I will, so far as God enables me. What good 
 is it to either of us to know how He spoke to create
 
 102 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 the world ? He is a Spirit, and the essential thing for 
 you and me to know is that our Lord, the Son of God, 
 took our nature, and lived and died for our salvation." 
 She went on speaking so simply and earnestly that at 
 last Albizzi took off his crimson velvet cap, knelt down, 
 and with tears begged her to forgive the treacherous 
 intent with which he had approached her. At his 
 earnest request she stood godmother to his child, and 
 he was ever after one of her warmest supporters. How 
 his companion was affected we do not hear, but had 
 he been equally penitent Raimondo would surely have 
 mentioned it. 
 
 Catherine was inclined to be amused rather than 
 troubled by the attacks on her, but to her friends they 
 were very grievous. On one occasion she noticed that 
 Fra Bartolomeo and Raimondo were talking apart, angry 
 and disturbed. She asked the cause, and they re- 
 luctantly read aloud part of a letter from a man well 
 known as religious, which went over the old ground, 
 bidding her go home and live quietly ; only hypocrites 
 sought renown, and much more, couched in rude and 
 wounding terms. They refused to read the whole, but 
 she insisted on hearing it, and then said the writer had 
 given good advice and must be thanked. Raimondo 
 indignantly said that he undertook the answer, but 
 Catherine assuming the authority which she could use 
 rather startlingly toward the man, while showing all 
 respect to the confessor, bade him beware of seeing evil 
 where none was meant, and would not allow it. She 
 lived by the rule which William Flete declares had been 
 given her direct by her Lord, who bade her be very 
 careful in judging others, not considering anything 
 sinful unless it were manifestly so, in which case she 
 must hate the sin, but compassionate the sinner. Nor 
 was she to judge actions by her own inclinations and
 
 ST. CATHERINE RECEIVING THE STIGMATA 
 
 BV SANO UI PIETKO
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 103 
 
 views, but according to His judgment, since in His 
 Father's house are many mansions, and many roads lead 
 thither. 
 
 Illness again struck her down, and she lay so long 
 unconscious that all around wept over her as dead. As 
 before, she revived, but with bitter tears, for it seemed to 
 her that she had come back from Paradise. Bodily pain 
 continued, hand in hand with such spiritual experience as 
 she found no words to tell. At an earlier time Raimondo 
 had heard her murmuring awestruck, "Vidi arcana Dei," 
 and had asked her to try to describe some of the glorious 
 things which she had beheld. Then as now, like Dante 
 before her, she had said that it was impossible. So too 
 that Spanish mystic, St Teresa, had said, who while 
 relating how in a sudden " sovereign clearness " she had 
 for a moment been permitted to see how all things 
 were contained in God, though retaining the impression, 
 could not convey it to others, " the view being too 
 subtle and delicate for the understanding to grasp it." 
 Such illuminations are in their very nature inarticulate, 
 though to those who experience them they are revelations 
 into " unbounded depths of truth," and they are known 
 to many who are mystics unawares. 1 
 
 When well enough to do so Catherine spent long hours 
 in the Church of Sta. Cristina, and it was there that to her 
 inner consciousness she received the Stigmata, invisible to 
 human eyes, but to her awfully real. 
 
 As soon as some strength returned she began to 
 labour for one of the great objects of her life, a crusade 
 against the infidel, detestation of whom was hardly less 
 strong in the fourteenth than it had been in the eleventh 
 century when the monkish writer of a chronicle expresses 
 burning indignation because Beatrice, mother of the 
 famous Countess Matilda of Tuscany, was buried at 
 
 1 See Tennyson's Memoirs, V. ii. p. 473.
 
 104 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Pisa, a city defiled by unbelievers come there to trade 
 from the East and Africa, while among the merits of 
 Gregory XL an ecclesiastical writer counts his causing 
 to be buried " the vestiges of idolatry " in the shape of 
 ruins of a temple of Hercules, " preferring zeal for religion 
 to the study of antiquity." 
 
 Pisa was the very place to stimulate thoughts of a 
 Crusade ; wherever the eye turned something recalled 
 achievements against the infidel or association with the 
 Holy Land. In the Duomo hung fragments of the chain 
 which in 1063 had closed the harbour of Palermo, but 
 through which the Pisans had broken, capturing six 
 Saracen vessels, and the Duomo itself had been built as a 
 thank-offering for the victory with the money obtained 
 by the sale of the merchandise seized on the galleys, and 
 the Church of San Sisto had been erected to commemo- 
 rate no less than four more victories. The lovely little 
 church of white marble now called by the name of the 
 Madonna della Spina, built some years before Catherine 
 came to Pisa, contained, as legend told, a thorn from the 
 Saviour's crown, brought by a Pisan merchant from the 
 Holy Land. When she visited the Campo Santo and its 
 hermits, she stood or knelt on earth which Ubaldo dei 
 Lanfranchi had conveyed from Palestine, which is why, as 
 the old sacristan used to tell the modern visitor, the 
 violets which bloom there are sweeter than any others. 
 Catherine often went there, and looked at Orcagna's 
 frescoes of death and judgment, and she would linger by 
 the Baptistery, then in progress, and talk with the work- 
 men employed upon it. 
 
 In the Trecento the dread of invasion by the infidel 
 was ever present, especially on the eastern states of 
 Christendom. Catherine found at Pisa the ambassador 
 of Eleanora, Regent of Cyprus, waiting for a favourable 
 wind to sail to Avignon and implore aid for his royal
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 105 
 
 mistress and her young son, whose island was so threatened 
 that she had placed the boy under the shield of the 
 Knights of Rhodes. " To-day," Catherine wrote to a 
 correspondent in Siena, "the ambassador of the Queen 
 of Cyprus visited me ; he is on his way to the Holy 
 Father to beg his help for the Christian lands under the 
 infidels." Her heart burned within her as she heard him 
 speak of the progress which Mahomedanism was making, 
 of the peril in which Constantinople and Hungary were 
 lying, and of the horrible fate of any Christian who fell 
 into the hands of the unbelievers. 
 
 There were many arguments in favour of a Crusade 
 besides that of driving back the infidel. Were all 
 Christian princes united in a holy league, wars among 
 them would cease, and with the Pope at their head, his 
 prestige, sorely lessened by his dependence on France, 
 would be restored, and the bands of mercenaries which 
 were wasting France and Italy might be employed in a 
 holy warfare where they might expiate their sins under 
 the gonfalon of the Cross, as Catherine said, using one of 
 her many metaphors from battle and tourney. She 
 longed to free Italy from them with a fervour only to be 
 understood when we read what contemporaries tell of 
 them. There was no power in the towns to deal with 
 them ; their existence was a proof that though every 
 burgher was still trained to arms, the martial spirit was 
 dying out in Italy and France. In Dante's time when 
 the citizens went out to fight, it was on foot, though 
 there might be a picked band of " feditori " on horseback, 
 such as the one in which he is said to have fought at 
 Campaldino. But the Freelances were heavy armed 
 cavalry, Bretons, Germans, Englishmen, many of them 
 trained from boyhood in the Hundred Years' War, who 
 simply rode down the infantry opposed to them. They 
 were hired by some city or despot as a kind of standing
 
 106 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 army, or to fight in some campaign, and when dismissed, 
 unless they found another employer, preyed on the 
 surrounding country. Their approach caused the utmost 
 consternation. From the watch-towers built along the 
 roads near a city warning lights blazed out, such as Dante 
 describes as flashing from those beside Dis ; the Church 
 bells clashed in response ; the citizens flew to defend 
 their walls, and the peasants gathered up such poor 
 property as could be carried away, and drove their cattle 
 before them to the nearest castle or town. Then there 
 was " smoke of blazing villages," murder and plunder. 
 On a small scale, the scene of the flight from the 
 Campagna to Rome as described in Macaulay's "Horatius" 
 was repeated at short intervals throughout Northern and 
 Central Italy. 
 
 Chronicles make small mention of " the common man," 
 and even Dante thinks so little about him that he does 
 not once appear in the " Divina Commedia," nor has 
 Froissart any pity for him during the Hundred Years' 
 War, but it was above all the peasantry who suffered in 
 the warfare of those days. Catherine knew it well ; it 
 was not only in Val di Chiana, but in many other parts 
 of Sienese territory that the Freelances " took very great 
 spoil of prisoners, and left neither flock nor herd, whether 
 oxen for ploughing, cows, sheep, swine or horses ... so 
 that in Torista there remained scarce three yoke of oxen." 
 
 Writing somewhat earlier, the Parmese chronicler, 
 Salimbene, gives a yet more graphic description, telling 
 how even near towns the labourers only dared to work 
 when protected by an armed guard, for the Freelances 
 would swoop down, and take men, and carry them to 
 their dungeons, and those who did not ransom them- 
 selves they would hang up by feet or hands, or pull out 
 their teeth. For they were crueller than fiends, and in 
 those days to see an unknown man coming was as if one
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 107 
 
 saw the devil. For every man suspected the other, lest 
 he might capture him and carry him to prison, and the 
 land had become a desert wherein was neither labourer 
 nor traveller. 
 
 The rustic population was forced to take refuge in 
 towns, and great tracts of land went out of cultivation ; 
 birds and beasts alone increased, the wolves growing so 
 bold that they constantly carried off children, slinking in 
 the dusk into towns, and even attacking grown men who, 
 having arrived too late to pass the city gates, had to sleep 
 outside the walls, in or under their carts. 
 
 Catherine's conviction that there was good in all 
 men was never more strikingly shown than in her con- 
 fident appeal to the leaders of these soldiers of fortune to 
 join the Crusade. When Palmerina repented of her 
 slanders and publicly owned her offence, Catherine had 
 recognised the nobility latent in her character, and prayed 
 that she might be enabled to see souls as they really 
 were. That the discernment of spirits, whether they were 
 good or bad, was hers in an extraordinary degree there is 
 ample evidence. Raimondo, good simple man, was re- 
 peatedly deceived by fair appearances, but Catherine never. 
 If there were anything to appeal to in those with whom 
 she had to do, she seized upon it, and therefore could 
 write as she did to one of the most formidable leaders of 
 Freelances, known in Italian chronicles as Giovanni 
 Aguto, Hawkwood, Sir Giovanni del Falcone, and other 
 varieties of his name. He led the White Company, 
 composed of " devilish and infernal men, of whom the 
 Captain was a very wicked English knight," wrote Fra 
 Filippo d'Aguzzi. In 1367 Siena had sent out troops to 
 attack them, only to be driven back in headlong flight, 
 and it cost the city many golden florins to be rid of him 
 and his company. Florence too, with all her advantages 
 over Siena, found it advisable to have him as friend
 
 io8 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 rather than foe. His equestrian portrait may be seen 
 on one of the walls of the Duomo, painted by Paolo 
 " Uccello," a proof that he served the fair city faith- 
 fully. And in the English College at Rome a small 
 fresco placed in the chapel shows Catherine giving a 
 letter intended for him to Raimondo, while in the 
 distance appears the mounted figure of the Condottiere 
 himself. 
 
 Catherine's associations with him could not have been 
 pleasant, but there is no bitterness in her letter ; on the 
 contrary, it is full of tender exhortation and encourage- 
 ment to lead a new life. She sent it by Raimondo, 
 addressed " to Messer Giovanni, soldier of Fortune, and 
 head of the Company which came in the time of the 
 famine," and so great was its effect that Hawkwood and 
 his officers vowed on the sacrament that they would take 
 the Cross, " and they signed it with their hand, and sealed 
 it with their seal." And the effect was lasting, for 
 though there was no crusade, Messer Giovanni not only 
 protested against the atrocious sack of Cesena, when 
 Cardinal Robert of Geneva treacherously seized that most 
 unhappy city, but thenceforward only fought in " regular 
 warfare," whatever that may mean. 
 
 A stronger proof of Catherine's power could hardly be 
 found. 
 
 The Pope fully approved of the projected Crusade, and 
 the hope of freeing France and Italy from the mercenaries 
 was very welcome. If only they would go ! But 
 already they had on an earlier occasion been hired to 
 fight the infidels, and actually set out to do so, but found 
 the way longer than their scanty knowledge of geography 
 had led them to expect, and came back, on which, to keep 
 them safely employed, they were engaged to fight for 
 Pedro the Cruel, with the ultimate aim of driving the 
 Moors out of Spain. This too was called a Crusade, on
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 109 
 
 the strength of which name they went to Avignon, led 
 by Duguesclin, to ask the blessing of Urban V., with 
 absolution for their sins, and a contribution of 200,000 
 florins. Urban recollected how in the time of his pre- 
 decessor, Innocent VI., the " Grandes Compagnies " had 
 wasted the country, laughing at excommunication, and 
 only induced to depart without burning the newly built 
 papal palace by the gift of 60,000 florins, absolution, and 
 an engagement to fight the Visconti, lords of Milan, and 
 he sent a Cardinal to parley with Duguesclin. " As for 
 absolution," said the Cardinal, " that you shall surely 
 have, but as for money I cannot say." " Sir," replied 
 Duguesclin, "there are many here who say nothing of 
 absolution, and love money much better." The Pope 
 had to yield. Duguesclin asked if the florins came from 
 the papal treasury. " Nay, in sooth," was the answer, 
 " the common folk of Avignon have all paid their share 
 that the treasure of Heaven be not lessened." " By the 
 faith I owe to the Holy Trinity," exclaimed the great 
 Captain, " not a halfpenny will I take from these poor 
 folk. The Pope must give what is his own." And again 
 Urban submitted. 
 
 With such recollections Gregory XL, even had he not 
 been timid by nature, might well desire to be free of 
 these terrible mercenaries. Policy and religion combined 
 to make a Crusade appear urgent. Then and long after 
 the fear that Saracen or Turk might overrun Europe was 
 a nightmare possibility, and it is significant that in a 
 painting by Diirer of the Crucifixion the soldiers below 
 the Cross are represented as Turks. He caused letters 
 to be sent to the Princes of Christendom calling them to 
 take up the Cross, and bade Catherine do the same 
 throughout Italy. Her most trusted messengers 
 were Raimondo, who not only had the dignity of her 
 emissary, but was a man of good birth, being descended
 
 no SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 from the family of Delle Vigne, as has been stated, 
 and also of learning, who would appeal to the upper 
 class, and, as a voice to the lower, the rough old 
 Giovanni delle Celle, whose name appears frequently in 
 connection with hers. Born of a noble Pisan family, 
 he would seem to have taken the monastic vows too 
 young, and fell into vice, expiated by a repentance of 
 some forty years in a hermitage above the convent of 
 Vallombrosa. The description of him is not attractive. 
 " Mean in stature, with a bristly face and tangled hair," 
 wrote a fellow hermit, yet, as the old man lay dead 
 " he was the fairest corpse that eye ever beheld." Like 
 Catherine he was a great letter writer, but his tone is 
 less lofty and much more conversational than hers. His 
 letters are chiefly addressed to a Florentine noble of the 
 Palagio family, and, amid serious meditations and ex- 
 hortations he tells how he has seen the bone of a huge 
 serpent, a bone as large as a pig and weighing 500 lb., 
 hung up before the Church of the Batia, but which the 
 Abbot had had buried, and he could tell other things 
 concerning the serpents of that region, did he not fear 
 that his correspondent would disbelieve him, and think 
 he was joking. And he has not told his friend Guido 
 about it, lest he should be afraid to come to Vallombrosa. 
 Then there is an allusion to the fiery serpents of the 
 Wilderness, and the letter ends with some good advice. 
 Others are earnest exhortations to a holy life, and others 
 again show the high esteem in which he held Catherine, 
 and are important, because her detractors sought to show 
 that he doubted her, and even blamed her. Had this 
 been the case he certainly would not have carried her 
 letters, yet it was the Crusade which gave opportunity 
 for the charge. 
 
 His nineteenth letter has a peculiar value as bearing 
 on this question. It is addressed to the venerable virgin
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN in 
 
 Domitilla, of most pure life, wisdom and the knowledge 
 which is of the saints, but the contents cannot be said to 
 show that Don Giovanni esteemed either her knowledge 
 or her wisdom, and it is easy to see how Catherine's de- 
 tractors could use it against her as well as Domitilla. This 
 " venerable virgin " desired to accompany the crusading 
 force to the Holy Land, and the hermit admits that it is 
 a pious wish, yet in fact it is the door of perdition and 
 dispersion of all virtues, and the enemy of souls is in it 
 seeking to drive her and all the women who want to do 
 the same from the paradise of innocence and purity. 
 " Perhaps you will reply that Holy Catherine preaches 
 that we should go over sea. I answer that if she counsels 
 this as a means of finding Christ, I deny it with all the 
 saints who speak thereof. Firstly, Christ says that the 
 kingdom of God is within us. And St Antony says that 
 the men of this world go hither and thither, to sea, by 
 land, to learn wisdom through many perils, but we to learn 
 virtue and gain God need not gad about, for in every part 
 of the world one can win paradise. . . . Tell me then, I 
 pray thee, the reason of thy desire. Maybe thou wilt 
 reply, to see the Promised Land, and visit the Tomb, and 
 gain pardon of sins. I answer that thou dost call that 
 country the land of promise, but I, the accursed land, for 
 there Christ died, and God cursed country and people. . . . 
 True worshippers, as Christ said, neither in Jerusalem nor 
 in Mount Canzin " ( sic ) " adore the Father, for God is a 
 Spirit, and they who worship Him must do so in spirit 
 and in truth. Wherefore the Lord said in the Temple, 
 1 let me go hence.' So saith St Jerome, St Antony and 
 all the monks of Egypt and Mesopotamia and Cappadocia 
 who never saw Jerusalem, and yet Paradise was opened to 
 them. . . . Dost think to live better there than here? 
 Full is the city of men and women and so great is the 
 crowd that what thou didst flee elsewhere, there thou must
 
 112 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 endure. Perhaps thou sayest, 'I go to seek pardon.' 
 And wherefore risk becoming the food of fishes and of 
 losing thine honour and being the slave of Saracens if our 
 knights were discomfited by them when thou canst find 
 pardon in thine own land ? ... Is not Rome full of 
 pardons ? . . . O most simple among all the simple, does 
 not Christ say that where two or three are gathered, there 
 is He ? Thou hast Christ already. And if thou dost put 
 more faith in that St Catherine of thine rather than in the 
 holy doctors, go again to her and ask her how she came to 
 such perfection, and thou wilt clearly see that it was through 
 silence and prayer, for it is said she kept silence eight 
 years" (the partial silence of three had already been 
 multiplied to eight) " remaining in her chamber and pray- 
 ing. Do thou this, and when thou hast attained to her 
 perfection certainly I will give thee leave to go overseas, 
 but if thou dost go imperfect as thou art, thou wilt lose 
 the little thou hast." And he concludes with the plainest 
 statement of the risks which women run in travelling with 
 an army, even a crusading one. 
 
 Don Giovanni was an impulsive and emotional man who 
 did not stop to weigh his words or think how they might 
 be reported, and when the Bacceliere, William Flete, 
 heard in his retreat the tale that he had blamed Catherine 
 and had even written sharply to her, he fired up, and wrote 
 to him on the subject. The epistle is lost, but to judge 
 by the reply it filled his fellow-hermit with dismay, and he 
 sent two very long ones to Flete, assuring him that never 
 had he ventured to write to Catherine, much less to use 
 rash or jesting words about one whom he held to be the 
 angel who sounded the sixth trumpet ! He reverenced 
 her beyond words, and to tell him a secret treasured a 
 lock of her hair, given him by a virgin who had cut it off 
 undiscovered while Catherine was rapt in ecstasy, as if it 
 had belonged to a saint in Paradise. And he relieves his
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 113 
 
 feelings by a sly little hint that the Englishman had no 
 great knowledge of Tuscan, and had probably misunder- 
 stood what he had heard about him. From his second 
 letter, in answer to one in a more amiable tone from Flete, 
 it appears that Catherine had written to him. This letter 
 too is lost, but it would seem that she had learned of Flete's 
 action on her behalf, and wanted to put an end to the 
 matter ; she constantly had to hush her over-vehement 
 defenders. It is amusing to find Don Giovanni turning 
 the tables on Flete by attacking a brother of his com- 
 munity who had calumniated both the hermit of Vallom- 
 brosa by asserting him to be at heart a Fraticello, and 
 Catherine a presumptuous person, venerated in Florence 
 no doubt, but then Florence abounded in fools. Surely 
 the Prior and Flete must have crushed this recreant 
 certainly Don Giovanni replied with an energy which left 
 nothing to be desired. The shaft launched against him 
 was a poisoned one, for by some strange misconception his 
 followers were often confounded with the Fraticelli or Poor 
 Brethren, one of the many sects which in spite of the 
 Inquisition abounded in Florence, and against whose errors 
 Catherine while there publicly protested. Don Giovanni 
 and she had much discussion how to deal with their 
 teaching, and it was very grievous to him to have his 
 " spirituali " supposed to hold their doctrine. To judge 
 by his view of women going on pilgrimage he was a man 
 with common sense, and Catherine would have agreed with 
 him. As has been said, she herself made none, for her 
 visits to Leccato and Montepulciano or to the Dominican 
 monastery of San Quirico, to whose abbot, Don Martino, 
 several of her letters are addressed, hardly come under that 
 head, and though she sometimes refreshed herself with a 
 day-dream of a time when she might visit the Holy Land, 
 she certainly would not have followed in the wake of an 
 army, and though in some of her correspondence with 
 H
 
 114 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 women friends she may suggest that were peace definitely 
 made among the Italian Republics, they could join her in 
 a fair company and go against the infidels, this must not 
 be taken too literally. Besides the pious longing to see 
 Palestine in Christian hands, she hoped that Christianity 
 would be forwarded by a Crusade ; " souls and the place " 
 must both be precious in the eyes of the invaders, and far 
 more important than delivering the Holy Land or staying 
 the onward march of the unbelievers was the effort to 
 bring them into the fold of Christ, where one day all 
 should come. She, almost alone in her time, one not 
 prolific in great men or great ideas, had inherited the ideal 
 of a very different Gregory from the one who now bore the 
 name, and she had yet to learn how times were changed 
 since that Pope, or Innocent III., sat on the pontifical 
 throne. Full of hope, rejoicing in the bull issued by 
 Gregory, announcing the Crusade, she wrote to friends in 
 Siena, " affairs are going better and better for the Crusade," 
 and for a time all promised well. 
 
 But always when some great hope seemed on the point 
 of fulfilment Catherine was called to renounce it, and 
 though in her case as in that of many other great souls, 
 her failures were nobler than most men's successes, the cup 
 was a very bitter one to drink. Venice went to war with 
 Genoa ; Florence though Guelf when it suited her, was no 
 meek daughter of the Popes, and now was showing signs 
 of active discontent. So did Perugia, maddened by the 
 conduct of her governor, a Papal Legate. Raimondo tells 
 how when the news reached Pisa that the latter city had 
 driven out Legate and priests, he went " drowned in grief " 
 to tell Catherine. At first she was almost equally de- 
 pressed, seeing clearly that these discords would be fatal 
 to the Crusade, perhaps to the Papacy, then, bracing her- 
 self, she said, " Do not weep before the time ; there will 
 be far more cause by and by ; this is but milk and honey
 
 ST. CATHERINE (ON THE RIGHT) IN ADORATION 
 
 UV CiEROLAMO Dl BENVENUTO
 
 CATHERINE AS A POLITICIAN 115 
 
 to what will follow." Raimondo asked in wonder what 
 more could come, unless a general apostasy. She 
 answered that it was now the laity who rebelled, but 
 as soon as the Pope tried to reform the clergy there 
 would be a great schism. He recollected her words with 
 awe when the drastic measures of Urban VI. brought about 
 the result which she had foreseen. On being asked what 
 would happen to the Church she said that after much 
 tribulation God would purify it by means unknown to 
 man. " Give thanks," she added, " for the great peace 
 which He will give when the tempest is past." 
 
 All hopes of the Crusade died away ; trouble in Italy 
 occupied the Pope and the cities ; only a few enthusiasts 
 like Catherine herself could not believe that never again 
 would the Christian nations combine in a holy war. But 
 in fact interests had become too complex for united action 
 among them ; the time had gone by for such to be possible. 
 Catherine, like Dante, was making the mistake of looking 
 back instead of forward. She had not experience enough 
 of the world or of politics to take wide views, and regarded 
 all things too much as if they concerned the Church alone. 
 Statesmanship was not, and could not be one of her gifts.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 
 
 ATHERINE'S long absence caused great discontent 
 I . in Siena, and it seems that even Messer Matteo, the 
 good Rector of the Spedale, was among the malcon- 
 tents, for there is a letter written in a tone of displeasure 
 in which she bids him and all who found fault with her 
 for remaining so long away look at the saints, against 
 whom, whether they travelled or stayed at home, there 
 were certainly plenty of murmurs. No one need think 
 that she was leaving the ninety-nine for the sake of one ; 
 for every one whom she has left there are ninety-nine 
 known only to Heaven, and the knowledge of this is what 
 enables her to bear the fatigue of the journey, her ill- 
 health, and the harass of these murmurs. " Whether I 
 go or stay," she concludes, in the same tone which she 
 took when the magistrates sought to bring her back from 
 Montepulciano, " I shall do it to please God, not man. 
 I have been delayed by illness, but still more because 
 it is the will of God. We shall return as soon as we 
 can." 
 
 Pisa however was as reluctant to let her go as Siena 
 to let her stay, and the Archbishop applied to the General 
 of the Dominicans for permission to keep her yet awhile. 
 One of her late biographers notices this as a proof that 
 she took no journey without leave from him, but had this 
 been so she would have surely brought the fact forward 
 
 116
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 117 
 
 as a valid excuse for that going hither and thither which 
 was such a cause of offence, and indeed of scandal. She 
 always writes as if perfectly free to go and come as 
 she feels best, and no difficulty ever seems to have been 
 made as to any Mantellata whom she selected going with 
 her, although it was understood that recluses and sisters 
 of penance stayed at home, and came rarely into 
 society. 
 
 Before leaving Pisa Catherine took a journey which 
 was a refreshing interlude in her stay there, and a 
 memorable experience, for she saw the sea for the first 
 time. Thenceforward metaphors constantly appear in 
 her letters showing how deeply she was affected by it. 
 On the rocky little island of Gorgona, which rises steeply 
 from the water about eleven miles from Leghorn had 
 stood from very early times a monastery which had 
 passed in the Trecento from the Benedictines to the 
 Carthusians. The Prior had repeatedly invited Catherine 
 to visit him, an honour as remarkable in its way as any 
 ever offered her. She hesitated, but Raimondo had been 
 gained to the Prior's cause, and persuaded by him, she 
 went. There had been monks settled there as early as 
 the fourth century, though the island was terribly exposed 
 to the attacks of sea-rovers, who a few years after 
 Catherine's visit murdered nearly all the community, or, 
 worse fate, carried them into slavery. The few who 
 escaped left the island to a handful of fishermen and the 
 wild goats. 
 
 Riding through the pine forests which then covered 
 the country between Pisa and Leghorn, she would come 
 to Porto Pisano on the sea-coast with its watch-towers 
 which could not defend it from that assault of the Genoese 
 twelve years before Catherine saw it which had almost 
 destroyed it. There she embarked for Gorgona, with 
 Raimondo and Neri di Landoccio, and some others of her
 
 u8 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 company, twenty in all. They reached the island at 
 sunset, and were met by the Prior. As a woman, how- 
 ever much of a saint, Catherine could not be harboured 
 in the monastery, and was lodged in a house about a mile 
 distant, but the next day the Prior assembled his monks 
 in the open air, and begged her to address them. It is 
 strange that none of those who have painted events in 
 her life, not all historical, should have overlooked so 
 picturesque a subject as that assembly when the young 
 Mantellata " with the light of peace celestial in her eyes 
 of olive grey," spoke to the white-robed monks of the 
 lonely little island with the blue sky overhead, and the 
 sea lapping softly on the rocks, while her companions 
 stood behind her, watching the effect of her words on the 
 Carthusians, some at least of whom, it is lawful to sup- 
 pose, bred up in the contempt of women inculcated by 
 monastic teaching, must have inwardly protested against 
 the action of their Prior in showing one of that sex such 
 unheard-of honour. It was not willingly that Catherine 
 addressed this audience ; she felt and said that " it was 
 fitter for her to listen to God's servants than to speak 
 before them," but the Prior entreated her to do so, and 
 she looked at the monks awaiting her words, and her 
 heart was full, and she began to speak of the " illusions 
 and temptations " which beset the life of the cloister with 
 such knowledge and sympathy as filled even her own 
 company, who knew well what her power of speaking 
 was, with wondering admiration and pride in her. She 
 had had her own experiences of the dangers as well as 
 the blessings of a solitary's life ; in several of her letters 
 there are allusions to them, and no doubt many of the 
 faces before her told a tale which she was quick to read. 
 When she paused the Prior said to Raimondo, " Dear 
 brother, I am the confessor of all these, and know the 
 hearts of each, and I assure you that if this saintly woman
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 119 
 
 had heard all their confessions, she could not have spoken 
 more fitly." 
 
 The Mediterranean is a treacherous sea, and the return 
 journey was dangerous. All the little company of land- 
 folk were alarmed, especially Raimondo, whose strong 
 point was never courage, but Catherine smiled at their 
 fears and " continued in prayer." They reached the land 
 at the hour of matins, " singing Te Deum as they touched 
 shore." 
 
 After this break in the anxieties and disappointments 
 crowding upon her, among which must be reckoned the 
 complaints and jealousies of some of her friends and 
 Mantellate left in Siena, Catherine returned home in the 
 autumn of 1375, and took up her usual life of prayer and 
 good works, among which must be counted the great 
 pacification of the three families of Tolomei, Rinaldini 
 and Maconi already mentioned. From this time her life 
 was brightened by the love and devotion of Stefano, and 
 her affection for him was so marked as to rouse some 
 jealousy among her other followers. After her death he 
 made a collection of her letters which were kept in the 
 Certosa of Pavia where he became prior. It was her dying 
 charge that he should become a Carthusian. Up to that 
 time no such thought had crossed the mind of the brilliant 
 young nobleman, whose parents intended him to follow 
 quite another career, but what was in fact a command, 
 given at such a time, could not be gainsaid, and he found 
 comfort in following out her wish. " Had all the world 
 opposed him, he would not have done otherwise." 
 Catherine's influence was even stronger over him in death 
 than in life. 
 
 Stefano seems to have had a genius for friendship, and 
 to have chosen friends the opposite of himself, such as 
 Caffarini, and the serious young Neri di Landoccio, an- 
 other devoted disciple of Catherine's. To him he wrote
 
 120 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 frequently when he was in Siena while Neri was in Rome, 
 and to him he wrote shortly after he commenced his novi- 
 tiate at Pontignano, beginning his letter, " To my sweetest 
 and most beloved brother in Christ and in the holy 
 memory." There was no need to say whose. Neri's 
 heart would supply the beloved name. Another letter to 
 his friend tells how, much against his will, he had been 
 elected Prior, though he had only taken the habit in the 
 preceding year. One more is preserved. Neri had 
 become a hermit and Stefano was General of his Order. 
 He relates that he has been inspecting various monasteries, 
 and had dined at Genoa with Caffarini and Raimondo, 
 and had seen Orietta Scotti, " who with great lovingness 
 recognised him as her son," he had been sick almost to 
 death in her house when there with Catherine, fourteen 
 years before " and many other things he could tell 
 which no doubt Neri would like to hear." It is good to 
 know that Maconi made it a special work to reconcile 
 enemies, as did Flete. No greater honour could have 
 been done to Catherine's memory than to continue her 
 labours. The thought of her was always with him ; he 
 always kept at hand a gold reliquary given to her at 
 Avignon, and then to him, and we read with a smile 
 of tender amusement that his Carthusians always had 
 beans at dinner on Easter Day, in memory of a meal 
 which he and Catherine had once eaten on that festival, 
 when she had nothing else in the house. In old age 
 he saw much of San Bernadino, born the year of 
 Catherine's death, who would come to visit him in his 
 beautiful Certosa di Pavia, and hear him talk of 
 Catherine. Her name was the last word uttered by 
 his dying lips. 
 
 The cell which Neri di Landoccio occupied was just 
 without the Porta Nuova of Siena, whence he diffused 
 considerable influence, dying in the hospital of La Scala,
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 121 
 
 perhaps choosing to do so because Catherine had so often 
 gone among the sick there. He was a scholar and wrote 
 verses, many of them lauds in her honour, and he read 
 the Divina Commedia, and did not always return books 
 which he had borrowed, for his friend Giunta di Grazia 
 asks him to send back " quello pezzo di Dante " which he 
 had lent him. All his books and writings he bequeathed 
 to the Olivetans, together with a portrait of Catherine 
 which he had had painted. What became of it is not 
 known. 
 
 Among those who were among the closest of Catherine's 
 circle of friends and followers must be counted the three 
 men who at different times held the office of her con- 
 fessor. The first was Tomaso della Fonte, a relation of 
 her family, a simple, unlearned, good man, much per- 
 plexed by such a penitent, and inclined to check and 
 suppress her unusual ways, but gradually he became con- 
 vinced that she was led by heavenly impulses, and when 
 after her death he became prior of San Domenico he took 
 every opportunity of showing his reverence for her. 
 There is a mysterious passage in one of her letters to 
 Raimondo which hints at backsliding and repentance in 
 one time of his life. " I have good news to tell you of 
 my Father Tomaso, for by the grace of God he has van- 
 quished Satan through his virtues. He has become quite 
 another man to what he was. Pray write to him, and 
 open yourself to him. Rejoice that my wandering sons 
 have come back out of darkness to the hearth." Other 
 letters show that if at this time something had come 
 between the two good men, later there was only friend- 
 ship, but Delia Fonte seems to have felt that Raimondo 
 could understand Catherine better, and had more time to 
 give her than himself. Catherine shared this view, and 
 fully believed that the Virgin Mary had promised her a 
 Father of her soul who should be far more valuable than
 
 122 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 him whom she had hitherto had which, however true, was 
 uncomplimentary to poor Delia Fonte. Raimondo was 
 then Lector of Holy Scripture in Siena, an office which he 
 must have given up when he became the companion of 
 her journeys. We trace the development of the relation 
 between them in her change of tone ; she first writes to 
 him as " Reverend Father in Christ," but later as 
 " Dearest Father and my son," and he, from an attitude 
 of suspicion, for he had known a great many silly and 
 hysterical women, and had the poor opinion of the sex which 
 the confessional is apt to produce, became so wonder- 
 struck by her gifts and sanctity that everything she did 
 seemed a marvel to him, and he accepted rebuke as if 
 he had been the penitent and she his superior. And 
 Catherine was not sparing of rebuke on occasion. Good 
 man as he was, he sometimes found it difficult to live up 
 to her ideal. " I am certain," he writes, with a kind of 
 rueful admiration, " that if she could have had a chance 
 of speaking of divine things with people who understood 
 her, she would have gone on for a hundred days and 
 nights without food or drink, and never would have been 
 weary, but rather refreshed. I may say this, though to 
 my own confusion, that often when she spoke to me of 
 God and His deep mysteries for a long while together, I, 
 who was far from that fervour which she possessed, would 
 grow tired, and overcome with the heaviness of the flesh, 
 and sometimes fell asleep. Then she, absorbed in God, 
 would go on talking without finding out that I was asleep, 
 and when at last she discovered it, she would awake me 
 by exclaiming loudly : ' Alas ! Father, why for a little 
 sleep do you lose the profit of your soul ? Am I speak- 
 ing the word of God to you or to a wall ? ' He 
 honestly says that, writing when his memory was some- 
 what failing, he could not always be sure that he recol- 
 lected Catherine's very words, though as he wrote they
 
 ST. CATHERINE CHOOSES THE CROWN OF THORNS 
 
 BY A. FRANCHI
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 123 
 
 often came back vividly to him, but there are sayings 
 such as the above which one is very sure are hers and no 
 one else's. 
 
 Sometimes, even in the later days of their intercourse, 
 he was puzzled and uneasy at her course of action, and 
 would question it and disapprove, but as far as appears, 
 he always ended by believing that she knew best. One 
 such occasion arose either when she was in Pisa or had 
 just returned to Siena in 1375. He heard so much 
 criticism of the way in which she received without protest 
 the honour and respect shown her that he called her to 
 account in the presence of Fra Bartolomeo. " See'st thou 
 not what honours are shewn thee ? " kneeling to her and 
 kissing her hands being among them " and because thou 
 lettest it be, many think thou hast pleasure therein, and 
 are angered thereby, and speak against thee." " God 
 knows I heed little or nothing what position of body 
 those about me take," she answered, " I look only on 
 souls. If they so greet me, I think of the good intent 
 wherewith they came, and thank Divine Goodness which 
 moved them thereunto, and pray in spirit that He who 
 impelled them to come may fulfil the desire with which 
 He inspired them." " But, my mother," so her disciples 
 called her, even those older than herself, Raimondo him- 
 self amongst them " the high honours which so many 
 show thee may they not move thee to vainglory?" 
 " I marvel that a creature, knowing that it is a creature, 
 can feel vainglory," said Catherine. 
 
 Neither Raimondo nor Fra Bartolomeo fully under- 
 stood her meaning at this time. Thinking it over, they 
 saw how deep a humility really inspired her, but perhaps 
 the suggestion troubled her sensitive conscience, for it is 
 a curious coincidence that suddenly, on her deathbed, as 
 if repelling an accusation, she exclaimed, " Vainglory ? 
 Never, but the true glory of Christ crucified."
 
 124 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 When Raimondo was absent, Catherine took for 
 her confessor Bartolomeo di Domenico, another good 
 man, devoted to her, but one who perhaps sometimes 
 felt her strenuous life, " too high for mortal man 
 beneath the sky " at all events for the ordinary one. 
 He was of a morbid nature, full of scruples which his 
 brethren laughed at, and Catherine gently and wisely 
 silenced. 
 
 The list of the monks and friars who were Catherine's 
 friends would be a long one, but among the secular 
 priests few if any were among her intimate followers. 
 Perhaps this arose from the strong ill-feeling between 
 the seculars and the friars, or from her attack on the 
 low moral condition of the parish priests. In Siena both 
 seculars and religious seem to have needed reform ; what 
 effect Catherine had on the former is not known, but it 
 appears that she roused the Dominicans into observing 
 their rule in its pristine strictness. Between the two 
 mendicant Orders was a rivalry not always friendly, but 
 Catherine had many disciples among the Franciscans, and 
 is known to have written letters to them now lost. One 
 however remains, to Fra Lazzarino of Pisa, who came 
 one Lent to preach at Siena. A sentence in it casts a 
 touching light on her own inner history. " Nothing," she 
 writes, " should meet with such a reward hereafter as toil 
 of heart " (fadiga di cuore), " and mental suffering." She 
 knew what she was saying, from long experience, yet all 
 the time " there was a royal song of triumph in her heart 
 because her Lord was there," as a mystic of our own time 
 has said of himself. 
 
 Among laymen Catherine had friends as devoted to 
 her as were any among her ecclesiastical followers. Of 
 Neri di Landoccio and Maconi mention has been already 
 made, and there were a father and son of the great 
 Piccolomini family, a Pope of which was to canonise
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 125 
 
 her, It went ill for anyone who ventured to criticise 
 Catherine in the hearing of Gabriello Piccolomini. He 
 was a man of holy and honourable life, warlike as were 
 most of his race, and Catherine's letter to him, the only 
 one addressed to a Piccolomini which has been preserved, 
 abounds in martial metaphors, as if she bore this in mind. 
 He is to be armed for the battle between good and evil 
 and fight to the death, and always carry the two-edged 
 sword of hatred of ill and love of virtue, and he is to 
 smite the world with it, and the devil by constant 
 patience ; where there is love the Evil One flies as a 
 fly from a boiling pot a Tuscan locution of course 
 familiar to her correspondent, though not used in the 
 customary sense. These and such like arms he will 
 need when the gonfalon of the most holy Cross is up- 
 lifted, and he must not let them get rusty. It is a moral 
 crusade of which she is here speaking, but her thoughts 
 turn to the one which she still hoped to see organised 
 on earth, and she ends by saying that they will 
 all be wanted also, " when he marches against the 
 infidel." 
 
 That the young Francesco Malavolti was brought to 
 Catherine by the influence of Neri di Landoccio, he tells 
 himself. He was leading an irreligious and licentious life, 
 and Neri, to whom she was " guide, philosopher and 
 friend," was urgent that he should turn to better things, 
 and begin by visiting her. Neri himself had, at one time, 
 been indifferent to religion, though he had never followed 
 his friend into the paths too familiar to Malavolti, and in 
 fact it was his goodness, as well as his charm of manner 
 and gift of poetry which strongly attracted Malavolti, 
 though at first he paid little attention to his words, 
 only laughing at his " becatherine " friend. " At last," 
 Malavolti writes, " not wishing to vex him because of the 
 great friendship between us, I told him that I would do
 
 126 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 as he wished, though in my heart I went out of no 
 devotion, but rather in derision, resolved that if she 
 talked to me of religion, especially of confession, I would 
 give her such an answer that she would not venture to do 
 it again. But when I came into her gracious presence, I 
 no sooner saw her face than such fear and trembling fell 
 upon me that I well nigh swooned, and though, as I 
 say, I thought not at all of confession, yet with her first 
 words God so wonderfully changed my heart that I went 
 at once to confess, and became the very opposite of what 
 I had been." 
 
 He was, however, but an unstable convert. During 
 Catherine's long absence at Avignon, he slipped back into 
 something too like his old life, especially into the vice so 
 common in Siena, of reckless gambling, and on her return 
 must have gone to see her with a quaking heart. Her 
 tolerance of his backslidings and certainty that he would 
 overcome his sins somewhat surprised and almost scandal- 
 ised some of her circle, but she hoped on, though again 
 and again disappointed. " You keep coming to me, and 
 then fly back like a wild bird to your manifold failings," 
 she told him, " but fly where you will, by God's grace I 
 will one day put such a fetter round your neck that you 
 can fly away no more." 
 
 He cost her many anxious thoughts and prayers, how- 
 ever. " I may well call you dear," she wrote, " so many 
 tears have you cost me." He was with her during 
 her visit to Rocca d'Orcia, and described her cure of 
 the cases of lunacy there, and was deeply impressed 
 by what he saw. Trouble came on him some years 
 later ; his wife and children all died ; Catherine, too, had 
 gone to her rest. A document of great interest l relates 
 that one of his uncles, seeing his love for horses and 
 armour, proposed to him that now he was a widower, 
 
 " Hist, of St Catherine." A. Drave.
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 127 
 
 unless he would marry again, he should become a knight 
 of St John, and " so indulge his taste without risking his 
 salvation." He was at once accepted by a Chapter of the 
 Order, but on the night before the one on which he was 
 to be received, St Catherine stood beside him in a dream, 
 and bade him seek Neri di Landoccio, and go straight to 
 the Monastery of the Olivetani. " Dost thou not remember," 
 she said in his dream, "how I once said to thee that 
 when thou shouldest think me far away I should be 
 nearer than ever, and subject thy neck to such a yoke that 
 thou should'st never be able to shake it off? " Neri found 
 himself making many objections, but she answered that 
 unless he obeyed he would fall into great dangers, and 
 vanished. A great longing to obey the beloved mother 
 who had come back to guide him filled his heart ; he rose 
 at dawn, and sought Neri. He, too, had had the joy of 
 seeing Catherine in his dreams, and she had said to him, 
 " Expect thy friend, Francesco Malavolti, and go with him 
 to the house of Mount Olivet." Neri was then a hermit ; 
 he left his cell and the two went together over the 
 tossed and tumbled volcanic hills and through the forests 
 for some fourteen miles, and so came to the monastery, and 
 though usually a long and severe trial was made of any 
 who desired to enter the Order, on hearing what had 
 occurred, the Prior agreed at once to receive Malavolti, 
 who returned to Siena to dispose of his arms and horses, 
 and explain why he had renounced all thought of being 
 a knight of St John, after which he went back to the 
 monastery, and the old Malavolti palazzo knew him no 
 more. 
 
 Not all Catherine's followers justified her belief in 
 them ; among so many there were naturally some who 
 fell away, and of whom she was forced at last to despair. 
 Of one such she writes with sorrowful decision that even 
 were he to return she could have nothing more to do
 
 128 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 with him. Of such as these no record was kept, but they 
 may have been many, for the Tuscan character is easily 
 moved by religion, and as easily cooled, the Sienese 
 especially so. Catherine's frequent absences must have 
 been a test of the reality of her conversions, and there 
 can be no doubt that a great number proved to be 
 genuine, and independent of her personal influence, if 
 others proved unstable. One more of those who became 
 close friends of Catherine's may be taken from the many 
 that might be noticed, a member of the Savini family, 
 known as Nanni di Ser Vanni, or John, the son of Master 
 John, a man fierce and violent, stirring up continual strife 
 in a city of which Aonio Paleario wrote after visiting it, 
 " Siena is situated on charming hills, and the surrounding 
 country is fruitful, producing everything plentifully, but 
 discord sets its citizens in arms against one another, and 
 all their strength is exhausted in party strife." If this 
 were true in 1531 it was much more so in the Trecento, 
 but Nanni di Ser Vanni sowed trouble, not only as head 
 of a faction, but by being " marvelous subtle." If there 
 were any one whom he feared in Siena it was Catherine 
 Benincasa, and he kept studiously out of her reach, but 
 at length the Baccehere, William Flete, wearied him into 
 consenting to go and see her, though declaring that what- 
 ever she said concerning peace, he was fixed and would 
 not be moved, and he went, sullenly enough, to the 
 Fullonica, but at an hour when she was from home, as 
 he possibly knew. Raimondo, however, was there, who 
 invited him into her oratory, and did his best to entertain 
 him, earnestly hoping that Catherine would return. 
 Nanni, rejoiced to escape an interview with her, had no 
 mind to stay, and presently said, " Father, I promised 
 Brother William to come to speak to the holy maid, but 
 as she is away, and I have work to do at once, I pray 
 you make my excuses to her, and tell her I am sorry she
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 129 
 
 was not at home," and therewith rose to depart To 
 gain time Raimondo began to speak about the peace 
 which had been planned only to come to nothing between 
 Nanni and his enemies. Laying aside his usual caution, 
 he said that to Raimondo, priest and monk, and to 
 Catherine, of whom he heard report of great virtue and 
 holiness, he would tell no lies, but admit that, while 
 preparing outwardly to make peace, he was really putting 
 every obstacle he could devise in the way. " To tell you 
 my meaning in few words," he said, with a burst of the 
 fierceness so strangely mingled with his craft, " my peace 
 shall be made and - sealed in the blood of my enemies. 
 This is my resolve, and thence I will not be moved. 
 Wherefore, prithee, set thy heart at rest, and trouble me 
 no more." 
 
 Raimondo, though much disturbed, still hoped in 
 Catherine, and went on talking till he heard her come 
 in. Nanni very unwillingly sat down again, and listened 
 in stubborn silence to all she said. Feeling that her 
 words were useless, she sat silent, and Raimondo knew 
 that she was praying. He began again to talk with 
 Nanni in order to keep him yet a while longer, and with 
 a great joy heard him presently say, " It shall not be said 
 of me that I am so hard and uncharitable that I will 
 relent in nothing. I will do as you wish in some one 
 thing, and then take my leave. I have four quarrels in 
 the city, of which I will put one into your hands. Do in 
 it as seems good to you ; make you my peace, and I will 
 abide your orders." 
 
 He rose to go, but with this first victory over himself 
 came a sense of relief and peace of mind, of comfort and 
 penitence, which quite overcame him, and bursting into 
 tears he knelt by Catherine, and implored her to advise 
 and help him, and she, full of thankfulness, bade him 
 repent and make what atonement he could for the past, 
 i
 
 130 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 which he did, but shortly after this, Raimondo came in 
 great trouble to tell her that Nanni, no longer dreaded 
 and formidable, had been thrown into prison on account 
 of the offences brought up against him. " So long as 
 Nanni served the devil," said the perplexed Raimondo, " so 
 long did all things go prosperously with him, but since he 
 began to serve God we see the world wholly set against 
 him," and he went on to express his fear lest this should 
 discourage Nanni, and cause him to despair. Catherine 
 took his bad news very calmly, saying that this calamity 
 showed Nanni's sins were pardoned, the everlasting pains 
 due to him being exchanged for temporal afflictions. 
 " When he was of the world, the world made much of 
 him, as one who was its own, but now that he had begun 
 to spurn at the world, no wonder if it kicked at him 
 again. As for falling into despair, He who delivered 
 him out of the deep dungeon of hell would not let him 
 perish." 
 
 And in a few days Raimondo could tell her that Ser 
 Nanni had been released, though with a heavy fine, 
 " whereof the noble maid was nothing sorry, but rather 
 glad, thinking that his wealth might have been a snare to 
 him." " Our Lord has mercifully taken away that poison 
 wherewith he had before poisoned himself, and might 
 again," she said. 
 
 Three miles from Siena stood a castle which belonged 
 to Ser Nanni, and, in token of gratitude for what 
 Catherine had done for his spiritual welfare, he made it 
 over to her to be used as a convent. He could not 
 however do this without the consent of the magistrates, as 
 no fortress might either be built or destroyed near the 
 city for obvious reasons, but this castle of Belcaro was 
 already old and in disrepair, and could not, as they 
 thought, in any way either advantage or endanger the 
 state, so at the desire of Nanni and the petition of
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 131 
 
 " Catherine, daughter of Monna Lapa of the Contrada of 
 Fontebranda," when the matter was put to the vote there 
 were only sixty-five black beans against three hundred 
 and thirty-three white ones, 1 and Belcaro passed into the 
 hands of Catherine, who found great delight in turning it 
 into a convent which was known as Santa Maria degli 
 Angeli. 
 
 That the rulers of Siena were wise in their reluctance 
 to let strong places pass out of their jurisdiction was 
 shown by the fact that this very Belcaro became a source 
 of danger when seized and garrisoned in the fatal siege 
 of Siena by Cosmo de Medici in 1554. The convent 
 was soon afterwards changed into a dwelling-house by a 
 rich banker of Siena, one of the Turamini family, but 
 the ilexes which covered the hills around are so old that 
 Catherine may have walked under them. 
 
 Raimondo relates how all " her spiritual sons and 
 daughters " assembled when the work of turning what he 
 calls " a most beautiful palazzo " into a convent was 
 begun, and that the Papal Commissary present was that 
 Abbot of Sant Antimo, whom she had so bravely 
 defended to the magistrates of Siena when she was at 
 Montepulciano. So great a change had Catherine worked 
 in Ser Nanni, that he who had loved money too much, 
 now, when comparatively poor, made over his castle to 
 Catherine, and, says Raimondo, " I, who for many years 
 was his confessor, know that for the most part he amended 
 his ways, at all events during that time which I had to 
 do with him." 
 
 That Catherine had most loving and true friends 
 among women as well as men is evident, but very little 
 is told of them. Some of them acted as her secretaries, 
 and messages on their own account often mingle quaintly 
 with her letters, when written to any of her " college." 
 
 1 Archives of Siena.
 
 132 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Now it is " Cecca the laughing," or " the waster of time," 
 or"Giovanna pazza" madcap unless indeed she makes 
 a feminine of her family name of Pazzi, or " Alessia the 
 plump, or the negligent, who would gladly put herself 
 into this letter, and go in it to her correspondent, or " a 
 hundred thousand remembrances " are sent, all which is 
 in curious contrast to the solemn form of words, almost 
 always the same, with which the letters are begun. 
 These ladies must have had an unusual amount of 
 education to act as Catherine's secretaries, but the more 
 important letters are written by her young men friends, 
 one of whom was Barduccio Canigiani, whose family held 
 an important position in Florence, and whose friendship 
 with Catherine cost them dear. A female friend, 
 whose name is not given, probably a nun, undertook to 
 teach her some Latin, but she had not the habit of 
 learning, and in spite of the similarity to her own 
 language, she toiled on without making apparent 
 progress. 
 
 " Lord," she prayed in her discouragement, " if it please 
 Thee that I may learn so that I can sing the psalms and 
 the hymns in the canonical hours, teach Thou me what 
 by myself I cannot learn ; if not, Thy will be done ; I 
 will remain in my simplicity, and spend the time granted 
 me in other meditations." Full of hope and energy 
 she resumed her studies, and found that the power to 
 understand had awakened in her. 
 
 Such an experience is not uncommon after a long 
 mental effort, and would now be described as unconscious 
 cerebration, but Raimondo naturally regards it as 
 miraculous. He considers it also a deep mystery how, 
 though she learned to read very easily, she could never 
 learn to spell, though this, too, is an experience not un- 
 known even in our own day. Writing was an art which, 
 as far as can be gathered, she only learned almost ten years
 
 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS 133 
 
 later, when at Avignon. Her first letter, in which she 
 evidently took an innocent pride, was to Stefano Maconi. 
 It cost her far less trouble to learn to write than it had 
 done to learn to read, but either it never became really 
 easy to her, or else that imperfect spelling which so 
 perplexed Raimondo, made her always dictate unless 
 when moved by some feeling too strongly personal to be 
 expressed through another person, as when she wrote to 
 Raimondo in Rome, from Rocca d'Orcia, 1 a letter 
 which Tommaseo calls at once tractate and ode and 
 drama, lofty as the Paradise of Dante, but with more 
 ardour, a criticism which lovers of Dante will scarcely 
 accept. 
 
 Among her circle were learned men like Caffarini, who 
 directed her Biblical studies, and Raimondo, who read the 
 New Testament and parts of Aquinas to her. The 
 learned editor of her letters, Tommaseo, explains the 
 passage as meaning that she saw Raimondo with St John 
 and Aquinas in a vision, but it is more natural to suppose 
 that before Raimondo went on his important visit to 
 Rome, he visited her at Rocca d'Orcia, and while there 
 read passages of the angelic doctor to her. She could 
 hardly have studied them for herself, for he admits that 
 " she did not know letters." What is now understood by 
 a Bible would then have been a mass of manuscript, 
 costly and cumbrous, and very unlikely to have been in 
 her possession, but there were collections of texts and 
 chapters largely used in the Middle Ages ; Ochino had 
 one at a later time which he calls the Biblia Aurea, and 
 which was finally put on the Index on account of its 
 many mistranslations. She would also know a certain 
 amount of Scripture from the offices of the Church. Her 
 letters show that she often had Bible words in mind as 
 she wrote. The assertion that she could explain all 
 
 1 Letter 262.
 
 134 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 holy writ must, however, be regarded as merely the fond 
 exaggeration of some who admired and loved her. If it 
 were seriously made, the contemptuous anger of those 
 theologians and professors, who came to question her, is 
 easy to understand.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 
 
 
 
 ATHERINE was not allowed to remain long in 
 1 , Siena ; public affairs claimed her afresh ; all Upper 
 Italy was rising in revolt against the Holy See,stimu- 
 lated by the lords of Milan, Bernabo, one of the family 
 whom Villani calls " those wild beasts, the Visconti." 
 Wild beast was a name that certainly suits Bernabo, 
 who observed no law, feared neither Heaven nor hell, and 
 mocked at excommunication. In a time when to judge 
 or punish a cleric was to call down heavy spiritual 
 penalties, he quartered his dogs on the monasteries in 
 his domains, and for every dog that died, a monk was 
 hung. 
 
 Like not a few Italian despots, his head was turned by 
 power, and jaded by utter license he sought sensation in 
 devising tortures, delighting in cruelty for cruelty's sake, 
 and taking away life as indifferently as if he were killing 
 an insect. He was of the race of Ezzelino and Alberic 
 da Romano and Galeazzo Sforza. Peace in Italy was the 
 last thing which he desired, and the one hope for it was to 
 crush him. There had been a moment when this was 
 possible, and Catherine never made a greater mistake than 
 when she induced the Pope to make terms with him. Her 
 love of peace and desire for a crusade was too strong for 
 her judgment, as again when she wrote bidding the King 
 of France end the Hundred Years' war even at the price 
 of abandoning his dominions to the English. Bernabo
 
 136 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 was too crafty not to seek to win her, but his real aims 
 were soon revealed. His insinuations that the Pope was 
 intending to make all Tuscany subject to his rule, or even 
 to allow France to seize it, fell into Florence like a spark 
 in dry fuel, and the conduct of the papal Legates confirmed 
 his suggestions. Catherine herself calls them " eaters and 
 destroyers of souls, not converters but devourers," while a 
 chronicler, quoted by Gregorovius, bitterly exclaims, " For 
 more than a thousand years these districts have been in 
 the hands of priests, and all through the fault of these they 
 have been dragged into most cruel wars, without even now 
 the priests owning them in peace, without even hope that 
 they ever will do so. Oh, verily it were better before God 
 and the world that these shepherds should strip themselves 
 utterly of temporal dominions, since, from the time of 
 Silvester downward, the consequence of temporal posses- 
 sions has been countless struggles and destruction of 
 people and cities. . . . Certain it is that one cannot serve 
 God and mammon, nor have one foot in heaven and one 
 on earth." 
 
 Most of the Italian Legates did not attempt to solve 
 the difficult problem ; they frankly served mammon. They 
 were the more hated in Italy because almost all were 
 foreigners, unable to speak the language of those whom 
 they came to rule, and quite indifferent to their interests. 
 Italy seemed of no account with the Popes ; French in- 
 fluence was all-powerful. In Gregory's first creation of 
 Cardinals there was only one Italian to seven Frenchmen, 
 and three of these were kinsmen of his own. 
 
 It was the conduct of a Legate which finally drove 
 Florence to league with the other cities of Northern and 
 Central Italy against the Pope. Just at the time when 
 there was a well-founded suspicion that Guillaume de 
 Noellet, Legate of Bologna, was plotting to get posses- 
 sion of Florence, fresh indignation was roused by his
 
 ST. CATHKRINE 
 
 FROM A PICTURE BV FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 137 
 
 refusing, in flagrant defiance of Gregory's orders, to allow 
 so much as a sack of corn to pass from his territory into 
 Tuscany during the scarcity of 1376. Moreover, he dis- 
 missed Hawkwood, who had been in the papal service, 
 with a significant message to the Florentines, that if the 
 free lances should ravage their territory, it was no affair 
 of his. Macchiavelli's account of the matter runs thus : 
 " Gregory XL being Pope, and living at Avignon, governed 
 Italy like his predecessors by legates, who, being full of 
 avarice and pride, had afflicted many cities. One of them, 
 who was then at Bologna, thought to gain possession of 
 Florence on account of the famine which prevailed there, 
 and not only would give the Florentines no food, but to 
 deprive them of the hope of coming crops, planned to 
 assault them as soon as spring came with a great army, 
 hoping, as they were unarmed and foodless, to conquer 
 them easily. And it may be he would have succeeded, 
 had the forces with which he attacked them not been 
 faithless and venal. . . . Wars begin when one likes, but 
 not when one likes do they end. This one, begun through 
 the ambition of the Legate, was followed by the wrath of 
 the Florentines, and they made a league with all the cities 
 hostile to the Church, and set eight citizens to govern the 
 city, and this they did with such virtue and general satis- 
 faction that they were called saints " surely Machiavelli 
 was indulging in a sardonic smile as he wrote this 
 " though they heeded little this (papal) censure, and 
 despoiled the Churches of their possessions, and forced 
 the clergy to celebrate the divine offices " during the 
 interdict. 
 
 The suspicions as to De Noellet's designs were 
 strengthened by the discovery that the Legate of 
 Perugia was plotting with Cione dei Salimbeni against 
 the liberties of Siena, which suggested a design to seize 
 the Tuscan cities one after another. Florence thereupon
 
 138 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 took Hawkwood into her service, made a treaty with 
 Bernabo Visconti, and elected the eight magistrates of 
 whom Macchiavelli speaks, who were known as the Eight 
 of War, all of Ghibelline politics, and that Varano was 
 made generalissimo of their forces who later played the 
 Florentines false, and took service with the Pope. The 
 whole city was in an uproar ; crowds paraded the streets, 
 shouting " Death to the priests," and carrying a red banner 
 with the word " Libertas " inscribed on it in silver letters, 
 while the Pope was solemnly declared to be the enemy of 
 the Republic. 
 
 Until thoroughly scared and angered, Gregory honestly 
 tried to calm the excitement, ordering corn and flour to 
 be sent to Tuscany, and assuring the Tuscan cities that 
 he had no designs on them, nay, that he had refused to 
 accept Lucca when offered to him by the Emperor. 
 Lucca believed him and remained faithful. Florence 
 would not listen. She called on all the cities aroun<_. to 
 join an anti-papal league, and shake off the yoke of the 
 legates ; more than eighty towns and fortresses responded, 
 and had Rome joined, the Papal states might have 
 been lost in the fourteenth instead of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 But Rome held back. With her desolate Campagna, 
 the absence of any strong middle class, her savage barons 
 and her unruly population, she neither could nor would 
 forward the purposes of the League. Her importance 
 depended on the return of the Popes ; the good or ill 
 fortunes of the Tuscan cities were nothing to her. For a 
 while her indifference seemed of little consequence ; the 
 League became more and more formidable, and the 
 news of one town after another rising against Gregory 
 filled Catherine with pain and dismay. Her letters to 
 Avignon show how great was her alarm and anxiety. 
 Whether we have the first which she sent there is
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 139 
 
 uncertain, but in all those of this date which exist she 
 writes with one exception in a tone of equal respect 
 and frankness, declaring unhesitatingly that the Legates 
 were responsible for all the ill, " men whom you know to 
 be incarnate demons," and beseeching the Pope to win 
 back his rebellious children by kindness. She can see no 
 other way of recovering his authority, but with kindness 
 he can do what he will with them, especially the Sienese, 
 " than whom no people were more susceptible to loving 
 treatment." She was full of anxiety for Siena, which was 
 in a very difficult position, whether siding for or against 
 Florence. If she chose the former alternative, the Pope 
 might, and did, lay her under an interdict ; if the latter, 
 the forces of the League might crush her, besides which 
 she owed gratitude to Florence at this juncture for the 
 help given when the Legate of Perugia and Cione dei 
 Salimbeni menaced her. She took a middle course ; 
 Catherine had the mortification of obtaining no more 
 from her native town, not siding openly with Florence, 
 but keeping up friendly communications with her, and 
 lending help in a quiet way. But this seemed as heinous 
 to the Pope as open rebellion, and not all Catherine's 
 efforts could avert his anger from her loved Siena. It 
 had not fallen on the city when she wrote those early 
 letters whose tone is almost caressing ; Gregory is to her 
 as a " Babbo " (Daddy), but he also is to her " Christ on 
 earth," against whom rebellion is a fearful sin. " Uplift 
 the gonfalon of the holy Cross," she writes, still with the 
 hope that a Crusade would gather and fuse all jarring 
 elements, " if you would see the wolves turn into lambs. 
 Peace, peace, peace, that war may not delay the 
 Crusade." 
 
 The one letter x which is the exception to her usual 
 tone at this time is written in a way which shows she was 
 
 1 Letter 255.
 
 140 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 strongly moved. Internal evidence shows that it must 
 have been sent soon after Gregory was elected, and it is 
 so remarkable that it must be quoted at some length. 
 
 " In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and sweet 
 Mary. 
 
 " Most holy and most sweet Father, your unworthy 
 and wretched daughter Catherine, in Christ gentle Jesus, 
 recommends herself to you in His precious blood, with 
 the desire to see you manly, without any fear or carnal 
 affection for yourself or any creature allied to you, for I 
 consider and behold that in the sweet sight of God 
 nothing so hinders your own holy and good desire, the 
 honour of God, and the exaltation and reformation of 
 Holy Church as this. Therefore my soul longs with 
 boundless love that in His infinite mercy He may take 
 from you every passion and lukewarmness of heart, and 
 make you a new man, one on fire for reform and most 
 ardent desire, for otherwise you cannot fulfil the will of 
 God and the longing of His servants. Alas, alas, my 
 most sweet Father, forgive my presumption in what I 
 have said and say. I am constrained to do so by the 
 sweet Primal Truth. His will, Father, is this, and this 
 He asks of you, that you do justice on the abundance of 
 many iniquities committed by those who nourish them- 
 selves feeding in the Garden of Holy Church, for He says 
 that the animal should not nourish itself on human flesh. 
 Since He has given you authority, and you have taken it, 
 you ought to use your virtue and strength ; not using 
 them, better were it to give up what was taken. More 
 honour for God and better for your soul would it be. 
 The other thing that he wills is this, and this He 
 demands of you. He wills that you pacify all Tuscany, 
 with which you are at war." 
 
 This is plain speaking indeed, and she goes on to say 
 that as far as possible the Pope must avoid war altogether,
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 141 
 
 except in the Crusade ; all this may seem impossible to 
 him she has already discovered his faint-heartedness 
 where prompt and vigorous action is required but it is 
 possible to God in His goodness. 
 
 In the same tone of severe admonition she bids him 
 if he values his life not to be negligent ; if he choose to 
 execute justice, he can ; he holds the keys of heaven, he 
 can open and shut, and if he does not do it, were she in 
 his place she would fear lest the divine judgment should 
 fall on her. Let him do God's will, lest the hard rebuke 
 come, " Accursed be thou who hadst time and strength 
 entrusted to thee, and used them not." This letter ends 
 with a piteous cry, " I say no more. Pardon, pardon 
 me ; it is the great love which I feel for your salvation, 
 and the great grief when I see it in danger, which makes 
 me speak. Willingly would I have spoken it to you, to 
 fully discharge my conscience. When it pleases your 
 Holiness that I should go to you, I shall willingly do so. 
 Act so that I may not have to appeal to Christ crucified 
 against you, for I can appeal to none other since there is 
 no greater than yourself on .earth. Humbly I ask your 
 blessing." 
 
 The lofty tone which she takes is almost startling from 
 the dyer's daughter to the Pope who was to her the 
 representation of Christ on earth, and proves her con- 
 viction that she was given a mission direct from heaven. 
 There is a slight incoherence here and there, as if her 
 feelings hurried her along. A minor point to observe 
 is the over-use of the word " dolce," whether we take it 
 as " gentle " or " sweet." She had certain favourite words 
 and metaphors which occur repeatedly in her letters, and 
 sometimes jar on the modern reader, though they suited 
 the taste of the Trecento. 
 
 This was not the only time that Catherine expressed 
 her opinion of the worthlessness of temporal possessions
 
 142 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 to the Papacy compared with that of souls. " Let us 
 suppose," she wrote to Gregory, " that you are bound to 
 recover lordship over the cities which the Church has 
 lost, yet are you far more bound to win back so many 
 lambs which are the treasure of the Church, the loss of 
 which would indeed make her very poor. Better let go 
 the gold of worldly things than of spiritual." 
 
 Besides urging peace on Gregory, Catherine put with 
 equal fervour the need and duty of returning to Rome. 
 Hers was by no means the only voice which from 
 Dante's downward had bidden the Popes return to the 
 Eternal City. Petrarch had appealed to them with all 
 the force of his rhetoric ; so had Rienzi, and the royal 
 Swede, Brigitta, from her convent in Rome, related 
 visions which bade them linger in Avignon at their peril. 
 At the time this visionary princess was almost as famous 
 as Catherine Benincasa, though with far less influence. 
 Both she and her husband were Tertiaries of St Francis 
 of Assisi, and when widowed she came to Rome, both 
 because the plain speaking in her so-called " Revelations " 
 brought her into trouble among the Swedish clergy, and 
 because she believed that she had been ordered by a 
 voice from heaven to make it her home until a Pope and 
 an Emperor met there, which came to pass in the time 
 of Urban V. She wrote an account of her visions in 
 Swedish, and caused them to be translated into Latin. 
 Like Catherine, she ardently desired to reform the Church, 
 and is said to have raised the extremely low standard of 
 morals among the Roman clergy. Unlike Catherine on 
 the other hand, she entered a convent in Rome, at the 
 door of which she used to sit, begging for the poor. 
 There is a link between St Brigitta and England, for she 
 founded the order of the Brigantines, a branch of the 
 Augustinians, and it was a community of these nuns who 
 occupied the famous Sion House. Catherine had heard
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 143 
 
 of her, for she alludes to her in a letter, and moreover 
 was well acquainted with her Spanish Confessor, 
 Vadaterra, since it was he who carried a plenary in- 
 dulgence to her from Gregory XI., with a request that 
 she would pray for him, and a command to say every 
 Friday thirty-three Paternosters, and ninety-five Ave 
 Marias, thus furnishing a proof that as yet he did not 
 understand the mystic and lofty nature of Catherine. 
 She felt that she gained nothing by these repetitions, 
 and begged to be released from the obligation. Later 
 she knew Brigitta's beautiful daughter, who bore the same 
 name as herself. 
 
 The wild and fantastic " revelations " of Brigitta had 
 greatly impressed Gregory, and as early as 1375 he 
 declared his intention of returning speedily to Rome, but 
 meanwhile great additions were being made to the papal 
 palace at Avignon, and it was noted that the name of 
 New Rome was given to these buildings. 
 
 If Gregory " would and he would not," there was great 
 excuse for his irresolution. The task before him was 
 one requiring a Hildebrand or an Innocent III. to deal 
 with it, while the papal chair was filled by a man sincerely 
 anxious to do right, but timid and uncertain where right 
 lay, his youth increasing his doubts as to his own judg- 
 ment, and hampered by that fatal connection between 
 the Church and the temporal power which Dante had 
 anathematised, and which Catherine would have broken 
 unhesitatingly could peace and reform be thus obtained, 
 but which Gregory and his successors maintained, as 
 though the Church must stand or fall by it. Deeply 
 troubled by the immorality and sinning which corrupted 
 his clergy, he yet dreaded the irritation which any effort 
 to check them would cause among high and low, but at 
 the same time he trembled at the fear that if he remained 
 passive, things must go from bad to worse, and that to
 
 144 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 remain at Avignon would make the Papacy a mere 
 appanage of France, and suggest to Italy that she could 
 do very well without a Pope. " Throw off the yoke of 
 the foreigner" had been the ominous cry in revolted 
 Florence, and though there was much to be said in 
 favour of a residence in Avignon, where the province as 
 well as the towns had been bought by his predecessors, 
 and the Rhone made a highway through France and 
 towards Germany, the neighbourhood of the French 
 kings was not always an advantage. Benedict VII. 
 would willingly have returned to Rome, but Philip le 
 Bel would not allow it, and when the Pope insisted on 
 relieving the Emperor from the sentence pronounced 
 against him by John XXII., the king seized the Cardinals' 
 revenues, on which they put such pressure on Benedict 
 that against his conscience he was induced to yield. 
 Again, though nominally a free agent, it had been with 
 extreme difficulty that Urban V. had succeeded in leaving 
 Avignon, for, says a contemporary Franciscan, " the King 
 resisted with all his might, having led the last Pontiffs 
 as he would, the Cardinals being of his family and 
 friends." 
 
 The burning question of Avignon versus Rome was 
 complicated by the failure of Urban V., who had gone 
 back only to return disheartened three years later, and 
 Urban not only was a much stronger man than Gregory 
 XL, but in his time the States of the Church had been 
 reduced to obedience under the heavy hand of Cardinal 
 Albornoz, while now all was revolt and confusion. The 
 French Cardinals, who composed two-thirds of the Sacred 
 College, naturally used every means to oppose and dis- 
 courage any thought of leaving the pleasant places of 
 Avignon for a Rome, poverty-stricken, malarious, in 
 ruins, never free from popular tumults and struggles 
 between her lawless barons, and without any central
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 145 
 
 authority, now ruled by one great family, now another. 
 In their fortress erected within the Colosseum were 
 entrenched the Colonna, whom even a Boniface VIII. 
 could not effectively crush, with rule over all the district 
 between what is now the Piazza, of San Marcello and 
 the Church of the Santi Apostoli ; the Orsini held Sant' 
 Angelo, the Savelli the Capitol, one and all fighting each 
 other for purely selfish motives, absolutely indifferent to 
 liberty, conscience, or the good of Rome. Assassination 
 was constant in the streets, and the surrounding country 
 was swept by men at arms belonging to one baron or 
 another ; brigands came up to the very gates of the city, 
 where Petrarch was crowned with laurel amid the 
 acclamations of the Romans, always charmed by a show, 
 only to be seized by robbers as soon as he was outside 
 the walls. 
 
 All this and more was told to Gregory, besides which 
 he was greatly and not unnaturally alarmed by a letter 
 warning him that he was to be poisoned if he ventured 
 into Rome. He knew that Pope John XXII. had narrowly 
 escaped death from poison prepared by his chaplain, the 
 Bishop of Cahors, and others of his court. His less 
 fortunate nephew died in agony at his feet. " What 
 have I done to my Cardinals ! " this Pope exclaimed, 
 " they have sworn my death. Watch over Thy servant, 
 great God, for my enemies are very many ! " Gregory 
 put forward the letter which he had received as an 
 excuse to Catherine for remaining at Avignon, and she 
 comments at some length upon it. To have risked death 
 in a righteous cause seemed to her altogether desirable, 
 and she was scandalised by his timid alarm. " So far as 
 I have understood," she wrote in reply, " that person " 
 (the writer) " has treated your Holiness in this matter as 
 the soul is treated by the devil, who ofttimes under 
 pretext of virtue and pity injects poison into it, using that
 
 146 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 device especially with God's servants, knowing that he 
 could not deceive them with open sin. Thus it seems to 
 me does this incarnate devil who writes to you under 
 cover of compassion and in holy style, for the letter feigns 
 to come from one holy and just, while it really comes 
 from wicked men, councillors of the devil, who cripple 
 the common good of the Christian congregation, and the 
 reform of Holy Church, self-seekers, looking only to their 
 own interest." 
 
 And then comes a pregnant hint to find out the real 
 source of the letter : " I do not think the man a servant 
 of God so far as I can see, and his language does not 
 show him so the letter appears to me forged. Nor," 
 she adds with some irony, " does he who wrote it know 
 his trade very well. He should put himself to school ; it 
 seems as if he knew less than a little child." Then, with 
 a significant allusion to the Pope's well-known nepotism 
 and dislike of all that was unpleasant, she continues, 
 " Observe, most holy Father, he first appeals to what he 
 knows to be the chief frailty in man, especially to such as 
 are very tender and pitiful in natural affection, and 
 toward their bodies, for such hold life dearer than others. 
 But I hope that by the goodness of God you will regard 
 His honour and the safety of your flock more than your- 
 self, like a good shepherd, who ought to lay down his life 
 for the sheep." There is a ring of irrepressible scorn in 
 the next paragraph. " Next, this ' poisonous ' man seems 
 to approve of your returning to Rome, calling it a good 
 and holy thing, yet he says that poison awaits you there, 
 and seemingly counsels you to send good and trustworthy 
 people before you, who apparently will find it in bottles 
 on the tables, ready to be given by day or month or year. 
 Now I quite admit that poison may be found as for 
 that also on the tables of Avignon or other cities, as well 
 as in Rome." . There seems a covert allusion here to
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 147 
 
 the wine drunk in large quantities at the meals of 
 ecclesiastics in Avignon and elsewhere, according to 
 Tommaseo, but the earlier editor of Catherine's letters, 
 Gigli, takes it as meaning genuine poison, and gives a 
 formidable list of great men who had been thus put out 
 of the way "it can be found everywhere. He thinks 
 you should send them, and delay your return ; he suggests 
 your waiting until divine judgment shall fall by this means 
 on those wicked ones who, according to him, seek your 
 death. Were he wise, he would expect that judgment to 
 fall on himself, since he is sowing the worst poison cast 
 this long time into Holy Church by seeking to stay you 
 from following the call of God, and doing your -duty. 
 Do you know how that poison would be sowed ? If you 
 did not go, but sent as the good man counsels, scandal 
 and rebellion, spiritual and temporal, would be roused up, 
 men finding a lie in you who occupy the seat of truth. 
 For since you have decided to go and have announced it, 
 the scandal and bewilderment and trouble in men's hearts 
 would be too great if they found that it did not come to 
 pass. . . . Much I marvel," adds Catherine, who herself 
 courted martyrdom as a great privilege, " at the words of 
 this man, who praises an act as good and holy and 
 religious, and then would have it given up through bodily 
 fear. It is not the habit of God's servants ever to be 
 ready to renounce a spiritual act or work on account of 
 bodily or temporal harm ; had they done so, none of 
 them had ever reached the goal. ... I beg of you for 
 the sake of Christ crucified that you be not a timid child, 
 but virile." She ends with a plain hint that the letter was 
 forged to scare the Pope by those around him. As usual 
 there is no date to hers ; it was probably written in 
 Avignon, for though the allusion to Gregory's having 
 announced his intended departure may refer to his early 
 declaration that he meant to return to Rome, there is a
 
 148 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 request for an audience before she departs, and " the time 
 is short." It has a great interest, both from what it 
 reveals of the Pope's character, as read by Catherine, and 
 her own. The sarcasm is stinging ; she is almost out 
 of patience with him, as she was at times with her good 
 Raimondo. What does anything matter life or bodily 
 suffering or death itself compared with the welfare of the 
 Church and doing one's duty? She cannot understand 
 how Gregory can think twice about it, and her " Pardon, 
 Father, my over presumptuous speech " comes in as an 
 afterthought. Such a letter as this brings the real woman 
 very near us. Whether, had she not gone to Avignon, 
 Gregory would have ever left " la ville sonnante " may be 
 doubted, but the course of events was soon to take her 
 there. Florence had much to be forgiven. The whole- 
 sale confiscation of ecclesiastical property, the massacre of 
 several priests and monks, the death of a Carthusian 
 Prior who had exported corn during the famine, and who 
 was now murdered under exceptionally horrible circum- 
 stances, made up a tale of offences such as began to alarm 
 the perpetrators and horrify all who had consciences in 
 the city, so that obedience was rendered to the Pope's 
 stern command to send delegates to answer for what had 
 been done. Three were chosen, one of whom was the 
 patriot Barbardori, who held the office of Captain of the 
 People. His two companions were also men of note in 
 the Republic, Domenico di Silvestro and Alessandro dell' 
 Antella. 
 
 They came to Avignon at the end of March, 1376; 
 the Pope received them in full consistory, justly displeased 
 with Florence and awaiting their submissive excuses. 
 But, carried away by his recollection of the sufferings of 
 Tuscany, Barbardori broke into an enumeration of the 
 wrongs committed by the Legates, their pride, their 
 avarice, their enormous cruelty such as thrilled the
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 149 
 
 assembly, moving even those who only understood him 
 through an interpreter. The Pope himself was so much 
 impressed that he promised to consider and redress the 
 grievances brought before him, in which he was supported 
 by the few Cardinals of Italian birth, but the overwhelm- 
 ing influence of the French ones turned the scale, and 
 when the Ambassadors were recalled, and entered the 
 great hall full of hope and gratitude, to learn the Pope's 
 final decision, they were thunderstruck at hearing that an 
 interdict was to be laid on Florence. The sentence 
 carried with it the deprivation of all spiritual privileges, 
 and struck a deadly blow at the prosperity and the 
 commerce of the merchant city, and was the more cruel 
 that no reason had been given to expect it. 
 
 For a moment the three delegates stood aghast and 
 incredulous ; then Barbardori flung himself down before 
 the great crucifix at the end of the hall and exclaimed, 
 " Great God ! we delegates of the Florentines appeal to 
 Thee and to Thy justice from the unjust sentence of Thy 
 vicar. O Thou who canst never err, whose anger is ever 
 tempered with mercy, Thou whose will is that the peoples 
 of the earth shall be free and not slaves, Thou who dost 
 abhor tyrants, be to-day the help and shield of the people 
 of Florence who in Thy name will strive for their right 
 and liberties." * 
 
 Great confusion followed this passionate appeal to a 
 higher court than that of the Pope ; shouts of " pre- 
 sumptuous fellow! crazy rascal!" brokeout and the delegates 
 were pushed violently out of the hall, but Barbardori was 
 beyond feeling such poor insults, and, had he cared to 
 listen, he might have heard some there mutter that here 
 was a brave man, in whom a ray of antique virtue had 
 shone out. 
 
 At first the effect of the interdict on Florence was to 
 1 St Antoninus, Hist, of the Papacy.
 
 ISO SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 rouse immense indignation, and for a while the peace 
 party ceased to exist. Excommunication had lost much of 
 its terrors in Italy, and the Florentines did not at first 
 realise what the effect would be in other countries. But 
 too soon they learned what it meant to find themselves 
 banned and prescribed, unable to buy or sell in the great 
 fairs of Europe, their contracts annulled, their debtors 
 released from all liabilities. Commercial rivals and 
 enemies took instant advantage of the situation ; trade 
 fell dead, workshops were closed ; no vessels came up the 
 Arno ; poverty stalked ghastly through the city. Besides 
 this, the consciences of pious men and women were 
 grievously troubled at the cessation of religious rites, 
 the populace, hungry and workless, began to murmur and 
 threaten, and the Eight of War, alarmed by the rising tide 
 of discontent, suggested calling in Catherine of Siena to 
 mediate between Florence and the Pope. It was known 
 that she had already written to him on behalf of the city, 
 and he was said to have an extraordinary respect for her, 
 and on more than one occasion to have asked her adVice. 
 She had also written to Niccolo Soderini, a patriotic 
 citizen who had held the offices of Gonfaloniere della 
 Giustizia and Prior of the Arts in the merchant city 
 Arts stood for Trades and her letter had suggested 
 peace and reconciliation. Niccolo Soderini was sent to 
 Siena to beg her to come to Florence, and use her 
 influence with the Pope, and Catherine, though hardly 
 risen from a sick bed, at once consented, and went for the 
 second time to Florence. Hardly more than two years 
 before she had entered the city gates for the first time, 
 slandered, in disgrace with her sister Mantellate, summoned 
 to appear and disculpate herself if she could before a 
 Chapter of the Order. In a contemporary manuscript, 
 as we have seen, it is recorded that " there came 
 there in May 1374 when there was a Chapter of the
 
 STATUK IN WOOD OF ST. CATHERINE 
 
 BY NRKOCCIO l.ANUI
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 151 
 
 Friars Preachers, by command of the Master of the Order, 
 one with the habit of a pinzochera (sister) of St Dominic, 
 called Catherine of Jacopo of Siena." Now the 
 " pinzochera " was implored to come as mediator between 
 the city and Avignon, the one person whose voice might 
 prevail with an angered Pope ! 
 
 Her ready good offices for the formidable rival of her 
 own city is a fresh proof of her courage and large 
 generosity at a time when " country " meant to an Italian 
 merely his own native place, whose interests he was bound 
 to prefer to everything else. So far was this carried that 
 old commentators on the " Divina Commedia " explain 
 Dante's unflattering surprise at finding " Giudice Nin 
 gentil " l in no worse place than Purgatory by his having 
 known that the unpatriotic judge had ruled his province 
 in Sardinia for its own good rather than to the advantage 
 of his native city of Pisa. The good fortune of each 
 town was regarded as the calamity of its neighbour. 
 There was no thought at all of a united Italy in the 
 modern sense, any more than there was of what is now 
 called liberty, though it may have crossed a few elect 
 minds, already touched by the breath of the Renaissance, 
 such as Petrarch's, and possibly Catherine's. In the case 
 of Petrarch, absence, reverence for Italy's great past, 
 admiration for her buildings and her scenery taught him 
 to regard her as one whole. It is not his birthplace, 
 Arezzo, which he exalts in writing to his friend Francesco 
 Nelli, but his country. With Catherine Christian charity 
 broke down all barriers, and, like Rienzi, she longed for 
 " a brotherhood of cities," though an Italy under one 
 ruler was an inspiration unknown to her. The help 
 lately afforded by Florence had created a temporary friend- 
 ship between Sienese and Florentines, otherwise her fellow- 
 townsman might have put obstacles in the way of her 
 
 1 Purg. viii. 11. 52-54.
 
 152 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 good offices for a city which had always been a danger to 
 Siena. Even in the present day ill feeling has not quite 
 died out between the two towns ; Florence is slightly 
 contemptuous of Siena, and Siena flatters herself that the 
 defeat of Monteaperto still is grievous to her former rival. 
 Yet she went at once when called to help the Florentines, 
 and their historian Ammirato testifies that " although 
 there was no lack of those who spoke ill of and blamed 
 her, she truly was by the greater number of men and 
 women reputed a most acceptable and dear servant 
 of God." 
 
 A most difficult task lay before her. The multiplicity 
 of offices in the government of Florence, the short time 
 they were often held, the contrary interests of those who 
 filled them, the intertwined faction, the jealousies and 
 suspicions of high and low made a labyrinth where it was 
 hardly possible to find a clue. Soderini introduced her 
 to the Captains of the People, and she saw and spoke 
 with all the other leading men in the city, seeking to 
 understand the general feeling of the townsfolk and what 
 the real position of affairs was. There was now a party 
 of moderates, led by Soderini, who urged that she should 
 be sent to Avignon to plead with the Pope face to face, 
 but this plan was unwelcome to the Eight of War, to 
 whom peace meant not only loss of position and authority, 
 but the prospect of being called to account for their 
 stewardship. They had made too many enemies not to 
 fear the day of reckoning. They did not venture to 
 oppose the peace party openly, but that Catherine did not 
 feel sure of their support is shown by her words, quoted 
 by herself in a letter sent from Avignon. " See, signori, if 
 you truly mean to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff I will 
 flinch from no toil or trouble in bringing this matter to a 
 happy end, but on no other condition will I go." 
 
 She sent Raimondo to Avignon, to prepare her way,
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 153 
 
 and while waiting for his report, refreshed herself amid 
 the anxieties and toils which crowded on her by visiting 
 the Churches in Florence, spending much time in beautiful 
 Santa Maria Novella, not yet completed, but she would 
 see the frescoes painted in what is now called the Spanish 
 Chapel, probably by her fellow-townsman Simone Memmi, 
 with their scenes from the life of St Dominic, where black 
 and white dogs domini canes represent his monks, 
 and bite and hunt heretics in the form of wolves. And 
 opposite she would find a quaint version of the angels 
 proclaiming that which was her heart's desire, peace on 
 earth and goodwill to men, while the shepherds gaze 
 startled at the angelic choir overhead, one holding back 
 his dog which leaps furiously upward, barking at the 
 angels, and overhead on a hilltop are sheep and lambs, 
 and an angel bends downward and stretches out his 
 hand to stroke them. She went to other places too, 
 in the surrounding country, where her name is still held 
 in honour ; in Val d 1 Elsa a chapel was built over a 
 fountain at which she drank ; in Pontorno lives a tradition 
 that she came there just when the bell for the church was 
 being founded, and cast her ring into the molten metal, 
 in memory of which the bell received her name. 1 
 
 She was conscious of the difficulties in her way as 
 to reconciling the Pope at Florence, but full of hope, 
 earnestly repeating what she had already enforced by 
 letters to Soderini and others, that the duty of the 
 Florentines was to humble themselves before the justly 
 offended Pope, " but worse things came upon them than 
 ever their forefathers had known," while on the other 
 hand she wrote to Gregory, sending her letter by Neri 
 di Landoccio, whose rank and accomplishments would 
 claim consideration at the Papal Court, putting before 
 Gregory the wrongs of Florence and the intolerable 
 
 1 Gigli.
 
 154 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 tyranny of his Legates. Raimondo da Capua was already 
 negotiating there. But again Gregory would and would 
 not, according to the influence which chanced to be 
 uppermost. While ready to treat with the Florentines 
 and constantly asking Catherine's advice, he was making 
 preparations for a war in Italy which was to disgrace his 
 pontificate as one of the most savage of that bloodstained 
 century. The commander-in-chief was not even a lay- 
 man, but one of the Sacred College, Cardinal Robert of 
 Geneva, a daring soldier, one day to be anti-pope. He 
 led a horde of mercenaries, Bretons, Germans, English, 
 French, who laid Romagna waste, and shocked profoundly 
 an age not easily moved by crime or cruelty, by the sack 
 of Cesena. When the cry of that miserable city went up 
 to heaven, did Gregory XI. recollect his own solemn letter 
 to the Black Prince, representing to him the horrors of 
 war? When in 1377 this "enormous crime," as the 
 Archbishop of Prague most justly called it, was committed, 
 Florence took instant advantage of it, appealing to all 
 Italy and the rulers of Christendom against it, and not 
 one voice was heard to excuse it ; for the moment it 
 greatly strengthened the League, and rendered all efforts 
 to obtain peace vain. This iniquity had not yet taken 
 place when Catherine was at Florence, or she might never 
 have been sent to Avignon, so great was the indignation 
 against Gregory. As it was, she felt the discouragement 
 of the conflicting parties in the city and the want of 
 result of her letters to the Pope, in which she vainly 
 urged pity for his flock, his little sheep, worth so much 
 more to the Church than gold or lands. He was by no 
 means a cruel man, but a weak one, and a weak man 
 irritated and frightened is capable of any cruelty. He 
 asked her advice, but he listened only to the voices of 
 his fears and of his French Cardinals. Fearing that 
 letters were of little use, Catherine prepared to go herself
 
 CATHERINE IN AVIGNON 155 
 
 to Avignon, as the moderate party in Florence had 
 wished, and she wrote once more to Gregory, announcing 
 her arrival as Ambassadress of the Florentines and to 
 speak in the name of all Italy which implored him "to 
 linger no longer in Babylon " ; it was high time to go to 
 Rome. It was indeed. There were seditious cries there 
 that if the Pope did not return speedily, Rome would 
 elect another, and an anti-pope was not a thing unknown. 
 When Louis of Bavaria came to Italy, Rome warned John 
 XXII. that if he did not come back, they would receive 
 the Emperor, and Sciarra Colonna, whose name alone was 
 a threat to Popes, was elected Captain of the People. 
 The Roman populace demanded a Roman Pope, and 
 with no more consecration than the consent of Louis, 
 Pietro di Corvara was proclaimed Pontiff and created 
 Cardinal. But the tide ebbed ; Louis quitted Rome, 
 Sciarra Colonna did the same ; Nicholas V. as the 
 schismatic Pope was called, fled to a castle in Pisan 
 territory, and thence was taken to Avignon, and led into 
 the hall where the Consistory sat, with a halter round his 
 neck. On the whole he was generously treated. Pope 
 John spared his life, and he was kept in a not severe 
 imprisonment, with books to pass the time, and so dis- 
 appeared from the world. 
 
 But the fact that there had been anti-popes who 
 was received by Rome and many ecclesiastics, together 
 with the discovery that numbers of the country priests had 
 encouraged their flocks to drive out the Legates, alarmed 
 Gregory seriously, and his advisers assured him that 
 concessions spelled weakness, and advised severe measures. 
 He still listened now to Catherine's counsels and his 
 Italian Cardinals, now to his French ones, uncertain of 
 his own judgment, anxious to do right, afraid to do 
 wrong whichever way he turned. He was one of those 
 gentle, over conscientious, disastrous rulers who so
 
 156 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 often appear at critical times, and ruin themselves and 
 others with every desire to act justly and wisely, drifting 
 hither and thither, and always led by stronger and less 
 scrupulous spirits, and Catherine's lot was to be among 
 such as 
 
 " Fought in vain 
 For those who knew not to resign or reign."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 
 
 IT is unfortunate that neither Raimondo nor any of 
 Catherine's followers give details of her journey to 
 Avignon. That it was slow and dangerous is 
 certain ; she travelled through country disturbed by war 
 and where at any moment the Free-lances might appear ; 
 very few of her company were capable of bearing arms, 
 and among them were helpless women, chosen from 
 among the Mantellate, to share her perils and have the 
 coveted honour of seeing the Pope and receiving his 
 benediction, a privilege for almost seventy years almost 
 unknown to Italians, besides which, although they must 
 have been rather a hindrance on the way, she thus had 
 witnesses to testify all that she did to any of the sisters 
 left behind who might murmur or criticise. 
 
 Whether Florence provided funds for the journey is not 
 known, but difficulties and fatigue were minimised as far as 
 possible by the Buonconti, Catherine's kind hosts when at 
 Pisa, who accompanied her and made arrangements for rest 
 and travelling. One of the very few notices that throw 
 any light on the arrangement is a chance mention that 
 at meals the men of the party were served first, eating 
 alone, and then the women. 
 
 They left Florence in May 1376, a party of about 
 twenty, among whom, to his great joy, was Stefano 
 Maconi. While still in Siena she had told him that 
 his dearest wish would be accomplished, to which he
 
 158 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 answered, " My dearest Mother, I have no greater wish 
 than that of always remaining near you." " It shall be 
 fulfilled," was her smiling reply. Stefano could not but 
 think of all the obstacles in the way sex, rank, his 
 parents' plans for him, and said nothing, but when chosen 
 to accompany her to Avignon he left with joy, as he says 
 in a letter preserved in the Library of the Grande 
 Chartreuse as long as there were monks and a library 
 there father, mother, brothers and sisters, so happy was 
 he to serve her. He acted as one of her most trusted 
 secretaries, and was loved by her " with the tenderness 
 of a mother, and far more than he deserved," as he tells 
 the friend in Venice to whom the letter is addressed, and 
 " consequently several of her disciples conceived a strong 
 feeling of jealousy." 
 
 Besides Maconi there were Neri dei Pagliaresi in her 
 company, and Don Giovanni Tantucci, and Neri 
 Landoccio. Her journey was overland, since it is stated 
 in the Bull of her canonisation by Pius II. that "to 
 reconcile the Florentines and the Church she did not 
 hesitate to cross the Apennines and the Alps in order to 
 reach Gregory." Her route was the same as Dante's ; 
 she too followed the Roman road along the Cornice, now 
 coming down to the shore, now climbing high aloft ; she 
 too descended the steep cliffs of Noli and passed under 
 the ruined Turbia and passed through the Esterels, and 
 we may be certain that one so sensitive to the beauty of 
 nature was charmed by that beautiful scenery. St 
 Bernard might travel for a long day beside the Lake of 
 Geneva, lost in meditation, and at the end of his 
 journey say, " A lake ? Where was it ? " but Catherine 
 was made in a different mould. Stefano Maconi records 
 her delight in the mountain flowers, and how she called 
 the attention of her companions to them, and we know 
 how the sight of the sea impressed her. But she could
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 159 
 
 not linger ; she longed to reach Avignon and plead that 
 Gregory would pardon Florence and return to Rome ; 
 besides which the thought of finding herself in the 
 presence of the Pope was a spur that drove her on, ill 
 and weak though she was. On the i8th of June 1376, 
 she reached Avignon. 
 
 Petrarch had found no words bad enough for " la ville 
 sonnante," as it was called from the ever-ringing bells of 
 its Churches. To him it was " avaricious Babylon, the 
 most smelly of cities, horribly windy, ill-built, incon- 
 venient, the inferno of the living, a sink of vice, the oppro- 
 brium of man," and finally, " the stink of the universe." 
 Nevertheless, he spent a good deal of time there, and his 
 rhetoric must be taken with several grains of salt. 
 
 Other writers give a different aspect of the little city 
 by the Rhone, with its palace piled up on the rock over- 
 head, a wicked little city which had become more 
 luxurious than any town in Christendom since it could 
 boast of being the seat of the Papacy. " In the streets, 
 where all kinds of goods are displayed," says Calisse, 
 " sheltered from the sun by awnings extended high above 
 them, moves a restless and singular crowd, such as could 
 hardly be found elsewhere. Here are splendid cavalcades 
 of ladies, knights and cardinals, all purple, silk and 
 glittering armour, hawk on fist, pages and jugglers around 
 them. Troops of light-hearted students, bands of pilgrims 
 with gourd and staff, friars of all kinds and colours, 
 doctors in their robes, theologising as they go> clerics 
 come from every part to ask for dispensations and pre- 
 bends, astrologers, poets, insolent mercenaries, Italians 
 and French, now brawling, oftener revelling together, 
 without a thought of the morrow, and over all, most 
 threatening of strongholds, is the seat of the Vicar of 
 Christ" 
 
 Catherine had seen three of the chief cities of Italy,
 
 160 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Siena on her three hills, Pisa and her mart, " Queen of 
 the Western waves," Florence with her " architecture of 
 civil war," but nothing which she could have beheld 
 could have prepared her for such a scene as Avignon 
 presented. With her lively interest in her fellow-creatures 
 she must have been greatly struck by it, although all 
 would have seemed unimportant compared to the palace 
 overhead where she would find Gregory. 
 
 Raimondo met her and translated to her a Latin letter 
 from the Pope, who had ordered a livree to be prepared 
 for her. This was the name given to the palaces of 
 Cardinals in Avignon ; that destined for Catherine and 
 her companions had belonged to one who according to 
 some accounts was dead, to others, absent at that time. 
 It was built in the shape of a great tower, and in a later 
 century passed into the hands of the Jesuits. 
 
 In its beautiful chapel Catherine was kneeling the next 
 morning when the Pope sent one of his dignitaries to 
 greet her and ask for her prayers. This was Thomas 
 Petra, the papal pronotary, who became one of her 
 warmest adherents, and was in Rome at the time of her 
 death. Although the hot weather had hardly begun, 
 Gregory had already retired to the country palace where 
 the Popes were accustomed to spend the summer months, 
 and two days elapsed before he returned to Avignon and 
 received her. She spent these in visiting the hospital 
 founded by the nuns of Sta Prassede, detached from their 
 convent, which was outside the town, and then the 
 Dominican friars, in whose monastery their founder had 
 blessed a well for the use of the community when there 
 during the too memorable year when he presided there 
 over a council which decided on war against the Albigenses. 
 In this monastery sat the Inquisition, out of reach of the 
 French Parlements, which steadily opposed its intro- 
 duction into Gallic territory. Nothing remains of the fine
 
 ST. CATHERINE 
 
 BY SODOMA
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 161 
 
 buildings, which were all destroyed in the Revolution. 
 Everything connected with St Dominic had a strong 
 interest for Catherine, and tradition tells that on her way 
 to Avignon she paused at Bologna, visiting the Dominican 
 convent there, and that she stood looking long at the 
 cemetery enclosed by cloisters where he is buried. " How 
 sweet it is to sleep there ! " she is reported to have said. 
 Had not a book ascribed to Don Giovanni delle Celle, 
 relating to Catherine, been lost, we might have had more 
 details of this memorable journey. In the monastery at 
 Avignon she asked and obtained the friars' advice as to 
 what was her wisest course amid the pitfalls of the Papal 
 Court, but they declared that they gained more wisdom 
 from her than they could give. "It is always so when 
 one comes to our Mother," said her followers triumphantly. 
 On June 28th, with Raimondo to interpret her sweet 
 Sienese dialect, she climbed the windy rock where the huge 
 pile of the papal residence stood, and entered the hall 
 adorned with frescoes by great Tuscan painters, all un- 
 happily now destroyed. Had she not been strong in the 
 belief of a heaven-given mission, she might well have 
 trembled at the ordeal of appearing in that same hall where 
 the delegates of Florence had fared so ill, where Barbardori 
 had appealed from the injustice of a Pope to the judgment 
 of God, and where now sat the same magnificent court, full 
 of unfriendly faces, all the questioning eyes turned silently 
 on the young ambassadress in the mantle so often 
 patched by her own hands. 1 Seated in the centre of the 
 semicircle the Pope almost alone looked encouragingly at 
 her, and listened with marked interest as her Tuscan was 
 interpreted by Raimondo into Latin for his benefit, for 
 though he had studied for a short time in Perugia, all 
 lectures were given in Latin, and, like a true Frenchman, 
 
 1 Some of Catherine's biographers assert her to hare first seen the Pope 
 privately, but this is doubtful. 
 
 L
 
 1 62 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 he had never cared to acquire any modern language not 
 his own. 
 
 Strongly moved by her pleading for Florence, he answered 
 in words which startled his court, and, in spite of the 
 warning of Barbardori's bitter delusion, filled her with hope 
 of peace and clemency, " That thou mayst clearly see, O 
 woman, that my desire is for peace and concord, let all the 
 matter remain in thy hands ; only I recommend to thee the 
 honour and welfare of Holy Church." He then left the 
 hall, as did Catherine, while the French Cardinals drew to- 
 gether to discuss this unwelcome turn of affairs, and the 
 measures to be taken with regard to this Mantellata, who 
 already had so strongly influenced the Pope, and who would 
 assuredly use all her power to induce him to return to Italy. 
 For a happy moment Catherine could believe that one 
 of the great objects of her journey was secured, and it is 
 pathetic to read the joyful words which she wrote to one 
 of her disciples in Siena, all unaware that she was building 
 on sand. " By the grace of our sweet Saviour we came 
 to Vignone twenty-six days ago, and I have spoken with 
 the Holy Father, and certain Cardinals and secular lords, 
 and the grace of our gentle Saviour has been greatly shown 
 in the matters for which we came here." 
 
 But the tragic fate of great plans begun in hope and 
 ending in failure which marks the whole history of Siena 
 followed Siena's daughter now and always. She had soon 
 to write in a very different strain to Florence, whence no 
 ambassadors came to ratify the peace to which Gregory 
 had consented. On the contrary, new causes of offence 
 arose, and a report was spread, apparently by those who 
 wished ill at Avignon to peace in Italy, that a heavy tax 
 had been laid upon the clergy. Even Catherine believed 
 it at the time, and she found herself in a most painful 
 position, ignored by the Otto della Guerra, and sneered 
 at by the Papal Court, who questioned if she had really
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 163 
 
 been accredited to the Pope, or had come on false pretences. 
 The gay ladies who formed a too prominent part of that 
 court were at first disdainful of her, then jealous and alarmed 
 by her influence with the Pope, who showed his esteem for 
 her unmistakably. His leaving Avignon would destroy 
 the brilliant circle where they shone. They set themselves 
 to win her. Religion became the fashion ; they learned 
 at what hours she went to pray in the chapel attached 
 to the palace where she was living, and they appeared 
 there too, kneeling and apparently absorbed in prayer. 
 Raimondo was accustomed to being asked to allow 
 Catherine to be seen when rapt in ecstasy ; often in Siena 
 had such requests been made, and they neither surprised 
 nor shocked him ; he saw nothing incongruous in them, 
 and much edified by these tokens of grace in the lively 
 ladies of Avignon, and, as he ingenuously owned, a little 
 impressed by their beauty and fine dresses, he called 
 Catherine to account for showing them something like 
 discourtesy. She turned on him with burning words, 
 telling him that these lovely ladies were mere hypocrites, 
 vile of life, full of the odour of sin. He must have 
 changed his opinion of them when the Pope's own niece, 
 Madame de Beaufort Turenne, played a cruel trick on 
 Catherine, as it seems with the hope of proving that her 
 unconsciousness of all earthly things while praying was 
 but feigned. Kneeling close beside her, she ran a slender 
 dagger deep into her foot. Catherine felt nothing at the 
 moment, but when she arose, she could hardly limp out 
 of church. 1 
 
 The attempt already made by learned men in Siena 
 and Pisa to put her to confusion was repeated at 
 Avignon with the same result. A full account is given 
 in a letter of Maconi's to a friend who was a monk in 
 Venice. Three eminent ecclesiastics came to Gregory, 
 
 1 Maconi.
 
 164 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 and asked, " Most blessed Father, is this Catherine of 
 Siena as holy as they say ? " " We truly believe that she 
 is a holy virgin," answered the Pope. " And they : ' If it 
 please your Holiness, we will visit her.' Answered the 
 Pope, ' We believe that you will be edified thereby.' 
 Then came they to our house directly after nones in 
 summer time, knocking at the door, and I ran toward 
 them, who said, ' Tell Catherine that we would speak with 
 her.' Hearing this the holy virgin came down, together 
 with Maestro Giovanni, her confessor" this is the only 
 time that Prior Giovanni is so named ; he must have had 
 this office because Raimondo had been absent " and 
 some other religious, and in a convenient place they made 
 her sit in the midst. Their exordium began with a great 
 pride, seeking to irritate her with biting words, and 
 among other things they said, ' We are come from the 
 Holy Father, our lord, and desire to know if Florence 
 have sent thee, as is publicly said, and if it be true, have 
 they no worthy man whom for so great a business they 
 could send to such a lord ? And if they have not sent 
 thee, we marvel greatly that thou, being of mere base 
 womankind, shouldst presume to speak of such high 
 things with the Pope our lord.' But Catherine, like an 
 immovable column, ever gave such humble yet most 
 effective replies that they remained exceedingly astonished. 
 And having fully satisfied themselves on this matter they 
 put to her many questions, especially upon her abstrac- 
 tions and very strange way of life, and since the Apostle 
 saith that Satan can transform himself into an angel of 
 light, by what sign she knew that she was not deluded 
 by the demon, and many other things they said, and 
 indeed the discussion lasted until nightfall. Sometimes 
 Maestro Giovanni wanted to answer for her, but although 
 he was Master in theology, those others were so strong 
 that in a few words they confounded him, and said, ' You
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 165 
 
 ought to blush to say such things in our presence ; let 
 her speak for herself; she satisfies us better than you.' 
 Among the three was an Archbishop of the Minorites, 
 who showed a pharisaic countenance, and at times 
 seemed not to approve Catherine's words, and at last the 
 two turned on him, saying, ' What more do you seek 
 from this virgin ? Without doubt she has declared and 
 fully these matters more than we have found in any 
 Doctor, and many other signs, and those most true has 
 she shown us,' and thus there was schism among them. 
 At last they departed, edified and comforted, and told the 
 Pope that they had never known a soul so humble and so 
 illuminated. But when he heard how they had proved 
 Catherine, he was displeased, and excused himself to her, 
 adding, ' If ever they come again, have the door shut in 
 their faces.' The following day our Maestro Francesco da 
 Siena, then the Pope's physician, said to me, ' Dost know 
 those Prelates who went yesterday to thy house ? ' to which 
 I said no. He then : ' Learn that if the knowledge of 
 those men were put into one scale, and in the other the 
 knowledge of all the Roman Curia, that of those three 
 would weigh far heavier, and I can tell thee that if they 
 had not seen this virgin to be firmly founded, she would 
 never have taken a journey worse for her.' " 
 
 Such examinations in theology were indeed a dangerous 
 matter, for a chance word or inexact statement would have 
 given opportunity for the terrible accusation of heresy. 
 Enemies had already suggested that Catherine held the 
 doctrines of the Fraticelli, whose teaching was that priests 
 should own no gold or silver or worldly goods, a view 
 which brought them into extreme ill odour among the 
 higher clergy, and when Don Giovanni was fain to reply in 
 Catherine's place, he may have feared lest she should com- 
 mit herself. It is noteworthy that while she showed some 
 just displeasure at the snares laid in like manner for her
 
 166 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 at Siena and Pisa, she answered the self-styled papal 
 messengers with perfect mildness and patience, supposing 
 them to have come by Gregory's desire. She had so over- 
 come a naturally very eager and impetuous temper that 
 Maconi goes so far as to say he never knew her speak with 
 irritation. Yet she was rarely out of pain, often worn out, 
 and always with countless anxieties and difficult questions 
 to claim her attention. The very love poured out on her 
 was at times exacting and a burden, and she was thwarted, 
 misunderstood ; her longing was for solitude and medita- 
 tion, but she was called to live one of incessant occupation 
 among people often quite uncongenial. And yet Stefano 
 Maconi, who saw more of her than anyone except 
 Raimondo and Alessia dei Saraceni, never saw her out 
 of temper ! 
 
 Just at this time her private troubles were pressing on 
 her. Whenever she was away from Siena the magistrates 
 were dissatisfied, and jealousies sprang up among her 
 followers ; there were querulous complaints that she 
 cared more for strangers than for them. Matters went 
 wrong for want of her advice and superintendence ; 
 families, members of whom had left home to follow her, 
 wrote recalling them ; Stefano Maconi's mother could not 
 reconcile herself to his long absence ; Monna Lapa, now 
 an aged woman nearly eighty years of age, was another 
 difficulty ; she could not put up with Catherine's leaving 
 her and heard all the gossip in Siena about her wander- 
 ing from her cell ; Catherine had to write again and again 
 reminding her that she had not hesitated to let her sons 
 leave her to earn money, and surely ought not to grudge 
 her daughter to far more important work. To Monna 
 Giovanna di Corrado Maconi she also wrote, trying to soothe 
 her impatience at the delay in her son's return, and pointing 
 out that he was leading a better and higher life than he 
 could possibly do among the gay young nobles of Siena.
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 167 
 
 Monna Giovanna's impatience reached a climax at last, 
 during a long unexpected delay at Genoa, and Catherine 
 wrote, " Comfort yourself gently and be patient, and not 
 troubled because I have kept Stefano so long, for I have 
 taken good care of him ; through love and tenderness I have 
 grown one with him, and so have treated what is yours 
 as if it were my own. I think you have not taken this 
 in bad part. I wish to do whatever I can for him and 
 you, even unto death. You, his mother, bore him once, 
 and I desire to bear him and you and all your family in 
 tears and sweats by continual prayer and longing for 
 your salvation." 
 
 Whether the mother was satisfied we do not know, but 
 it may be conjectured that she was, as Stefano was 
 allowed to go to Florence as a deputy from Catherine 
 not long after his return from Avignon. 
 
 All minor troubles were swallowed up by the great 
 and increasing anxiety with regard to Florence which 
 had replaced Catherine's first glad hopes. Ten days after 
 her arrival in Avignon she found herself obliged to write 
 severely to the Eight of War, warning them to act 
 straightforwardly. " I complain greatly of you if what 
 they say here be true, namely, that you have taxed the 
 clergy. If this be so you have done a twofold wrong, 
 first because you are offending God, for you cannot do 
 it with a good conscience. But it seems to me that 
 you are losing your conscience and everything good ; it 
 appears as if you only cared for the passing things of 
 the senses, which go by like the wind. ... I tell you, 
 such doings are ruin to your peace, for if the Holy Father 
 knew it, he would feel yet greater indignation against you, 
 and this is what some of the Cardinals, who seek and 
 desire peace, are saying. Now, hearing this report, they 
 say, ' It does not seem as if they really wanted peace, for 
 then they would avoid every least act against the Holy
 
 1 68 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Father and the usages of Holy Church.' I believe that 
 the sweet Christ on earth may say these or like words, 
 and he has very good reason to do it. ... You might 
 bring shame and confusion upon me," she adds, as a very 
 gentle reminder of the painful position in which she found 
 herself, " for nothing but shame and confusion could come 
 of it if I told the Holy Father one thing, and you said 
 another. I beg that it may be so no longer. Rather, seek 
 by word and deed to show that you want peace, not war. 
 I have spoken with the Holy Father, and by God's 
 goodness and his own he heard me graciously showing 
 that he had a love for peace. When I had talked with 
 him for a good long time he ended by saying that if 
 things were as I set before him, he was ready to receive 
 you as sons, and do what seemed most pleasing to me. I 
 say no more here. It seems decidedly that no other rule 
 can be given till the ambassadors come. I marvel that 
 they are not already here. When they arrive I will see 
 them and then the Holy Father, and as I find things, so 
 will I write to you. But you with your taxes and 
 novelties spoil all that is sown. Do so no more, for 
 the love of Christ crucified and for your own advantage." 
 The ambassadors came at last, but from the brief 
 tenure of office in Florence a new set of men were now 
 in power, and the Eight of War had been able to choose 
 delegates averse to peace, and who perfectly understood 
 that their business was to make it appear to the Florentines 
 that through Catherine's ill management the Pope refused 
 to negotiate with them. Such treachery could not cross 
 her mind, and she was unable to understand the meaning 
 of their conduct, but the Pope, shrewd and versed in the 
 ways of men, perhaps too kept aware of the secret policy 
 of the Eight by adherents in Florence, warned her what 
 to expect. " They are deceiving you, Catherine," he said. 
 The truth of this was forced upon her by the studied and
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 169 
 
 insolent neglect of the three ambassadors, who, far from 
 consulting, actually disowned her. It cost her bitter 
 tears, and, writing to Buoncorso di Lapo, one of the 
 " Grandi " of Florence, she says, " Alas, alas ! dearest 
 brother, I grieve much over the fashion in which peace 
 has been asked for from the Holy Father. Words have 
 been more to the fore than deeds. This I say because 
 when I went to you and your Signori, they spoke as if 
 they wished to humble themselves, asking mercy from the 
 Holy Father, and I said to them, ' Then, Signori, if you 
 really mean to show all humility in word and deed, I will 
 labour all you can desire, otherwise I do not go,' and 
 they answered that they were well pleased. Alas, alas ! 
 most dear brother, that was the way and the door by 
 which you should have entered, and there was no other. 
 Had you followed that way in deeds as in words, you 
 would have found it the most glorious that ever man had. 
 And this I say not without warrant, for I know what 
 the mind of the Holy Father was, but since we began to 
 leave that way, following the subtle fashions of the world, 
 doing otherwise than words had implied, matter not for 
 peace but for more disturbance has been given to the 
 Holy Father. For your ambassadors coming here have 
 not behaved in a manner to make them held servants of 
 God. You have behaved after your own manner. And 
 never have I been able to confer with them as you told 
 me to do when I asked for the letter of credentials." 
 
 As if to show that he in no way held Catherine re- 
 sponsible for the conduct of the Florentines, Gregory 
 treated her with constant favour. By his order she spoke 
 several times to the Cardinals and great ecclesiastics in 
 the hall of the Consistory, where their unaccustomed ears 
 heard startling truths. Why, she asked on one occasion, 
 standing before them, a slender figure in the black mantle 
 and white serge dress of the Mantellate, did she find only the
 
 i/o SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 worst vices in a court where all virtues should dwell ! She 
 stood silent, waiting for a reply. The Pope, uneasy at 
 the anger which he saw around him, interposed by 
 asking what she, only lately come, could know of the 
 matter. Catherine stood erect, with an air of authority 
 which astonished every one, and lifting one hand to 
 heaven, said, " I will dare to say that I was more aware 
 when I lived in my own city of the infection of the sins 
 committed in the Court of Rome every day than are they 
 who commit them." The Pope had no reply to make, 
 and Raimondo, although well used to her fearless speeches, 
 listened with astonishment at her boldness not unmixed 
 with alarm. " I shall never forget the dignity with which 
 she did not fear to speak to so great a Prelate," he 
 writes. 
 
 It needed no superhuman powers to perceive the sins 
 and follies of the Court at Avignon, with its luxurious 
 prelates and its gay ladies whose names fall on the ear 
 like music Miramonde and Elys and Enemonde Briande 
 and Estephanette and all the rest, but Catherine could 
 read hearts in a way that almost made those about her 
 fear her powers. " Truly, dearest mother," said Stefano 
 Maconi, between jest and earnest, " it is as dangerous to be 
 with you as to cross the sea, for you see all that is in us," 
 and Raimondo testifies, " She often told us the thoughts 
 of our hearts as fully as if they were hers, not ours ; I know 
 it by myself, for she often blamed me for certain thoughts 
 of mine which indeed I had, and I I will not blush to 
 own this, since it is for her fame I would seek falsely to 
 excuse myself, and she would reply, ' Why deny what I 
 see plainly? more so than yourself/ " It might not need 
 much discernment to guess the thoughts of one so honest 
 and simple, but Fra Bartolomeo goes a step further. 
 Astounded by her knowledge of what he and another friar 
 had spoken deep in the night, he exclaimed, " O mother,
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 171 
 
 how do you know this ? " She answered, " Know that 
 since our sweet Saviour was pleased to give me sons and 
 daughters, nothing which concerns you is hidden from 
 me ; I watch and pray for you/and if you had good eyes, 
 you would see that I am with you and behold all you 
 do." Catherine here claimed a power which undoubtedly 
 exists in certain cases, and which is acknowledged, in our 
 own day in many who are not saints, but which science 
 has yet to explain. 
 
 Baffled in her efforts to make peace between Gregory 
 and Florence, obliged to put aside her hopes of a Crusade, 
 Catherine set herself strenuously to induce the Pope to 
 return to Rome. Not only was Rome his proper place, 
 but if the luxurious and vicious Court of Avignon were 
 broken up, a step of great importance would be taken 
 towards the reformation of ecclesiastical morals. Urban V. 
 had thought the same, and given it as one of his reasons 
 for leaving Provence. Besides this, every Pope must have 
 felt that not in a palace on a rock amid a small Provencal 
 town, but where the blood of martyrs had consecrated the 
 soil and where were glorious associations such as only Rome 
 could boast was the rightful seat of the Papacy. As 
 early as 1375 Gregory had sent letters to different Princes, 
 declaring his firm intention of going back there, but he 
 had done no more. The sense of an obvious duty unful- 
 filled troubled him ; the adjurations of Petrarch and of 
 Brigetta of Sweden rang in his ears ; his Legates assured 
 him that unless he arrived quickly, the Popes might lose 
 both their spiritual and temporal hold on Italy ; Catherine 
 of Siena told him the same. He answered that he was 
 fully purposed to return, but he had neither energy nor 
 courage to break through the obstacles raised up all 
 round him by those whose interests it was to keep him in 
 Avignon. " All the Cardinals of this tongue " (French) 
 " are opposed to his going, and so are his father and
 
 i;2 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 brothers, and I hear that the Duke of Anjou is coming to 
 hinder it if he can," Cristofero di Piacenza wrote from 
 Avignon that July of 1376, and Gregory XI. did not 
 share the view of Benedict XII., who said that a Pope 
 should be like Melchisedek, and have neither father or 
 mother nor genealogy. 
 
 Cristofero di Piacenza had been correctly informed ; 
 the Duke of Anjou was really coming to Avignon, charged 
 by his brother, Charles V., to dissuade the Pope from 
 leaving Provence, and to counteract the influence of the 
 " pinzochera," who had gained so great an ascendancy 
 over him. He arrived prepared to look on her as an 
 enemy ; he became her friend. At his request she went 
 to visit his wife, who disliked the court at Avignon and 
 its fair, frail ladies, and was staying at the border fortress 
 of Villeneuve, which belonged to the Duke. The town 
 beneath it can now only be reached by a wooden bridge, 
 for of the stone one, built in 1188, only a few arches 
 remain. Strong as it was, it could not resist the tremen- 
 dous current of the "arrowy Rhone," and in 1669 the 
 greater part fell. But Catherine crossed it in 1376, and 
 no doubt was told the legend of its shepherd builder, 
 St Benezet, whose body was placed in a little chapel on 
 the bridge, which is there still, but his remains were carried 
 to St Didier in Avignon, where they have remained ever 
 since, undisturbed even in the Revolution which swept 
 away so much that was ancient and interesting in the city 
 of the Popes. 
 
 The Duke of Anjou was not a particularly estimable 
 man, but he had a good wife, and Catherine spent three 
 days in his castle, during which she had much conversa- 
 tion with the Duke, and inspired him with a strong desire 
 to head the Crusade, and her hopes rose again. Now 
 she could tell Gregory that the leader had been found 
 without whom he had declared nothing could be done.
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 173 
 
 He replied by objecting that until peace was made 
 among Christian nations, it was useless to plan Crusades. 
 Catherine was not of this opinion. Where he saw diffi- 
 culties, she saw hopes. To proclaim a holy war would 
 draw those now engaged in fighting for themselves into a 
 nobler warfare, and occupy the mercenaries. "If these 
 gained victories," she argued, " the Pope could deal with 
 the Christian princes ; if vanquished, he would have at 
 least saved their souls, besides which, many Saracens 
 might be converted : " Catherine was of an optimistic 
 nature. 
 
 Either from genuine admiration, or mindful of his 
 mission to detach the Pope from Catherine, Anjou urged 
 her to go to Paris and negotiate a treaty of peace with 
 England. It seemed however improbable that since the 
 Pope's effort to mediate had been received with almost 
 insulting indifference by England, hers would be suc- 
 cessful, and she refused, but wrote the long letter to 
 Charles V. already alluded to. His people flatteringly 
 called him the Wise, a name which she gracefully alludes 
 to when she writes, " Therefore I beseech you, as wise, act 
 as a good steward, holding your] possessions as things 
 lent." She pleads for peace at any price, and war 
 with only infidels, and tells him that her brother " missere 
 il duca d'Angio " is, she thinks, desirous to take the cross. 
 From the heading in a codex, the letter appears to have 
 been written by the desire of the Duke. 1 What Charles V. 
 thought of her letter does not appear, but he did not 
 make peace, nor did Anjou head a crusade ; instead he 
 died ingloriously in Apulia, a supporter of the anti-pope 
 and of Giovanna of Naples, and thus another great hope 
 of Catherine's proved but delusion. 
 
 The question whether to go or stay tortured Gregory. 
 His family and his Cardinals put before him the un- 
 
 1 Tommaseo, Letter 235
 
 174 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 healthiness of Rome, and the dangerous state of the 
 country, the greater distance from France, Germany and 
 England, the long time which it would take for messengers 
 and despatches to pass between him and the Courts of 
 Christendom if he went to Rome ; the need of hastening 
 negotiations for peace between Charles V. and the English 
 Government. The Black Prince had died, his son was a 
 young boy. Now was the time for a durable peace. 
 And Gregory was attached to England, as he did 
 not fear to show, and Englishmen were always wel- 
 come at Avignon. Frenchman though he was, he always 
 dealt fairly towards England, though he held that he had 
 reason to complain of her. The Papal Treasury was 
 uncomfortably empty ; the war with Bernardo Visconti 
 ruinous. Gregory asked for subsidies from all the faithful, 
 but in his letter to the Archbishop and Bishops in Eng- 
 land, he complains that all countries have responded 
 to his appeal, theirs excepted. He also begs King 
 Edward III. not to hinder money being collected for him, 
 a request which met with a tacit refusal, since the King's 
 justiciaries and also the Bishop of Lincoln were summoned 
 to Avignon for having impeded the collection. Another 
 letter written to Edward three years later in 1375, 
 speaks of his feeling it his bounden duty to visit Rome 
 speedily. The time was come when this decision must 
 be carried out, if he were to continue to rule in Italy. 
 He longed for some sign which might guide him, and 
 sent a message, bidding Catherine put up special prayers 
 for him. The supplication uttered by her in ecstasy was 
 heard and written down by his Pronotary, Petra, and is 
 found among others which have been preserved. One of 
 the Buonconti was also present, and relates that after 
 making a second prayer she remained rigid and uncon- 
 scious, with her arms crossed on her breast for about an 
 hour, without visibly breathing. Alarmed at the length
 
 THE SWOON Of ST. CATHERINE 
 
 BV SODOM A
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 175 
 
 of her trance, those about her sprinkled her with holy 
 water, and she came slowly back to life, murmuring, 
 " Praise be to God, now and for ever." 
 
 This state has been regarded by some who have 
 written of Catherine as merely hysterical, but it differed 
 from such an experience in being a time of vivid spiritual 
 illumination, of which a distinct memory remained, though 
 little could be put into words. It also differed in that 
 though weak and feeble before it occurred, she con- 
 stantly felt refreshed and full of energy after it ceased. 
 Other mystics of various communions knew and know 
 conditions of the same kind. It is this state that St 
 Teresa calls " the orison of union," when " the soul is 
 fully awake as regards God, but wholly asleep as regards 
 things of this world, and with regard to herself . . . she 
 is absolutely dead to the things of this world, and lives 
 only in God. ... I do not even know whether in this 
 state she has enough life left to breathe. . . . When she 
 returns to herself it is wholly impossible for her to doubt 
 that she has been in God, and God in her. ... If you 
 ask how can a soul see and comprehend that she has 
 been in God, since during the vision she has neither sight 
 nor understanding, I reply that she does not see it then, 
 but that she sees it clearly later, after she has returned to 
 herself, not by any vision, but by an abiding certainty 
 which only God can give her." And in another place 
 she writes, " Often feeble and wrought on by severe 
 pains before the ecstasy, the soul comes forth from it 
 filled with health and admirably ready for action ... as 
 if God had willed that the body, obedient to the desires 
 of the soul, should share in her happiness." 
 
 More or less Catherine shared the same experiences as 
 the Spanish saint. 
 
 Hoping to bring Gregory to a decision, she asked for 
 an interview, and went with Raimondo to the palace,
 
 176 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 where she found Gregory standing at a window, looking 
 with sad eyes on the wide view extended far below. 
 She could not venture to address him until he should 
 turn and speak, and she paused before a table on which 
 lay a beautifully illuminated missal, with silver clasps. 
 Gregory was both a student and a book collector ; at one 
 time he desired a Canon of Paris to have certain works of 
 Cicero which he had heard of in the Sorbonne copied as 
 soon as possible by capable scribes ; at another he bade 
 his Legate de Noellet have all Petrarch's works sought 
 out and copied, especially his Latin poem of " Africa " 
 and his letters, and he also invited the poet to Avignon 
 in a letter written by his own hand. Clement VI. had 
 already employed Petrarch in the congenial task of 
 collecting ancient MSS. for the papal library, and he was 
 none the less welcome at the court because he had said 
 exceedingly hard things of it things which his own life 
 hardly gave him the right to say. Catherine must have 
 heard of them and him, and though his love poetry would 
 not interest her, she may have read his Canzone to the 
 Virgin and some of his religious sonnets, but there is no 
 allusion to him in her letters. 
 
 Pleased by her admiration for the missal, Gregory 
 came up to her and said, " Here my spirit finds repose 
 in study and in contemplating the lovely things around 
 me." But Catherine had no sympathy for this mood, 
 and looking straight at him, as her manner was, she said, 
 " To do our duty, most Holy Father, and act according 
 to God's will, you shall abandon these beautiful things 
 and take the road to Rome, where perils and malaria and 
 discomfort await you, and where the delights of Avignon 
 will be but a vain recollection." 
 
 There was something in Gregory's character, notwith- 
 standing his nervous timidity, which responded to words 
 like these, but several other interviews were needed be-
 
 ST. CATHERINE PERSUADES THE POPE TO RETURN TO ROME 
 
 BY SEBASTIANO CONCA
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 177 
 
 fore he could definitely make up his mind, and Catherine's 
 whole energy was needed to support him. To the argu- 
 ment used by his Cardinals that Clement IV., or Pope 
 Chimente, as she calls him, never acted against the advice 
 of the Sacred College, and even if it seemed to him that 
 his was the right view, yet followed their advice, she 
 answered, " Alas, most holy Father, they bring forward 
 Pope Clement IV., but say nought to you of Pope Urban 
 V., who when in doubt asked their counsel, but for a 
 thing clear and sure to him as is your departure to you, 
 he heeded not their opinion, but acted on his own, and 
 cared nothing though they were all against him. Use a 
 holy deceit ; appear to delay and then act at once, for 
 the sooner you do so, the less harass and trouble you will 
 have ... let us go soon, babbo mio dolce" no transla- 
 tion can give the equivalent of the caressing Italian 
 " without any fear." 
 
 Catherine understood the character that she was deal- 
 ing with. Gregory had not courage for open resistance, 
 but he seized on the idea of a " santo inganno," and 
 while allowing it to be supposed that the date of leaving 
 Avignon was still uncertain, secretly hurried on his pre- 
 parations. A galley had come to Marseilles to receive 
 him before his Cardinals realised what was about to 
 happen. He appointed the Vicomte de Turenne to 
 govern the city and province of Avignon, advised by 
 such Cardinals as would not go to Rome, and the 
 Sicilian barons were bidden to meet him at Ostia in 
 about a fortnight. Opposition now only angered him, 
 and when the day of departure came he put aside his 
 weeping mother and sisters, and would listen to none of 
 those who implored him yet to change his mind. It was 
 a cruel moment, and pain made him cruel also. As he 
 left his chamber, his father prostrated himself on the 
 threshold, refusing to let him pass. " God hath said 
 M
 
 1 78 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk ; thou 
 shalt trample on the lion and the dragon," Gregory 
 exclaimed, and with this singular quotation passed on 
 amid the lamentations of his household and of the 
 Avignesi, who crowded round, beseeching him not to 
 desert them. 
 
 A prolix account of his journey is given by Amelio da 
 Aleta, Bishop of Sinigaglia and his chief almoner, in 
 extremely bad Latin verse, in which is recorded the mis- 
 fortunes and incidents which attended it, not omitting the 
 good cheer which sea-sickness does not seem to have pre- 
 vented the travellers from enjoying. He describes the 
 train of cardinals on white horses or in carriages, the 
 chaplains and domestics, the armed knights to guard not 
 only the Pope but waggons full of treasure apparently 
 money was after all not scarce ; the reception at Aix, the 
 toiling over barren hills, the increasing heat, the crowds 
 which met them at Marseilles, where they embarked, 
 escorted, as we learn from another source, by a galley 
 sent from Florence, to show that although at war with 
 him, she welcomed the Pope back to Italy. From the 
 time that the reluctant company, all in tears, including 
 Gregory himself, took ship, ill fortune attended them. On 
 leaving Marseilles they experienced all the horrors of the 
 Golfe du Lyon ; " furious winds made them believe death 
 at hand ; all crowded together dismayed and trembling. 
 Even the sailors were pale, and the passengers moaned 
 and called on St Cyriac." Not till they reached the port 
 of Villafranca did they obtain a respite. There they 
 landed and " fell like men starving on the good cheer 
 provided," but hardly had they again put to sea when the 
 storm again rose, and from Monaco they were forced to 
 put back to Villafranca. With tattered sails and sinking 
 hearts they made the harbour. " All was confusion, nothing 
 audible but roaring waves, heart-breaking cries and angry
 
 CATHERINE AS AMBASSADRESS 179 
 
 shouts. The next day the sea had grown calmer. ' O 
 lily of pontiffs ! ' we said, ' behold how the sun shines out ! 
 All nature seems to greet thee, and we thy servants salute 
 thee in the delicious city of Savona.' " 
 
 The relief of a calm sea and sunshine must have sin- 
 gularly beautified Savona in the poetical eyes of the 
 Bishop of Sinigaglia. 
 
 It was however many days later that the Pope arrived 
 at Genoa, and he had had time to repent of having left 
 Avignon and doubt whether he had done well to listen 
 to Catherine. Had she not been there to steady his 
 wavering resolution, even then he would have gone back 
 to Provence.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 POPE AND SAINT 
 
 /CATHERINE had no share in the difficulties and 
 I luxuries and discomforts of the Pope's voyage. 
 
 Like Joan of Arc when her work was done, she only 
 desired to go home and resume her life as a Mantellata, 
 but Charles needed the Maid and Gregory needed Catherine 
 too much to allow them to withdraw themselves, and 
 Catherine was bidden to await the Pope at Genoa. What- 
 ever her enemies might invent, no one ventured to say 
 that she had accepted gifts or asked favours from any one. 
 Gregory allowed her only one hundred florins to pay the 
 expenses of herself and her company during the return 
 journey, to which the Duke of Anjou added another 
 hundred, and, even considering the greater value of 
 money in those days, this could not be called a large 
 sum. 
 
 She sought to travel as quietly and unobserved as 
 possible, and left Avignon unnoticed, but at Toulon it 
 became known that she was there, and a crowd of men 
 and women pressed round the hostelry where she had 
 alighted, calling for her. How the fame of her saintliness 
 and healing powers had spread there is not explained. In 
 Avignon alone of any town where she stayed any time 
 she worked no cures and made no converts among the 
 people, keeping much within doors, and often preferring 
 to write to the Pope rather than seek him, but Toulon 
 must have heard great things of her. For some time she 
 1 80
 
 POPE AND SAINT 181 
 
 refused to appear, until the sobbing entreaties of a woman 
 that she would cure her sick baby reached her ears, moving 
 her so much that she came out, took the little one in her 
 arms, and prayed over it. The child seemed at once to 
 revive, and the joyful mother carried it away blessing 
 Catherine. 
 
 The little seaside town of Voragine, now Varazze, lay 
 in her homeward way. It was the birthplace of Giacomo 
 de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa and author of the 
 " Golden Legend," so popular in the Middle Ages, and 
 well known to Catherine, who alludes to it more than 
 once. She found the place plague-stricken, but paused 
 to pray in the Church. The inhabitants implored her 
 to request that the plague might cease, and she bade 
 them build another Church and dedicate it to the Holy 
 Trinity, promising that the sickness should be removed. 
 To this day her memory is dear to the people of Varazze, 
 who boast that no epidemic has ever fallen on them 
 since that time, and yearly a great procession in mediaeval 
 costumes goes to her Church, giving an excellent idea 
 of what such spectacles were in the Trecento. Very 
 early on the last day of April the little town is humming 
 with excitement ; at street doors a bevy of small angels 
 are having their wings and haloes fastened on by mothers, 
 while all the rest of the family superintend, or from with- 
 in a monastery come sounds of voices, where a young 
 priest is anxiously making the boys who are to take part 
 in the procession practise their chanting for the last 
 time. Trains and omnibuses pour out visitors from 
 Savona and Genoa and the smaller places around ; 
 parties come in on foot ; the inns are crowded ; so is 
 the street. Then the procession forms, men, women 
 and children, in dresses handed down no one can say 
 how long ; there are pilgrims from the Holy Land with 
 scrip and staff; standard-bearers waving heavy banners,
 
 1 82 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 saints saints all the calendar seems represented, some- 
 times a favourite one will have half-a-dozen people who 
 have taken his or her name. St Dorothea is one of 
 these ; usually it is a child who stands for her, with a 
 lap full of roses. Little St John Baptists pass, in 
 sheepskins, leading a lamb, or with a brown arm thrown 
 around the neck of an infant Christ, and now it is the 
 Virgin Mary, wearing all the ornaments that her family 
 can muster, with a canopy over her head. The honour 
 of representing her is so great that quite a handsome sum 
 is paid to secure it. Among the Virgins there are four 
 or five is the only anachronism in the whole thing 
 the Madonna of Lourdes. For nearly a mile between 
 the two Churches the long procession walks between 
 double and triple lines of deeply interested spectators, 
 all absolutely decorous, and down to the youngest child 
 all who have a part in it are that part, absorbed, reverent, 
 unconscious apparently or really of all but what they 
 are doing. There is no rehearsal beforehand ; these 
 people come from various places, but all have that in- 
 stinctive dramatic gift and absence of self- consciousness 
 which are Italian characteristics. There is blue sky 
 above, blue sea beside them and a background of shadowy 
 olives and so all pass on to the Church dedicated, as 
 Catherine desired, but always called by her name, and 
 as many of the grown-up people as can crowd into it, 
 but the children go down to the shore and play and eat 
 hard-boiled eggs with a result which suggests a new 
 reading to the hymn, " How many a spot is on the robe 
 That wraps an earthly saint." 
 
 The festival is probably connected with the dedication 
 of the Church, for Catherine passed through Varazze in 
 October, not April. 
 
 She and her company reached Genoa long before the 
 Pope, and were received in the house of a noble lady
 
 POPE AND SAINT 183 
 
 named Orietta Scotti, a branch of whose race lived in 
 Siena, and was one of the noblest of her families. Gigli's 
 account of the Scotti is that they came to Italy in the 
 time of Charlemagne, and were descended " from the 
 famous Counts Duglas." The Genoese branch however 
 ascribed their origin to a captain of Free-lances, who 
 having fought successfully for Genoa against Pisa, settled in 
 the former town in the twelfth century. Orietta was a 
 name long handed down among them and held in honour, 
 because she not only harboured St Catherine, but tenderly 
 nursed several of her companions who fell seriously ill. 
 Among them was Neri di Landoccio, to the deep distress 
 of his friend Stefano Maconi, who threw himself on his 
 knees before Catherine, imploring her to use her healing 
 power and not let his friend die far from home. There 
 were occasions when she could do nothing, and was 
 aware that it was best so. At Pisa where she cured 
 many, the young friar Baronto was not one of these. 
 There is a ring of regretful tenderness in her reply when 
 he begged her to heal him of an illness incurable by 
 doctors though not deadly, " My child, this trial is 
 necessary for your salvation ; it will accompany you to 
 the grave, but it will not hinder you from serving God 
 as a friar." He accepted the answer, and was one of 
 her most devoted followers. 
 
 Now she answered Stefano's passionate entreaties, " My 
 son, why are you so troubled ? If God wills so to crown 
 your brother's labours you should rather rejoice than 
 lament." But as he persisted she told him that although 
 she desired to see him resigned to God's will, she and he 
 would pray that Neri should recover. " Remind me," she 
 added, " before I receive Communion to-morrow " though 
 surely she could need no reminder, for Neri was nearly 
 as dear to her as Stefano himself. He knelt beside her 
 next morning in Church, and, after remaining long in
 
 1 84 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 prayer, she looked at him, smiled and said, " Your request 
 is granted." And Neri recovered. Genoa was unhealthy, 
 and next Stefano fell ill, to the dismay of all the " college," 
 for all loved him, in spite of occasional jealousies. Him 
 Catherine cured by laying her hand on his forehead, and 
 commanding him to recover. The sickness of others 
 seems to have been even to death, for she said to Stefano, 
 " I will not have you follow their example." All this 
 kept the travellers at Genoa, and Stefano's family grew 
 angry, and Lapa Benincasa wrote that she was old and 
 lonely and should die if her daughter would not come 
 back, but even had the illness of so many of her com- 
 panions not tied her, Catherine dared not go before 
 Gregory arrived. His ships must put into the harbour 
 to buy provisions and water, and, probably, considering 
 the wild weather, for repairs ; they were long due, and 
 Catherine awaited their coming in great anxiety, certain 
 that those around him were seeking even now to persuade 
 him to go back. Meanwhile Madonna Orietta's care and 
 kindness were unbounded. An affectionate letter written 
 by Catherine after leaving her was preserved in the family 
 as a precious heirloom though it was unfortunately lost 
 about the time when the family changed name and arms 
 for those of the Centurioni, by which they are later known 
 in Italian history. Catherine's sojourn among them was 
 one of the memories most proudly cherished by the 
 Genoese. The streets she used to go through, the apart- 
 ment which she occupied, the neighbouring places where 
 she had paused on her journey were remembered and 
 pointed out with pride down to the sixteenth century by 
 rich and poor. The lonely monastery of San Fruttuoso 
 which sheltered her both as she went and came boasted 
 of the honour ; Varazze, as we have seen, celebrates her 
 passage through its humble street to this day ; the room 
 which she chose in the house of Madonna Orietta was
 
 POPE AND SAINT 185 
 
 looked on as a consecrated place. 1 Florence, for which 
 she did so much, has no such tender recollections of 
 Catherine Benincasa. 
 
 At length the papal galleys appeared, escorted by the 
 fleet of the Knights of Rhodes under the command of 
 their Grand Master, and Catherine's apprehensions were 
 justified by finding Gregory depressed, troubled, and so 
 near yielding to the urgency of his companions that as 
 soon as they had recovered the fatigues of their voyage, 
 the cardinals induced him to call a consistory, and confirm 
 the vote to return to Avignon. 2 The news he was met by 
 was not calculated to cheer him. Florence had sent 
 emissaries to Rome, who persuaded the populace that with 
 the arrival of a Pope they would find themselves enslaved, 
 and tumults had broken out, while the Florentines, furious 
 at the ravages of the Breton troops, refused to treat with 
 Gregory. The temptation to return to safety and popu- 
 larity was great. Gregory listened to his cardinals by 
 day, but under cover of night he stole with one or two 
 trusted friends to the house of Orietta Scotti, to find 
 strength in Catherine's firm conviction that the right road 
 was the one to Rome. Among the prayers of Catherine 
 which have been preserved is one with a significant note 
 appended to it, saying that it was made at Genoa " to 
 dissuade the Pope from returning to Avignon, things con- 
 trary to the journey to Rome having been deliberated in 
 the consistory." It is the prayer of a fervent believer, 
 yet startlingly unlike one so assured as was Catherine 
 that her God was a God of love. It runs as follows : 
 " O eternal God, let not Thy Vicar yield to the counsels 
 of the flesh, nor judge according to the senses and self- 
 love, nor let him permit himself to be terrified by any 
 opposition, and immortal Lord, if Thou art offended by 
 his hesitations and delays, punish them on my body 
 1 Gigli. 2 Capocelatro.
 
 1 86 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 which I offer to Thee to be tormented and destroyed 
 according to Thy will and pleasure." 
 
 She prevailed, and on September 29th his vessels again 
 put out to sea, but it seemed as if even the elements com- 
 bined to keep him back ; so bad was the weather that 
 the Bishop of Sinigaglia declares it incredible, and only 
 to be explained as a supernatural sign of the wickedness 
 of the Romans. Much valuable property was washed 
 overboard ; the Bishop of Luni was drowned, a cardinal 
 died. Among their misfortunes Amelio does not fail to 
 record that at Porto Venere they had a most miserable 
 dinner, and who could tell, he adds, in the lowest of 
 spirits, but that they might all fall victims to the cruel 
 Italians who breathed nothing but hatred and fury. 
 Even the arrival of an ambassador from Pisa and Lucca 
 hardly cheered him, though he admits that they brought 
 " splendid gifts " of veal and lamb, comfits, bread and 
 Greek wine, but how could one trust the citizens of towns 
 which, like Siena, though not fighting against the Pope, 
 yet kept up friendship with the " guilty city," i.e. Florence ? 
 
 Some consolation was found in an excellent dinner at 
 Porto d'Ercole, but again storms rose and drove them on 
 the isle of Elba, fortunately on the less precipitous side of 
 the mountain island. They landed with great difficulty ; one 
 of the cardinals had even to submit to being carried on 
 shore pick-a-back by " a rustic clown." The force of the 
 wind prevented tents being set up, and even the Bishop 
 of Carpentras, to whom all turned in an emergency, had 
 nothing to suggest. There is a pretty touch for once in 
 Amelio's prolix narrative when he mentions that Gregory 
 found himself an oratory under the shade of the thick 
 olive woods of Elba, but discomfort is generally in his 
 thoughts, and it certainly suggests that accommodation 
 was indifferent since they found it necessary to take tents 
 to put up when landing for the night.
 
 POPE AND SAINT 187 
 
 The length of this voyage seems almost incredible ; it 
 was not until the 6th of December that the Pope landed 
 at Corneto, which was in Papal territory. The popolana 
 of Siena had undone the work of Phillippe le Bel. 
 
 The Pope, who had been greatly mortified by the lack 
 of enthusiasm at his arrival in Italy, contrasting so 
 strongly as it did with the reception given to Urban V., 
 was much gratified by the welcome given him in this, the 
 first town on papal territory, which he had entered. 
 Bearing olive branches the citizens hurried out of towers 
 and streets as the Pope's vessels came in sight, passing 
 by the promontory of Argentaro, where the beacon light 
 shone, as Bishop Amelio writes, brighter than the sun ; it 
 shines there still. Here he wrote the first part of his 
 poem, if it can be dignified by that name, and though he 
 says the time passed " very mournfully " during the five 
 weeks spent there, he still was so thankful to be on land, 
 and freed from the painful necessity of dining on " obscure 
 frogs," that the little town is actually described as having 
 wide and handsome streets. He notes too the high 
 towers, some of which still remain. 
 
 Christmas was passed at Corneto, where the Pope 
 transacted much business, and received ambassadors, after 
 which " the lily of the Papacy " continued his voyage, 
 now over calm and moonlit seas, thus bringing to nought 
 the predictions of the Avignonese astrologers, who had 
 declared that the journey would end in disaster. It had 
 tried Gregory severely ; worry probably had done so 
 still more, and his pallor and feebleness suggested that 
 after all the prophecies of the astrologers might be 
 fulfilled. Although little over forty years old, a mortal 
 disease was exhausting him, and making effort of mind 
 or body painful and reluctant. 
 
 At Ostia, on whose desolate shore Dante pictures the 
 souls awaiting their angel pilot whose bark will bear
 
 1 88 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 them far over the ocean to Purgatory, Gregory paused for 
 a night, but did not sleep on land. Troops of Romans 
 came down to welcome him, and show their satisfaction 
 at his coming by torchlight dances and songs. It must 
 be owned that the performers were neither young nor 
 beautiful : " chorizabunt cum tubis et faculis calvi de- 
 crepiti cum sonore," he says in lines which may serve as 
 a specimen of the whole chronicle. 
 
 Ostia was left behind, and the galleys sailed up the 
 Tiber, then navigable, and the Pope landed close to San 
 Giovanni Laterano, where again he spent the night on 
 board ship, for the palace was too ruinous to be inhabited, 
 and the church was still in process of rebuilding after the 
 disastrous fire in 1308, which had consumed both the 
 basilica and its priceless contents. The Pope's journey 
 had lasted five months. 
 
 It was nightfall when he arrived, and the Romans 
 lined the banks of the river, carrying torches, to watch 
 his vessels sailing up against the strong current, and he 
 was welcomed with the same ephemeral enthusiasm which 
 had greeted Urban V. In the dawn of the next day, 
 variously given as the i6th and i8th of January, he 
 disembarked and proceeded to St Peter's, passing through 
 the city gate of San Paolo, through which Totila and his 
 Goths had entered. A great crowd escorted him ; knights 
 in armour rode backward and forward on either side of 
 the procession ; hundreds of " histriones " l we would 
 hope less infirm than those of Ostia, dressed in white, 
 danced and clapped their hands. Great nobles too were 
 there, representatives of the Orsini, the Conte di Fondi, 
 who by and by played a leading part in the Schism, one 
 of the Gaetani from whom sprang Boniface VIII., and 
 many other barons ; there too appeared the magistrates, 
 councillors, and Bannerets of Rome, all robed in silk, 
 
 1 Buffoons.
 
 POPE AND SAINT 189 
 
 remarks the Bishop of Sinigaglia. The windows were 
 crowded with spectators of the higher class, showering 
 down comfits and such flowers as the season afforded. 
 Even the roofs were covered with people eager to see the 
 Pope ; shouts of " Viva Gregorio " mingled with the 
 chanting of the priests ; the senators brought him a loyal 
 address. " Verily I did not think to see such glory with 
 mine own eyes," writes the Bishop, who had modified his 
 first ideas as to the savagery of Italians. Under the 
 gate of San Paolo the keys of the city were presented to 
 the Pontiff, and then the train moved slowly on past the 
 Aventine, where rose the stronghold of the Savelli, pass- 
 ing the Capitol and the Campo di Marte, a desolate road 
 bordered by ruins and grim mediaeval fortresses, often 
 built of the stones of noble classic buildings. Not till 
 evening could the procession make its tedious way to 
 St Peter's, all "very hungry," as well they might be. 
 There the exhausted Pope prostrated himself in prayer, 
 and the first act of his return was safely accomplished. 
 It is commemorated in the bas-reliefs on his tomb in 
 Santa Francesca Romana, but they were only executed in 
 the sixteenth century. 
 
 Even on this first day a discordant note was struck. 
 Petrarch had written, " There is no need that the Roman 
 Pontiff should go to Rome with the armed hand ; his 
 authority will ensure his safety better than the sword, 
 sanctity better than armour. The arms of the priesthood 
 are prayers and tears, fasting, virtue, good conduct and 
 abstinence and charity. What need of military show has 
 the Father of all ? the Cross of Christ is enough ; that 
 and that only do devils fear and men reverence. What 
 need to sound the trumpet ? Alleluia suffices." Catherine 
 of Siena too had repeated this advice, strongly advising 
 absence of warlike demonstrations, as both unbefitting the 
 return of an apostle of peace and as implying distrust.
 
 190 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Nevertheless Gregory was accompanied by two thousand 
 soldiers under Raymond de Turenne. 
 
 He could not and did not pretend to feel safe in Rome, 
 and his spirits fell with each day that he lived in the 
 ruinous city surrounded by a desolate Campagna, and full 
 of neglected churches. Grass grew in the cracked pave- 
 ments up to the very altar of St Peter ; the memories of 
 martyrs in the Colosseum had not prevented one of his 
 legates from ordering its marble to be burned to make 
 lime ; priceless statues had shared the same fate, and the 
 classic temples yet remaining were filled with rubbish and 
 filth. There was no order, no law, no virtue anywhere, 
 says an old Roman chronicle, least of all among the 
 clergy, the younger of whom are accused of going about 
 the city by night, visiting disreputable houses, and, sword 
 in hand, committing theft and murder and all manner 
 of enormities. Petrarch hardly exaggerated when he 
 asserted Rome to be a sink of iniquity with " Beelzebub 
 nel mezzo," and the " Dialogue " of Catherine supports 
 these accusations. Gregory had a herculean task before 
 him in reforming the Church, and Catherine constantly 
 urged him to set about it, but his timid nature made him 
 flinch from the danger and opposition which he foresaw, 
 and putting off attacking abuses among his clergy to a 
 more convenient day which never came, he devoted 
 himself to subduing temporal enemies. His policy was 
 on the whole a wise one ; when resisted he struck 
 severely, when he could, he conciliated, and he succeeded 
 in regaining an indefinite overlordship of Bologna, the 
 " pearl of the Romagna," though after the sack of Cesena 
 the Bolognese had vowed nevermore to have anything to 
 do with Pope or Cardinals, since massacres and religion 
 had nothing in common. He struck too a new blow at 
 Florence, by inducing both Bologna and Venice to cease 
 trading with her, as they had hitherto persisted in doing.
 
 POPE AND SAINT 191 
 
 Florence was undaunted, but she made the mistake of 
 demanding impossible concessions short of which she 
 would not ask for peace. Other cities also held aloof, 
 and it was said that some of the Cardinals joined the 
 Florentines in stirring up trouble in Rome, with the hope 
 of driving Gregory back to Avignon. There were always 
 those beside him who pointed out how useless it had been 
 to come to this ungrateful city, which had called so loudly 
 and lamentably for a Pope, and now that he had come, 
 was disobedient and insolent. 
 
 And Catherine was not at hand for him to lean on. 
 Although both in San Domenico at Siena and in the 
 Sala Regia of the Vatican she is painted entering the 
 city with Gregory, she was not really there, but yet if 
 historically incorrect, it is right that her figure should 
 appear in a return to Rome which but for her would 
 hardly have taken place. 
 
 She left Genoa later than did Urban, but experienced 
 the same tempestuous weather, since there are allusions in 
 her biography to peril by shipwreck which can only be 
 referred to this voyage, though no date is given. 
 
 At Leghorn she was met by her old mother, and sent 
 the reluctant Stefano Maconi home, with letters and 
 directions as to various matters which he was to arrange, 
 while she again went to Pisa, perhaps to treat with 
 Gambacorta both on papal affairs and the question of 
 Talemone, a coast town, where there is now a dreary 
 little station, then a strong and important post on the 
 Sienese frontier. It had been seized by " the Prior of 
 Pisa," a Knight of St John, to whom she had written 
 energetically when hoping that a Crusade would be 
 organised, bidding him and his companions to be true 
 knights, not arming themselves merely with earthly, but 
 with spiritual mail the allegory is carried out in a way 
 that appealed to the taste of that day, but now seems
 
 192 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 grotesque rather than forcible. This Prior had done no 
 small harm to Siena with little or no excuse, under 
 pretext of righting for the Church, and among other 
 misdeeds had seized Talemone. Gambacorta supported 
 him, and at that time Catherine failed in recovering the 
 fortress, especially as the Pope did not assist her. 
 
 After an absence of eight months she returned to 
 Siena, whence she wrote to encourage Gregory, and 
 deprecate his displeasure with the city which then and 
 for some time longer was a sharer in the interdict, a 
 grievous matter, though it does not seem to have been 
 as ruinous to Sienese commerce as it was to Florentine. 
 " Be pleased to take back your rebellious children," she 
 wrote, " their malice and pride will be vanquished by 
 your goodness. It is no shame to stoop to raise a 
 repentant child, but rather glorious before God and man. 
 No more war, then, Holy Father, but give us peace, and 
 turn the war against the unbeliever. . . . As far as I can 
 tell, the general disposition is to accept you as a father, 
 especially in this poor little city, which has ever been the 
 loved daughter of your Holiness, though circumstances 
 drove her to things that have ill-pleased you. You can 
 draw them easily by the bait of love." 
 
 She repeated this argument at a later date, but Gregory 
 paid little attention to it, perhaps displeased that she had 
 again declined to go to Rome, finding herself sorely 
 wanted where she was. She found Siena as usual in 
 the state described by one of her earliest poets, Bindo 
 Bonichi, "the shoemaker turning his son into a barber, 
 and the barber turning his into a shoemaker, the notary 
 making his into a draper, and the merchant making his 
 a notary, one and all dissastified with their trade," added 
 to which feuds had broken out among the higher class 
 both of nobles and merchants such as required all 
 Catherine's authority and influence to deal with. She
 
 POPE AND SAINT 193 
 
 found some relief from anxieties and troubles, among 
 which the unholy love and then the dangerous hatred of 
 one of her own followers must be counted, though of this 
 there are given only hints, in turning Ser Nanni's castle 
 of Belcaro into a convent. Money does not seem to have 
 been wanting for repairs and alterations, so that friends 
 must have come to her assistance, and thus enabled her 
 to found a community under strict rule where girls who 
 elected to take the veil might be safely placed. She had 
 often discussed the matter with the Abbot of St Antimo, 
 the faithful friend who brought her the viaticum on her 
 deathbed, and his advice was always valued by her. 
 
 This was a breathing time in her life, but her sky was 
 never long unclouded. An unexpected trouble arose in 
 Gregory's altered bearing towards her. The urgent 
 advice sent to him by her in one letter after another, 
 suggesting measures which he had not resolution to carry 
 out, yet knew to be right and necessary, depressed and 
 irritated him ; he felt too that he was incapable of 
 dealing with his inconstant Romans, who one day 
 acclaimed him and the next threatened him with death, 
 and he began to resent having been placed in this 
 position by Catherine, who now refused to come and 
 help him in his need. And he could not have forgotten 
 that stinging declaration of hers that a " great refusal " 
 might be the right course for a Pope who could not fulfil 
 the duties of his position. 
 
 His cold displeasure tried her sorely, as is plain from a 
 letter sent by her to Raimondo, then in Rome, but which 
 ends by a direct appeal to Gregory. Raimondo had been 
 summoned to the Papal Court, and had been the bearer 
 of letters from Catherine containing suggestions which, 
 as he observes with unconscious satire, would no doubt 
 have been very useful had they ever been carried out. 
 While in Rome he was elected Prior of the Dominican
 
 194 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Convent of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, and thus could 
 not return to Siena, which was a deep disappointment to 
 Catherine. Though called to Rome by Gregory, he too 
 was in disfavour, and much distressed by it, as may be 
 gathered from her letter one full of pain and unusually 
 depressed. " If you chance to find yourself in the presence 
 of his Holiness, commend me humbly to him, and ask his 
 pardon for the many faults which I have committed 
 through my ignorance and negligence. I fear," she 
 continues with that inclination to take the offences of 
 others on herself which Raimondo considers to be a 
 proof of utter humility, supporting his view by the words 
 of Gregory the Great, " it is the property of the good 
 to see sin where none is, and where it is light to hold it 
 as heavy " " I fear that it is my sins which are the 
 cause of the persecution which he suffers, and all the woes 
 of the Church may justly be laid at my door. He has 
 therefore good reason to complain and punish me for my 
 faults, but tell him that I will do all I can to correct 
 myself and serve him better." 
 
 Further on she repeats her painful conviction that the 
 troubles which beset both the Pontiff and the Church 
 arose from her lack of virtue and many faults of dis- 
 obedience. Raimondo may well say, " Ingeniose imponebat 
 sibi offenses." But with passionate appeal she exclaims, 
 turning from Raimondo to address Gregory himself, " To 
 whom can I turn if you abandon me ? Who will help 
 me, to whom can I flee if you send me away ? My 
 persecutors pursue me, and I take refuge with you ; if 
 you desert me and are angry with me I can but hide 
 myself in the wounds of Christ crucified, whose vicar you 
 are, and I know that He will receive me, for He wills not 
 the death of a sinner. And when he has received me, 
 surely you will not reject me, and we shall remain at our 
 post, fighting for the sweet Bride of Christ It is so that
 
 POPE AND SAINT 195 
 
 I wish to end my life, in tears and sighs, giving my blood 
 for her if need be, and the very marrow of my bones. If all 
 the world repel me, I will not torment myself, but rest 
 weeping and satisfied on the breast of that sweet Bride. 
 Most holy Father, forgive my ignorances and many 
 offences against God and your holiness. It is the Eternal 
 Truth which excuses and gives me courage while I humbly 
 ask your blessing." 
 
 The letter is thoroughly characteristic in its vehemence, 
 its humility, its conscious dignity, and we must add with 
 some perplexity, its mingled contrition and the extra- 
 ordinary sense of her own value conveyed in the self- 
 accusations. It is difficult to suppose that the words mean 
 exactly what they imply, but what then do they mean ? 
 Had the haunting fear of the effect of her shortcomings 
 which appears in earlier letters increased with failing 
 strength and disappointments and become altogether 
 morbid ? Who can say ? and who can venture to judge 
 one so exceptional as was Catherine Benincasa? 
 
 No doubt it was a comfort to find that even if no longer 
 friendly, Gregory still trusted her and depended upon her 
 as she presently did, though it does not appear that 
 Raimondo ventured to lay her appeal before him. 
 Florence was to him what Italians would call a long 
 thorn in the foot. Her ambassadors had indeed come, 
 but with! as little intention of making peace as those sent 
 to Avignon, and they were not graciously received. A 
 letter which the Pope sent in July 1377, and still to be 
 seen in the archives of Florence, is at once pathetic and 
 querulous, the composition of a weak and aggrieved man. 
 He complains that he had left a fair and fruitful native 
 land, a grateful people devoted to him together with very 
 much else, and had resisted the entreaties of kings, 
 princes and cardinals, going to Italy with the firm 
 determination that for love of peace he would make good
 
 196 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 all wherein his legates had failed. To his profound grief 
 his hopes were all vain. 
 
 Although the Eight of War were as strongly opposed to 
 submission as before, the peace party had gained strength, 
 and members of the proletariat joined it, who cared nothing 
 for the honour of the city, and hardly understood what 
 the cause was for which Florence was being ruined, but 
 who keenly felt the privations entailed by the taxes and 
 the interdict. Almost as soon as Catherine returned 
 to Siena Soderini had come to implore her to go back 
 with him to Florence, and once more mediate between the 
 city and Gregory. She refused. Her experience of 
 Florentine politics did not encourage the hope that she 
 could be of real use, and she had much to do at Siena. 
 
 Raimondo tells how he and Soderini spoke much 
 together of the tortuous policy of the Eight, and the 
 condition of the " divided city," and his journey to Rome 
 promised an opportunity of laying what he had heard 
 before the Pope, but for several months after his arrival he 
 was engaged in preaching and in the duties of his office 
 of Prior, to which he had once before been elected. 
 Although he makes no mention of being allowed an 
 audience by Gregory, it may be supposed that he saw 
 him, since the Pope himself had summoned him, and his 
 discomfort at the coldness which he experienced implies 
 that he had been in his presence. In one way or another 
 he certaintly put before him what Soderini had said, but 
 with no result. It seems to have been a surprise to him 
 when one Sunday he heard from a papal messenger that 
 he was invited to dinner that day. Gregory was then 
 living in the Vatican, as the Lateran was uninhabitable. 
 Nothing appears to have been said of any interest during 
 the meal, but when it was over the Pope remarked, " I am 
 told that if Catherine of Siena went to Florence, peace 
 would be made." Raimondo answered, " Not only
 
 POPE AND SAINT 197 
 
 Catherine, but we all, holy Father, are ready to serve you 
 and endure martyrdom if need be." Gregory replied that 
 he did not wish to send him, as he might meet with 
 rough usage, but that Catherine could safely go, being a 
 woman so much venerated, though at the same time he 
 said that he would not have any of the Mantellate accom- 
 pany her, a precaution which suggests that he was not so 
 sure of her safety as he declared himself to be. Raimondo 
 at all events knew there was great risk, for although 
 she had refused to accompany Soderini, she had sent 
 Maconi to see what he could do, believing that his high 
 rank and charm of manner would gain him a hearing, but 
 he had barely escaped with life from the tumult raised by 
 a report that Catherine of Siena had sent him to induce 
 the Signoria to deliver the city over to the Pope. This 
 was an unhappy prelude to a visit from Catherine, and it 
 must have been with a heavy heart that Raimondo pre- 
 pared the necessary papers for the Pope's signature, and 
 sent them to Siena. Catherine of course obeyed at once, 
 and set out accompanied by a few of her " college," and 
 her mother, who may have used the pretext of visiting the 
 sons and grandchildren living in Florence, since the 
 Mantellate were forbidden to go, and Lapa was now one 
 of the Order, as also was a sister of Catherine's with the 
 same name as her mother. 
 
 Weary of the tumult and dissatisfaction of Rome, the Pope 
 retired to Anagni, in spite of its unpleasing associations with 
 the mistakes and humiliations of a greater Pontiff than he. 
 Thence he launched several bulls of excommunication 
 against Wickliffe, and sought to detach the Tuscan cities 
 from the League, not without some success. The Bishop of 
 Sinigaglia completes his itinerary of the Papal journeys by 
 a description of the removal to Anagni, written in equally 
 bad Latin, as was the earlier part of his poem, but in a 
 much more contented frame of mind ; he does indeed
 
 198 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 mention travelling through valleys dark with clouds, but 
 Anagni found favour in his sight, and he speaks with 
 complaisance of its fountains, its streets and its inhabi- 
 tants. Of the Pope's stay there there is no word but 
 all around him saw that death was approaching to set a 
 most unhappy man free from a task for which he knew 
 himself to be incompetent. He had made mistake upon 
 mistake, always delaying until the time was passed for 
 action. His policy had gone little beyond continuing the 
 ruinous war with Lombardy which he had inherited from 
 his predecessors, and which had made him unpopular in 
 other countries called on to contribute to expenses in 
 which they had no interest. To reduce the luxury of 
 Avignon or make the Cardinals share in papal liabilities 
 had not even crossed his mind. Petrarch's had been a 
 voice crying in the wilderness when he denounced the 
 " successors of a troop of poor fishermen who had forgotten 
 their origin, walking in gold and purple, dwelling in splendid 
 palaces instead of little boats on the lake of Gennesereth, 
 with parchments whence hung leaden seals to catch the 
 poor dupes whom they put on a gridiron and a scale to 
 satisfy their greed, and instead of going barefoot, behold 
 them satraps mounted on horses covered with gold, 
 champing golden bits and soon to be shod with gold, 
 unless Heaven should repress their insolent luxury. One 
 would take them for Kings of Persia or Parthia whom one 
 must adore and not approach empty handed." Gregory 
 was well acquainted with Petrarch's writings, but he had 
 not been impelled by them to reform the Court or the 
 Sacred College, though the state of the Church weighed 
 increasingly on his mind. He could not be unaware of 
 the excitement, the hopes and fears, the plots and intrigues 
 which were already gathering round his last days, and he 
 remembered the words of the Duke of Anjou sent to dis- 
 suade him from leaving France, " If you die yonder, which
 
 POPE AND SAINT 199 
 
 it seems you will, according to what your physicians tell 
 me, the Romans, who are marvellous treacherous, will* be 
 masters and lords of all the Cardinals, and will make a 
 Pope at their will." 
 
 Who the next Pope would be Gregory could not even 
 surmise, but one thing was certain, the all-important 
 question whether he should be French or Italian, remain 
 in Italy or go back to Avignon, would have to be decided. 
 All that he could do was to promulgate a bull that who- 
 ever had a majority of votes, with or without a conclave, 
 in or out of Rome, should be held to be legally elected as 
 Pope, and that the votes and desires of the minority should 
 be held of no account. But here he reckoned without the 
 Romans, who foresaw the probability of the Cardinals 
 attempting to hold a Conclave when the time should come, 
 elsewhere than in the papal city, and prepared to hinder 
 any such attempt.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 
 
 " | ^ EFORE I left Tuscany," writes Raimondo, relating 
 ~^ the conversation with Soderini already alluded to, 
 " I had an interview with Niccol6 Soderini, a man 
 most faithful to God and the Church, and greatly attached 
 to Catherine. He talked of the affairs of the Republic, 
 especially of the malice of those who feigned to desire 
 reconciliation with the Church, yet did all they might to 
 hinder peace. I complained of this line of conduct, and 
 that excellent man replied thus : ' Be you sure that the 
 people and every honest man in the city want peace ; it 
 is only a few obstinate men who rule us that put difficulties 
 in the way. I said, ' Could not a remedy be found for 
 this evil ? ' He answered, ' Yes, if some honourable 
 citizen took the cause of God to heart and had an under- 
 standing with the Guelfs so as to take away power from 
 those intermeddlers, enemies of the public good. It 
 would be enough to remove four or five.' " This con- 
 versation was repeated to Catherine, with unfortunate 
 result. Gregory too must have had some such declara- 
 tion made him, though not apparently by Raimondo, who 
 writes as if unprepared for his sending Catherine to Flor- 
 ence. The upshot was that she went, this time as the 
 ambassadress of the Pope. 
 
 Before she left Siena she despatched " a true and good 
 servant of God " in the shape of a Franciscan friar with a 
 letter to Soderini, to advise him as to his own affairs and
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 201 
 
 those of the city. Her choice of a messenger suggests 
 that he was to instil good counsel into the populace as 
 well as Soderini. They had all but lynched Stefano 
 Maconi when he came with the same intention, but the 
 Franciscans were popular, often of the lower class, and 
 well acquainted with its grievances and aims. Catherine 
 also wrote to the Signoria, as the Priors of the Arts were 
 collectively called, and then, having prepared the way as 
 far as she could, she obeyed the Pope's order, and arrived 
 in Florence early in 1378 or the end of 1377 as usual, 
 no date is given. Gregory's desire that she should take 
 no women with her was unheeded ; besides her mother 
 she took Giovanna di Capo (a favoured sister, for she 
 accompanied her later to Rome), who shared her 
 danger when the mob threatened her life. Stefano 
 Maconi came too, though his presence did not make for 
 safety, as it would recall the rumours of Catherine's desire 
 to have Florence handed over to the Pope, and no people 
 are more ready to believe a rumour, however wild, than the 
 lower class of Italians. Moreover, one so useful to the war 
 party would not be suffered to die, since their existence 
 depended on bringing her mission to nought, whether they 
 were of those who prolonged the struggle out of ambition 
 and fear of the day of reckoning, or were more patriotic 
 citizens, proud that their city should head the League for 
 independence, and reluctant to endure the humiliation of 
 submitting without gaining any of the advantages for 
 which they had made such sacrifices. 
 
 On her previous visit Catherine had been entertained 
 in the palace of Soderini, but now she and her companions 
 were lodged in a little house at the foot of the hill called 
 San Giorgio, which he and some other friends had built 
 expressly for her use. She found the conditions of 
 Florence much worse than in her last visit. Although 
 the citizens in spite of hard times and war expenses were
 
 202 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 bravely continuing to build the Loggia dei Priori 1 and 
 the Duomo, poverty and gloom pervaded the city. Italian 
 towns had not seldom been little the worse for papal 
 censures, and at the beginning of the century Florence 
 herself had defied an interdict successfully, refusing with 
 scorn the good offices of the Cardinal of Bologna, while 
 princes like Ezzelino and Bernabo Viscontio treated them 
 with contempt. She could do so no longer, now that her 
 widespread trade, chiefly foreign, had raised up a host 
 of commercial rivals, eager to push her out of the field. 
 It was not deference to the Church that caused their 
 shops and warehouses to be destroyed and the owners 
 driven away as soon as the interdict was pronounced. 
 The great banking business of the Florentines came to an 
 end ; no orders were now received for fine dressed cloth, 
 or any of the other goods for which Florence was cele- 
 brated : the workshops were closed, and the braccianti, a 
 name equivalent to " hands," were starving and sullen, 
 only half understanding what the war was about. Added 
 to this, the consciences of the religious were greatly per- 
 turbed at finding themselves ranged against him whom 
 they looked on as Christ's Vicar on earth, and by the 
 suspension of holy rites when no church bells called to 
 prayer, or to those festivals which made welcome breaks 
 in the monotonous toil and sordidness of daily life even 
 for the poorest. So strong became this feeling that the 
 magistrates made great efforts to oblige the clergy to 
 open their churches, where they celebrated mass behind 
 closed doors, and when the Bishop Florence had as yet 
 no Archbishop left the city, a penalty of 10,000 florins 
 was threatened if he would not return. He was one of 
 the historic family of Ricasoli ; as a " Grande " he could 
 neither hold the See of Fiesole nor Florence, and in order 
 to become eligible had renounced his " consorteria," and 
 
 1 Now Loggia dei Lanzi.
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 203 
 
 changed his coat-of-arms to those of a mitre and two 
 gold and silver angels, but to the people he was as much 
 of a Grande as ever ; they mocked at and suspected him, 
 and though he gained his end, they finally got rid of him, 
 and he was translated to Faenza. There is a letter from 
 Catherine encouraging him to hold out against the magis- 
 trates, but neither this nor others which she wrote to him 
 imply a high opinion of her correspondent. In one she 
 says twice over, " I most gently beg you to awake from 
 the sleep of negligence," while her letter written at the 
 time of his flight from Florence suggests that she thought 
 his chief motive for going away was care for his own 
 safety. She wants to see him " manly and not timid," 
 " serving the sweet Bride of Christ with manliness," not 
 returning to his See ; she is glad of his constancy, but 
 once more bids him arise from the sleep of negligence. 
 
 Another letter sent from Florence soon after her arrival 
 shows how painful an impression the state of things there 
 had made on her. It is to the Cardinal of Luna, whom 
 she and Raimondo had known at Avignon, and in whom 
 she was to find herself woefully deceived. With all her 
 singular power of reading thoughts and characters she 
 was not seldom mistaken. Gregory, experienced in men 
 and accustomed to the intrigues and ambitions of the 
 ecclesiastical world from boyhood his uncle, Clement VI., 
 had created him Cardinal Deacon before he was eighteen 
 years old doubted him from the first, and on making 
 him a Cardinal had said, " Beware lest thy moon be 
 eclipsed." After-events caused this play of words to be 
 taken as a sign that the Pope had foreseen the unscrupu- 
 lous ambition which led him to accept the doubtful dignity 
 of Anti-Pope. By the father's side a Spaniard, on the 
 mother's he claimed descent from Saracen kings, an origin 
 in which Burlamacchi sees the explanation of his stubborn 
 schismatic conduct. When Catherine called him a column
 
 204 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 of the Church he had not yet had an opportunity of 
 showing himself in his true colours, and she looked to 
 him for help and sympathy. 
 
 There is a tone almost despairing in her letter. Things 
 are going very ill in Florence, especially among the clergy, 
 to say nothing of laymen, among whom there are many 
 bad and few good ; the monks and secular priests, and 
 above all the friars, whose work it is to announce the 
 truth, all forget it, preaching that the interdict may be 
 violated, and that those who attend the offices and com- 
 municate may do so without sin, indeed, ought to do so, 
 thus leading people into a schism dreadful to think of, let 
 alone to see. And it is the base fear of man or of human 
 desires to receive offerings which make them act and see 
 thus. The last words suggest how much poverty there 
 would be among those priests whose small income greatly 
 depended on the payment for masses and other offerings 
 of their flocks, as well as among the laity suffering from 
 the cessation of commerce. " Ah me, ah me ! " Catherine 
 exclaims bitterly, " I die, yet cannot die at thus seeing 
 those deprived of the truth who ought to give their lives 
 for it." 
 
 Her view of papal authority demanded passive obedi- 
 ence, yet surely even those who felt as she did and were 
 equally orthodox must have asked themselves whether 
 any one, be he even the head of Christendom, had a right 
 to ruin the public and private life of a whole city, full of 
 innocent people, among a few who were guilty : and yet 
 more, where was the excuse for inflicting a like penalty 
 on towns like Pisa and Genoa and Siena, which had com- 
 mitted no offence beyond refusing to drive out the 
 Florentines and allowing them to attend mass. " Such 
 teaching is horrible in our day, and should have been to 
 them," says Muratori. 
 
 This suspension of spiritual rites favoured another con-
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 205 
 
 dition of things which exceedingly troubled Catherine, 
 namely the increase of heresy. For a century or more 
 Florence had been the headquarters of the Paterini and 
 Fraticelli, notwithstanding the vigorous efforts of the 
 Dominicans to destroy them ; the former were so numerous 
 that the Chief Inquisitor was known among the people 
 as the Inquisitore dei Paterini. 
 
 The Cani-Domini had literally hunted them down, 
 seizing them in their houses and as they fled through the 
 streets, but for one who was put to death half-a-dozen 
 started up, and the sympathy of the people was with them, 
 for during the outbreak of fury against the clergy early in 
 the struggles with Gregory the populace had wrecked the 
 buildings where the Inquisition sat adjoining Sta Maria 
 Novella. 
 
 What the tenets of the Paterini or the Fraticelli or 
 those of the other numerous sects which then existed 
 really were is impossible to ascertain. Their writings, 
 when they wrote, were usually seized and destroyed, 
 though it is said that they might be found in a part of 
 the Vatican not open to readers ; they are only known 
 through the reports of their enemies, and few creeds or 
 characters could stand such a test. That there was no 
 clear knowledge of them outside themselves is shown by 
 the way in which Dante classes Farinata degli Uberti as 
 an " Epicurean," and therefore believing that the soul 
 perishes with the body, which certainly was not the view 
 of the Paterini, yet the lately discovered archives of the 
 Inquisition in Florence charge Farinata with all his 
 family as being of that sect. The accusation was evi- 
 dently a calumny, invented after his death as an excuse 
 for that continuous persecution of the Uberti of which his 
 descendant, Fazio, complains in his very dull work, the 
 " Dittamondo," for Farinata was buried in holy ground, 
 beside the old Church of Sta Reparata, and to lie in holy
 
 206 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 ground was of course denied to a heretic. Indeed, if a 
 priest were undiscerning enough to take one as orthodox 
 and give him burial accordingly, should the mistake be 
 found out, he had to dig up the body with his own hands, 
 and the spot was considered as desecrated. 
 
 To Catherine heresy was dreadful, being schism, a 
 rending of the seamless coat, and she abhorred it accord- 
 ingly. There is no mention of her having anything to do 
 with the Paterini, but she had anxious consultations with 
 Don Giovanni delle Celle both as to the war, and the 
 interdict, and the teaching of the Fraticelli, against whom 
 she makes several discourses in public, holding them the 
 more dangerous that they were an exaggeration of the 
 early Franciscans, teaching the entire renunciation of pro- 
 perty in every shape, and when reminded that our Lord 
 and his apostles had a purse, replying, " Yes entrusted 
 to Judas. Had it been for our example, it would have 
 been in the hands of Peter." Every sect which preached 
 poverty was sure of persecution, but the Fraticelli claimed 
 to have prophets among them, and to speak with authority 
 against the corruptions of the Church which made them 
 doubly obnoxious. Like most of the heretical sects they 
 were charged with leading immoral lives, and it has been 
 suggested, though on slender grounds, that Catherine had 
 the Fraticelli in her mind when she wrote to her young 
 niece Eugenia in the convent at Montepulciano, threaten- 
 ing her with such an application of the discipline, i.e. 
 scourge, as she would remember all her life should any 
 word reach her that the girl had been found talking with a 
 friar. Unhappily morality had sunk low enough in the 
 mendicant orders for such a warning to be needed even 
 concerning those who were not Fraticelli. 
 
 If Catherine's discourses against the errors of these 
 had been preserved we might know more about what their 
 tenets really were. Her letters were carefully copied by
 
 ST. CATHERINE PRAYING FOR THE SOUL OF AN HERETIC 
 
 BY SOUOMA
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 207 
 
 her secretaries and friends, but no account of any speech 
 or discourse made in public survives. She was always 
 listened to with eager interest, and if no lasting effect 
 ensued, except on an individual here and there, this was 
 but natural ; it is the emotional, not the moral nature 
 which is roused in an Italian by a religious revival, and 
 the effect is rarely translated into action. The normal 
 condition of the Italian mind is tranquil indifference to 
 spiritual things. When Catherine spoke at this time she 
 was listened to with an interest the more eager that she had 
 come on an errand not fully understood by the people, 
 and was regarded with some doubt and suspicion, fomented 
 by the war party, which burst into flame a little later. 
 She had a most difficult task in dealing with a govern- 
 ment so complicated and with officers constantly changing, 
 so that hardly had she won them when new ones were 
 appointed, possibly with other views and aims, but here 
 as in Siena she had the great advantage of being con- 
 nected with no party in the Republic, and of having no 
 personal ends to gain. One thing she effected amid 
 much that disappointed her ; she induced the city to 
 observe the interdict. Immediately on her arrival ifi 
 Florence, as is related by Stefano Maconi, she went to 
 the Palazzo Vecchio, where sat the Priors of the Arts, 
 and made three speeches, and " by the grace of God, so 
 great was her success that though until then they had 
 broken the interdict and manifested much contempt for 
 the Holy See, after hearing the exhortations of that holy 
 virgin, they obeyed and observed it." Glad at heart she 
 wrote to Alessia dei Saracini, " The dawn is come, since 
 the darkness which prevailed here on account of many 
 mortal sins committed by saying and hearing the offices 
 publicly is taken away in spite of those who have hindered 
 this, and the interdict is observed. Thanks, thanks be to 
 our sweet Saviour who despises not humble prayers.
 
 208 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Pray to the Divine Goodness that peace may be soon 
 made in order that God may be glorified and all this ill 
 be done away, and we find ourselves together to tell the 
 admirable things of God. . . . Cause special prayers to 
 be put up in the monasteries, and tell our Prioress to bid 
 all her daughters implore peace, and that He will show 
 us mercy, for I do not return until it is made." 
 
 It was further off than her hopeful spirit foresaw. 
 " Our Prioress " was of course the one who presided 
 over the Mantellate, Nera di Gano, the one to whom 
 Catherine sent a letter 1 from the castle of Agnolo 
 Salimbeni, which more than hints at difficulties among 
 those over whom she ruled, since it bids her pay no heed 
 to their murmurings and ingratitude, but go on her way 
 without hesitation. The young Sister who a very few 
 years earlier had stood before her, blamed and slandered 
 almost to the point of expulsion, now gives counsel and 
 encourages her, and men and women her elders and 
 superiors in rank and position seek her advice, and 
 proudly call her " Mother." 
 
 While urging obedience to the cruel mandate of 
 Gregory, well aware that he would listen to no overtures 
 from Florence while it was defied, Catherine knew that if 
 orthodoxy were dumb, heresy would speak the louder, 
 and she encouraged the meetings where pious men and 
 women came together for private prayer, or to read some 
 holy book, as she had done among her own followers in 
 Siena, independent of any interdict. Processions went 
 through the streets singing devotional verses in Italian, 
 known as laudi, many of which were composed at this 
 time by Sacchetti, a friend of Soderini and a devout 
 believer in Catherine. It must be owned that some read 
 not unlike a love song. 
 
 There were also laudi much older than those of 
 
 1 Letter 125.
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 209 
 
 Sacchetti. From the time when those "great and 
 manifest miracles " were shown forth by a painting of 
 the Virgin in the grain market of San Michele in Orto on 
 July 3rd, 1292, which "the preaching friars and the friars 
 minor likewise through envy or some other cause would 
 put no faith in," as Villani records, there had been a 
 company of laymen who came before her picture to sing 
 laudi in her honour, and the unbelieving friars " fell into 
 much infamy." It is to this Madonna that Dante's loved 
 friend, Guido Cavalcanti, alludes as having the features of 
 his lovely lady, Primavera, in a sonnet where he repeats 
 the accusation against the friars who say that the worship 
 addressed to the painting " is idolatry, for envy that she 
 is not their neighbour," but he is not very much in 
 earnest. The devotees who came to sing hymns in 
 honour of the Virgin formed themselves into a company 
 called the Laudesi, and were celebrated for charitable 
 works, and they paid for the shrine and internal decora- 
 tions of Or San Michele when it was rebuilt in 1339, 
 after the earlier edifice was burned in the great faction 
 fight between the Cavalcanti, of whom Guido was the 
 most brilliant member, and their enemies, the Neri and 
 Donati, while the Podesta looked on and did nothing, and 
 all that quarter of the city was ablaze. 
 
 The respect now shown towards the interdict made it 
 possible that Gregory would listen if reasonable overtures 
 were made by Florence, and Catherine used all her 
 authority and influence to induce both Ghibellines and 
 Guelfs to be at one and make terms with him, now 
 meeting the heads of one party, now the other, and often 
 producing such an effect, at least for a time, as recalled 
 the involuntary exclamation of the Italian Cardinals at 
 Avignon, " It is not a woman who speaks, but the Holy 
 Spirit ! " 
 
 Still the Eight of War held out, though not openly, 
 
 o
 
 210 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 putting every obstacle in the way, not always selfishly, 
 for there was a reasonable desire to check the papal 
 power so as to defend Florence from a repetition of such 
 ruin as the Interdict and the war had brought upon her. 
 Only after stubborn opposition would they agree to refer 
 the cause between Florence and the Pope to a congress 
 which should be held at Sarzana, where every town which 
 had taken arms against the Pope would send represen- 
 tatives. Gregory was to send the Bishop of Narbonne 
 and Cardinal Robert of Geneva of evil fame ; Naples was 
 to have two ambassadors, appearing it would seem in 
 right of being his ally, since she had taken no share in 
 the struggle against him. Genoa, Venice and Florence 
 had four deputies each. Though Venice too had held 
 aloof, her trade and that of Florence were sufficiently 
 connected to make the matter important to her. The 
 arbitrator in the Congress was the wily Bernab6 Visconti. 
 That Robert of Geneva, on whom all Christendom had 
 so lately cried shame, should have been sent by the Pope 
 though his hands were still red with the blood of Cesena 
 and Faenza, and accepted by Italy as the papal represen- 
 tative, argues that even such enormities as he sanctioned 
 made no lasting impression in that age of atrocities, and 
 the general acceptance of Bernabo Visconti as arbitrator 
 is even more startling, for all knew his life of insane 
 cruelty and his falseness. None of the legates who drove 
 their cities into furious rebellion governed half as abomin- 
 ably as he. But the Italians could endure much more 
 from one of their own race than from foreigners, and his 
 time was not yet come. Why this man who had stirred 
 up strife so carefully now appeared in the character of 
 peacemaker was not at once known ; later it was found 
 that to win over his dangerous enemy, Gregory had 
 promised him a large share of the fine which he 
 demanded from the cities which had rebelled and driven
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 211 
 
 out their legates. It was to be the business of Bernab6 
 to make them pay. The sum was calculated less in 
 proportion to their offence than to the emptiness of the 
 papal treasury, and even if divided among all the 
 delinquents, was so huge that the money could hardly 
 have been raised. Some progress was made ; Gregory 
 ratified whatever Catherine had done, and sent the 
 Cardinal of Amiens as his legate to treat with Florence, 
 and the Congress had begun its sittings when all was 
 thrown into confusion by the news that the Pope had 
 died in Rome on the night of March 27th, 1378. He 
 had occupied the papal throne seven years, and would 
 have left little mark in history had he not been the last of 
 the French Popes. 
 
 Before his death Gregory is reported to have alluded 
 bitterly to Brigitta of Sweden and Catherine, warning 
 those around him not to listen to visionary women : he 
 himself had suffered from having done so. One would 
 hope that these words were not carried to the ears of 
 Catherine. 
 
 While the Pope was thinking hard things of his am- 
 bassadress, she was working for him at the imminent risk 
 of life. Finding that the chief obstacle among the Eight 
 of War was one Giovanni di Dino, a man of great weight 
 and importance, Catherine bethought herself in an evil 
 moment of that power which Soderini had alluded to in 
 his conversation with Raimondo, and suggested that it 
 should be used. The Eight had indeed all but unlimited 
 power as to their measures and spending money, but the 
 Captains of the People had theirs also, more ancient and 
 more fully recognised. Among them was that of " ad- 
 monishing " any one of Ghibelline politics. Should his 
 conduct not satisfy them after he was warned, he could 
 be exiled and his property confiscated. Had Soderini still 
 been in office, this power might possibly have been justly
 
 212 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 used, but Catherine must have known how often it had 
 served to gratify private enmities, and to propose that it 
 should be exercised to remove Dino and others of his 
 party was strangely rash. If she thought that she could 
 trust to the patriotism and honesty of the Guelf party 
 she was soon undeceived by finding that as their con- 
 fidence grew, they instituted a veritable proscription against 
 all their personal foes, using her name both as sword and 
 shield, and asserting that all they did was by her advice 
 and was approved of by her. The Florentine historian 
 Ammirato tells the state of the case thus : " There lived 
 at that time a young virgin born in Siena, so self- 
 restrained in her life, so set on all good works, that 
 down to this writer, who may be seen not to be one of 
 her followers, all call her ' Beata ' " = blessed. " But the 
 heads of the Guelf party used her name not only to 
 blame the war against the Church but to justify their 
 constant admonitions, perhaps thinking to deceive the 
 good and holy virgin, proclaiming in the piazza, and 
 churches and all public places that not so much by their 
 advice, but by the urgency of the blessed Catherine was 
 all this done." The names of Soderini, Bindo Altoviti 
 and Pietro Canigiani are especially mentioned as "exalting 
 admonition as a most excellent medium to cast down the 
 evil mind of those who were enemies to the Church," 
 but as two of these were close friends of Catherine's, and 
 in her letters to them after the tide turned against them 
 she makes no mention at all of their having deserved 
 their misfortunes, it may be merely a calumny. 
 
 Becoming aware of the use made of her name Catherine 
 vehemently protested and made her followers protest 
 publicly that she neither advised nor approved of the 
 measures taken by the Guelf party, which had succeeded 
 in wresting the power from its adversaries, and admonish- 
 ing no less than ninety of the chief citizens, under pretext
 
 ST. CATHERINE 
 
 BY LORENZO DI PTETRO VECCHIETTA
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 213 
 
 that they were Ghibellines. In a Latin MS. left by 
 Maconi, he declares, " I, Stefano Maconi, an unworthy 
 Carthusian, was in Florence at that time with St Catherine, 
 who ordered both myself and others to set forth the 
 scandal which would be caused by the admonitions, unless 
 they were forthwith stopped, but I laboured in vain." 
 Raimondo confirms this statement : " The holy virgin 
 neither did these things nor caused them to be done," he 
 writes in emphatic denial, " and grieved exceedingly over 
 them, and commanded and caused to be said to many 
 that they did most ill in laying hands on so many, and of 
 such great estate." 
 
 The treatment meted out to many who were innocent 
 of any offence except that they were not Guelfs began 
 to exasperate all Florence, and a new name came to the 
 front in political intrigues which henceforth played a great 
 part in the history of Florence, that of Salvestro dei 
 Medici, whom Sacchetti in one of his sonnets is pleased 
 to call the saviour of his country in a play of words quite 
 good enough for his subject, " Non gia Salvestro ma 
 Salvator mundi." Amid the commercial ruin of the 
 Florentine merchants he had contrived to remain rich, and 
 was at this time Gonfaloniere di Giustizia. 
 
 Notwithstanding his many opportunities of studying 
 the democracy, he had yet to learn how easy it is to 
 excite a mob, and how impossible to restrain it at will, 
 and, jealous of the fast rising power of the Captains of 
 the People, he called on the people themselves to guard 
 their rights, betrayed as he declared by their own side. 
 The popolo minuto, answering roughly to what is now 
 called the proletariate, though with a mixture of a better 
 class, and the minor arti, were ripe for mischief, especially 
 the weavers and wool-carders, whose wages were very low, 
 while the rules of their guilds were framed by and for 
 their masters. Their wrongs were real, but they had no
 
 214 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 votes, and their complaints were unheeded. Besides this, 
 work at that time was difficult or impossible to obtain, 
 and the unemployed were desperate. These were the 
 people whom Salvestro dei Medici thought to use. He 
 found how true is the warning given by Machiavelli in his 
 History of Florence, " There is no man bold enough to 
 arouse a revolutionary movement in a city who can, when 
 he will, curb it when he would stay it, or guide it towards 
 that at which he aims." 
 
 The whole of Florence was in an uproar, now partially 
 calmed, then breaking out with new fury. Salvestro lay 
 low, threatening to resign his post unless he was assigned 
 the rents of the shops on the Ponte Vecchio, and having 
 obtained this concession, kept out of sight and left his 
 fellow-authorities to get out of the troubles which he had 
 aroused as best they could. Fire and bloodshed filled 
 the streets, some of the most violent in the crowd were 
 such as " went a burning more for fear than liking," not 
 daring to seem lukewarm in the popular cause, and 
 burning other people's houses in the hope of protecting 
 their own. One ill deed brought another. " We have 
 done such ill to these lords that nevermore can we trust 
 them," was the explanation of much that was done. 
 There were some of higher rank who directed the move- 
 ments of the crowd ; many are said to have been 
 Fraticelli ; and there were those who would fain have 
 been rid of Catherine. Soon a shout was raised, none 
 could say by whom, but one after another took it up, 
 " Down with the false traitor and hypocrite Soderini, who 
 thinks of nothing but building a house for his blessed 
 Catherine ! Down with the Canigiani ! " The con- 
 junction of two names of those known to be Catherine's 
 especial friends was ominous. Led by a certain Mannelli, 
 who, as he believed, had been admonished at the instance 
 of Ristoro Canigiani, one of the sons, the mob poured
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 215 
 
 into the narrow Via dei Bardi, where Dante's Beatrice 
 spent her short married life, and where Petrarch's mother, 
 Electra Canigiana, was probably born. They set fire to 
 all the houses belonging to that family, and leaving the 
 rest to burn or not, turned their fury on the palace of 
 Soderini by the Arno, which they levelled to the ground. 
 Next the cry was heard, " Where is Catherine ? Where 
 is that wicked woman ? Let us take and burn Catherine 
 who is the ruin of Florence ! " and there was a rush 
 through the city in search of her. The Eight of War 
 did nothing to protect her, and her own friends were in 
 danger of their lives. At this moment she was sheltered 
 by some whose name is forgotten, which is well for them 
 if, as is told, they sent her away in cowardly fear for 
 themselves. Her own few followers would not leave her, 
 and they went from place to place, escaping their pursuers 
 by almost a miracle, but finding none to protect them or 
 give them a refuge. At last they entered a deserted 
 garden ; where it was is unknown, and there Catherine 
 was found kneeling in prayer when a band of woolcombers 
 discovered her. They burst in carrying axes and pikes 
 and shouting her name ; one who led them had a naked 
 sword. " Where is Catherine ? " he shouted. She 
 answered, " I am Catherine : in God's name do to me 
 whatever He allows, but let these go." The spell of her 
 sweet voice and gracious presence was never stronger ; 
 his answer was, " Fly, I say, fly ! " "I am very well 
 where I am," she said, " where would you have me go ? 
 I am ready and willing to suffer for God and the Church, 
 and I wish for no better. If you are charged to kill me, 
 do so, but let these go in safety." The man made no 
 reply, but led his troop away, and Catherine stood 
 unharmed amid her companions, who tremblingly re- 
 joiced over her wonderful escape. But she only wept at 
 having been found unworthy to pluck the red rose of
 
 216 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 martyrdom, words that recall the sculpture on an ancient 
 Christian sarcophagus in the Lateran where a Roman 
 soldier is about to place on the Saviour's head a crown 
 not of thorns but of roses. 
 
 After this she was sheltered and hidden for three days 
 by friends who are believed to have been Francesco 
 Pipino and his wife Agnese, to whom many of her letters 
 are addressed, but her position was so unsafe that she was 
 persuaded to leave the city. Soderini sent her into some 
 secure refuge, and then went back and lived in the little 
 house which he had built for her, and which, strangely 
 enough, had escaped the popular fury. She is generally 
 supposed to have gone to Vallombrosa, where lived Don 
 Giovanni delle Celle and many other holy men, but 
 Vallombrosa was then and long after very inaccessible, 
 and at a considerable distance from Florence. She makes 
 no mention of where she went in her letter to Raimondo, 
 and she dwells much more on her sorrow that she was not 
 allowed to meet martyrdom than on her danger. There 
 are however many ways of being a martyr, and Catherine's 
 endurance of pain and toil and disappointment entitles 
 her to count as one of that noble army. Her friends tried 
 to persuade her not to venture back to Florence, but she 
 replied, " I have been commissioned by God to stay here, 
 and I will not leave Florentine ground until there is peace 
 between the Holy Father and His children." 
 
 After a while the outbreak quieted down and she 
 returned to the city, where she was received with shame 
 and respect. The storm had passed over for a time, and 
 the people were astonished at their own ill-doings. Pro- 
 scriptions had however begun against the Guelfs ; it was 
 their turn for exile and confiscation. Although none 
 denied that when Soderini was in power he had ruled 
 justly and well, not only had his fine palazzo been 
 destroyed and sacked, but he was sent into exile. The
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 217 
 
 Canigiani fared worse ; already nearly ruined by the 
 burning of their houses, they were heavily fined, and 
 although Ristoro had been enrolled as a popolano, he 
 was now declared to be not merely a Grande, but a Super- 
 grande, and as such for his whole life ineligible to any 
 office in his tumultuous Republic. Another son, Barduccio, 
 went to Siena with Catherine, a disciple of Don Giovanni 
 delle Celle, who thenceforward lived with her and was one 
 of her secretaries. He was a very young and saintly man, 
 and had been acquainted with Catherine before she came 
 to Florence, and introduced her to his father, Pietro 
 Canigiani. Raimondo says that Catherine had a special 
 affection for him ; " I think," he writes, " that it arose from 
 his angelic purity, nor is it wonderful that a virgin-soul 
 should be dear to a virgin." After Catherine's death he 
 became a secular priest ; Catherine had put him under 
 Raimondo's especial care, and by him, " fearing that the 
 air of Rome was hurtful to him," he was sent to Siena, 
 where he died with a smile on his face a little more than 
 a year after her release, glad to lay down the burden of 
 life. 
 
 At the time when she was in such danger Catherine 
 did not know how soon Gregory's life would end, and was 
 haunted by the fear that he would return to Avignon. 
 She therefore minimised the risk she had run in writing 
 to Raimondo, lest the news of the tumult in Florence 
 might both increase his anger against the city and his 
 fears for his own safety. That every excuse for quitting 
 Italy would be laid before him by his court she knew too 
 well, and in her letter to Rome she bade Raimondo 
 implore him not to allow what had happened to delay 
 the peace, but rather hurry it on while the city was 
 tranquil. 
 
 Almost as she wrote came the news that Gregory was 
 dead, and again her hopes were brought to nought, but
 
 218 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Catherine was of too noble and sanguine a nature to be 
 downcast, often and bitterly though she had been dis- 
 appointed. There was a time of great anxiety until it was 
 known that an Italian Pope had been elected, and that 
 there was no danger of a return to Avignon, but all the 
 while she continued her efforts to reconcile Florence and 
 the Holy See, happily unaware of what was in the near 
 future, writing as soon as a new Pontiff had been elected 
 in terms even more urgent than those in which she had 
 addressed the late Pope to beseech him to begin his 
 reign by pardoning the cities which had joined the League, 
 and assuring him that one and all were inclined to submit. 
 She could say so even of Florence, dispirited by the falling 
 away of Bologna, and the treacherous defection of her 
 Captain of the forces, Varano. To us, reading her letters 
 in a different age, they may seem at times monotonous, as 
 we find the same thought and arguments repeated ; in 
 this case for instance she says that justice without mercy 
 is injustice, and that it is the Pope's proper work as a true 
 shepherd to eradicate vice and plant virtue. Catherine 
 could not always stay to notice whether her metaphors 
 are mixed or not, nor do they always please modern 
 taste. If need be, he must be ready to lay down life for 
 the truth. If it appears to us that she has said this often 
 before, we must recollect that the letters were intended 
 for various correspondents, and not to be read one after 
 another by indifferent eyes. She ends with a passage of 
 characteristic good sense, warning the new Pope that it is 
 useless to ask for too much ; one must accept from a sick 
 man what he has to give, and take pity on the numerous 
 souls who are perishing and begging for the oil of mercy. 
 And this should be done even if they do not ask in 
 exactly the courteous way which would become them, nor 
 feel as heartily regretful for their misdoings as they ought 
 to be.
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 219 
 
 The death of Gregory not only changed the aspect of 
 political affairs but was accompanied by tumults and 
 intrigues recalling those of the Conclave at Carpentras, 
 after the death of Clement V., when the populace 
 surrounded the palace where the Sacred College had met, 
 burned the neighbouring houses and pounded at the 
 barred doors within which the Cardinals were deliberating 
 with shouts of " We will have a French Pope ! Italian 
 Cardinals, name a French Pope ! " The Conclave broke 
 up in terror, and pulling down part of a wall at the back 
 of the palace, escaped in all directions. The cry now was 
 " French Cardinals ! name an Italian ! " 
 
 Florence, like all Italy, was deeply interested in the 
 matter, the more that with a new Pope, negotiations 
 might be made on a better footing, but internal matters 
 were even more pressing. Discontent was still rife among 
 the lower classes, while the perennial struggle with the 
 Grandi always threatened law and order. Roughly speak- 
 ing there were always five parties in Florence, trying 
 each to get the upper hand. With such a dissolvent as is 
 suspicion always at work, such a complication of offices 
 and change of officers, such elements of disquiet as ex- 
 isted in Florence, it is wonderful how a city could exist, 
 much more rise to such a glorious eminence as did the 
 city of the lily. 
 
 All these difficulties had to be taken into account by 
 Catherine, and that she dealt successfully with them is a 
 decisive proof of her powers. In July 1378 she saw her 
 task accomplished ; Florence and the new pontiff were 
 reconciled, the interdict was raised, and she had also the 
 promise that Talemone should be restored. She could 
 write to Siena with rapture that " in spite of those who 
 sought to hinder, peace was made ; messengers had 
 arrived bearing olive branches, and she sent a twig 
 of one to Siena. Readers of Dante will recollect an
 
 220 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 allusion to some such scene which he too had joyfully 
 beheld : 
 
 " Come a messegger che porta olivo 
 Tragge la gente per udir novelle, 
 E di calcar nessun si mostra schivo . . ." * 
 
 Catherine's work was done, and with deep thankfulness 
 and relief she could say, " Now therefore let us go back 
 to Siena." 
 
 Returned there she took up her former life of combined 
 meditation and active good works, passing from one to 
 the other without any jar, a Martha and Mary in one, 
 now lost in super-conscious ecstasy, now giving her mind 
 to politics and the reform of the Church, seeking to make 
 her fellow-citizens observe the interdict from which they 
 were not yet relieved, making foes into friends and visiting 
 the Spedale. Catherine's life was a continual prayer, but 
 no one ever insisted more strongly that prayer should not 
 supersede good works. When she saw danger of spiritual 
 selfishness she did not fear to write, " Better good works 
 than many psalms," " Be not satisfied with saying many 
 paternosters," and again, " Good and holy works are that 
 continual prayer which every creature endowed with 
 reason should make." 
 
 It was at this time that she wrote and dictated her 
 famous " Dialogue," or as it was at first called, " The book 
 of divine teaching," a more appropriate name since in it 
 the soul is supposed to be listening to divine teaching, 
 and hardly speaks at all. Her disciples had begged her 
 to put down the thoughts and meditations which they 
 heard from her lips, wherefore, says Di Gano, " this ser- 
 vant of Christ made a noteworthy thing in the form of a 
 missal. . . . She composed it all in ecstasy, abstracted 
 from the use of all her senses except her tongue." 
 
 1 Purg. c. ii. 11. 70-74.
 
 ST. CATHERINE AND THE CONFRATERNITY OF THE MISERICORDIA 
 
 ItV SANO DI PIETKO
 
 CATHERINE IN FLORENCE 221 
 
 This agrees with Raimondo's report, but he was then 
 in Rome, and Stefano Maconi, who took down part from 
 Catherine's dictation, told Caffarini that she wrote much 
 of it herself, and that he had collected some of her MSS. 
 and put them for safety in the Carthusian monastery of 
 Pontignano, a little way from Siena. She is also spoken 
 of as walking about while she dictated, and part was com- 
 posed in the quiet hermitage of Fra Santi. 
 
 How and where the work was written is of small im- 
 portance. Its value consists in its own merits and in 
 its having breathed new life into arid scholasticism, as is 
 declared by no less an authority than Cardinal Capo- 
 celatro in his fine life of the saint of Siena. Much is 
 an amplification of what has been touched on in letters, 
 such as the beautiful passages on prayer. The work was 
 originally in short chapters, but Gigli divided it into 
 " tractates," which treat of prayer, discretion, obedience 
 and perfection, and is a wonderful study of the soul's 
 relation to God, and we can well believe her declaration 
 that no man, not even her friend and confessor Raimondo, 
 although he was " of subtle genius and a great searcher 
 into the mysteries of the Divinity and of Holy Scripture," 
 but only God Himself had guided her in composing it. 
 It belongs to the class of writings which come from the 
 Convent of Hilfta in Germany, and the Abbey of St 
 Victor in France, but the breath of practicality pervades 
 it which characterises Italian mysticism, distinguishing 
 it sharply from the works of the French and German 
 school. Di Gano put it into Latin, because, as he says, 
 those who had any learning did not care to read what 
 was written in the vernacular, therefore he translated it 
 for his own satisfaction and that of his friends, spending 
 several years over his version, and when he had completed 
 it, sending the manuscript to Maconi to correct, since he 
 had heard most of the original as it fell from Catherine's
 
 222 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 lips. After this it was entrusted to a good copyist, 
 a man according to Petrarch far from easy to find. De 
 Gano had not long got it safely back when a French 
 Dominican bishop who had known Catherine at Avignon 
 came with Raimondo, then risen to be General of his 
 Order, to Siena, and begged it, saying that he found some 
 things in it better put than by any of the doctors of the 
 Church, and that he would preach from it in his dio- 
 cese and gain much fruit of souls, and De Gano had to 
 let it go.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 GATHERING STORMS 
 
 AFFAIRS at Rome soon began to preoccupy Catherine. 
 Never had there been more excitement, more hope 
 and fear, nor such consciousness that a great crisis 
 was at hand than around the dying bed of Gregory XL 
 Even before he expired, the chief authorities of Rome, to- 
 gether with many clergy and laymen, went to Santo Spirito 
 where had gathered the Cardinals who were then in the 
 city to demand an audience and press the election of a 
 Roman as Pontiff. The Cardinals spoke them fair, but 
 declared that they could only act as directed by the Holy 
 Spirit, and having dismissed them ill-satisfied, hastened to 
 convey all their most valuable possessions into the castle 
 of Saint Angelo, which was held by a strong garrison 
 under Pierre de Rostaing. As soon as the death of 
 Gregory was known every gate and bridge in Rome was 
 guarded and watched by order of the civic authorities lest 
 the Conclave should be held elsewhere, and such Barons 
 as were likely to interfere with the election of the new Pope, 
 such as the Orsini, were ordered to leave Rome. Deputa- 
 tions were again sent to put before the members of the 
 Sacred College how much Italy and especially Rome had 
 suffered from the absence of the Pontiffs, and warn them 
 to make a speedy choice of one who should be Roman or 
 at least Italian, for the temper of the people would endure 
 nothing else. At the same time, to assure them of pro- 
 tection and overawe the turbulent populace, a block of 
 
 223
 
 224 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 marble and an axe were placed in the piazza before 
 St Peter's, and thrice a day proclamation was made that 
 any one who harmed them or any of their retinue would 
 be beheaded on the spot. 
 
 Of the sixteen Cardinals in Rome only four were Italian, 
 while eleven were French. The remaining one was a 
 Spaniard. Of the Italians Orsini was full young for a 
 Pope, and Tebaldeschi was too old ; only two possible 
 ones remained, and they were not Romans. 
 
 Although the Senator of Rome and the thirteen 
 Banderesi (Bannerets) who commanded the civic guard 
 from the rioni or wards of the city had promised safety 
 and freedom of debate, and though axe and block stood 
 in the middle of the piazza, it did not seem as if their 
 precautions were of much avail, for shouts filled the air of 
 " Roman or Italian we will have. Give us a Roman Pope 
 who will stay with us, French Cardinals, or we will make 
 your heads redder than your hats ! " and the electors passed 
 through the crowd before St Peter's on their way to the 
 Vatican, where no Conclave had been held for fifty-six 
 years, followed by a number of armed rioters, who in the 
 confusion caused by a tempest during which the Romans 
 gloomily noted that the palace had been struck by lightning, 
 pressed in after the Cardinals, and even after the greater 
 part had been expelled and the doors were supposed to 
 be closed for the night, between thirty and forty were 
 found to have remained. The Bishop of Marseilles got 
 rid of them by inviting them to an excellent supper, after 
 which they departed in good humour. In the belfry of 
 St Peter's the bells were clanging wildly all night, and 
 below a dense mass of people, townsfolk and peasants who 
 had flocked in from the Campagna ate and drank and 
 shouted till even through the barred doors and thick walls 
 of the Vatican the noise reached the Cardinals as they sat 
 in hot debate before formally opening the Conclave. Nor
 
 GATHERING STORMS 225 
 
 was this all ; against all precedent the Banderesi insisted 
 on entering, and again warned them to choose a Roman 
 Pope. They then withdrew, and again the threatening 
 voices outside penetrated to the Cardinals' ears. There 
 is little darkness in an April night in Rome, and a less 
 matter suffices to keep the people all night in the streets. 
 " Scarce a Cardinal slept." It would have been wonderful 
 had they done so, even had they had less uncomfortable 
 " cells " than those occupied by them, little spaces curtained 
 off in the hall of Conclave where the next day they met, 
 and again could hear the roar of impatient voices outside, 
 and the pounding and battering on the doors, and a report 
 was brought that the rabble were collecting fuel to burn 
 them down. The need of a speedy election was evident, 
 but there were many opposing interests. Six of the 
 Cardinals were from the Limousin, and wished for a Pope 
 from their own province ; but four others, though also 
 French, formed what was known as the Gallic party, 
 headed by Robert of Geneva, and would not hear of this ; 
 Urban V., they said, and Gregory XI. were Limousins 
 and had brought only misfortune. Rather than have 
 another Pope from that province they would join the 
 Italian party, which consisted of the old Cardinal 
 Tebaldeschi and Orsini, Romans, Corsini, a Florentine, 
 and Simone da Borsano, a Milanese. 
 
 The debate might have lasted long had they not been 
 spurred on by personal fears. The Bishop of Florence 
 proposed Tebaldeschi as Pope, but this suggestion was 
 strongly opposed by the Cardinal of Limoges. " The 
 Cardinal of St Peter's " Tebaldeschi " is ineligible," he 
 said, " because as he is a Roman it will seem as if the 
 Sacred College had yielded to the clamour of the Romans ; 
 moreover he is aged and infirm. The Bishop of Florence 
 is ineligible because he comes from a city which is in 
 revolt against the Church. Cardinal Orsini is a Roman,
 
 226 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 and far too young. ... I propose the Archbishop of 
 Bari." 
 
 All agreed to this compromise, and voted for Bartolo- 
 meo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari, except the Bishop of 
 Florence, and Orsini, sullen and disappointed that the 
 choice had not fallen on himself. At the time the choice 
 seemed politic. Prignano was of high character, a good 
 business man, and popular with the Romans, and there 
 was a secret hope among the Cardinals that one who 
 had lived at Avignon, and could compare its luxurious 
 safety with the squalor and chronic anarchy of Rome 
 must desire to return. Of course he was not present in 
 the Conclave, and the news of his election was sent to 
 him. It took him altogether by surprise. Hastily bidding 
 his servants hide and remove all his books and most 
 valuable possessions before the mob could use their 
 singular privilege of pillaging the house of a newly 
 chosen Pontiff, he obeyed the summons to the Vatican. 
 In the mysterious way in which news leaks out when 
 a Conclave is sitting, the crowd discovered that a Pope 
 had been elected, but mistook the name for that of 
 Tebaldeschi, and while one part of the throng rushed off 
 to sack his house, another burst the doors and pressed 
 in to do homage to him, with exultant cries of " We 
 have a Roman Pope ! " The magistrates sent out couriers 
 to announce the news, and the Cardinals, who were 
 " eating a most miserable dinner >: probably their un- 
 welcome guests of the night before had consumed their 
 provisions terrified at what would ensue when the 
 mistake was discovered, fled wherever they could, and 
 the poor old Cardinal of St Peter's, too gouty to move, 
 was left alone, nearly suffocated by the crowd pressing 
 on him to kiss his gouty hands and feet, and feebly 
 tried to explain the mistake, while Prignano concealed 
 himself in one of the most distant parts of the Vatican.
 
 GATHERING STORMS 227 
 
 The uproar and jubilation was redoubled when the 
 cellars of the Vatican were discovered, stored with ex- 
 cellent Malvoisie, Greek and divers other good wines. 1 
 There was such confusion during these two days that 
 accounts of what occurred differ very widely, but all 
 agree that when the mistake as to the new Pope was 
 discovered, the popular fury equalled the first rejoicing, 
 and was intensified by a confusion between the Arch- 
 bishop of Bari and a certain Giovanni who had this 
 name, a man who held some office in the papal household 
 and was greatly hated. "Not a Roman ? Death to 
 the traitors," was the cry, justifying the Cardinals' fears. 
 Some were seized and forcibly brought back to the 
 Vatican to choose a new Pope, but they found courage 
 to declare Prignano duly elected, and in the confusion 
 which followed, were able to disappear. 
 
 In the Vatican there remained only Cardinal Tebaldeschi, 
 too infirm to run away, and the Pope, who kept out of 
 sight until the next day, when the tumult quieted down, 
 the Romans being pacified at finding that, if not one of 
 themselves, the new Pontiff was at least an Italian, and 
 beginning to be eager to see the coronation. Prignano 
 himself and the incident is noteworthy in the light of 
 what followed refused to be treated as Pope, saying 
 that he felt uncertain as to the validity of his election, 
 until assured on this point, but five Cardinals who 
 had escaped to their palaces came back and solemnly 
 declared it to be regular, and those who had fled to 
 St Angelo wrote to the same effect. A little later, 
 reassured by the Banderesi, they ventured out, and found 
 Rome in the best of tempers, delighted with the prospect 
 of the impending ceremonies, which only the oldest had 
 ever seen. On Easter Sunday, April i8th 1378, all the 
 Legates except those who had refused to leave Avignon, 
 
 1 Muratori,
 
 228 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 and the Cardinal of Amiens, whom Gregory XI. had 
 despatched to Tuscany, assembled to crown the Pope 
 as the custom then was, seated in a chair where all 
 could see him, before St Peter's, after which he went in 
 procession to the Lateran, now made habitable. Thence- 
 forward he was known as Urban VI. 
 
 A greater contrast to his predecessor, the pallid, vacil- 
 lating, refined Gregory XL could not have been found. 
 Born of a Neapolitan father and a Tuscan mother, Urban 
 VI. was short, stoutly made and swarthy, with fiery black 
 eyes, unprepossessing and brusque, but the well-known 
 purity and austerity of his life made him in Avignon 
 " among the faithless only faithful found," and his 
 patronage of learned men, close study of canon law 
 and of the Bible, which he caused to be read to him 
 every night, suggested to Catherine, who had known 
 him at Avignon, a great hope that he would put a new 
 spirit into the Papal Court, and reform the Church. In 
 all its corruption that faithful souls were still found in 
 it was amply proved by the great missions to India, 
 China and Africa for which there always were eager 
 volunteers. Gregory and his predecessors had greatly 
 encouraged these missionary labours, which should never 
 be left out of account in estimating their merits. There 
 were also devout and earnest men, free from any touch 
 of that surface piety which Catherine scorned, all eager 
 to co-operate in reform. Urban had a golden opportunity, 
 but he threw it away. The intentions with which he 
 began to rule were excellent. He desired to free the 
 Papacy from foreign influence, especially that of France ; 
 to do justice between that country and England, and 
 reform the manners and morals of the higher ecclesiastics. 
 It was a great programme, but Bartolomeo Prignano was 
 not the man to carry it out. No Brutus ever surprised 
 those around him more by unexpected developments of
 
 GATHERING STORMS 229 
 
 character. When Lodovia Gonzaga of Mantua heard of 
 his election he had said, " I am sure that he will rule the 
 Holy House of God well, and I venture to say that for 
 a hundred years the Church has not had a shepherd 
 like him, for he has no relations, is good friends with the 
 Queen of Naples, and is experienced in worldly matters, 
 and sagacious and prudent." 
 
 But there are many who do well in subordinate positions, 
 yet cannot bear the test of ruling others. Urban VI. was 
 emphatically one of these. Very soon the Prior of Gorgona 
 wrote ruefully to Catherine that he had seen Gambacorta 
 and had heard from him that the new Pope was a terrible 
 man and greatly frightened those who had to do with 
 him. If Catherine had had to rouse Gregory out of 
 " accidie," she now found herself obliged to implore Urban 
 to restrain his savage temper. " For the love of Jesus," 
 she wrote, " restrain those over-quick impulses which nature 
 suggests to you." From first to last her letters to Urban 
 have a touch of uneasiness ; they are cautiously respectful 
 though frank ; the almost caressing tone of those to his 
 predecessor, the last excepted, is quite absent. 
 
 But Urban, though he took her admonitions without 
 offence, paid no heed to them. The very day after his 
 coronation he broke into reproaches as he sat in the 
 Consistory against the indecent luxury of the higher 
 clergy, not without cause, if, as is told, many had a 
 hundred horses in their stables and a retinue to match, 
 while the extravagance of delicate dishes and wine at 
 their banquets was notorious, and had called forth scathing 
 notice from Petrarch. However, it was a considerable 
 stretch of authority to bid them observe the rule of 
 Urban's own order and have but a single dish at their 
 meals. Besides this, the bishops were desired to live in 
 their dioceses and cease to be the pensioners of princes 
 and cities. It is said that Urban had never visited his
 
 230 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 own diocese of Bari, but had that been the case they 
 would surely have met his rebuke as a French bishop did 
 the inquiry of Gregory XI. as to why he was absent from 
 his see : " Holy Father, why are you not in yours ? " 
 " Perjured traitors " was Urban's name for them. The 
 anger of all present was unconcealed ; the lame Robert of 
 Geneva rose and limped up to the papal throne, and 
 exclaimed, " To-day you have not shown the cardinals 
 that respect which they received from your predecessor. 
 I tell you that if you belittle our dignity, we will belittle 
 yours." That one who so lately had been merely a monk 
 should thus treat the Princes of the Church was intoler- 
 able, and the threat was no empty one, but Urban would 
 not be warned. Repeatedly he offended his Cardinals, 
 bidding one hold his tongue and not talk nonsense, telling 
 another that he was a fool. He actually sprang up to 
 strike a third, and was only prevented from doing so by 
 Robert of Geneva, who seized and pulled him back, 
 exclaiming, " Holy Father ! Holy Father ! what are 
 you doing ? " 
 
 " In Urban," wrote a contemporary, " was verified the 
 proverb, ' None is so insolent as a low man suddenly raised 
 to power.' " Never did a man do right in so wrong a 
 way, and the consciousness of good intentions blinded 
 him to his mistaken methods, while his view of himself as 
 spiritual head of all Christendom made opposition appear 
 to him as sacrilege. His very virtues turned against him. 
 That sense of justice which made him declare he would do 
 right by England was supposed to mean that he would 
 favour the latter country at the expense of France, and 
 this belief was confirmed by his harsh reproaches to the 
 Cardinal of Amiens when he came from Tuscany to do 
 him homage reproaches well deserved according to 
 Walsingham, for having stimulated the discords between 
 England and France, and diverted great sums of money
 
 GATHERING STORMS 231 
 
 to his own use. Urban's accusations were the more 
 stinging from being deserved, and the haughty Frenchman 
 retorted, " Thou liest, Barese," thus contriving to insult the 
 man while avoiding direct insult to him as Pope, and so 
 saying he walked out of the hall. An even more dangerous 
 enemy was created in the Conte di Fondi, Governor of 
 Campania, who had lent a large sum of money to Gregory 
 XI. Urban not only repudiated the debt but deprived 
 him of his office and bestowed it on a personal enemy of 
 the Count's. Even more fatal was the result of his behaviour 
 to Otho of Brunswick, the fourth husband of Giovanna I. 
 of Naples. This Queen had been well pleased that a 
 subject of her own should be elected Pope, and sent both 
 ambassadors and Otho to Rome to congratulate him, but 
 the austere Pontiff could only look with high disfavour on 
 such a woman as Giovanna, feeling nothing of the fascina- 
 tion which had bewitched so many, and marked his opinion 
 of her by an impolitic discourtesy to her ambassadors and 
 her husband. When Otho knelt at a banquet to offer him 
 a cup of wine, he feigned not to see him, and left him 
 kneeling, until a Cardinal, distressed by his rudeness, said 
 aloud, " Holy Father, it is time to drink." To the 
 ambassadors he said that he was well aware of the evil 
 condition of the Court of Naples, and was determined 
 to amend it. Giovanna was infuriated at the offence 
 she had received in the persons of those who represented 
 her, and the friendship and support of Naples was lost 
 to Urban. 
 
 Even if he took good advice, he turned it to ill. When 
 Catherine repeated the counsel which she had vainly given 
 to Gregory, that he should create "a troop of good 
 Cardinals," it suggested to him to threaten the Sacred 
 College with swamping the French party with Italians, a 
 declaration satisfactory to the Banderesi, who had begged 
 for a creation of new ones, but which made Robert of
 
 232 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Geneva, pale with anger, leave the Consistory. Secret 
 interviews were at once held by him with his colleagues, 
 and the schism which rent the Church for forty years began 
 to come into sight. 
 
 Difficulties thickened round Urban. Unless the castle 
 of St Angelo were held by a garrison faithful to the Pope, 
 he had no mastery over the city, and the French castellan 
 refused to deliver it up until he had permission to do so 
 from the Cardinals in Avignon. When they loyally desired 
 him to obey, the French ones in Rome secretly forbade 
 him to do so, and Sant' Angelo remained a menace to 
 Urban, and a warning of coming danger. 
 
 The heat and unhealthiness of Rome gave the cardinals 
 sufficient excuse for leaving Rome, and going to their houses 
 at Anagni, as they had been accustomed to do in the time 
 of Gregory XL There it was easy to communicate with 
 Naples and the Conte di Fondi, and there too went the 
 Archbishop of Aries, taking with him the papal tiara and 
 other treasures. Urban ordered him to be arrested and 
 summoned the Cardinals to join him at Tivoli, and they 
 tried to induce him to go to Anagni, where he would have 
 been in their power. He refused to join them and they 
 refused to appear at Tivoli. On this he carried out his 
 threat of creating an overwhelming number of Italian 
 Cardinals by nominating twenty-four of that nation. The 
 Anagni party thereupon declared him unlawfully elected, 
 and an apostate and anti-Christ, and proceeded to choose 
 another Pope, who took the name of Clement VII., and 
 was none other than Robert of Geneva. The choice of 
 such a name by one stained with the blood of Cesena roused 
 the mocking spirit of the Italians. Three Italian Cardinals 
 who had been sent to negotiate stood neuter, waiting to 
 see what would happen. 
 
 It had needed no gift of prophecy when Catherine 
 foretold the coming schism at Pisa ; all who could read
 
 GATHERING STORMS 233 
 
 the signs of the times could foresee it, but it might have 
 been delayed had Urban been less unwise. He himself 
 believed that it was no fault of his. The Pro-notary of 
 the Apostolic See, Tomaso Petra, ventured to ask him 
 how the mistake between himself and his Cardinals had 
 arisen, and the Pope answered with unexpected mildness, 
 " Truly, my son, it is no fault of mine," and explained it 
 by his refusal to return to Avignon or to seize on the 
 possessions of the Knights of St John as a means of fill- 
 ing the papal treasury, a proposal which he had rejected 
 with disgust, declaring that he would rather die a 
 thousand deaths than destroy the right arm of Christen- 
 dom. Urban, whatever his faults, was no Clement V. 
 There was a third reason for the breach between this 
 Pope and his high dignitaries, which is given by Theodore 
 a Niem, his secretary, the alarm created by his deter- 
 mination to extirpate simony, and also, no doubt, his 
 rough attempts to reform their ways. " It is not what 
 he does, but the way he does it," was the explanation of 
 an ambassador when asked how Urban came to make so 
 many enemies. 
 
 During this time Raimondo of Capua was in Rome, 
 and in high favour with Urban, who declared that he 
 was hands and feet to him, though it appears that he was 
 offended with two friends of Raimondo's and Catherine's, 
 one of whom was Tantucci. Raimondo kept Catherine 
 informed of what was passing, and a passage in a letter 
 written to Urban only two days before the Antipope was 
 elected suggests that the intentions of the Cardinals were 
 already known. Her distress was unspeakable. The 
 thing that she had above all dreaded had come to pass ; 
 the unity of the Church was shattered. There had indeed 
 been earlier Antipopes, but only to disappear speedily, 
 disavowed by even the few who had supported them. 
 Now not a Louis of Bavaria, not Florence, not a Tuscan
 
 234 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 League was defying the Pope, but his own Cardinals and 
 half Christendom. Henceforward the consciences of men 
 would be distracted by the doubt of who was truly Head 
 of Christendom, who really held the awful powers which 
 they conceived to be vested in the Vicar of Christ. And 
 the blindness of the Cardinals was wilful, since at the time 
 of Urban's election the members of the Sacred College 
 wrote with one accord to those at Avignon declaring that 
 " freely and by common consent they had elected the 
 Archbishop of Bari, a man eminent for his great merits," 
 and had eleven days later sent letters to the Kings of 
 France and England and the Emperor of Germany to the 
 same effect. Urban's own doubts at the time furnished 
 another proof that all had held his election valid, since 
 they called forth a positive assurance from all who had 
 voted that there was no question on the subject. They 
 had shown him homage as their Head, had attended his 
 Consistories, and had asked many papal favours, as he 
 remarked with a touch of humour. Now they wrote to 
 all the Courts declaring that the election had taken place 
 under pressure of fear, that they had expected the 
 Archbishop of Bari to decline an honour for which he 
 should have known himself unfit, and they warned all 
 Christian peoples to withhold allegiance " to that wicked 
 man, and in no way to obey the mandates, monitions, acts 
 or words " of him who must abdicate unless he was 
 prepared to incur the wrath of Heaven, Peter, Paul and 
 all other saints." 
 
 Christendom was split into two camps, more through 
 politics than religion. Spain, Savoy, Cyprus and a few 
 German princes sided with the Antipope ; France 
 wavered and tried for a time to take neither side ; 
 Scotland naturally took the one which England did not, 
 and England would have none of Clement ; the schismatic 
 Cardinals wrote to Archbishop Sudbury in vain ; neither
 
 GATHERING STORMS 235 
 
 clergy nor laity could forget that Robert of Geneva was 
 " a man of blood," and his military genius and gracious 
 manners did not appeal to them. The ministers of the 
 boy King Richard II. drew up a list of reasons why they 
 held their allegiance due only to Urban, and among them 
 is mention of a revelation made to a holy hermit, in whom 
 may be recognised William Flete of Lecceto, showing him 
 that Urban and no other was the true Pope. And when 
 the other " nations " of the University of Paris accepted 
 Clement, the English students stubbornly refused to do 
 so. One voice was uplifted among the Cardinals who 
 had voted for Urban, to protest the validity of his election ; 
 from his dying bed the aged Tebaldeschi declared him to 
 be the true Pope, but his declaration had no effect, and of 
 the Italian Cardinals created in haste by Urban, several 
 went over to the Antipope. 
 
 Catherine, heart-broken and aghast, gathered up all 
 her remaining strength to fight for the unity of the 
 Church. She wrote fiery appeals to renegades, to the 
 indifferent, to princes, priests, kings, cities, a very storm 
 of letters recalling them to their duty, and reminding 
 them that the arm of the Church might be weakened but 
 would not break, and would emerge out of weakness 
 strengthened together with all who clung to it. With all 
 the passionate eloquence at her command she addressed 
 the Cardinal di Luna, who had been sent to negotiate at 
 Anagni, and as yet had not abandoned Urban's cause, 
 but who one day would himself be an Antipope 
 Benedict XIII. "Ah, wretched soul of mine!" she 
 exclaimed, " all other things, war, dishonour, and other 
 tribulations would seem less than a straw or a shadow 
 compared to this," and she goes on to implore him to 
 make peace and put away this great scandal. Both the 
 Pope and Catherine hoped much from his mediation, and 
 the blow was a heavy one when it appeared that he
 
 236 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 had played false, and had even induced the three 
 Cardinals who had hitherto stood neutral to go over to 
 Clement. 
 
 Forty years of schism lay before the Church, forty 
 years of mutual excommunications, fighting, utter dis- 
 order ; at one time there were three Popes ; often two 
 bishops disputed a diocese, two priests claimed the same 
 parish, and this not only in Italy but in Germany, France 
 and Spain, and the main cause of all this horrible con- 
 fusion and sacrilege was not even religious, but venal. 
 " The origin of the schism," declares Chamange in his 
 work on " The Destruction of the Church," " the root of all 
 confusion is money." 
 
 Catherine found some comfort in the very extremity 
 of the situation, though convinced that it must become 
 still worse before there was improvement. " I saw how 
 the Bride of Christ can give life," she wrote, " having 
 in herself such vital force that no one can stay her ; 
 I saw that she shed forth strength and light, and that 
 none can deprive her of it, and I saw that her fruit never 
 diminishes, but ever increases." Her noble faith upheld 
 her, though the hopes which had filled her life lay dead 
 around her. The few remaining years of her troubled 
 existence were spent in a desperate struggle to support 
 Urban, made more desperate by her consciousness of his 
 unwisdom. 
 
 Among the many striking letters written at this time 
 is an especially memorable one to the three Italian 
 Cardinals who had followed the lead of Luna. Righteous 
 indignation thrills in every sentence. " What shows me 
 that you are ungrateful, base and mercenary ? " she asks. 
 " The persecution which you and the others are inflicting 
 on that Bride " (the Church) " at a time when you should 
 be shields to ward off the blows of heresy," a word 
 which in her letters often stands for schism. " Yet you
 
 STATUE OF ST. CATHERINE 
 
 BY NEKOCC10
 
 GATHERING STORMS 237 
 
 know clearly that Urban is truly Pope, the supreme 
 Pontiff, chosen by due election, not through fear, but 
 truly by divine inspiration rather than your human 
 action. And so did you announce this, which was the 
 truth. Now you have turned your backs like base and 
 wretched knights ; you have been afraid of your own 
 shadow. . . . You ought to have been angels on earth, 
 set to free us from the fiends of hell, and fulfilling the 
 office of angels by bringing back the sheep into the 
 obedience of Holy Church, and you have taken the office 
 of devils. With that evil which you have in yourselves 
 you seek to infect us, withdrawing us from obedience to 
 Christ on earth, and leading us into obedience to anti- 
 Christ, a member of the devil, as are you also so long as 
 you remain in this schism. This is not the blessedness 
 springing from ignorance. . . . No, for you know what 
 the truth is ; you told it to us, not we to you. Oh, how 
 mad you are, for you told us the truth, and want your- 
 selves to accept a lie ! Now you would corrupt that 
 truth and make us believe the contrary, saying that you 
 elected Pope Urban out of fear, which is not so, and any 
 who says so (I speak without reverence, for you have 
 deprived yourselves of reverence), lies shamelessly. Any 
 one who chooses can see whom through fear you made 
 show of having elected, namely Messere di San Pietro. 
 . . . That the solemnity was carried out in good faith is 
 shown by the reverence you gave and the favours asked, 
 which you have used in all kinds of ways. You cannot 
 deny this except by lies." 
 
 The allusion to " messire di San Pietro," i.e. Cardinal 
 Tebaldeschi, shows that Catherine believed the report that 
 the Cardinals in their dread of the turbulent Romans 
 caused it to be believed that he was the new Pope, even 
 persuading him to put on papal vestments. 1 Another 
 
 1 See also L. 317 to Giovanna of Naples.
 
 238 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 story was that in answer to the clamouring voices 
 demanding who had been chosen Cardinal Orsini called 
 from a window, " Go to St Peter's and you will hear," 
 and that the words were misinterpreted to mean that 
 Tebaldeschi had been elected, but as the crowd was 
 already in the piazza, of St Peter's this seems an unlikely 
 story. 
 
 One wonders how the Princes of the Church took 
 Catherine's very plain speaking, especially when she went 
 on to say that one reason for their defection had been 
 that being used to soft and pleasant dealings from those 
 around them, they could not endure Urban's asperity. 
 " Not only an actual correction, but even a harsh word 
 of rebuke made you lift up rebellious heads. This is 
 why you changed, and it clearly reveals the truth to us, 
 for before Christ on earth began to sting, you owned and 
 did him reverence, as the Vicar of Christ which he is. 
 But this last fruit you bear which brings forth death and 
 shows what manner of trees ye be, and that your tree is 
 planted in the earth of pride, which springs from the 
 self-love which robs you of the light of reason. . . . 
 Speaking entirely in the natural sense . . . Christ on 
 earth being an Italian, and you Italians, I see no cause 
 but self-love why affection for your country could not 
 move you as it did the Ultramontanes. . . . Let it not 
 seem hard if I pierce you with the words which love of 
 your salvation has made me write ; rather would I 
 pierce you with my living voice, did God allow. His will 
 be done. And yet ye rather deserve deeds than words. 
 I come to an end and say no more ; did I do as I would, 
 I should not yet pause, so full is my soul of grief and 
 sorrow to find such blindness in those set as a light, not 
 lambs who feed on the honour of God and salvation of 
 souls and the reform of Holy Church, but thieves who 
 steal the honour due to God, and take it themselves, and
 
 GATHERING STORMS 239 
 
 as wolves they devour the sheep, wherefore I have great 
 bitterness. I beg of you for love of that precious blood 
 which was shed with such fiery love for you, refresh my 
 soul which seeks your salvation." 
 
 The bait held out to these three Cardinals apostrophised 
 in Catherine's letter l was no less than the Papacy, secretly 
 promised to each. Angered by the election of Clement 
 VII., they deserted his side, but either from shame or 
 fear, did not return to Urban, whose savage treatment of 
 those whom he suspected might well make them keep 
 out of reach. Catherine's letter had no effect on their 
 conduct, and she wrote no more to them. Some of the 
 most persuasive letters sent by her at this time were to 
 the Queen of Naples. The Antipope had been pro- 
 claimed in her kingdom, she had welcomed his election 
 with costly gifts and congratulations, as she had done 
 so short a time before for Urban's ; when he went to 
 Naples a splendid reception awaited him ; the Queen 
 and her husband met him and kissed his feet, and her 
 Chancellor Spinelli, as Catherine implies in writing to 
 her, 2 was at her ear, full of rancour because Urban had 
 refused him a post which he coveted, and had insulted 
 him publicly. Catherine not only uses affectionate 
 persuasion but menaces the Queen, that unless she changes 
 her mode of life she will be set as a sign such as shall 
 make any tremble who ventures to lift up his head against 
 the Church. " Do not await this rod," she writes, " for 
 hard will you find it to kick against the pricks of Divine 
 justice. You will have to die, and you know not when." 
 Neither Catherine nor Giovanna could have foreseen that 
 in three years the wretched Queen would be strangled in 
 one of her own castles " Not riches, not state be it 
 ever so stately, nor worldly dignity, nor the barons and 
 people, your subjects in the body will be able to defend you 
 1 Letter 310. 8 Ibid.
 
 240 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 before the Supreme Judge, nor protect you from Divine 
 justice. But," she adds with curious approach to what 
 was to happen, " sometimes God uses them as execu- 
 tioners, to do justice on His enemy. You have invited and 
 invite all your people to be rather against than for you, 
 they having found in you little truth, not the state of a 
 man with a manly heart, but of a woman with no sort of 
 firmness or stability, a woman thing light as a leaf in 
 the wind. Well do they recollect that when Urban VI., 
 true Pope, was made with a great and true election and 
 crowned with great solemnity, you caused a great and 
 mighty feast to be held as the son should do when the 
 father is exalted, and the mother for the son. For he 
 was son and father to you ; father through the dignity 
 to which he came, son because he was your subject, that 
 is, belonging to your kingdom. And therein you did 
 well. Then you ordered all to obey his Holiness, as a 
 high priest. Now I see you turned, as a woman without 
 stability, and you will have men do the opposite. . . . Do 
 this no more, for the love of Christ crucified. In all 
 you are calling down divine justice. It grieves me. If 
 you be not ware of the ruin coming on you, you cannot 
 come out of God's hands. For justice or for mercy you 
 are in His hands. . . . Constrained by the Divine Good- 
 ness which loves you unspeakably I have written to you 
 with great sorrow. At another time I wrote to you of 
 like matters. Have patience if I weary you overmuch 
 with words, and if I speak boldly and irreverently. The 
 love I have for you makes me speak without doubt. The 
 ill thing which you have done causes me to depart from 
 due respect and to speak irreverently. Much rather 
 would I speak with my voice and tell you the truth thus 
 for your welfare and chiefly for the honour of God than 
 by writing, and much sooner would I act than speak to 
 any guilty, but guilt and occasion for it is in you yourself,
 
 GATHERING STORMS 241 
 
 since no one, demon or created being, can force you to 
 commit the least sin against your will." l 
 
 After the murder of Giovanna a packet of Catherine's 
 letters to her were found, carefully preserved, and worn 
 as if much read, but at the time they produced little or 
 no practical effect. Her pride had been too deeply 
 offended by the Pope, and she was further irritated 
 by hearing, rightly or wrongly, that the reason of his 
 putting difficulties in the way of her nephew's marriage to 
 the heiress of Sicily was because he meant her to be given 
 to his own dissolute nephew, Francesco Prignano. There 
 was also a report that he had refused to crown Otho of 
 Brunswick king in right of his being her husband, because 
 if Charles of Durazzo came to the throne, he had promised 
 to give this Francesco four important Neapolitan cities. 
 Giovanna did not pause to weigh probabilities or give 
 Urban the benefit of his really lofty character, and allowed 
 herself to be guided by Spinelli, brimful of rancour against 
 Urban, and soon she had to be counted on as a very 
 dangerous enemy. 
 
 Catherine's efforts to influence her through some of her 
 ladies were equally vain, nor could she bring back the 
 deeply offended Conte di Fondi, who was not only alienated 
 for personal reasons from Urban, but was allied by 
 marriage to Otho of Brunswick, and had lent his palace at 
 Fondi to the Cardinals, who assembling there held the 
 Conclave in which Clement VII. was elected. To this day 
 the people call it " II Palazzo del Papa." 
 
 The schism had passed beyond human power to remedy, 
 and Catherine spoke to deaf ears, all the more that the 
 doubt and confusion as to where right lay was so great 
 that we find men like San Vincenzo Ferreri siding not 
 with Urban, but with Clement, and as enthusiastic on his 
 behalf as was Catherine on Urban's. Something might 
 
 1 Letter 317. 
 Q
 
 242 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 possibly have been done had Urban's proposal to call a 
 General Council been listened to ; the question of his 
 succession might have been decided, and had it gone 
 against him, whatever his faults, there is every reason to 
 believe that he would have submitted, but the schismatic 
 Cardinals refused to call one, and the King of France 
 believed that in Robert of Geneva, of a house allied by 
 interest and friendship to himself, lay the hope that 
 Avignon would again become the seat of the Papacy. 
 The colossal egotism of all chiefly concerned, with the 
 exception of Catherine and of Urban himself, determined 
 that the schism should continue.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 
 
 THE position of Urban was hourly growing more 
 alarming. His one thoroughly loyal supporter 
 among the Cardinals, the aged Tebaldeschi, was 
 dead, and his dying protestation that Urban had been 
 legally elected fell on deaf ears. The trustworthiness of 
 those whom he had himself created was doubtful, even 
 where they had not gone over openly to Clement. So 
 grievous did the state of things seem to Urban that his 
 secretary, a Niem, describes his bursting into tears as he 
 listened to the reports brought him, and adds that " he 
 was left alone like a sparrow on the house top." 
 
 In this perplexity and distress his thoughts turned to 
 Catherine of Siena, and he sent to Raimondo da Capua, 
 bidding him call her to Rome. When she received the 
 message she was ill in bed, and quite unfit for a journey. 
 Other reasons weighed more with her. There had been 
 great murmuring among the Mantellate naturally, those 
 who did not go with her on account of her frequent 
 absences, to a degree which could not be ignored, and 
 there were many outside the Sisterhood also who genuinely 
 disapproved. " Why does this Catherine go a-roving ? " 
 they said. " She is a woman ; if she would serve God, 
 why cannot she keep quiet ? " 
 
 The uncertain position of " recluses," in the world yet 
 not of it, unsheltered by a cloister, yet vowed to lead 
 absolutely retired and inconspicuous lives, made it needful 
 
 *43
 
 244 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 to walk warily, the more that not a few brought discredit 
 on their profession, and Catherine never wantonly offended 
 the conscience or opinions of others, and in ordinary cases 
 would have entirely endorsed the usual view of a 
 Mantellata's life. She was well aware that the strong 
 must submit to barriers for the sake of the weak who 
 cannot dispense with them. Perhaps, too, failing health 
 and strength made her reluctant to enter on such a 
 struggle as would await her in Rome. She answered 
 Raimondo's letter with as near a refusal as she could 
 venture to make. " My Father, many in Siena and 
 some Mantellate think I travel too much ; they are 
 scandalised, and say that a religious should not always 
 be gadding about. I do not think that these reproaches 
 ought to trouble me, since I never undertook any journey 
 save at the command of God and His Vicar and for the 
 salvation of souls, but to avoid any cause of scandal, I did 
 not mean to leave home again. However, if the Vicar of 
 Christ wishes it, it must be done, only in that case kindly 
 send me his orders in writing, that those who complain 
 may see and understand that I am not taking this journey 
 at my own desire." 
 
 Urban sent her a written command to come, and she 
 obeyed. It is said that after leaving Siena, she turned 
 and looked long at its circling walls and towers, as if in 
 silent farewell. She never saw her native city again. 
 
 Which road she took after passing through Porta 
 Romana and traversing the valley of the Orcia is 
 uncertain. She may have paused at Orvieto, though 
 it is somewhat out of the way, for there lived Sister 
 Daniella, to whom she wrote many letters, in the last of 
 which there is a hint that she might take that road. 
 With the usual provoking absence of details, all that is 
 recorded of her journey is that she was accompanied by 
 numerous followers, of whom Stefano Maconi was not
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 245 
 
 one, for he and others of her most trusted disciples had 
 been sent to steady the wavering allegiance to Urban of 
 various Italian cities, but he was soon back in Siena, 
 consoling himself for not being allowed by his parents to 
 join her in Rome by looking after her business in the 
 city, and writing delightful letters, now gay, now grave, 
 to his friends in her company. Her secretaries, Bardoccio 
 di Canigiani and Neri di Landoccio, went with her ; the 
 old hermit, Fra Santi, who loved her so dearly, had left 
 his quiet cell to accompany her, and Prior Giovanni III. 
 had left his monastery for the same purpose. 
 
 Among the women were her sister-in-law, Lisa, from 
 whom Raimondo derived his information as to the facts in 
 Catherine's life after he left Rome on a mission to France, 
 in less than a fortnight after her arrival, Alessia dei 
 Saracini, and Giovanna di Capo, who seems to have been 
 of a forgetful disposition, since on one occasion when it 
 was her turn to provide for the meal of the company, 
 often suddenly increased by pilgrims and visitors to 
 Catherine, she totally forgot to do so, so that as we are 
 told there would have been no food at all, had not 
 Catherine worked a miracle ! Lapa Benincasa was there, 
 or came later ; there appears to be some confusion 
 between the mother and a daughter of the same name. 
 When Catherine wrote to Stefano Maconi from Rome, 
 " Tell the Prior to do as he thinks best about Sister 
 Lapa ; if she should go to Siena, I commend her to you," 
 she may allude to a different Lapa from either. Lapa 
 was a common name at that time in Siena, though now 
 no longer used there, and may probably have been a 
 feminine made from the family name of Lapo. That 
 Catherine meant to commend her old mother to Stefano 
 is not likely. He could have needed no such request ; 
 everyone and everything connected with his beloved 
 " Mother " was precious to him.
 
 246 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 The travellers reached Rome safely in November, 1373, 
 more fortunate than the ambassadors sent there by Siena, 
 two of whom were captured by the Clementine party, 
 and only released on payment of a great ransom. They 
 took up their abode at first in a house in the rione di 
 Colonna, not far from the Pantheon, but soon moved to one 
 in Via di Papa, where now is a chapel of the Nunziatella. 
 It stands between the Campo di Fiori and the Dominican 
 Church of St Maria sopra Minerva, where a year 
 and four months later Catherine was to find her last 
 resting place. From the Pope she would accept nothing 
 but this shelter, and all the party lived on alms, as a 
 protest against the luxury of the time, alms which were 
 freely given, fortunately for Alessia, who superintended 
 the temporal concerns of the " college," and who often 
 found her resources severely strained, especially when at the 
 bidding of the Pope and Catherine numerous hermits and 
 ecclesiastics came to Rome, and sought the house in Via 
 di Papa for maintenance, never refused or grudged. 
 Raimondo had left Rome at this date, therefore it must 
 be on her authority that he reports that " the Holy Father 
 at Catherine's suggestion summoned to Rome very many 
 of the servants of God, all of whom she received because 
 of her great hospitality. For although she owned no lands 
 nor gold nor silver, and lived with all her family on daily 
 alms, yet was she as ready to receive and entertain a 
 hundred pilgrims as though they had been only one, 
 trusting heartily in God, and not questioning but that His 
 liberality would provide. The lowest number that lived 
 in her house was sixteen men and eight women ; at times 
 there were even thirty or forty. She had established such 
 good order in the household that each sister week by week 
 took it in turns to provide and dole out to the others, so 
 that they might give themselves to God and to pilgrimages, 
 and other matters which had brought them there."
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 247 
 
 Whether Catherine was received in Rome with any of 
 the enthusiasm shown in Pisa and Geneva and Toulon 
 does not appear ; probably not, since Raimondo omits it, 
 and he is slow to ignore any circumstance redounding to 
 her honour, but there is one little mention of her which 
 forms a pendant to the notice of her first visit to Florence 
 already alluded to as existing in the Strozzi archives. 
 Ungaro, a Sienese sent by the authorities of the city 
 to Rome, to complete the tardy arrangements for the 
 restoration of Talemone, wrote home, " Catherine of 
 Monna Lapa has come here, and our Lord the Pope has 
 seen and spoken with her. I do not know what he said, 
 but only that he was much pleased to see her." 
 
 Though it was their first meeting since he had become 
 Pope, Urban had known her in Avignon, and was aware 
 of the effect which she had produced by her addresses to 
 the Sacred College there. Remembering this, he bade her 
 a few days after her arrival, come and speak to such as 
 were with him in Rome. She needed no interpreter, for 
 most if not all of them were Italians. Accordingly she 
 went to Santa Maria in Trastevere, where he was living, 
 the Vatican being dangerously near Sant' Angelo and its 
 French garrison. She had gone through a far more 
 formidable ordeal at Avignon, but with better hope than 
 now. No fear of the future however was allowed to 
 appear in her brave words, and Urban was much cheered 
 and impressed, though unfortunately he did not lay to 
 heart her exhortation to " fight only with the weapons of 
 repentance, prayer, virtue and love." Summing up what 
 she had said, he exclaimed, " How greatly unworthy are 
 we before God when we yield to hesitation and fear ! 
 This donnicciula" the shade of meaning in the half- 
 contemptuous, half-caressing word is untranslatable 
 " this poor woman- creature confounds us. I call her a 
 poor woman-creature not in disdain, but to express the
 
 248 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 natural weakness of her sex, which would make her timid 
 even if we ourselves were confident, yet she it is who 
 shows herself calm and fearless while we are fearful. 
 Does she not shame us all ? " 
 
 And, inspirited by what she had said, he added, 
 " What should Christ's Vicar fear though the whole 
 world were against him ? Christ omnipotent is 
 stronger than the world. He can never forsake the 
 Church." 
 
 One of Urban's most pressing anxieties was the 
 support which Giovanna of Naples was lending to 
 Clement. It seemed to him that if she could hear 
 the eloquent voice which had put new courage into 
 himself, she would be won back to his cause, and he 
 proposed sending Catherine to her court. The plan had 
 already crossed Catherine's own mind, for in writing to 
 the Queen she had said how thankful she should be if 
 she could go to her, and lay down her life if only she 
 could save her body and soul. Lest offence should be 
 given by sending one who was only sprung from the 
 people as an ambassadress to Naples, Urban suggested 
 her being accompanied by her saintly namesake, the still 
 very beautiful daughter of Brigitta of Sweden, who had 
 come back to Rome after removing her mother's body to 
 her native country. The two met, and the description of 
 their interview provokes a smile, so wide is the gulf 
 between Catherine of Siena with her high ideals and wide 
 outlook, and the high-born beauty who tells her of the 
 ardent lovers who had sought to carry her off by force ; 
 of her journey to Assisi, her hospital work, and of the 
 long journey back to Sweden, which after all was not 
 unlike a triumphal procession, so great was the honour 
 shown to her. She travelled under a safe conduct from 
 all the authorities of Rome, who requested all cities and 
 magistrates to permit the goods and chattels and the
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 249 
 
 hors,es belonging to this royal lady of very great holiness 
 and self-denial to pass free of toll or duty. She was now 
 in Rome on business connected with the canonisation of 
 her mother, which, in spite of that schism that so long 
 delayed Catherine of Siena's receiving a similar honour, 
 took place in 1391. She spoke also, shudderingly, of a 
 visit to Naples which had made such an impression on 
 her that never could or would she return there. It was 
 not surprising that she should feel thus. Her brother, 
 Prince Charles, had also been at Giovanna's court, and the 
 Queen's light fancy was caught by him, so that she used 
 all her fascination to make him divorce his wife and 
 marry her. His mother looked on aghast, praying that 
 he might die rather than consent, and when he sickened 
 of a fever which proved fatal, her feeling was one of 
 thankfulness rather than of sorrow. His sister considered 
 Giovanna as the cause of his death, and declared that to 
 go to her court would be tempting Providence. Nothing 
 should make her go there. 
 
 While she spoke, Catherine of Siena had sat on the 
 ground, listening silently. Raimondo, watching her, saw 
 tears fall as the Swedish princess uttered the last words, 
 but still she said nothing. She had heard enough to 
 understand that although her namesake was a good and 
 holy woman, she was not of the stuff out of which 
 martyrs are made. Nor was Raimondo, who seized with 
 much relief on the chance of keeping her out of the way 
 of probable insult, perhaps death. She had so lately 
 escaped being murdered in Florence ; how would it be in 
 far more lawless Naples, where Giovanna was Queen ? 
 Himself a Neapolitan, he knew much better to what she 
 might be exposed than she herself could do. We may 
 be sure that it was not with Catherine's leave that he 
 reported to the Pope what had passed, and urged the 
 greatness of the risk, the uncertainty of any good result if
 
 250 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Catherine went, not even safeguarded by having the 
 Swedish princess as her companion. Gregory had bidden 
 her venture into danger ; Urban was more considerate. 
 Disconcerted he was, but he showed none of the savage 
 anger which he usually displayed if thwarted, and after 
 sitting for some time in reflection, with his head leaning 
 on his hands, he said, " It is more prudent for them not 
 to go," and Raimondo went back at once to tell Catherine 
 of his decision. She was lying face downward on her 
 bed, worn out by the excitement and disappointment of 
 her interview with the Princess, but rose as he spoke with 
 that noble anger flashing in her eyes which her disciples 
 knew and feared. " If Agnes and Margaret and many 
 other holy women had reasoned thus, they had never 
 worn the crown of martyrdom," she cried. " Do you 
 not know that we have a Bridegroom stronger than 
 men, who can save us from the hands of the wicked 
 and preserve our honour amid a crowd of licentious 
 men ? All the objections of which you speak are vain, 
 springing from a wretched lack of faith, not true 
 prudence." 
 
 Raimondo stood listening, humbled and full of ad- 
 miration for her courage, but inwardly glad that the thing 
 was settled. Unable to give up hope of influencing 
 Giovanna, Catherine advised that Neri di Landoccio 
 should be sent to Naples, and wrote herself to several of 
 the great ladies there. The Queen was as deaf to his 
 arguments as she would probably have been to those 
 of Catherine, but he succeeded in gaining over many 
 Neapolitans to the side of Urban, whom they were 
 naturally disposed to support as their countryman, a 
 feeling with which Giovanna soon had to reckon. 
 Raimondo too was sent from Rome, reluctantly enough, 
 on a mission to the King of France, with credentials from 
 the Pope, and a letter in which Catherine said all that she
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 251 
 
 could think of to induce him to withdraw his support 
 from Clement, and use his influence with the Queen of 
 Naples to the same end. 
 
 Raimondo's departure, so soon after her arrival, was a 
 severe blow to Catherine. Before he left Rome they had 
 long and earnest conversations together, as those who had 
 much to say to one another, and should meet no more. 
 On the day of his leaving Rome she went with him to 
 Ostia, where he embarked, and as he stood on the deck 
 of his ship he saw her kneeling on the shore in tears. 
 Then he could perceive that she had stretched out her 
 hands, and was making the sign of the Cross over the 
 waters. " I felt that in this world she would never bless 
 me again," he writes, with a heartache which still is felt in 
 the simple words. 
 
 As he had foreseen, they met no more, but Raimondo 
 did not reach the Court of France. Alarmed by warnings 
 that the Clementine party were determined he should not 
 reach the King, and aware of the horrible fate of priests 
 of Urban's party who had fallen into their hands, 1 he lost 
 heart before he had got further than Ventimiglia. " Here," 
 he says, " a monk of my Order, a native of that place, sent 
 me a letter in which he said, ' Beware of passing Venti- 
 miglia, for treachery is prepared, and if you fall into the 
 trap, no human help can avail you.' On this, after 
 advising with the companion given me by the 
 Sovereign Pontiff I went back to Genoa." He fully 
 believed that the difficulties and dangers in his way 
 justified this abandonment of his mission, a view shared 
 by Urban, who greatly valued the simple, honest man, 
 and far from showing displeasure, gave him other work 
 to do at Genoa. 
 
 Catherine saw it quite otherwise. She was almost 
 incredulous that he could have been so faint-hearted, 
 1 Fleury, " Eccles. Hist."
 
 252 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 and sent him a letter which filled him with compunc- 
 tion, telling him that his conduct showed him to be a 
 babe, not a man, and that if he dared not travel as a 
 messenger from the Pope, he might have walked as a 
 barefooted friar over the mountains and begged his 
 way. 
 
 Her attitude both to Popes and confessors is very 
 curious ; while profoundly reverencing their spiritual 
 authority she never hesitates to rebuke them as men. 
 Raimondo, though he may be treated as her " dear Son 
 and negligent Father," when he speaks as her priest 
 receives instant and entire obedience. Sometimes he 
 would exercise his authority in what seems a childish 
 way enough, considering with whom he was dealing, 
 ordering her to sit down again when she was about to 
 go, or in some such manner, and she instantly submitted, 
 fully believing that it was her duty to do so. But though 
 in matters of discipline he might sometimes reassure him- 
 self by taking a high tone, when he knew her displeased 
 with him, he was sorely distressed, and after receiving her 
 letter of reproof, he made a second attempt to reach France, 
 again unsuccessfully, and she had to accept his failure, 
 though to flinch from the chance of martyrdom seemed to 
 her even more cowardly now that she was in Rome than 
 it had done elsewhere. Dante when he visited Rome 
 nearly a century earlier had felt that the very stones in 
 her walls and the ground on which the city stood were 
 to be venerated, for to him she had not only Christian 
 associations, but imperial. Like Dante, Petrarch had 
 reverenced her as the centre of empire and world-rule ; 
 it is true that he writes about martyrs in quite the proper 
 way, but that was when he was urging the return of the 
 Popes, and thought it the right thing to say. Her classic 
 and imperial associations were what really appealed to him. 
 To Catherine Rome was sacred solely and simply because
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 
 
 253 
 
 it was the city of St Peter and St Paul, where countless 
 Christians had laid down their lives for their faith. If to 
 her it seemed " a piece not of earth, but of heaven," she 
 took it from an altogether different point of view from the 
 Greek visitor who called it so ; its pagan and historical 
 associations said nothing to her. The places which she 
 visited were convents and churches ; we hear of her 
 seeking the convent of the Clarisse or Poor Clares near 
 San Lorenzo in Panisperma on the Viminal where she 
 would find Catherine of Sweden, and the Church of Santa 
 Croce, and the basilica of Santa Sabina, so closely connected 
 with Dominic and the convent of nuns whom he insisted 
 on making into an enclosed Order, with small consent on 
 their part. Whether she visited the neighbouring Church 
 of San Sisto is uncertain, but there is a memorial of her 
 in a strange old painting on a wall behind the choir in 
 which the Saviour is represented as drawing from His 
 wounded side a garment which He gives her as she kneels 
 at His feet dressed as a Mantellata. There is also a small 
 figure, supposed to represent the Prioress of San Sisto. It 
 must be a very early picture, for though round the head 
 of Catherine are rays, as in many of that date, she does 
 not yet wear the aureole which marks her as a canonised 
 saint in all paintings executed after 1460. She certainly 
 went to the Lateran, " Mother and Head of all Churches 
 in the City and in the World," and here she would find 
 the work of no less than three fellow-citizens ; Giovanni 
 di Stefano of Siena was directing the rebuilding of the 
 basilica ; the silver figures of S. Peter and Paul had been 
 ordered by Urban, and from a goldsmith called Bartolo, 
 also a Sienese, and the panel pictures adorning the upper 
 part were painted by Berno da Siena. Catherine sought 
 almost all the basilicae, praying at the Stations of the 
 Cross on their appointed days, fearless of the malaria 
 which haunted the almost deserted hills, where here and
 
 254 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 there a convent stood among heaps of ruins and rubbish. 
 St Peter's was a constant place of pilgrimage, reached 
 from Via di Papa by crossing the bridges from the island 
 in the Tiber into Trastevere, for the one below St Angelo 
 had been broken down, and the garrison made sudden 
 sorties and " did most vehemently assault and bombard " 
 all the district around, reducing the houses to heaps of 
 bricks and fragments of wood. " They are battering all 
 day long," wrote the Sienese who mentions Catherine's 
 coming to Rome, and no one could pass near the 
 castle. 
 
 Rome was indeed beset with enemies within and 
 without. Almost at her gates were the soldiers of 
 Giovanni and Rinaldo Orsini, and those of the Conte di 
 Fondi, who was fighting in support of Clement against 
 his own brother whose hill town of Sermoneta he had 
 seized, together with Norma and Ninfa which belonged 
 to one of his cousins. The walls of the city were but a 
 poor defence, " a frail patchwork of bits of marble and 
 stones," and there were thirteen gates to defend. Ravag- 
 ing the Campagna were the savage Breton troops, whom 
 Gregory XI. had launched upon the unhappy Romagna, 
 ever wasted by wars, civil and foreign, and who were now 
 making war against his successor. Another enemy was 
 that very Duke of Anjou who, Catherine had hoped, 
 would head a Crusade ; now, in that irony of fortune 
 which pursued her, he was fighting indeed, but against 
 the Head of Christendom, and with a Crusade proclaimed 
 against himself by Urban. Clement counted upon enter- 
 ing Rome and being admitted into Sant' Angelo by the 
 French commander ; the circles of besiegers came closer 
 to the city, and a hurried sortie made by the Romans 
 only resulted in defeat. Many of the citizens were left 
 dead on the banks of the Anio, slaughtered by the 
 Bretons like sheep in the shambles, says a Niem, close to
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 255 
 
 that bridge which was destroyed in 1 869 by the order of 
 Pius IX., lest Garibaldi and his band should cross it 
 Provisions rose to famine price, and Rome saw herself 
 threatened with the fate of Cesena. What she might 
 expect was plainly shown by what occurred when the 
 Bretons forced their way through one of the gates, and 
 rushed up to the Capitol, where at that moment most of 
 the Banderesi and many others of the chief citizens 
 happened to be gathered unarmed. They were slaughtered 
 in cold blood, after which the invaders retired, leaving a 
 scene of massacre behind which exasperated the Romans 
 into blind fury, and with true mob logic they fell upon 
 all the foreigners whom they could find, even the English 
 priests who to a man were loyal to Urban, and murdered 
 them. So intense was the hatred kindled by the wanton 
 brutality of the Bretons and the distress and ruin caused 
 by the bombardment from Sant' Angelo that a Niem 
 says he saw Roman women spit in the faces of the few 
 Frenchmen who still belonged to the Papal Court, and 
 no foreigner's life was safe. 
 
 Urban could see no hope except in opposing mercen- 
 aries by mercenaries, and with all her hatred of war 
 Catherine was of the same opinion, and a band of Free- 
 lances was gathered under Alberic di Barbiano which 
 took the name of the Compagnia di San Giorgio. It was 
 destined to become famous in the next century as a 
 school of military discipline and great generals. At first 
 they were but a handful, soon however they amounted to 
 four hundred men, Italians one and all. They encountered 
 and routed the Bretons, and Urban knighted their leader, 
 and gave him a banner inscribed with the words, " Italy 
 freed from the barbarians." 
 
 This victory was a national event and was realised as 
 such. For the first time Italian troops, fighting for an 
 Italian prince, had met and defeated a renowned band of
 
 256 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 foreigners. At the news Italy thrilled with pride, and 
 consciousness awoke, never again quite to be lost, that 
 her many provinces made up one country. " Not English, 
 not Germans, but Italians have vanquished the Bretons " 
 was the triumphant record placed in the archives of 
 Florence. In Rome the victory was attributed to the 
 prayers of Catherine of Siena, and her popularity was 
 boundless. 
 
 Sant' Angelo still resisted, and it was absolutely 
 necessary to gain possession of it. In a fresco by 
 Cimabue at Assisi may be seen how massive and im- 
 pregnable it then was ; the walls were covered with 
 marble, the lower structure was square with a round tower 
 erected upon it, and above this again was a square one. 
 Underneath it were great underground ways whose use 
 is unknown. There was no hope of taking it by assault, 
 and to starve the garrison required more time than Urban 
 could afford. The commander might have held out, but 
 was discouraged by the news that the papal troops had 
 gained another victory at Marino, thirteen miles from 
 Rome, and consented to negotiate and finally to evacuate 
 the castle. Hardly was the last Frenchman out of it 
 when the Romans, as regardless of venerable associations 
 then as now, threw themselves furiously upon the fortress 
 whence they had been so long harassed, with intent utterly 
 to destroy it. They succeeded in tearing off its marbles 
 and in pulling down part of it, but its outer walls defied 
 their rage, though for many years vast heaps of stones 
 and rubbish lay around it where weeds and bushes grew 
 and goats clambered and browsed a quarry for building 
 materials and pavements. 
 
 That the garrison consented without more delay to 
 yield up such a stronghold as this was greatly due to the 
 skilful negotiations of the Chancellor of the city, Giovanni 
 Cenci, a friend of de Rostaing, who commanded the
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 257 
 
 French in Sant' Angelo, but above all a patriot. It may 
 be that the Romans could not forgive him this friendship, 
 for after the French had given up the castle he met with 
 such scanty gratitude that Catherine in a letter to the 
 Banderesi and the " Four Good Men, supporters of the 
 Republic of Rome," found herself obliged to write, " It 
 seems to me that some ingratitude is being shown to 
 Giovanni Cenci, who with so much solicitude, and faithful- 
 ness and simpleheartedness, solely to please God and for 
 our good (and this I know to be the truth) left every- 
 thing else to relieve you from the scourges which Castel 
 Sant' Angelo inflicted on you, and showed such prudence, 
 and now not only no thanks are given him, let alone any 
 sign of gratitude, but the vice of envy and ungratefulness 
 spits forth poison of evil sayings and much murmuring. 
 I would not that thus he nor any other should be treated 
 who may serve you, for it would be an offence to God 
 and for your harm, since the whole community needs 
 wise, mature, and discreet and conscientious men. Let 
 this thing be no more, for the love of Christ crucified. 
 Use what remedy may seem best to your Lordships, that 
 the foolishness of the ignorant hinder not that which is 
 right. This I say for your advantage, not from any 
 (personal) feeling, for you know I am but one passing by, 
 and speak for your good for you all, and he too are as my 
 soul. I know that as wise and discreet men you will 
 look on the affection and purity of heart with which I 
 write, and thus you will pardon my presumption in 
 venturing to write. I say no more. Remain in the 
 holy and sweet love of God. Be grateful and conscious 
 of what you owe to Him." l 
 
 Catherine had herself known what it was to have her 
 patriotism suspected at the moment when she least 
 deserved it, and she felt strongly for Cenci. That he 
 
 1 L- 349-
 
 258 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 recognised her efforts both in his behalf and in that of 
 the Republic he was able to show unmistakably at a 
 later time. There is nothing to show that the Banderesi 
 and the Four Good Men testified any more appreciation 
 of his services after receiving Catherine's letter than they 
 had done before, except that when Urban named him as 
 Senator of Rome the authorities concurred in bestowing 
 this honour upon him, otherwise he could not have 
 received it, since the holder of this dignity was named 
 by them and merely approved by the Pope. It was a 
 recently created office, only dating from 1359, and the 
 original idea no doubt was as at first with the Captain of 
 the People in Siena, that it should be held by an outsider 
 who would be impartial, for the first Senator was not a 
 Roman but a Sienese. The four " Buon' uomini " were 
 probably supposed to be checks on the Banderesi, as the 
 " gentil uomini " were intended to be in one of the many 
 varieties in the government of Siena. 
 
 One other point should be noticed in Catherine's long 
 letter to the authorities of Rome, namely her anxiety 
 that they should treat the company of San Giorgio 
 properly, and care for the wounded. It looks very much 
 as if Rome had as little gratitude to spare for them as 
 for Cenci since it was necessary to write, " Also I want 
 you to be grateful to the company, who have been Christ's 
 instruments, providing that which they need, especially 
 the poor dear wounded. Behave charitably and peace- 
 ably toward them, that you may keep their assistance, 
 and take away those things which they have against you. 
 You ought to do this, most sweet brethren, both as due 
 to them and also because of the great need. I am sure 
 that if you have the virtue of gratitude in you, you 
 will study to do this and the other things aforesaid ; if 
 not, no." 
 
 To Catherine, if to no one else, the Romans were
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 259 
 
 lastingly grateful. She had not only prayed for them 
 and won the deliverance of the city, as they believed, by 
 her supplications when hope was lowest, but had had no 
 small part in the negotiations for the surrender of Sant' 
 Angelo. Tradition says that she even went to the 
 Castle herself and had an interview with Rostaing. By 
 her advice Urban announced that there would be a 
 solemn thanksgiving for the success of his troops and the 
 safety of the city, and all the population, high and low, 
 poured out when he went in procession to St Peter's, 
 barefoot, as were the clergy who accompanied him, and 
 attended by all the Barons and civic authorities. Not- 
 withstanding all the squalor and barbarism into which 
 Rome fell after the Popes had deserted her, she had from 
 time to time had splendid processions, when the Senator 
 and Banderesi and Magistrates appeared in purple and 
 silk and gold embroidery, and the delighted Romans 
 crowded to see them pass, but the simplicity and gravity 
 of the ceremonial with which the deliverance of the city 
 was celebrated, if it did not dazzle the eye, touched all 
 hearts. Such a ceremony had not been seen in Rome 
 since Pope Stephen IV. had gone in procession in 769 
 from San Giovanni Laterano to St Peter's, and it was 
 recognised that the absolute simplicity of all that was 
 done, the absence of pomp and the touch of humiliation 
 were more fitting than splendour, since to gain the victory 
 Christian blood had been shed. Catherine wrote on this 
 occasion to Urban, 1 " I feel cordial gladness, most holy 
 Father, that mine eyes have seen the will of God fulfilled 
 by you, namely in that humble act, very long disused, of 
 the holy procession," and a later passage shows that 
 thanks to the recovery of Sant' Angelo, the Pope had 
 returned to "his own place," in other words, to the 
 Vatican. 
 
 'L. 351-
 
 260 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 A letter of Catherine's "written in abstraction," and 
 addressed to the leaders of the Company of St Giorgio, 
 is included in Tommaseo's collection, but its authenticity 
 is doubtful. 1 Maimbourg, the historian of the Schism, 
 notes how unlike is its tone to that of her other letters, 
 and remarks that she would hardly when in ecstasy have 
 dictated passages " full of abuse." This is a little too 
 strong, but again, Catherine who knew well what the 
 plundering of Freelances meant could hardly have 
 suggested booty as a reward to be looked forward to. 
 Nor is the style of diction quite hers, and in spite of the 
 great authority of Tommaseo we may venture, and gladly, 
 to exclude this letter from the number of those certainly 
 written by Catherine. 
 
 The victory of the papal troops at Marino had not 
 only the effect of relieving Rome from fear of the Bretons, 
 but caused Clement to escape in haste to Gaeta, pursued 
 by the Company of St George. Thence he fled to 
 Naples, whose Queen welcomed him to the beautiful 
 castle which Froissart declares to have been raised by 
 magic in a single night. Giovanna had received him 
 with open arms, but not so the Neapolitans, who shouted 
 " Long live Pope Urban ! " and raised such a tumult that 
 he hurried on board ship, and sailed for Avignon, where 
 he could feel safe. The Avignese did not trouble them- 
 selves as to the validity of his claims, and he tried to 
 recover his shaken prestige in the eyes of the world by 
 riding into the town in state, wearing the tiara which the 
 Archbishop of Aries had carried off from Rome. On 
 hearing of his arrival the Cardinals in Avignon at once 
 recognised him as Pope, and the King of France rejoiced 
 greatly. " Now I am Pope ! " he is said to have 
 exclaimed triumphantly on hearing that Clement had 
 touched Provencal ground. 
 
 'L.347.
 
 A LAST JOURNEY 261 
 
 There was no longer any hope of inducing Charles V. 
 to support Urban. Catherine had done her best, " writing 
 very pressing letters to bring him back to that Pope. 
 But that illustrious Catherine, carried away no doubt by 
 her somewhat violent zeal, treated Clement and his 
 Cardinals as incarnate demons, and gave them other 
 names almost equally strong, so that it made no impres- 
 sion on the mind of the King, for he did not care to 
 prefer above the opinion of the most learned men in the 
 kingdom the advice of a nun, who, though many may 
 believe that she was a saint, even before her canonisation, 
 yet wrote in a somewhat embittered style to persuade so 
 moderate a Prince. Once for all, every action of a saint 
 is not a consequence nor a mark of saintliness. Certainly 
 St Vincent Ferriere and other great and holy personages 
 did far otherwise." 
 
 This is the view of Maimbourg, who takes the side of 
 the Antipope, but though blaming Catherine for over 
 vehemence in her letters, he always speaks of her with 
 great esteem, writing of her elsewhere as " this admirable 
 maiden, who joined to eminent holiness a rare mind, and 
 a courage much above that which is usual in her sex," 
 and altogether shows an appreciation of her not generally 
 found among French or German historians who support 
 the schismatic Popes. 
 
 " The learned men " of whose opinion Charles V. 
 thought so much were those who composed the University 
 of Paris. Although such a body could have no right to 
 assume the authority belonging only to a General Council, 
 he had turned to them for a decision as to whether Urban 
 or Clement were lawful Pope. They hesitated, waiting 
 on events, then replied, excusing themselves for the delay 
 by observing that Mary Magdalen had done less for the 
 good of the Church, by believing at once in the Resurrec- 
 tion, than had Thomas by long doubting, since through
 
 262 
 
 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 this doubt that great truth had been more clearly shown. 
 Finally they announced that the University adhered and 
 would adhere to Clement VII. as the true Sovereign 
 Pontiff, and Shepherd of the Universal Church, thus 
 " marvellously strengthening " the Clementines.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 
 
 LEMENT'S audacious scheme of making what he 
 y. intended to call the Adriatic Kingdom out of the 
 Romagna and Umbria, together with the towns of 
 Ferrara, Spoleto and Perugia, had failed, greatly through 
 the influence which Catherine had exerted. For the 
 moment Urban had the upper hand, and though his 
 treasury was scantily filled, he had more to give and to 
 spend than his rival, too often obtained by means which 
 when first elected he would have been the first to con- 
 demn. Now he practically argued that necessity has no 
 law. Some of those who had gone over to Clement now 
 came back, finding that he could not maintain them, and 
 hoping to regain property confiscated by Urban when 
 they deserted him. Others contrived to have a foot in 
 either camp, and got offices and benefices from both Pope 
 and Antipope, and many bought them to keep or sell 
 again. Although this was rank simony, both Clement, 
 who was indifferent to the sin, and Urban, who had begun 
 by prohibiting every kind under pain of excommunication, 
 making such fierce war on it as was one of the chief 
 causes of the Cardinals turning against him, alike profited 
 by it, 1 and all the Church became a scene of monstrous 
 scandals and disorders. 
 
 With what pain Catherine looked on can only be 
 faintly imagined. The Popes had returned to Rome, 
 
 1 Fleury, Eccles. Hist.
 
 264 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 and this was the outcome ! The Prince who should have 
 led a holy war was in arms to support a schismatic 
 Pontiff! The Papal Court was a scene of buying and 
 selling holy things ! In this crisis she suggested to 
 Urban that he should call a number of holy men to 
 Rome, not of course supposing that their advice could be 
 of much use, but, as her letters show, with the hope of 
 inspiring a more unworldly and religious spirit into the 
 Papal Court. The proposal seemed good to Urban, who 
 sent forth a brief to that effect. The choice of those 
 bidden to come was evidently left more or less to 
 Catherine, for most of the names are those of men whom 
 she knew and trusted, such as the Prior of Gorgona, 
 Don Giovanni delle Celle, William Flete, and that Brother 
 Antonio of Nice with whom, as an early letter of 
 Catherine's betrays, he did not always find it easy to live 
 in harmony. She enforced the brief by letter to these 
 and many others ; some came and some refused, and 
 among the latter were the two hermits of Lecceto. 
 Equally surprised and disappointed, she wrote again, 
 bidding them leave their solitude, and hasten to the battle- 
 field. If they wanted woods, they would find plenty, 
 she observed with that touch of irony which lends 
 individuality to her letters. As the one addressed to 
 them both did not produce the desired effect, she sent 
 another especially intended for Fra Antonio, reminding 
 him that the Saint whose name he bore had assuredly 
 loved solitude as much as he could do, yet left it in order 
 to strengthen those who were weak in faith. Catherine 
 had every right to speak thus ; her own ardent desire 
 had been for a secluded life of contemplation. She had 
 sacrificed this longing at the call of duty. " She begged 
 of our Lord to grant her solitude," says Flete, " and He 
 replied, ' Many live in a cell who abide outside it, but I 
 will that thy cell shall be the knowledge of thyself and
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 265 
 
 thy sins' and from this cell she never departed." She 
 disposes summarily of Fra William's defence that a 
 couple of godly men had received a revelation to the 
 effect that the plan of calling hermits to Rome was only 
 a human counsel and no ways from heaven, nay, that the 
 Pope and his advisers had been deceived by the Evil One, 
 who desired to withdraw such pious men from a holy and 
 retired life, and sought to hinder prayer and meditation. 
 " Lightly anchored indeed must be the soul," Catherine 
 retorts, " which by change of place loses its hold upon 
 heavenly things. Truly it would seem that God accepts 
 places, and is only found in the forest and not elsewhere 
 in time of need ! What then shall we say if on the one 
 hand we want the Church of God reformed, and thorns 
 taken away, and the sweet flowers of the servants of God 
 set therein, and on the other we say that to send for them 
 and withdraw them from quiet and peace of mind in order 
 that they may come and help to steer this vessel is a 
 deceit from the devil ? . . . Not thus have done Frate 
 Andrea da Lucca, nor Frate Paolino, such great servants 
 of God, old and infirm, who have lived so long in peace, 
 yet at once, for all their weariness and discomfort, they 
 set out and came and have accomplished their obedience, 
 and although torn with longing to go back to their cells, 
 they nevertheless will not shake off the yoke, but say, 
 ' That which I have said, let it be as not said,' stifling 
 their will and their own consolations. Whoever comes 
 not to gain advancements, but for the dignity of much 
 toil, with tears, watching and continual prayers should do 
 thus. Now let us burden you with no more words. May 
 God in His mercy make all clear, and guide us in the 
 way of truth, and give us true and perfect light that we 
 may never walk in darkness. I beg you and the Bacceliere 
 and the other servants of God to pray to the meek Lamb 
 to make us go in His way."
 
 266 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 She often alludes to Flete as the " Bacceliere," a title 
 found among religious Orders as a degree lower than that 
 of Doctor. In a manuscript kept in the Spedale of Siena 
 he is called " a man of great penitence," and elsewhere he 
 is described as spending his days in the wood with a book, 
 returning at night to his monastery, and Catherine had 
 occasion to reprove him for this habit of absenting himself 
 and paying little attention to the wishes of his Prior, 
 who wanted him to say Mass in the Church of his 
 monastery, instead of in some one of the caves turned 
 into chapels, as he loved to do. He had a passion for 
 solitude, and did not love the society of Fra Antonio at 
 all. " One must listen to other people's troubles and have 
 compassion on those who are bound to us by the bonds 
 of charity ; it is a great fault if you do not do this. For 
 example, I would have you show compassion for those of 
 Fra Antonio and for his difficulties, and not refuse to 
 listen to him," Catherine admonishes him, " I beg you to do 
 this for Christ's sake and mine," and she adds a wholesome 
 warning against over-austerities, and hard judgment of 
 those whose rule of life was different from his own. Flete 
 had studied at Cambridge, and had seen the world. It is 
 to be feared that he found his harmless fellow-hermit 
 insufferably tedious. But in one thing both were heartily 
 in sympathy, namely in deep reverence and affection for 
 Catherine. 
 
 His refusal to go to Rome was no small vexation to 
 her. Too much annoyed to write directly to him, she sent 
 a letter to Fra Antonio. "It appears from the letter 
 which Fra William has sent me that neither he nor you 
 mean to come. To which letter I do not mean to reply, 
 but much am I grieved at his simpleness, since the out- 
 come is small honour to God, or edification to one's 
 neighbour." Toward the end of this epistle it seems as 
 if her heart smote her for her severity, and she names
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 267 
 
 Flete among those whose prayers she expressly desires, 
 and that she altogether forgave him is shown by her 
 having sent him a message from her death-bed, showing 
 entire trust in him, though her call to Rome had only 
 made him hide himself deeper in his forests, declining 
 altogether to follow the example held up to him of 
 Andrea and Paolino. 
 
 Fra Antonio was less stubborn ; he could not resist 
 Catherine's appeal and rebukes, and he not only went to 
 Rome, but remained there until his death in 1392, 
 " having suffered much for the Church, and obtaining the 
 title of Beato." If Don Giovanni delle Celle came, it was 
 but for a short time ; he was in Vallombrosa at the time 
 of Catherine's death. 
 
 When those who responded to Catherine's summons 
 arrived, many of them old and feeble, having gone through 
 the difficulties and dangers of a journey through districts 
 where civil war had just been raging, and all astray in a 
 city, they naturally gravitated to the house in Via di Papa, 
 and Catherine as naturally undertook to support them. 
 The duties of Alessia dei Saracini as head of such a 
 household could not have been easy in those days, 
 especially if she had helpers as inefficient as Giovanna di 
 Capo. Whether their presence in Rome had the desired 
 effect cannot be discovered. Public affairs again came to 
 the front, and a serious danger appeared in the shape of 
 Francesco di Vico who held a high post in the govern- 
 ment of Rome, but was living in Viterbo, whence he 
 raided all the country round. Viterbo had been a papal 
 stronghold, and Urban was determined to recover it, the 
 more that di Vico had been a thorn in the side of Gre- 
 gory XL, who had vainly tried to gain his friendship 
 by mildness. Urban resolved to use stronger measures, as 
 usual without much consideration as to whether the 
 moment were propitious or not. The letter which
 
 268 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Catherine wrote to him on the subject has some historical 
 importance, as showing that Rome was a self-governing 
 republic, and independent in political matters of her 
 Popes, who only much later claimed a right to interfere 
 with the government of the city. The Romans had sent 
 ambassadors to Viterbo on their own account, probably 
 to remonstrate with Vico on the manner in which his 
 men-at-arms were ravaging the surrounding country, and 
 he had given a reply " wrathful and irreverent." This 
 Urban knew, but it was only through Catherine that he 
 learned the intention of the magistracy to call a Council 
 to deal with the affair, after which the Banderesi and the 
 " Good men " were to seek him and inform him of what 
 had been decided, he being embroiled with di Vico on his 
 own account. Catherine strongly advises him to continue 
 his habit of often meeting the authorities of the city, 
 and implores him to receive them mildly, whatever 
 they may say, and to explain whatever he considered 
 necessary. 
 
 An anxious and propitiatory sentence follows this 
 counsel, " Pardon me, for perhaps affection makes me say 
 what may be should not be said, but I know you ought 
 to be aware of the temper of your Romans, and that they 
 can be drawn and bound much more by love than by any 
 other means, or than by sharpness of words, and you 
 know too the great need both for yourself and the Church 
 to keep this people obedient and reverent, since here is 
 the beginning and end of our faith. And I humbly beg 
 of you to be prudent in only promising that which you 
 can fully perform " Urban had need of the warning, for 
 he is reported to have been " a great promiser " " that 
 there may not come shame and confusion. And pardon 
 me, most gentle and holy Father that I say these words. 
 I trust that your humility and benignity will be content 
 that they be said, not disgusted and contemptuous because 

 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 269 
 
 they come from the mouth of a most lowly woman" 1 
 (vilissima femina). 
 
 The difference of tone between this uneasy fear of how 
 her words may be taken, and the frankness with which 
 she said much harder things to Gregory XI., high in 
 favour though she was with Urban, tells its own tale. Yet 
 she still could consider him, with all his mistakes, and 
 violent, Neapolitan temper, as " a just and virtuous and 
 godfearing man, with such holy and honest intentions as 
 for long time the Church has not had, "and this conviction, 
 which was of course independent of her reverence for him 
 as Pope, strengthened her to do battle for him to the last, 
 and to stay away from Siena, though its affairs at this 
 time were heavy on her heart She knew that even her 
 own followers felt the ill effect of her absence ; some were 
 growing lukewarm ; there were troubles relating to Messer 
 Matteo and the Spedale, and difficulties had risen between 
 the city and the Pope, as appears from a letter of hers to 
 Urban. Who the " Leone " of whom she speaks may 
 have been is unknown ; Tommaseo takes him to be one 
 of the two knights captured by the Clementines when 
 sent from Siena to the Pope, who later succeeded in 
 coming to Rome. " I pray you," she writes, " that you 
 will see to remedy that whereof Leone spoke to you, for 
 the scandal grows daily, not only on account of that 
 which was done to the Sienese Ambassador, but for other 
 things constantly seen, which are such as to provoke to 
 wrath the weak hearts of men. This (line of conduct) 
 you do not need now ; you want some one who will be 
 an instrument of peace, not war." The want of names 
 makes the next sentence obscure : " Even supposing 
 that he acts thus out of honest zeal for justice, there are 
 many who do it with such disorder and hot anger that 
 they pass the bounds of rule and reason, and therefore I 
 
 1 L. 370.
 
 2;o SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 urgently pray your Holiness to condescend to the 
 infirmities of men, and find a physician who may better 
 cure sickness. Do not wait until death comes ; if some 
 remedy be not found for the ill, it will increase. Also, 
 recollect the ruin which came on all Italy from not seeing 
 to the civil governors who ruled her so that by their 
 means the Church of God was despoiled. This I know 
 that you are aware of. Let your Holiness see what 
 should be done. Take compassion, take sweet com- 
 passion, for God does not despise your desire, nor the 
 prayers of His servants." 
 
 The clue of this letter is lost, but it is too character- 
 istic of Catherine's attitude towards Urban VI. to be passed 
 over. Those who are alluded to as instruments of war 
 are believed to mean a certain Santa Severina and the 
 Conte di Nola, men of war who had the Pope's ear. 
 Another letter written about this time was addressed to 
 Louis, King of Hungary. Since the King of France 
 could not be counted on, Urban had if possible to find 
 some prince whose weight and loyalty might counter- 
 balance this formidable defection. The only one in the 
 least able to do so was Louis, brother of Queen Giovanna's 
 first husband, whom she had caused to be murdered, and 
 who therefore was her bitter enemy. He had distinguished 
 himself in fighting against the infidels, and was known as 
 " the Standardbearer of the Faith." At this moment he was 
 at war with Venice, and Catherine uses all her arguments 
 to induce him to make peace with her, and come to 
 Urban's assistance, and be deaf to those who assured him 
 that Clement was the true Pope. Will he allow Antichrist 
 and a woman (Giovanna) to bring ruin and great darkness 
 on the faith ? Much good would come of his arrival in 
 Italy. Perhaps it might even be the saving of Giovanna, 
 " questa poverella di Reina," as Catherine calls her, with 
 lingering tenderness, by making her see the consequences
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 271 
 
 of persisting in her obstinacy. So far Urban has not 
 excommunicated her, hoping that she might repent. 1 
 The hope did more credit to Catherine's heart than to 
 her head. 
 
 Domestic troubles were soon to occupy her painfully. 
 " The old serpent, finding that he could not succeed in 
 one way, tried another yet more dangerous," writes 
 Raimondo ; " what he could not bring about through the 
 schismatics, he thought to cause through such as had so 
 far been loyal to the Holy See, sowing divisions between 
 the Romans and the Sovereign Pontiff, and things rose to 
 such a height that they openly threatened to put him to 
 death." There was no need to call in the old serpent as 
 a factor in the dissatisfaction which showed itself in 
 Rome ; the schismatic Cardinals and those Roman Barons 
 who were more or less openly favourers of Clement had 
 abundant means of stirring up disloyalty. The novelty 
 of having a Pope in Rome soon wore off; the return 
 from Avignon had brought instead of the expected wealth 
 and splendour, war and ruin ; great part of the city had 
 been destroyed and many lives lost. Urban had little 
 money to spare for Rome, and his character was not one 
 to win popularity. When in adversity he was humble 
 and eager to gain the hearts of those about him, but with 
 the first gleam of prosperity, the old overbearing, violent 
 temper reappeared. When he least expected it a furious 
 tumult broke out in the city ; Catherine, kneeling in an 
 agony of prayer, could hear the tramp of the armed mob 
 marching by and shouting ' To the Vatican ! ' just as they 
 had at an earlier time called, ' Give us a Roman Pope ! ' ' 
 
 Forcing the great doors of the Vatican open, they 
 rushed in, brandishing pikes and swords, and seeking for 
 Urban. Want of courage was never a fault of this Pope. 
 They found him seated on his throne, wearing his ponti- 
 
 'L. 357.
 
 272 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 fical robes and mitre. " Whom seek ye ? " he asked, 
 facing them as fearlessly as Boniface VIII. had faced the 
 Colonna at Anagni, and with a better result. The 
 Roman populace had neither wrongs to avenge like those 
 of the Colonna, nor hereditary courage ; they paused, 
 alarmed and abashed by the awful indignation in Urban's 
 countenance, and slunk away. Catherine is said to have 
 hurried to the piazza, of St Peter's to remonstrate with 
 the crowd ; every one there knew at least by sight that frail 
 figure now so emaciated that " they who saw her would 
 have taken her for a phantom rather than a living being ; " 
 they had watched her going daily to Mass at St Peter's ; 
 that pale face was a familiar sight in the prisons, and had 
 bent over many sick beds ; she had prayed for them and 
 won victory by her prayers. All listened to her voice, 
 and by her means peace was made between the incensed 
 Pontiff and his rebellious Romans. It was her last great 
 public act ; the schism and the hopeless effort to check 
 Urban's violence and want of judgment were killing her, 
 and it was with literal truth that she said to Fra 
 Bartolomeo Domenico, as he bade her a last farewell, 
 " Be assured that if I die, the sole cause of my death is 
 the zeal which burns and consumes me for Holy Church." 
 Yet she did not relax her efforts for unity and peace. 
 Almost daily she was consulted by the Banderesi, some- 
 times dragging herself to the Capitol to meet them ; even 
 the Captains of Urban's troops came when in Rome to 
 ask her advice ; the Pope showed her such absolute 
 confidence as his predecessor had never done, and thanks 
 to her good offices with King Louis of Hungary, Venice 
 had peace. Every voice praised her, and all eyes turned 
 reverently to follow her, as she went to Mass at St Peter's, 
 going there fortified by the joy of expecting to com- 
 municate with steps so light that those who knew her 
 real condition were filled with wonder, and remaining
 
 A PAGE FROM ST. CATH RHINE'S MISSAL
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 273 
 
 several hours in prayer, but too often returning so ex- 
 hausted that she could only drop prone on a bed which 
 her friends feared she would never again leave. Yet 
 when a new dawn broke, her wonderful vitality, both 
 spiritual and physical, enabled her to rise and face the 
 heavy work which each day brought. 
 
 Still, it was evident to those about her that each day 
 lessened it, and dark spiritual experiences began to 
 agonise her, which, as in the case of the Dominican 
 mystic, Suso, appeared to her to be the work of some evil 
 power outside her, and, as Raimondo knew from Alessia 
 dei Saracini or Catherine's letters, she thought that she 
 saw all the city full of fiends exciting the inhabitants to 
 murder Urban, and threatening herself with a dreadful 
 death, a vision easily understood when we recollect the 
 terror and horror which the late revolt had caused her. 
 
 Even her prayers only brought her distress, for she 
 thought that they only caused Christ to answer, " Leave 
 this people alone who blaspheme My name daily ; when 
 they have committed this crime I will destroy them in 
 My wrath, for My justice will no longer endure their sins 
 and guilt." She only prayed the more fervently, pleading, 
 "If this great misfortune happen, not only the Romans, 
 but all the faithful will suffer greatly. Be appeased, 
 Lord, despise not Thy people for whom Thou hast paid 
 such a ransom." 
 
 Long was it before she could feel that there was an answer 
 to her prayers. " God opposed His justice to them," writes 
 Raimondo. The whole account vividly recalls a scene in 
 a mediaeval French poem, of which there are traces in 
 Dante's " Inferno," called St Pol le Ber, otherwise St 
 Paul the Baron, this being a kind of honourable title, 
 found in the " Divina Commedia " and elsewhere. The 
 writer describes how St Paul was led through hell by an 
 angel, and saw all the agonies which mediaeval writers 
 s
 
 274 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 describe with ruthless and sickening detail, as men to 
 whom torture was a familiar thing. In the last scene the 
 lost souls implore a little truce to their anguish, on which 
 Christ appears, and with exactly the air and tone of a 
 deeply offended seigneur addressing rebellious vassals, 
 demands how they who had despised and thwarted him 
 on earth had the audacity to ask a favour from Him ? 
 Yet, for the sake of His good Apostle and the Angels 
 who have mediated for them, some alleviation they shall 
 have. 
 
 No wonder that those before whom the Redeemer was 
 held in such a light should regard Him chiefly as a 
 relentless Judge, who must be propitiated by the Virgin 
 and the Saints ! Catherine, in her natural mood, was 
 indeed incapable of looking thus on Him whom she 
 adored and trusted with all her heart ; it is a remarkable 
 feature of her teaching, so far as it is known to us, that 
 she rarely used fear as a motive for rousing men from 
 their sins. Most of the sermons of mediaeval writers are 
 full of awful descriptions of the fate awaiting sinners, and 
 their purgatory can hardly be distinguished from hell. 
 Catherine lived and taught love. To her it was the great 
 motive power, so great that it made lover and loved one. 
 Her doctrine was that nothing can be effected without 
 love, since all the powers of the soul are moved by it ; 
 every virtue receives life from it, nor without it can the 
 soul live. Such also was the teaching of Dante a century 
 earlier. 
 
 She found some relief in writing to Raimondo, and tell- 
 ing him her troubled thoughts and experiences, describing 
 how she had fallen into convulsions while in the chapel 
 of her house, and was helped back to her own room with 
 great difficulty, but there unspeakable horror crushed her, 
 and she had a strange conviction that her soul stood apart 
 from her body which seemed dead, and that she had
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 275 
 
 longed to comfort Barduccio Canigiani, who stood watch- 
 ing her in great distress, but she could neither speak nor 
 move, though she could and did pray passionately and for 
 a moment felt comforted, and those kneeling round the 
 beloved form which they thought dead saw her breathe 
 again. But for two days and nights the dreadful mental 
 conflict continued, and though she regained strength 
 enough to creep to St Peter's, she never recovered its 
 effects, and wrote a letter of farewell to Raimondo, the 
 Confessor whom she loved and respected so greatly, 
 though sometimes he disappointed, and sometimes he mis- 
 understood her. She commended her spiritual family to 
 him, bidding him guard against their finding themselves 
 like sheep without a shepherd ; she bids him collect the 
 MSS. of her " Dialogue " and other writings, and do with 
 them whatever he thinks best, and, in the pathetic way in 
 which the dying sometimes unconsciously wring the hearts 
 of those whom they are leaving, begs him to forgive all 
 disobedience and ingratitude of which she has been guilty, 
 and all pain and distress which she has caused him, 
 and to forgive also that she had not cared better for his 
 health. 
 
 At such a time her letters could be but few, but as long 
 as she could do so she occupied herself with Urban's 
 affairs and those of Siena. Soon after the victory of 
 Marino she had appealed to her native city for men and 
 money, reminding the magistrates that they owed him 
 much gratitude for having removed the interdict laid on it 
 because it persisted in keeping up friendly relations with 
 Florence, and had sent soldiers to the aid of Bologna and 
 Perugia when they joined the Tuscan League. As in 
 Florence, the interdict had greatly troubled all religious 
 men. Stefano Maconi had written to tell her how some 
 of the citizens had caused themselves to be enrolled as 
 part of the household of the Bishop of Narni, then in
 
 276 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Siena, as his retinue had the privilege of hearing Mass ; 
 Stefano himself had done so. To Catherine's straight- 
 forward mind there seemed to be a dishonest quibble in 
 this method of evading the interdict. She told him that 
 she would not have allowed any of her followers to do so 
 if she had been in Siena, and Stefano would do better to 
 wait patiently until the prohibition was removed. Still, if 
 the Bishop was clear that the thing was right, it might 
 be allowable. The permission is hesitatingly given ; 
 Catherine cannot convince herself that all is right in this 
 evasion of the papal interdict, but she will not question 
 the authority of the Bishop, and she takes refuge in 
 supposing that he may have exceptional powers and can 
 give special leave, in which case there is no more to be 
 said. Stefano was quite ready to submit to her judgment 
 in cases of conscience, and attend Mass or not in the 
 Bishop's chapel as she thought right, but he could not 
 altogether accept her point of view with regard to the city 
 and Urban, nor could the Magistrates, to whom she wrote 
 on the subject. 
 
 Already the city had paid a heavy sum to recover 
 Talemone, which after all was rightly theirs, and her 
 reminder to be grateful to the Pope fell flat. As usual, 
 she saw the matter from a religious point of view only. 
 Stefano was a citizen as well as her disciple, and in a 
 letter addressed to his friend Neri di Landoccio, but 
 meant for her eye, he recalled what a strain there was on 
 the resources of Siena at that moment. As far as he 
 could say the Sienese were loyal to Urban except perhaps 
 a few who were looked on as thieves, but as to men and 
 money, the Freelances exacted blackmail monthly to the 
 amount of six thousand golden florins, and had just raised 
 their terms to fifteen hundred more, and even so could 
 not be held from raiding the surrounding country. 
 Something should certainly be sent ; he had argued the
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 277 
 
 matter with the Signoria often, and with outsiders also ; 
 something must be done, even if the property of the city 
 were pledged for it. Then, in his more usual tone of 
 banter he complains that his grave correspondent in 
 Rome, Fra Tomaso, sends him no news except what he 
 already knows. If he only had time he could tell them 
 all something which had made even Messer Matteo, the 
 Rector of the Spedale, split with laughter. Unluckily he 
 had not time, and we are not allowed to know what 
 this good joke was. Messer Matteo chanced to come in 
 while Stefano was writing in the room lent him at the 
 Misericordia, and took the opportunity to send a message 
 to " our Mother," explaining that he had so many letters 
 to write that he could get through no more, but begged 
 her and Neri and all the rest to remember him in prayer. 
 And with an exhortation to his friend either to write 
 himself or to make Barduccio Canigiani or Cecca do so, 
 Stefano concludes by signing himself Neri's useless and 
 unworthy brother, poor in all virtues, epithets often found 
 as a heading in Catherine's letters to him, added doubtless 
 by himself when he copied them in a more earnest spirit 
 than when he used them in writing to his friend. 
 
 Featherheaded as his serious friends in Rome con- 
 sidered him, he was Catherine's most trusted agent. He 
 forwarded letters from her whether to special correspon- 
 dents or intended as a kind of general epistle to be passed 
 from one to another ; he took the matter vigorously in 
 hand when a certain Migliorino settled himself in Lapa's 
 empty house while she was in Rome, and would not 
 depart ; it was he who had to recover a book, probably 
 the "Dialogue," lent to Contessa Bianchina Salimbeni 
 who had not returned it, as is the manner of borrowers 
 of books in all ages ; Catherine was anxious to recover it, 
 and wrote urgently on the subject. Again, it was Stefano 
 who was to clear up the mystery of a horse which
 
 278 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 Catherine was asserted to have ordered, while she on 
 her side declared that she knew nothing about it, and so 
 on with various commissions, one of which has puzzled 
 all readers of her letters, since why he should procure and 
 send to Rome a Capretto raso for the household in Via 
 di Papa a skinned or shaven kid no one can guess. 
 It must surely have been a skin ; he has inquired what 
 and how much to get, and found that one would suffice, 
 and it was to be conveyed by the son of the wood master, 
 who was not, as might be supposed, the head forester, 
 but the artist who carved the woodwork in the Duomo. 
 Stefano's letters are quite modern in their gaiety and 
 lightness of touch charming, impulsive and loving, and 
 his grumbles at being in Siena instead of Rome are 
 delightful. The " College " in Via di Papa missed him 
 as much as he missed them ; in one of the last letters 
 which he received from Catherine she writes, " Most dear 
 son ... I do not ask you to come, but right glad should 
 I be if you were here or could come, if you could do so 
 without giving offence. But with offence or trouble to 
 your father and mother, no, unless it were a necessary 
 thing. That I desire you to avoid at the present time 
 as much as you can ; I am certain that if Divine Good- 
 ness sees it best, objections will cease, and you will come 
 in peace. Come if you can," she adds, her longing for 
 this loved and lovable follower overcoming her prudence. 
 A message from Barduccio follows, perhaps inserted by 
 himself as he wrote from Catherine's dictation. " Your 
 negligent brother says you are to come soon ; there is 
 something which he has to do, and he wants your 
 company. It seems difficult to find how to do it unless 
 you are with him, so much so that if you do not come, he 
 will go to you before doing it." The letter ends with a 
 message about the missing book, which ought to have 
 come several days earlier. " If you go there " to Rocca
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 279 
 
 d'Orcia, " say that it is to be sent at once, and order 
 whoever goes there to say this without fail." 1 
 
 It must indeed have r been impossible for Stefano to 
 break through the obstacles which detained him at Siena 
 if he did not at once respond to the call in this letter, 
 and still more to the cry in another of " When wilt thou 
 come ? Ah, come soon," although at this time he had 
 not realised her condition. She had so often seemed 
 hopelessly ill and yet had rallied that perhaps even those 
 who saw her daily could not believe death near, and her 
 indomitable energy made her continue her usual occupa- 
 tions in defiance of pain and feebleness. Just before the 
 almost fatal attack of which she tells Raimondo, she had 
 written to Urban and to three Cardinals, whose names 
 are not given, and one last letter she wrote to Giovanna 
 of Naples, probably rather earlier, full of sorrow and 
 warning, appealing to her to have pity on her own soul, 
 and on the people whom she had for years governed 
 wisely a testimony worth much but who now were 
 rending one another like wild beasts. " One holds for 
 the white rose and one for the red ; one for truth and one 
 for falsehood. Yet all were created by the stainless rose 
 of God's eternal will, and all were regenerated to grace in 
 the red rose of Christ." 
 
 Tommaseo, commenting on this, says that the arms in 
 one branch of Urban's family were six red roses, and that 
 the allusion seems to imply a red rose being the badge 
 of the party of Urban and a white one of the Clementines, 
 and Burlamacchi conjectures that the Freelances of Hawk- 
 wood's band wore one of them, and carried the badges 
 back to England, to become those of York and Lancaster, 
 but this seems little likely. The letter to Urban bears 
 traces in its broken and sometimes incoherent sentences 
 of the great effort made to write it. 2 Although not 
 1 L. 365. 2 L. 371.
 
 280 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 placed as the last dictated or written by her in the edition 
 of Tommaseo, it surely must have been so. The one 
 which he places after it, to " Messer Carlo della Pace," 
 otherwise Charles of Durazzo, must have been written at 
 an earlier time, when she had full command of her powers ; 
 it is as clear, urgent and direct as any of those written 
 years before this last stage in her history, while that 
 intended for Urban is rather a mystical outpouring than 
 a letter in the usual sense. How greatly she suffered 
 in mind and body at this time is betrayed by a prayer 
 made not long before she broke down altogether, which 
 concludes, after a passionate entreaty that at any en- 
 durance of agony she may be allowed to see the Church 
 reformed, with a most touching petition that if indeed it 
 should please God to keep her yet longer " in this vessel," 
 He would heal and uphold it so that it should not be 
 utterly torn to pieces. Catherine had reached the limit of 
 endurance when she prayed thus.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A GOOD FIGHT WON 
 
 BEFORE Catherine was entirely unable to leave the 
 house, she sometimes went to sit in the garden 
 of a friend, and here on one occasion she was 
 found by Tomaso Petra. Death was plainly seen in 
 her countenance, and the question suggested itself to his 
 legal mind whether she had settled her worldly affairs. 
 " Mother," he said, " it would seem as if Christ your 
 Bridegroom would withdraw you from this life. Have 
 you made your last arrangements ? " Catherine asked in 
 surprise what a woman who possessed nothing could have 
 to arrange. He answered that she ought to indicate in 
 her will what each one of her spiritual family was to do 
 after her spirit was released from the body, adding that 
 he had a request to make, namely that when that time 
 came he should be permitted to see her spirit. " That 
 does not seem possible," she said ; " either the soul is saved, 
 and then her perfect bliss makes her forget the small 
 things of this world, or she is lost, and the infinite pains 
 which she suffers forbid such a favour. If in Purgatory 
 she partakes of both conditions, the difficulty is the 
 same." 
 
 But she promised to pray that Petra's wish might be 
 granted, and his words as to her followers sank into her 
 mind ; she gave many charges and directions to her 
 friends and disciples ; the Mantellate who had ac- 
 companied her to Rome were placed under the guidance 
 
 281
 
 282 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 and care of Alessia dei Saracini ; the mantle which she 
 prized so much she left to Delia Fonte ; her writings, as 
 we know, were bequeathed to Raimondo da Capua. She 
 silenced her longing to see him again by telling herself 
 that he was serving the Church better than if he had been 
 at her bedside. A great joy came to her in the arrival 
 of Fra Bartolomeo Domenico, who was sent to Rome on 
 business by his monastery in Siena, and who entered her 
 room unexpectedly at the end of Lent. Unprepared for 
 the change in her since they had last met, he burst into 
 tears. She tried to tell him how glad she was that he 
 had come, but he could barely hear her voice. The next 
 day was Easter Sunday and her birthday, and at dawn 
 she received the Eucharist at his hands. She had seemed 
 too feeble to move on her bed, but to the joyful surprise 
 of all she suddenly rose, and knelt with closed eyes and 
 clasped hands, in a rapture of prayer. The temporary 
 strength vanished with the occasion ; she had to be carried 
 back to her bed of planks, and lay unable to move hand 
 or foot. 
 
 She rallied enough to have several conversations with 
 Fra Bartolomeo, who spent every spare moment with her, 
 but when the business on which his Provincial had sent 
 him was finished, the friar who had accompanied him, and 
 who does not seem to have known Catherine, pressed him 
 to return to Siena. He could not make up his mind to 
 do so, and told her that it was impossible for him to leave 
 Rome until she was better. " How can I leave you when 
 you are dying ? " he exclaimed, " were I away I should 
 leave everything to hurry here." " My son, I should like 
 to have you," she answered, " and I should like to have 
 Fra Raimondo, but it is not God's will that I should have 
 this, and I want His will, not mine. You must go." 
 " Then promise that you will pray to be healed before I 
 leave here," he said. Neither he nor any around her could
 
 A GOOD FIGHT WON 283 
 
 believe that such a misfortune as losing her could really 
 come to pass. She smiled and promised, and when he 
 came to bid her farewell, she seemed so cheerful that his 
 hopes of her restoration to health rose. She stretched out 
 her arms to him, kissed him and bade him go, knowing 
 well that they should not meet on earth again. But Fra 
 Bartolomeo went back to Siena full of hope, and the news 
 of her death which soon reached him was a cruel blow. 
 " Seducisti me, Domine, et seductus sum, fortior me fuisti, 
 et invaluisti," he exclaims with Jeremiah in bitterness of 
 soul. 
 
 From this time Catherine grew weaker and weaker, 
 but still, against her will, her wonderful vitality kept death 
 at bay. " I die and yet cannot die," she had said at an 
 earlier time, nor as it seemed could she do so even now, 
 but the time was near. Stefano Maconi broke through 
 all which detained him, to come to her bedside, warned, 
 as he said, by a voice which he heard while praying in 
 the chapel of the Spedale bidding him hasten to Rome, 
 as her departure was at hand. When he stood by the 
 bed where she had lain for over two months in intense 
 suffering, her greeting was characteristic. " Thou art 
 come at last, my son, and hast obeyed the voice of God 
 who will not fail to show thee His will. Go and confess 
 thy sins, and prepare with thy companions to give thy 
 life for the Sovereign Pontiff, Urban VI." 
 
 Perhaps the joy of seeing him had lent her a little 
 strength, for she was able to dictate at least one letter to 
 him, and spoke words of loving advice and direction, 
 carefully treasured by those who heard them, and written 
 down by Caffarini, who gives them as a connected 
 discourse, a .thing impossible in Catherine's feeble state, 
 suffering as she did such pain that she who never com- 
 plained and who had endured so much joyfully was 
 heard to say that she believed fiends were permitted to
 
 284 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 torture her, though she added immediately, " Nevertheless 
 I leave both life and death to the will of my Creator. If by 
 abiding here I can be of any use to any one, I refuse neither 
 labour nor pain nor torment, but am ready for the salvation 
 of my neighbour to give my life a thousand times, and, were 
 that possible, in even greater suffering." 
 
 Wasted as she was, and reduced to utter weakness, 
 Caffarini describes her expression " as if it had been that of 
 an angel." Once seeing the tears of those standing round 
 her bed she said, " Dear children, let not this " her 
 death " sadden you ; rather rejoice and be exceeding 
 glad to think that I am leaving a place of many sufferings 
 to go to rest in the quiet sea, the Eternal God, and to be 
 united for ever with my most sweet and loving Bridegroom. 
 And I promise to be more with you, and more useful, 
 since I leave darkness to pass into the true and everlasting 
 light." 
 
 As she looked round on her disciples the same touching 
 fear crossed her mind as she had felt with regard to 
 Raimondo ; perhaps in her anxiety for their spiritual 
 need she had too much overlooked due care for those 
 which were physical ; if it were so she asked their forgive- 
 ness, and also for any fault which she had committed 
 towards them. With what tears and protestations they 
 answered may be imagined. Then she blessed each, and 
 turning her eyes to her mother, who stood weeping beside 
 her, begged her blessing for herself. Lapa could only 
 reply by tearful requests that she would beg God to give 
 her strength to enable her to submit to losing her child. 
 " I would you could have seen," wrote Barduccio Canigiani 
 to his sister, a nun in a convent near Florence, " with 
 what respect and humility she repeatedly asked for the 
 blessing of her old mother, who in turn besought the 
 prayers of her daughter, and begged her to obtain the 
 grace not to offend God by the greatness of her grief.
 
 A GOOD FIGHT WON 285 
 
 Catherine prayed again out loud for us all, and so tender 
 and humble were her words that we thought our hearts 
 would break in twain." Caffarini mentions other par- 
 ticulars of these last days, among which is her declaration 
 that she had never lost her childhood's longing for a 
 hermit life, and had prayed to be allowed to undertake it, 
 but it had been clearly revealed to her that her work was 
 to be in the world. 
 
 Though steadfast in faith and assured that her deep 
 penitence for all shortcomings was accepted, peace was 
 not yet won. From every biography of her it appears 
 that always after an exhausting strain of soul she was 
 haunted by the terrible visions which tortured her in the 
 early days of her vocation. Her strength, such as it was, 
 suddenly failed altogether, and the Prior of St Antonio, 
 who was in Rome, administered extreme unction. All 
 through the Sunday before Ascension Day there had 
 seemed no sign of life except the painful breathing too 
 well known to those who have watched dying beds, but 
 suddenly those round her perceived with infinite distress 
 that with reviving consciousness her mind was wandering 
 in some region of indescribable horror. That it must be 
 so they saw from the movements of her hands and the 
 expression of her dimmed eyes, and from her broken 
 words. Sometimes she seemed listening intently to 
 awful things unheard by any one else ; sometimes she 
 cried aloud. " Peccavi, Domine, miserere mei," she 
 moaned repeatedly, each time lifting her arm and 
 dropping it heavily. Once, as if the memory of 
 Raimondo's warning had recurred to her, she exclaimed, 
 as if vehemently repelling an accusation, " Vain glory ? 
 Never, but the true glory of Christ crucified." Alessia 
 supported her in her arms, but she was beyond mortal 
 help. Suddenly her eyes kindled, and her face took such 
 an expression of peace that it was a joy only to look
 
 286 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 upon her, and the sight and certainty that she had 
 emerged from this dread abyss of horror " somewhat com- 
 forted the grief of her afflicted children, who stood 
 weeping round her in a grief that may be imagined," and 
 words of prayer and penitence fell from her lips, " high 
 things which for our sins we were not worthy to under- 
 stand," wrote Barduccio, and often so feebly uttered as to 
 be hardly audible. " We caught a few words by bending 
 over her lips, but my grief hindered me from hearing 
 much," but he distinguished enough to know that she was 
 praying for Urban and the Church, " and also with great 
 fervour she prayed for all her beloved children whom God 
 had given her, and whom she loved with a very great love, 
 using many of the words wherewith our Lord prayed to 
 His Eternal Father, and so praying for us, signed and 
 blessed us." 
 
 They had set a reliquary on a little table by her bed, 
 but it was noticed that she looked only at the Cross 
 surmounting it. This reliquary passed into the keeping 
 of Stefano Maconi, who treasured it to the day of his 
 death. The long strife was over. " Feeling death close 
 at hand, she was heard to say, ' Lord, Thou callest me 
 to Thee, and I come, not in mine own merits, but only 
 in Thy mercy, which I ask in virtue of the most precious 
 blood of Thy dear Son.' " A few minutes later she 
 murmured, " Lord, into Thy hands I commit my spirit," 
 and with these words on her lips Catherine of Siena went 
 to her rest. 
 
 Those who had most loved and reverenced her longed for 
 a few quiet hours before all Rome was stirred by the know- 
 ledge of her death. Stefano Maconi himself bore her body 
 to Santa Maria sopra Minerva, laying it wrapped in the 
 white robe and black mantle of the Mantellate within a 
 coffin of cypress wood. All the lines of pain were gone 
 from the calm face, and she lay like one asleep, every
 
 . 2 - 
 
 E- g-s
 
 A GOOD FIGHT WON 287 
 
 limb pliable, and so Stefano saw her during the long 
 hours that he watched beside her. The coffin was placed 
 behind the iron grille which shuts in the chapel of St 
 Dominic, so that it could not be touched by the throng 
 who pressed into the Church as soon as her death was 
 known, those who had sick friends struggling to bring 
 them as near to the coffin as they could, hoping that they 
 might be miraculously healed. Such was the press and 
 excitement that the attempts of now one, now another 
 preacher to speak her praises were useless, and at last 
 one called out as loudly as he could, " This holy virgin 
 has no need of our panegyrics ; she preaches sufficiently 
 herself," and so came down from the pulpit. Although, 
 strangely enough, there is no indication that Urban took 
 any special heed of her while she lay ill, he ordered her 
 a magnificent funeral, which all the clergy of Rome 
 attended, and a yet more stately ceremony was organised 
 by Giovanni Cenci, to show the gratitude of the city for 
 all that she had done in its behalf, a ceremony " worthy 
 of a queen," and truly few if any queens ever ruled 
 with so wide a sway or turned so many to good as did 
 Catherine of Siena. All the greatest men of Rome, 
 ecclesiastical and secular, all the people of every class 
 attended her obsequies and told of her saintly life and 
 how it had ended when she was but thirty-three years 
 old. 
 
 There was weeping too in Siena, though when William 
 Flete came there to preach her funeral sermon, he told 
 his hearers, " It is with hymns of joy, not tears, that we 
 should celebrate the death of Catherine/' But to those 
 who are left, "not all the preaching from Adam can 
 make death other than death," and though they knew 
 how joyfully she had laid down the burden] of life, her 
 disciples' sorrow was a lifelong one. In old age Stefano 
 Maconi had no greater pleasure than to speak of Catherine
 
 288 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 to his monks in the Certosa di Pavia, of which he became 
 the Prior. It had been her dying wish that he should 
 enter the Carthusian Order, and although he had until then 
 had no desire to do so, and encountered great opposition 
 from his family, a year after her death he began his 
 novitiate. It is pleasant to know that in old age he 
 often saw St Bernadino, and told him much of Catherine, 
 who died the same year as that in which the eloquent 
 young preacher was born, and a welcome glimpse of 
 several of her disciples and friends is found in a letter 
 written eleven years after her death by Maconi to Neri di 
 Landoccio. Maconi had risen with remarkable rapidity 
 in his Order, of which he was already General. He has 
 been visiting various Carthusian monasteries, and has 
 dined at Genoa, " with our common father, Messer 
 Raimondo," and Caffarini, " and our venerable mother, 
 Madonna Orietta Scotti, with great lovingness re- 
 cognised me as her son, and many other things I 
 could tell you which no doubt you would like to hear," 
 writes Stefano, and so should we, but like the joke 
 which so greatly amused Messer Matteo, they remain 
 untold. 
 
 To the last everything concerning Catherine was dear 
 to Maconi ; there is a tradition that at every Easter 
 Sunday he caused dishes of beans to be set on the table 
 of his refectory, in memory of a long past Easter when he 
 and Catherine had nothing else to eat, so low were her 
 resources, and apparently his also. He could recall the 
 least details of the time they spent together, and once 
 when some trifle suddenly reminded him in old age of 
 her loving tenderness and kindness, he burst into tears 
 and wept as he might have done beside her coffin. The 
 monks who were with him helped him to a place where 
 he could sit with the soft air blowing on his face, and he 
 gradually recovered composure.
 
 A GOOD FIGHT WON 289 
 
 What the grief for Catherine's loss was to the rough 
 old hermit of Vallombrosa, Don Giovanni delle Celle, may 
 be gathered from the letter, so moving in its simplicity, 
 to his former disciple, Barduccio Canigiani, who had left 
 him with his full approval, to follow her. The old man 
 sits desolate, his eyes dim with tears, and implores 
 Barduccio to come to him, for they both loved and 
 respected Catherine above all else, and now she is gone, 
 and has taken all the gladness of his life with her. Had 
 he not been comforted by a vision of her, he would have 
 gone down into utter darkness. The letter is the more 
 affecting that it has not a word of commonplace con- 
 solation in it, nothing of what a venerable hermit might 
 have thought himself called on to say ; it is a simple 
 outburst of feeling, and a greater testimony to what 
 Catherine was to those who knew her best than is the 
 studied oration of Flete, though he too grieved pro- 
 foundly. Don Giovanni always wrote out of the fulness of 
 his heart, whether moved by anger or by love. Barduccio's 
 letter to his sister is almost equally touching, and besides 
 these there is one from Nigi di Doccio to Neri di 
 Landoccio, who was in Naples at the time of Catherine's 
 death, and though he hurried back for her funeral, was 
 obliged to return there. " How wretched were we," he 
 exclaims with the vain regret known to so many mourners, 
 " to have so much of her company, and yet never know 
 her rightly, nor deserve her presence." He gives no 
 particulars of her last days ; Neri would have heard these 
 when he came to Rome, and Stefano Maconi would not 
 fail to write or tell them to so close a friend. He did 
 not enter the cloister but lived as a hermit for nearly 
 twenty-four years outside Porta Nuova at Siena, taking 
 with him his love of reading and poetry, especially 
 Dante, and not always returning the books which he 
 borrowed, and he wrote verses in praise of St Catherine,
 
 290 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 of which, according to Caffarini, he made copies for his 
 friends. One of his poems, not on St Catherine, but 
 on St Giossaffa, may be seen in the Bodleian Library. 
 Though himself withdrawn from active life, he influenced 
 not a few who were in it, and who corresponded with him 
 and asked his advice, among whom were Maconi, Mala- 
 volti and Caffarini. He died in the Spedale in 1406, an 
 old man. A list exists made by a friend of his among the 
 monks of Oliveto of such possessions as he had at the 
 time of his death, and certainly he had kept his vow of 
 poverty to the letter, and was sadly in want of some one 
 to mend his garments, all of which except two hoods and 
 a pair of new stockings are entered as torn, except a robe, 
 which he or some kind friend had patched. All the 
 furniture mentioned consists in two beds, both much in 
 need of repair, and an old chair. In money he had 
 seventy-two soldi, sixty-two of which his friend dis- 
 tributed among the monks of Oliveto. The soldo was 
 worth more then than now, but the sum is certainly not 
 large ! The Olivetans also had a more valuable legacy in 
 his books and writings, together with a portrait of 
 Catherine which he had had painted. 
 
 But the one to whom her declaration that she would 
 be more helpful absent than present was most fully 
 verified was Raimondo da Capua. Hitherto he had been 
 a timid man, shrinking from responsibility, rather back- 
 ward in undertaking any difficult work. Now we find 
 him General of the Friars Preachers, not willingly indeed, 
 but accepting the post submissively, and then throwing 
 himself vigorously into the heavy duties of his office, and 
 fearlessly, though gently and discreetly, reforming all that 
 needed reform, ungrateful and even dangerous work 
 though it was, a labour in which he was greatly aided 
 by Fra Bartolomeo Domenico. His delight and refresh- 
 ment during fifteen long years was to write that
 
 A GOOD FIGHT WON 291 
 
 " Legenda," with the help of Caffarini, which is the chief 
 source of our information regarding Catherine. Dry and 
 colourless as much of it is, it nevertheless became 
 extremely popular, and was translated into many lan- 
 guages, and excited a general desire for further details, 
 a desire strongly urged upon Caffarini by the Camaldolesi 
 of Florence, who begged him to set down all the ways 
 and daily doings of Catherine, and, knowing the ways of 
 copyists, they also bade him keep a watchful eye on any 
 whom he might employ, lest they should omit or alter 
 anything. This was the origin of the " Legenda minore," 
 but the art of memoir writing was not one known to the 
 Middle Ages, even when the work was one of love, and 
 both Caffarini and Raimondo forget the woman who 
 influenced kings and republics too much in the saint to 
 give a complete portrait. The Prior of the Camaldolesi 
 adds that he can let him see some books which he has 
 about Catherine ; it would be interesting to know what 
 they were, and if they are still preserved in any monastery 
 of the Order. Caffarini circulated to the utmost of his 
 power all the writings left by her, sending an Italian 
 translation to Henry IV., " cankered Bolingbroke," who, 
 though he asked for it, does not seem exactly the person 
 to appreciate it. The " Dialogue " was already in the 
 Camaldolesi Library at Florence, for the Prior says that 
 he had read it repeatedly. The custom which prevailed 
 in Venice for many years of keeping April 29th, the day 
 on which Catherine died, as a festival in her honour was 
 introduced by Caffarini. He spent nearly half a century 
 there, and that anniversary was always marked by her 
 praises being solemnly told, while her portrait was dis- 
 played, surrounded by wreaths and crosses and a crown 
 of blossoms, in memory of her well-known love of flowers, 
 an appropriate setting, he would say, "since she was 
 destined to collect a multitude of souls as a sweet
 
 292 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 nosegay to offer to God, while her own words and works 
 were like so many bouquets, and she herself bloomed in 
 the eternal Paradise in the month which is the season of 
 flowers." 
 
 That Siena should take no share in the honours 
 accorded to her " beata popolana " would have been 
 strange indeed, and Raimondo was bent on her possess- 
 ing, if not Catherine's entire body, at least a part of it. 
 To the modern mind the dismemberment of a loved and 
 revered form is altogether repugnant, but in the Middle 
 Ages, when the cult of relics had become a passion, no 
 such feeling existed. Stefano Maconi had felt no hesita- 
 tion in detaching some of Catherine's teeth to be carried 
 away and held as inestimable treasures, and when 
 Raimondo went again to Rome in 1381 he obtained 
 leave from the Pope to have her head enclosed in a 
 reliquary and sent to her native city. The Romans 
 might have protested, and the two friars to whom it was 
 entrusted were bidden to carry it away in great secrecy, 
 and place it in safe keeping in Siena, where it remained 
 without the knowledge of any but the few immediately 
 concerned. Some years later Raimondo went to Siena, 
 and held counsel with thoee whose advice was likely to 
 be most judicious, Maconi and Landoccio being of the 
 number, as to what steps to take in honouring Catherine. 
 Since Venice kept the 29th of April as her festival, it was 
 not fitting that her own city should be behindhand. The 
 authorities on being informed that the precious relic was 
 actually in Siena, at once seized the opportunity, and a 
 great ceremony was organised, preceded by a week of 
 preparation, during which sermons were preached setting 
 forth her beautiful life and great deeds. Raimondo's was 
 naturally the first, other Italians followed ; England was 
 represented by a Dominican named Brother John, "a 
 man greatly renowned as learned, holy, devout and full
 
 ST. CATHERINE'S HEAD AT SAN DOMENICO IX SIKNA
 
 A GOOD FIGHT WON 293 
 
 of faith," and Ireland too, in the person of another 
 Dominican, who had taken the name of Peter Martyr, 
 after that too famous persecutor of heretics whom the 
 Roman Church counts as having the honours of martyr- 
 dom. The city was thronged with visitors from all parts 
 of Italy, and one Sunday in early May all Siena was 
 astir, eagerly expecting the hour at which from the Porta 
 Romana the procession was to start. It passed slowly 
 through the city, with solemn chanting, headed by two 
 hundred girls all in white, adorned with all the jewels 
 which their families could furnish and carrying flowers, 
 both in memory of Catherine's love of them " and of her 
 words, for she was accustomed to say that every one 
 should wear white garments and bear flowers, meaning 
 thereby that they should be pure and innocent in their 
 life, and adorned with virtues." Next appeared a number 
 of men from the guilds and confraternities of Siena, who 
 represented some event in Catherine's life, each company 
 preceded by their banner, and with lighted torches borne 
 before them. Next, following a great crucifix, came the 
 hermits of Sienese territory in great numbers, holy men, 
 " all supported by the Republic, to the end that they 
 might with less distraction pray, meditate, and afflict their 
 bodies." The religious communities came after them, 
 and then the secular priests and canons, each man 
 carrying a wax taper, and after them the gentlemen, 
 magistrates and officials of the city in robes of office, two 
 and two, according to their rank. These were followed 
 by " the illustrious Consistory in their richest robes of 
 state ; after these the abbots and other dignitaries, 
 followed by the bishops in their pontificals, all with 
 their pastoral staves in their hands." 
 
 And then came the Prioress and Sisters of the Order 
 which had hesitated so long whether to receive Catherine 
 Benincasa among them, and had mis judged her so hardly
 
 294 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 and who now regarded her as their glory. A few 
 had envied and slandered her, and many had loved 
 her greatly, and now all exulted in the thought that 
 however much others might claim in her, she belonged 
 especially to them. The Mantellate too had come from 
 all parts of Italy and were moving in a long double line 
 before the baldachino of gold brocade, embroidered with 
 jewels borne above the sacred relic in its splendid taber- 
 nacle of gold, in which Raimondo had caused to be 
 placed a portrait of Catherine. He himself was walking 
 on the left of the tabernacle, and on the right was the 
 Bishop of Siena. But the figure on which all eyes rested 
 was that of Lapa Benincasa, to whom in advanced old 
 age it was given to see the honours paid to her daughter 
 by their city, and as she walked amid the Mantellate 
 many wept, and others crowded round exclaiming " O 
 happy you to have thus beheld the triumph of your 
 child ! " 
 
 Arrived at the Church of San Domenico, Raimondo 
 gave a short address ; the Bishop blessed all present, and 
 the head of Catherine was placed in the sacristy, and for 
 a fortnight afterwards another course of sermons was 
 preached on her life and death by Dominicans, Italians, 
 French, Spanish and English. 
 
 Siena keeps the memory of that day five hundred 
 years ago in an annual festival in which all the citizens 
 take part, and crowds pass all day long in and out of the 
 Fullonica, and pray in the Church which now forms part 
 of it, and invoke St Catherine. The disorder and troubles 
 connected with the Schism delayed her canonisation until 
 1461, though practically she had been counted as a 
 saint from the time of her death. Then Pope Pius II., 
 the famous ^Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini, a Sienese by birth, 
 published the Bull which recognised her formally as one. 
 A fresco in the library of the Duomo records this event,
 
 THK CANONISATION OF ST. CATHKRINE BY POPE PIUS II
 
 A GOOD FIGHT WON 295 
 
 and another shows how he proclaimed a crusade, as 
 vainly as she did herself, but the coincidence is 
 appropriate. 
 
 One more honour shown to her memory remains to be 
 recorded. When Santa Maria sopra Minerva was re- 
 opened after being restored in 1865, her ashes were 
 carried through the streets of Rome in a silver urn on a 
 bier covered with crimson velvet, borne by four Bishops, 
 while the regular clergy, the collegiate chapters, the 
 theological students and the Sisters of Penance, as the 
 Mantellate of the fourteenth century are now called, 
 walked in procession. Her statue lies under the high 
 altar of Santa Maria with lamps ever burning before it, 
 the most interesting of all the many objects of interest in 
 the great Dominican Church. 
 
 That Catherine of Siena was one of the three greatest 
 figures of the fourteenth century is beyond dispute, 
 though her character and her work have been very 
 variously judged, too often with an estimate coloured by 
 prejudice which does not sufficiently allow for the age in 
 which she lived or consider the facts of her life. Again, she 
 has been too much considered by some of her biographers 
 as simply a saint, by others as chiefly concerned with 
 politics, so that in either case only a partial view of her is 
 obtained. That her plans too often failed is true, the 
 tragic fate of great plans which came to nothing that 
 pursued her native city was hers also, but such failures 
 are greater than not a few successes. It may freely be 
 admitted that as a politician she was often mistaken. It 
 is not even sure that Italy might have been stronger and 
 better had the Popes never returned to Rome. But it is 
 not by what Catherine did, but by what she was that she 
 influenced her own and the following generations. When 
 Dante speaks of the Florentine whom he utterly despised 
 and hated, he can find no words more scathing than
 
 296 SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 
 
 " Bonta non & che sua memoria fregi." 1 In the eulogium 
 which Pius II. pronounced at the canonisation of 
 Catherine of Siena the most pregnant sentence is that 
 which declares that " none ever approached her without 
 going away better." 
 
 1 Inf. viii. 1. 47. 
 
 FINIS
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aguzzari, 26 ; his " Assempri," 76. 
 Albizzi, Pietro, 101. 
 Aleta, Amelio da, 178. 
 Alexander VII., Pope, 71. 
 Ammirato on Catherine of Siena, 
 
 152, 212. 
 
 Anjou, Dukes of, 172-173, 198, 254. 
 Anti-pope elected, 232. 
 Antonio, Fra, 266, 267. 
 Avignon, 159 ; versus Rome, 144 ; 
 
 Inquisition in, 160. 
 
 B 
 
 Bacceliere, title of, 266. 
 
 Barbardori, 148-149. 
 
 Bartolomeo, Fra, 102, 123, 170, 
 282-283. 
 
 Baths, 21-22. 
 
 Belcaro, 130-131, 198. 
 
 Bells in Siena, 38. 
 
 Benincasa, Bonaventura, 13, 14. 
 
 Catherine, childhood, 2, 5, 
 
 10-12 ; austerities, 19, 95 ; becomes 
 a Mantellata, 22 ; spiritual struggle, 
 22-23 ; slandered, 51 ; powers of 
 healing, 52 ; education, 52 ; family 
 troubles, 58 ; called to Florence, 
 62 ; letters, 67 ; education, 77 ; 
 goes to Pisa, 97 ; Stigmata, 103 ; 
 at Gorgona, 117; Avignon, 157; 
 meets Gregory XL, 1 1 8; ignored 
 by Florence, 168 ; Addresses 
 Cardinals, 169-170; mystic states, 
 175 ; at Toulon, 183 ; Genoa, 182 ; 
 at Varazze, 184 ; Leghorn, 191 ; 
 returns to Siena, 192 ; Gregory dis- 
 pleased, 198 ; sent to Florence 
 again, 196-197, 200 ; induces 
 Florentines to observe the Inter- 
 dict, 207 ; life threatened, 215 ; 
 returns to Siena, 219 ; her dialogue, 
 
 220-222 ; view of the Schism, 
 236-237, 239; called to Rome, 
 243 ; spiritual distress, 273 ; death, 
 286 ; canonisation, 294. 
 
 Benincasa, Eugenia, 206. 
 
 Lapa, gives birth to Catherine, 
 
 2 ; character, 3 ; owns money, 4 ; 
 distress at Catherine's austerities, 
 1 6, 17; at her absences, 88, 166 ; 
 attends her deathbed, 284 ; sees 
 honours shown to Catherine, 294. 
 
 Bernadino, San, 34-35, 71. 
 
 Black Death, i, 40. 
 
 Bologna, Catherine's visit there, 161. 
 
 Brigitta of Sweden, 142-143. 
 
 Buonconti, 98, 114. 
 
 Caftarini, 79, 132, 291. 
 
 Calisse on Avignon, 159. 
 
 Canigiani, 212, 214, 217. 
 
 Barduccio, 217, 275, 284-285. 
 
 Capo, Giovanna di, 121, 245. 
 
 Captains of the people, 211. 
 
 Catherine of Siena, see Benincasa. 
 
 Catherine of Sweden, 248-249. 
 
 Cavalcanti, Guido di, 209. 
 
 Celle, Giovanni delle, 81, no, 113, 
 119, 289. 
 
 Cesena, 154. 
 
 Charles IV. in Siena, 57. 
 
 Clement VII. , 232. 
 
 Compagnia del Bruco, 57 ; di San 
 Giorgio, 155, 258. 
 
 Congress at Sarzana, 210, 211. 
 
 Corneto, Gregory XI. at, 187. 
 
 Crusade, 103, 105, 139; Don Gio- 
 vanni delle Celle on, 110-112. 
 
 I) 
 
 Dante, 42-44, 72-73, 94, 115, I5L25 2 - 
 
 "97
 
 298 
 
 INDEX 
 
 "Dialogue," 220-222. 
 Dino, Giovanni di, 21 1. 
 Domenico, Fra Bartolomeo, 283. 
 Duguesclin, 107. 
 
 Eight of War, 138-150; Catherine's 
 letter to, 167-168 ; treachery to- 
 wards her, 1 68 ; resist peace, 209- 
 210. 
 
 Election of Urban VI., 224-226. 
 
 Estaing, Cardinal, 97. 
 
 Farinata degli Uberti, 205-206. 
 
 Feuds in Siena, 44, 90. 
 
 Flete's affection for Catherine, 81 ; 
 states the rules by which she lived, 
 1 02 ; indignant with Don Giovanni 
 delle Celle, 1 12-1 13 ; on Catherine's 
 desire for solitude, 264-265 ; his 
 mode of life, 266 ; preaches in 
 Siena, 289. 
 
 Florence, distress in, 202 ; heresy in, 
 204-206; outbreak in, 214; parties 
 in, 219. 
 
 Fondi, Conte di, 241, 254. 
 
 Fonte, Delia, 121. 
 
 Fraticelli, 113, 165-166, 206. 
 
 Freelances, 41, 105-109. 
 
 Friars, 7, 10-62. 
 
 Gambacorta, 97. 
 
 Games in Siena, 29, 32. 
 
 Gano, Nera di, 208. 
 
 Gesuati, 80. 
 
 Giovanna of Naples 70, 231, 239; 
 Catherine's warnings to, 239-240; 
 preserves Catherine s letters, 241. 
 
 Gorgona, 117-119- 
 
 Gregory XL, his nepotism, 96 ; 
 character, 99 ; difficulties, 143 ; 
 fear of poison, 145 ; a student, 176; 
 leaves Avignon, 177; journey to 
 Genoa, 178-179; visits Catherine 
 by night, 185 ; journey to Rome, 
 186-188 ; displeased with Catherine, 
 
 193 ; sends her to Florence, 197 ; 
 death, 21 1, 219. 
 Guttabraccia, 101. 
 
 H 
 
 Hawkwood, 107-108. 
 
 Healing powers of Catherine, 54. 
 
 Hermits called to Rome, 164. 
 
 Interdict in Florence, 149 ; effect of, 
 150 ; raised, 219. 
 
 Landoccio, Neri di, 72, 120, 125, 153, 
 
 158, 250, 289, 292. 
 Landro, Cione di, 84, 137. 
 Lapo, Buoncorso di, 169. 
 Laudi, 208-209. 
 Lecceto, 76. 
 Legates, 114, 136; Macchiavelli on, 
 
 137-138. 
 
 Legenda, 23-24 ; Minore, 191. 
 Letters, Catherine's, 67-74. 
 Luna, Cardinal di, 203, 235. 
 
 M 
 
 Macchiavelli on Legates, 137. 
 
 Maconi, Giovanna di, 90, 166-167. 
 
 Stefano : Early view of 
 
 Catherine, 90 ; becomes devoted 
 to her, 91-92 ; collects her letters, 
 119; letter to Venetian ecclesi- 
 astic, 163 ; testimony to her pene- 
 tration, 170; implores her to heal 
 Landoccio, 183 ; sent to Florence, 
 197 ; asserts Catherine's innocence, 
 213 ; Catherine commends " Sister 
 Lapa " to him, 245 ; her agent in 
 Siena, 275-279; comes to her death- 
 bed, 283 ; her reliquary, 286 ; 
 carries her body to Santa Maria 
 sopra Minerva, 286-287 5 relics of 
 Catherine, 192 ; devotion to her 
 memory, 288. 
 
 Magistrates of Siena, Letter to, 88.
 
 INDEX 
 
 299 
 
 Maimbourg on Catherine, 260-261. 
 Malavolti, 41, 77 ; Francesco, 125-127. 
 Mantellate of Pisa, 95, 97-98. 
 Matteo, Messer, 117, 269. 
 Medici, Salvestro dei, 113-114. 
 Melchtilde of Magdeburg, 81. 
 
 N 
 
 Nanni di Ser Nanni, 128, 131. 
 Nepotism, Catherine on, 96. 
 Noellet, Legate, 136-137. 
 
 O 
 
 Ochino, 26, 79, 86, 133. 
 Otho of Brunswick, 231. 
 
 Paleario on Siena, 128. 
 
 Petra, Tomaso, 160, 233, 381. 
 
 Petrarch on dress, 36 ; not a mystic, 
 69 ; his letters, 7 1-72; writes to 
 Rienzi, 99 ; seized by brigands, 
 145 ; advises a peaceful entry into 
 Rome, 189 ; on ecclesiastical luxury, 
 198 ; feeling for Rome, 252. 
 
 Piacenza, Cristofero di, 172. 
 
 Piccolomini, Gabriele, 125. 
 
 Pilgrimages, Catherine on, 69 ; 
 Giovanni delle Celle on, 110-112. 
 
 Pipino, Francesco, 216. 
 
 Pisa and Crusades, 104. 
 
 Plague, I, 53. 
 
 Raimondo delle Vigne, 23, 64, 79; 
 Catherine and Raimondo, 114; in 
 Rome, 233 ; sent to France, 251- 
 252 ; general of Friars Preachers, 
 290; writes " Legenda," 290 ; causes 
 head of Catherine to be taken to 
 Siena, 292. 
 
 Robert of Geneva sacks Cesena, 154 ; 
 at Sarzana, 2IO ; heads Gallic party, 
 265 ; checks Urban VI. 's violence, 
 230 ; elected Anti-pope, 232 ; re- 
 jected, in England, 233 ; welcomed 
 
 in Naples, 239; supported by 
 France, 242 ; flees to Avignon, 
 260 ; welcomed by Cardinals there, 
 260. 
 
 Rome and Florence, 138; Rome in 
 fourteenth century, 144-145; beset 
 with enemies, 254-255 ; rebels against 
 Urban VI., 271-272. 
 
 Salimbene dei Solienbeni, 44. 
 
 Salimbeni, Cione di Landro die, 84, 
 137- 
 
 family of, 45-46, 83-86 ; 
 
 Agnolino dei Salimbeni, 85 ; Bene- 
 detta, 85 ; Giovanni Agnolo, 84 ; 
 Isa, 85 ; Pentisilea, 85-86. 
 
 Sapia, 44. 
 
 Saracini, Alessia di, 82, 246, 281, 
 282. 
 
 Schism, 232-236; Catherine on, 115, 
 235-236, 237. 
 
 Scotti, 183 ; Orietta, 184, 288. 
 
 Siena in fourteenth century, 25 ; amuse- 
 ments, 28, 31, 35; dress, 35-36; 
 statutes, 36-38 ; commerce, 40-42 ; 
 bankers, 42-43 ; party spirit, 44-45 ; 
 palaces, 46-47 ; fire in Siena, 47- 
 48 ; water, 48 ; Siena and Tuscan 
 League, 139 ; condition in 1377, 
 192 ; ambassadors to Rome 
 captured, 246. 
 
 Soderini and Catherine, 152; Soderini 
 and Eight of War, 196; his palace 
 destroyed, 216. 
 
 Spinelli, 103, 239. 
 
 Stigmata, 103. 
 
 St Angelo, 254, 256. 
 
 St Antimo, Abbot of, 87. 
 
 St Augustine at Ostia, 74. 
 
 St Gertrude, 94. 
 
 St Hildegard, 81. 
 
 " St Pol le Ber," 273. 
 
 Talamone, 42, 95, 158, 191, 276. 
 Tantucci, 77-78, 233. 
 Tebaldeschi, Cardinal, 225, 227, 237. 
 Temporal power, Catherine on, 141- 
 142.
 
 300 
 
 Teresa, St, 103, 175. 
 Tezio on luxury in Siena, 43. 
 Tolomei, 45, 83 ; Giacomo, 83. 
 Tuldo, 66-67. 
 
 INDEX 
 
 u 
 
 Ungaro on Catherine, 244. 
 
 University of Siena, 49 ; of Paris, 
 161-162. 
 
 Urban VI. elected, 226 ; his character, 
 228-229 ; offends Giovanna of Naples, 
 231 ; calls Catherine to Rome, 243- 
 
 244 ; her reluctance to obey, 243- 
 244 ; Urban desires to send her to 
 Naples, 248 ; goes in procession to 
 St Peter's, 159. 
 Usurers, Dante on, 42. 
 
 Varano, 218. 
 
 Varazze, 181-182. 
 
 Vico, Francesco di, 267-268. 
 
 Visconti, Bernabo, 135-136, 210. 
 
 Voragine, Giacomo de, 181. 
 
 TURNBULL AND SI'BARS, PKINTEKS, EDINBURGH
 
 A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY METHUEN 
 
 AND COMPANY: LONDON 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET 
 
 W.C. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 General Literature, . 
 Ancient Cities, . 
 Antiquary's Books, . . 
 Beginner's Books, . 
 Business Books, . 
 Byzantine Texts, . 
 Churchman's Bible, 
 Churchman's Library, . 
 Classical Translations, 
 Commercial Series, . . 
 Connoisseur's Library, 
 Library of Devotion, . . 
 Standard Library, . . 
 
 Half-Crown Library, . 
 Illustrated Pocket Library of 
 Plain and Coloured Books, 
 Junior Examination Series, 
 Junior School-Books, . . 
 Leaders of Religion, 
 
 VAGE 
 
 2-13 
 
 19 
 ao 
 
 PACK 
 
 Little Blue Books, . . 27 
 
 Little Books on Art, . . 27 
 
 Little Galleries, ... 38 
 
 Little Guides, .... 28 
 
 Little Library, a8 
 
 Miniature Library, . . 30 
 
 Oxford Biographies, . . 30 
 
 School Examination Series, 30 
 
 Social Questions of To-day, 31 
 
 Textbooks of Science, . . 31 
 
 Textbooks of Technology . 31 
 
 Handbooks of Theology . ;t 
 
 Westminster Commentaries, 32 
 
 Fiction 32-36 
 
 The Shilling Novels, . . 37 
 
 Books for Boys and Girls 38 
 
 Novels of Alexandre Dumas, 38 
 
 Methuen's Sixpenny Books, 39 
 
 OCTOBER 1906
 
 A CATALOGUE OF 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S 
 
 PUBLICATIONS 
 
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 10 
 
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 12 
 
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 14 
 
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 37 
 
 Methuen's Shilling Novels 
 
 Cr. 8vo. Cloth, \s. net. 
 
 Balfour (Andrew). VENGEANCE 
 
 MINE. 
 TO ARMS. 
 Baring-Gould (S.). MRS. CURGENVEN 
 
 OF CURGENVEN. 
 DOMITIA. 
 THE FROBISHERS. 
 Barlow (Jane), Author of 'Irish Idylls. 
 
 FROM THE EAST UNTO THE 
 
 WEST. 
 
 A CREEL OF IRISH STORIES. 
 THE FOUNDING OF FORTUNES. 
 Barr (Robert). THE VICTORS. 
 Bartram (George). THIRTEEN EVEN- 
 
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 Bowles (Q. Stewart). A STRETCH OFF 
 
 THE LAND. 
 
 Brooke (Emma). THE POET'S CHILD. 
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 THE CHARMER. 
 THE SQUIREEN. 
 THE RED LEAGUERS. 
 Burton (J. Bloundelle). 
 
 SALT SEAS. 
 THE CLASH OF ARMS. 
 DENOUNCED. 
 FORTUNE'S MY FOE. 
 Capes (Bernard). AT A WINTER'S 
 
 FIRE. 
 Chesney (Weatherby). 
 
 RING. 
 
 THE BRANDED PRINCE. 
 THE FOUNDERED GALLEON. 
 JOHN TOPP. 
 Clifford (Mrs. W. K.). 
 
 SUMMER. 
 Collingwood (Harry). 
 
 OF THE 'JULIET.' 
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 SITY 
 Crane (Stephen). WOUNDS IN THE 
 
 RAIN 
 Denny (C. E.). THE ROMANCE OF 
 
 UPFOLD MANOR. 
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 ANGELS, 
 
 ACROSS THE 
 
 THE BAPTIST 
 
 A FLASH OF 
 THE DOCTOR 
 
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 A VOYAGE OF CONSOLATION. 
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 HAVE HAPPENED. 
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 Glanville (Ernest). THE DESPATCH 
 
 RIDER. 
 
 THE LOST REGIMENT. 
 THE KLOOF BRIDE. 
 THE INCA'S TREASURE. 
 Gordon (J alien). MRS. CLYDE. 
 WORLD'S PEOPLE. 
 Goss (C. P.). THE REDEMPTION OF 
 
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 Hales (A. G.). JAIR THE APOSTATE. 
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 CROWN-
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
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 GARNERED. 
 
 A METAMORPHOSIS. 
 
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 39 
 
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 PHROSO. 
 
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 A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION. 
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 HOWARD. 
 A LOST ESTATE. 
 THE CEDAR STAR. 
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 LEY'g SECRET. 
 A MOMENT'S ERROR. 
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 JACOB FAITHFUL. 
 Marsh (Richard). THE TWICKENHAM 
 
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 THE GODDESS. 
 THE JOSS. 
 
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 GRIFF OF GRIFFITHSCOURT. 
 
 SAM'S SWEETHEART. 
 
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 Mltford (Bertram). THE SIGN OF THE 
 
 SPIDER. 
 
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 Moore (Arthur). THE GAY DECEIVERS. 
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 THE WALL. 
 
 Nesbit(E.). THE RED HOUSE. 
 Norrls(W. E.). HIS GRACE. 
 GILES INGILBY. 
 THE CREDIT OF THE COUNTY. 
 LORD LEONARD. 
 MATTHEW AUSTIN. 
 CLARISSA FURIOSA. 
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 SIR ROBERT'S FORTUNE. 
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 THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD. 
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 I CROWN THEE KING. 
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 CHILDREN OF THE MIST. 
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 LOST PROPKRTY. 
 
 <;KORGE AND THE GENERAL. 
 
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 SEA. 
 
 ABANDONED. 
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 Sergeant (Adeline). THE MASTER OF 
 
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 BARBARA'S MONEY. 
 THE YELLOW DIAMOND. 
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 ASK MAMMA. Illustrated. 
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 THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER. 
 Wallace (General Lew). BEN-HUR. 
 THE FAIR G 'IX 
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 Wells (H.G.). THESTOLEN BACILLUS. 
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