Letters of Catherine Benincasa

Part 1

Anne Soulard, Charles Franks, Robert Shimmin, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

LETTERS OF CATHERINE BENINCASA

SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA AS SEEN IN HER LETTERS

TRANSLATED & EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION BY VIDA D. SCUDDER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Persons Addressed St. Catherine of Siena as seen in her letters Chief Events in the life of St. Catherine Brief Outline of Contemporary Public Events To Monna Alessa dei Saracini To Benincasa her brother, when he was in Florence To the Venerable Religious, Brother Antonio of Nizza To Monna Agnese, who was the wife of Messer Orso Malavolti To Sister Eugenia, her niece at the Convent of St. Agnes of Montepulciano To Nanna, daughter of Benincasa, a little maid, her niece Letters on the Consecrated Life To Brother William of England To Daniella of Orvieto, clothed with the Habit of St. Dominic To Monna Agnese, wife of Francesco, a tailor of Florence Letters in response to certain criticisms To Monna Orsa, wife of Bartolo Usimbardi, and to Monna Agnese To a Religious man in Florence, who was shocked at her Ascetic Practices To Brother Bartolomeo Dominici To Brother Matteo di Francesco Tolomei To a Mantellata of Saint Dominic, called Catarina di Scetto To Neri di Landoccio dei Pagliaresi To Monna Giovanna and her other daughters in Siena To Messer John, the Soldier of Fortune To Monna Colomba in Lucca To Brother Raimondo of Capua, of the Order of the Preachers To Gregory XI To Gregory XI To Gregory XI To Brother Raimondo of Capua, at Avignon To Catarina of the Hospital, and Giovanna di Capo To Sister Daniella of Orvieto To Brother Raimondo of Capua, and to Master John III To Sister Bartolomea della Seta To Gregory XI To the King of France Letters to Florence To the Eight of War chosen by the Commune of Florence To Buonaccorso di Lapo: written when the Saint was at Avignon To Gregory XI To Monna Lapa, her mother, before she returned from Avignon To Monna Giovanna di Corrado Maconi To Messer Ristoro Canigiani To the Anziani and Consuls and Gonfalonieri of Bologna To Nicholas of Osimo To Misser Lorenzo del Pino of Bologna, Doctor in Decretals Letters written from Rocca D'Orcia To Monna Lapa, her mother, and to Monna Cecca To Monna Catarina of the Hospital, and to Giovanna di Capo To Monna Alessa, clothed with the Habit of Saint Dominic To Gregory XI To Raimondo of Capua To Urban VI To her spiritual children in Siena To Brother William and to Messer Matteo of the Misericordia To Sano di Maco, and to all her other sons in Siena To Brother Raimondo of Capua To Urban VI To Don Giovanni of the Cells of Vallombrosa Letters announcing peace To Monna Alessa, when the Saint was at Florence To Sano di Maco, and to the other sons in Christ To three Italian Cardinals To Giovanna, Queen of Naples To Sister Daniella of Orvieto To Stefano Maconi To certain holy hermits who had been invited to Rome by the Pope To Brother William of England, and to Brother Antonio of Nizza To Brother Andrea of Lucca, Brother Baldo, and Brother Lando To Brother Antonio of Nizza To Queen Giovanna of Naples To Brother Raimondo of the Preaching Order, when he was in Genoa To Urban VI Letters describing the experience preceding death To Master Raimondo of Capua To Master Raimondo of Capua, of the Order of the Preachers

TABLE OF PERSONS ADDRESSED

Agnese, Monna, di Francesco Andrea, Brother, of Lucca Antonio, Brother, of Nizza

Baldo, Brother Bartolomea, Sister, della Seta Bartolomeo, Brother, Dominici Benincasa, Benincasa Benincasa, Eugenia Benincasa, Monna Lapa Benincasa, Nanna Bologna, Anziani of

Capo, Giovanna di Canigiani, Ristoro Cardinals, Three Italian Catarina, of the Hospital Cecca, Monna Colomba, Monna, of Lucca

Daniella, Sister, of Orvieto

France, the King of Florence, Letters to

Giovanna, Queen of Naples Giovanni, Don, of the Cells of Vallombrosa Gregory XI.

John, Messer, Soldier of Fortune John III., Master

Lando, Brother Lapo, Buonaccorso di

Maco, Sano di Maconi, Monna Giovanna di Corrado Maconi, Stefano Malavolti, Monna Agnese Matteo, Messer, of the Misericordia

Osimo, Nicholas of

Pagliaresi, Neri di Landoccio dei Pino, Lorenzo del

Raimondo, Brother, of Capua Religious, A, in Florence

Saracini, Monna Alessa dei Scetto, Catarina di

Tolomei, Brother Matteo di

Urban VI., Pope Usimbardi, Monna Orsa

War, the Eight of William, Brother, of England

LETTERS OF CATHERINE BENINCASA

ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA AS SEEN IN HER LETTERS

The letters of Catherine Benincasa, commonly known as St. Catherine of Siena, have become an Italian classic; yet perhaps the first thing in them to strike a reader is their unliterary character. He only will value them who cares to overhear the impetuous outpourings of the heart and mind of an unlettered daughter of the people, who was also, as it happened, a genius and a saint. Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, the other great writers of the Trecento, are all in one way or another intent on choice expression; Catherine is intent solely on driving home what she has to say. Her letters were talked rather than written. She learned to write only three years before her death, and even after this time was in the habit of dictating her correspondence, sometimes two or three letters at a time, to the noble youths who served her as secretaries.

The modern listener to this eager talk may perhaps at first feel wearied. Suffocated by words, repelled by frequent crudity and confusion of metaphor, he may even be inclined to call the thought childish and the tone overwrought. But let him persevere. Let him read these letters as chapters in an autobiography, noting purpose and circumstance, and reading between the lines, as he may easily do, the experience of the writer. Before long the very accents of a living woman will reach his ears. He will hear her voice, now eagerly pleading with friend or wrong-doer, now brooding tender as a mother-bird over some fledgling soul, now broken with sobs as she mourns over the sins of Church and world, and again chanting high prophecy of restoration and renewal, or telling in awestruck undertone sacred mysteries of the interior life. Dante's Angel of Purity welcomes wayfarers upon the Pilgrim Mount "in voce assai più che la nostra, viva." The saintly voice, like the angelic, is more living than our own. These letters are charged with a vitality so intense that across the centuries it draws us into the author's presence.

Imagination is inclined to see the canonized saints as a row of solemn figures, standing in dull monotony of worshipful gesture, like Virgins and Confessors in an early mosaic. Yet, as a matter of fact, people who have been canonized were to their contemporaries the most striking personalities among men and women striving for righteousness. They were all, to be sure, very good; but goodness, despite a curious prejudice to the contrary, admits more variety in type than wickedness, and produces more interesting characters. Catherine Benincasa was probably the most remarkable woman of the fourteenth century, and her letters are the precious personal record of her inner as of her outer life. With all their transparent simplicity and mediaeval quaintness, with all the occasional plebeian crudity of their phrasing, they reveal a nature at once so many- sided and so exalted that the sensitive reader can but echo the judgment of her countrymen, who see in the dyer's daughter of Siena one of the most significant authors of a great age.

Part 2

As is the case with many great letter-writers, though not with all, Catherine reveals herself largely through her relations with others. Some of her letters, indeed, are elaborate religious or political treatises, and seem at first sight to have little personal colouring; yet even these yield their full content of spiritual beauty and wisdom only when one knows the circumstances that called them forth and the persons to whom they were addressed. A mere glance at the index to her correspondence shows how widely she was in touch with her time. She was a woman of personal charm and of sympathies passionately wide, and she gathered around her friends and disciples from every social group in Italy, not to speak of many connections formed with people in other lands. She wrote to prisoners and outcasts; to great nobles and plain business men; to physicians, lawyers, soldiers of fortune; to kings and queens and cardinals and popes; to recluses pursuing the Beatific Vision, and to men and women of the world plunged in the lusts of the flesh and governed by the pride of life. The society of the fourteenth century passes in review as we turn the pages.

Catherine wrote to all these people in the same simple spirit. With one and all she was at home, for all were to her, by no merely formal phrase, "dearest brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus." One knows not whether to be more struck by the outspoken fearlessness of the woman or by her great adaptability. She could handle with plain directness the crudest sins of her age; she could also treat with subtle insight the most elusive phases of spiritual experience. No greater distance can be imagined than that which separates the young Dominican with her eyes full of visions from a man like Sir John Hawkwood, reckless free-lance, selling his sword with light-hearted zeal to the highest bidder, and battening on the disorder of the times. Catherine writes to him with gentlest assumption of fellowship, seizes on his natural passions and tastes, and seeks to sanctify the military life of his affections. With her sister nuns the method changes. She gives free play to her delicate fancy, drawing her metaphors from the beauty of nature, from tender, homely things, from the gentle arts and instincts of womanhood. Does she speak to Pope Gregory, the timid? Her words are a trumpet-call. To the harsh Urban, his successor? With finest tact she urges self-restraint and a policy of moderation. Temperaments of every type are to be met in her pages--a sensitive poet, troubled by "confusion of thought" deepening into melancholia; a harum-scarum boy, in whose sunny joyousness she discerns the germ of supernatural grace; vehement sinners, fearful saints, religious recluses deceived by self- righteousness, and men of affairs devoutly faithful to sober duty. Catherine enters into every consciousness. As a rule we associate with very pure and spiritual women, even if not cloistered, a certain deficient sense of reality. We cherish them, and shield them from harsh contact with the world, lest the fine flower of their delicacy be withered. But no one seems to have felt in this way about Catherine. Her "love for souls" was no cold electric illumination such as we sometimes feel the phrase to imply, but a warm understanding tenderness for actual men and women. It would be hard to exaggerate her knowledge of the world and of human hearts.

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