Catherine of Bologna aterina de' Vigri(8 September 1413 – 9 March 1463)Stephen Donovan (1908). " St. Catherine of Bologna". In ''Catholic Encyclopedia''. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company. was an Italian

Poor Clare The Poor Clares, officially the Order of Saint Clare ( la, Ordo sanctae Clarae) – originally referred to as the Order of Poor Ladies, and later the Clarisses, the Minoresses, the Franciscan Clarist Order, and the Second Order of Saint Francis ...

, writer, teacher, mystic, artist, and saint. The

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...

of artists and against temptations, Catherine de' Vigri was venerated for nearly three centuries in her native

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

before being formally

canonized Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of s ...

in 1712 by Pope Clement XI. Her feast day is 9 March.

Life

Catherine came from an upper-class family, the daughter of Benvenuta Mammolini of Bologna and Giovanni Vigri, a Ferrarese notary who worked for

Niccolò III d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara Niccolò III d'Este (9 November 1383 – 26 December 1441) was Marquess of Ferrara from 1393 until his death. He was also a condottiero. Biography Born in Ferrara, the son of Alberto d'Este and Isotta Albaresani, he inherited the rule of t ...

. She was raised at Niccolo III's court as a lady-in-waiting to his wife

Parisina Malatesta Laura Malatesta (140421 May 1425), better known as Parisina Malatesta, was an Italian marchioness. She was the daughter of Andrea Malatesta, lord of Cesena, and his second wife, Lucrezia Ordelaffi. She had an affair with her illegitimate stepson ...

(d. 1425) and became lifelong friends with his natural daughter Margherita d'Este (d. 1478). During this time, she received some education in reading, writing, music, playing the viola, and had access to illuminated manuscripts in the d'Este Court library. In 1426, after Niccolo III's execution of Parisina d'Este for infidelity, Catherine left court and joined a lay community of

beguines The Beguines () and the Beghards () were Christian lay religious orders that were active in Western Europe, particularly in the Low Countries, in the 13th–16th centuries. Their members lived in semi-monastic communities but did not take forma ...

living a semi-religious life and following the Augustinian rule. The women were divided over whether instead to adhere to the Franciscan rule, which eventually happened. In 1431 the beguine house was converted into the Observant Poor Clare convent of Corpus Domini, which grew from 12 women in 1431 to 144 women by the end of the century. Catherine lived at Corpus Domini, Ferrara most of her life from 1431 to 1456, serving as Mistress of Novices. She was a model of piety and reported experiencing miracles and several visions of Christ, the Virgin Mary, Thomas Becket, and

Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

, as well as future events, such as the fall of Constantinople in 1453. She wrote a number of religious treatises, lauds, sermons, and copied and illustrated her own breviary (see below). In 1455 the Franciscans and the governors of Bologna requested that she become

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Copt ...

of a new convent, which was to be established under the name of Corpus Domini in Bologna. She left Ferrara in July 1456 with 12 sisters to start the new community and remained abbess there until her death on 9 March 1463. Catherine was buried in the convent graveyard, but after eighteen days, a sweet smell emanated from the grave and the

incorrupt Incorruptibility is a Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox belief that divine intervention allows some human bodies (specifically saints and beati) to completely or partially avoid the normal process of decomposition after death as a sign of their ...

body was exhumed. It was eventually relocated to a chapel where it remains on display, dressed in her religious habit, seated upright behind glass. A contemporary Poor Clare, Sister Illuminata Bembo, wrote her biography in 1469. A strong local Bolognese cult of Caterina Vigri developed and she became a Beata in the 1520s but was not canonized until 1712.

Literary works

Catherine's best-known text is ''Seven Spiritual Weapons Necessary for Spiritual Warfare'' which she appears to have first written in 1438 and then rewritten and augmented between 1450 and 1456. Although she probably taught similar ideas, she kept the written version hidden until she neared death and then handed it to her confessor with instructions to send a copy to the Poor Clares at Ferrara. Part of this book describes at length her visions both of God and of Satan. The treatise was circulated in manuscript form through a network of Poor Clare convents. The ''Sette Armi Spirituali'' became an important part of the campaign for her canonization. It was first printed in 1475, and went through 21 later editions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including being translated into Latin, French, Portuguese, English, Spanish, and German. It, therefore, played an important role in the dissemination of late medieval vernacular mysticism in the early modern period. In addition, she wrote lauds, short religious treatises, and letters, as well as a 5000-line Latin poem called the ''Rosarium Metricum'', the ''I Dodici Giardini'' and ''I Sermoni''. These were discovered around 2000 and described by Cardinal

Giacomo Biffi Giacomo Biffi (13 June 1928 – 11 July 2015) was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was Archbishop Emeritus of Bologna, having served as archbishop there from 1984 to 2003. he was elevated to the cardinalate in 1985. Biograp ...

: as "now revealed in their surprising beauty. We can ascertain that she was not undeserving of her renown as a highly cultivated person. We are now in a position to meditate on a veritable monument of theology which, after the ''Treatise on the Seven Spiritual Weapons'', is made up of distinct and autonomous parts: ''The Twelve Gardens'', a mystical work of her youth, ''Rosarium'', a Latin poem on the life of Jesus, and ''The Sermons'', copies of Catherine's words to her religious sisters." Saint Catherine of Bologna had good education in drawing, writing, reading and language.

Artistic works

Catherine represents the rare phenomenon of a 15th-century nun–an artist whose artworks are preserved in her personal breviary. She meditated while she copied the scriptural text, adding about 1000 prayer rubrics, and drew initials with bust-portraits of saints, paying special attention to images of Clare and Francis. Besides multiple images of Christ and the infant swaddled Christ Child, she depicted other saints, including Thomas Becket, Jerome, Paul, Anthony of Padua, Mary Magdalene, and Catherine of Alexandria. Her self-taught style incorporated motifs from needlework and devotional prints. Some saints' images, interwoven with text and rubrics, display an idiosyncratic, inventive iconography also found in German nuns' artworks (nönnenarbeiten). The breviary and its images surely served a didactic function within the convent community. Other panel paintings and manuscripts attributed to her include the ''Madonna and Child'' (nicknamed the ''Madonna del Pomo'') in the Cappella Della Santa, a possible portrait or self-portrait in the autograph copy of the ''Sette Armi Spirituali'', a Redeemer, and another Madonna and Child in her chapel. Recently one scholar has tried to question certain attributions.Biancani, Stefania (2002). "La leggenda della monaca artista: Caterina Vigri", ''Vita artistica nel monastero femminile. exempla'', ed. V. Fortunati (Bologna: Editrice Compositore), pp. 203–219. A drawing of a Man of Sorrows or Resurrected Christ found in a miscellany of lauds (Ms. 35 no.4, Archivio Generale Arcivescovile, Bologna) has also been attributed to her. Catherine is significant as a woman artist who articulated an aesthetic philosophy. She explained that although it took precious time, the purpose of her religious art was "to increase devotion for herself and others".

References

Sources * * * * * *

External links

Saint Catherine of Bologna Parish, Ringwood, New Jersey

{{Authority control 1413 births 1463 deaths 15th-century Christian saints 15th-century Italian women writers 15th-century women artists Franciscan saints Incorrupt saints 15th-century Italian Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns Medieval Italian saints Italian women artists Nobility from Bologna Poor Clare abbesses Female saints of medieval Italy Christian female saints of the Middle Ages Nuns and art Artists from Bologna Catholic painters Female Catholic artists Canonizations by Pope Clement XI

Life

Literary works

Artistic works

References

Further reading

External links