| Catherine of Bologna (Catarina Vigri) |
| 1413-1463 |
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Biography
| Poor Clare from Bologna. Daughter of Giovanni Vigri of Ferrara and Benvenuta Mammolini from Bologna. She received a courtly education at the court of the princes of Este in Ferrara (letter (both vernacular and Latin, probably through a tutor of aristocratic children at court) music, and painting), where her father was employed, and where Catarina served as personal servant of Niccolò d’Este’s daughter Margarita. Around 1427/28, she came under the spiritual influence of a religious women called Lucia Mascheroni, who lead a community of young women in Ferrara that was in the process of changing from a community under Augustinian rule towards a community of Observant Poor Clares. During this period, Catarina experienced a religious crisis, and seems to have suffered ‘diabolical’ illusions. In the early 1430s, Catarina became responsible for the training of novices in the now reformed Poor Clare convent. In 1456, she established a new convent of Poor Clares in Bologna (Corpus Domini convent), which also followed the Regula Prima of Clare, and remained there as Abbess until her death on 9 March 1463. During her adult life, Catarina received many visions and revelations, and became renowned for her sanctity, her art works (such as her paintings and the breviary produced and illustrated by her own hand) and her spiritual writings. Her most important work seems Le armi necessarie alla battaglia spirituale (1483), composed for female novices. Yet Catarina also composed a number of sermons (held before the nuns under her care, which for a long time did not receive any attention. Catarina was canonised in 1712 by pope Clement XI. Under her leadership, and through her own work as author, book illuminator and religious painter, the Bologna Poor Clares reached high levels of culture (see the works of Martinelli Spanò , Gabriella Zarri et. al.). This shows in the literary production of her fellow sisters and is also visible in the late medieval library holdings of the monastery, as revealed in studies by Serena Spanò Martinelli and others. |
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Writings
| Rosarium Metricum de Mysteriis Passionis Christi Domini et de Vita B. Marie Virginis. Latin poem that still awaits its first critical edition. Ascription not totally secure. See for instance P. Nuñez, ‘Gli Scritti di Santa Caterina da Bologna’, in: La santa nella storia, nelle lettere e nell’arte (Bologna, 1912), 41-71, who denies the ascription. More positive evalluation by Gabriella Zarri, and subsequent scholars. For a modern translation, see: Rosarium. Poema del XV secolo, trans. G. Sgarbi (Bologna, 1997). Check the 2000 study of Antonella Degl’Innocenti!
Doctrina beatae Catherina [Gabriella Zarri, ‘Écrits inédits de Catherine de Bologne et de ses soeurs’, in: Sainte Claire d’Assise et sa postérité (Nantes-Paris, 1995), 223-224, who refers us to the Archivio generale Arcivescovile di Bologna, Archivio Beata Caterina, carton 28, Lode spirituale e Regole di San Gerolamo, Libro 6, no.1 f. 18 & carton 25, Devozioni, lodi e altre diverse cose spirituali, Libro 3, no. 1 ff. 67-68v.
Caterina da Bologna, ‘Explicatio Forma Vitae’ [our title!]: a treatise on how the abbess has to be vigilant and ready to have read and have observed the rule and the commandments of the monastery. [Cf. Gabriella Zarri, ‘Écrits inédits de Catherine de Bologne et de ses soeurs’, in: Sainte Claire d’Assise et sa postérité (Nantes-Paris, 1995), 223, who refers us to the Archivio generale Arcivescovile di Bologna, Archivio Beata Caterina, carton 25, Libro 3, no. 2, ff. 175v-184.]
Devozioni Lodi et altre diverse cose spirituali: Archivio generale Arcivescovile di Bologna, Archivio Beata Caterina, carton 25, Libro 3, no. 1, ff. 85r-91v.
Regole di vita religiosa: Archivio generale Arcivescovile di Bologna, Archivio Beata Caterina, carton 25, Libro 3, no. 1, ff. 78v-85r. Is this the work edited as Catherine of Bologna, ‘The Admirable Instructions of Saint Catherine of Bologna Which She Gave unto Her Sacred Virgins, Composed by Herself…’, in: The Rule of the Holy Virgin S. Clare. Together with the Admirable Life of S. Catherine of Bologna, ed. D.M. Rogers (London: Scholars Press, 1975)?
Sette regole da tenere quando audiamo la Messa: Archivio generale Arcivescovile di Bologna, Archivio Beata Caterina, carton 25, Libro 3, no. 2, ff. 1r-8v.
Le armi necessarie alla battaglia spirituale (Bologna, 1475/Bologna, 1511/Bologna, 1536/Bologna, 1654 etc./Bologna, 1900/Florence, 1922 [partial]); Le armi necessarie alla bataglia spirituale, ed. P. Puliatti (Modena, 1963); Le sette armi spirituali, ed. Cecilia Foletti (Padua, 1985); S. Caterina da Bologna, Le sette armi spirituali and Illuminata Bembo, Ristretto dello specchio d’illuminazione, ed. Sergio D’Aurizio (Bologna, 1981); Le sette armi spirituali, ed. M. Paola Deodata Bentini, in: I Mistici francescani III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 101-168; Le sette armi spirituali, ed. Antonella degli’Innocenti, SISMEL (Tavernuzze-Florence, 2000). A modern English translation appeared as: The Seven Spiritual Weapons, trans. & comm. Hugh Bernard Feiss & Daniela Re, Peregrina Translations Series 25 (Toronto, 1999). An early Latin translation was made by J. Ant. Flaminius d’Imola, as the Sermones ad Sacras Virgines (Bologna, 1522/Bologna, 1653). French, Spanish, and Portuguese translations followed. The Portuguese translation appeared in Marco de Lisbon’s Las Chronicas de la Orden de los Frayles Menores (Lisbon, 1615) III, Liber IV, chapters 36-46. The first printed edition appeared in 1475. It is a very didactical work, written for the spiritual education/formation of her fellow sisters.
I dodici giardini. L’esodo al femminile, ed. Gilberto Aquini & Mariafiamma Maddalena Faberi, in: I Mistici Francescani. Secolo XV, 169-215; I Dodici Giardini di Perfezione, ed. G. Sgarbi (Bologna, 1996); I dodici giardini. L’esodo al femminile. Con testo originale a fronte, ed. Gilberto Aquini & Mariafiamma Maddalena Faberi, Mistica. Testi e Studi 2 (Bologna, 1999).
I Sermoni, ed. & comm. Gilberto Sgarbi & Enzo Lodi (Bologna, 1999).
Libro devoto de la beata Chaterina Bolognese del ordine del Seraphico Sancto Francesco el qual essa lascio scripto de sua prorpia mano (Bologna: Hieronymo Platone de Benedictis, 1501).
Caterina Vigri, Laudi, Trattati e Lettere, ed. Silvia Serventi, SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo (Florence-Bologna, 2000). [edition of a range of smaller spiritual texts by Catherine (and her entourage?). We have not yet been able to check this work]
Pregare con le immagine. Il Breviario di Caterina Vigri, ed. Vera Fortunati & Claudio Leonardi , SISMEL (Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2004) |
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Vitae
| See, aside from the Specchio d’illuminazione of Illuminata Bembo (published first iin 1469, again in G. Melloni, Atti o memorie degli uomini illustri in santità nati o morti in Bologna, Classe I, vol. III (Bologna, 1818), 441-483, and in a critical edition as Specchio di Illuminazione (Ferrara, 1989)), which amount to a full-fleshed mystical treatise in its own right, and aside from the vita published by F. van Ortroy (‘Une vie italienne de sainte Catherine de Bologna’, Analecta Bollandiana 41 (1923), 386-416), which is an an abbreviated version of Illuminata’s work) especially: Paolo Casanova, Vita, costumi, morte e miracoli della Beata Catherina da Bologna, monaca professa dell’Ordine Minore Osservante di S. Chiara e prima Badessa e fondatrice del sacro monastero del Corpo di Cristo in Bologna (unpublished 1605: this vita contains Catherine’s sermons); G. Grassetti, Vita della B. Caterina da Bologna aggiuntovi Le arme necessarie alla battaglia spirituale composte da detta Beata (Bologna, 1620/ Bologna, 1654/Rome, 1712/Bologna, 1724); AASS March II (Antwerp, 1668), 34-88 & AASS March II (Paris-Rome, 1865), 36-89; Wadding, Annales Minorum XIII, 324-327; ; Il Processo di canonizzazione di Caterina Vigri (1586-1712), ed. Serena Spanò Martinelli, SISMEL (Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2003). |
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Studies
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| Aquini, G. 'La solitudine in Santa Caterina da Bologna', Forma Sororum 42,3 (2005), 161-174. | View |
| Aquini, G; Faberi, Mariafiamma Maddalena. 'Santa Caterina da Bologna', in: Risuona nelle mie orecchie il rumore del loro andare... : testimonianze di vita francescana in Emili, ed. Gilberto Aquini et al. (Villa Verucchio: Pazzini, 2006), 109-129. | View |
| Arthur, Kathleen G. 'Il breviario di santa Caterina da Bologna e l''arte povera' clarissa', in: I monasteri femminili come centri di cultura fra Rinascimento e Barocco, ed. Gianna Pomata & Gabriella Zarri, Biblioteca di Storia Sociale, 33 (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2005), 93-122. | View |
| Arthur, Kathleen G. 'Images of Clare and Francis in Caterina Vigri's Personal Breviary', Franciscan Studies 62 (2004), 179-192. | View |
| Bartoli, Marco. 'Giulia da Milano e santa Caterina da Bologna. Un'amicizia visionaria', in: All'ombra della chiara luce, ed. Aleksander Horowski, Bibliotheca Seraphico-Capuccina, 75 (Rome: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 2005), 177-199. | View |
| Bartoli, Marco. 'La costruzione della memoria di Caterina: Illuminata Bembo, Sabadino degli Arienti e Mariano da Firenze', in: Caterina Vigri. La santa e la città, Atti del Convegno Bologna, 13-15 Novembre 2002, ed. Claudio Leonardi, Caterina Vigri. La Santa e la Città, 5 (Florence: SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2004), 195-209. | View |
| Bartoli, Marco. 'Le Ordinazione alla regola delle monache di santa Chiara attribute a Caterina Vigri', in: Il Richiamo delle Origine: Le Clarisse dell’Oservanza e le fonte clariane, ed. P. Mesa, A. E. Candella & M. Sensi (Assisi: Edizione Porziuncula, 2009), 71-84. | View |
| Bartoli, Marco. Caterina, la Santa di Bologna (Bologna, 2003). | View |
| Bartolomei, Alessandra. 'Caterina da Bologna: un culto cittadino 'riscoperto' dalle istituzioni locali', Sanctorum 2 (2005), 187-197. | View |
| Biancani, Stefania. 'Iconografía e culto di Caterina Vigri nel Salento', in: Caterina Vigri. La santa e la città, Atti del Convegno Bologna, 13-15 Novembre 2002, ed. Claudio Leonardi, Caterina Vigri. La Santa e la Città, 5 (Florence: SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2004), 269-294. | View |
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