Catherine of Bologna

Infobox Saint
name=Saint Catherine of Bologna
birth_date=birth date|1413|9|8|df=y
death_date=death date and age|1462|3|9|1413|9|8|df=y
feast_day=20 October
venerated_in=Roman Catholicism


imagesize=300x455px
caption= Painting by St. Catherine of Bologna
birth_place=Bologna
death_place=
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beatified_date=1703
beatified_place=
beatified_by=
canonized_date=1712
canonized_place=
canonized_by=
attributes=
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suppressed_date=
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Saint Catherine of Bologna (8 September 1413 – 9 March 1463) was an Italian saint.

The patron saint of artists and of temptations, Catherine de'Vigri was venerated for nearly three centuries in her native Bologna before being formally canonized, in 1712. Her feast day is March 9.

Life

Catherine came of an aristocratic Bolognese family, but she was raised from the age of nine at the court of the Marquis Nicholas IV, Duke of Ferrara, whose Ambassador was her father. In 1431 together with other young women of Ferrara, she founded a Monastery of the Order of Poor Clares. She returned to Bologna in 1456 when her Superiors and the Governors of Bologna requested that she be the founder and Mother Superior of a convent of the same Order, which was to be established in association with the church of Corpus Domini. She was attributed with having visions both of God and of Satan, which are discussed at length in "Treatise", and with performing miracles.

Catherine is the author, among other things, of "Treatise on the Seven Spiritual Weapons Necessary for Spiritual Warfare". [ [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03446a.htm St. Catherine of Bologna] - Catholic Encyclopedia article] Some of her art and manuscripts survive, including a depiction of St. Ursula from 1456, now in the Galleria Academic in Venice. Some historians have called her style naive. That these works of Caterina dei Vigri remain existant might be due to their status as relics of a saint.

When she died at the age of 48, Catherine was buried unembalmed and without a casket. After eighteen days of reported graveside miracles, her body was exhumed, found flexible and uncorrupted, and relocated to the chapel of the Poor Clares in Bologna, where it remains on display, dressed and seated upright behind glass.

Recent Discoveries

In the last years of the Millennium new works by Catherine Vigri came to light and were published in Italian, in her native Bologna. Here is their description by Cardinal Giacomo Biffi: "The works of Catherine of Bologna, many of which have long remained unknown, are now revealed in their surprising beauty. We can ascertain that she was not undeserving of her renown as a highly cultivated person, nor was it due to a complicated series of historical circumstances. 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", i.e. Catherine's words to her religious sisters. [....] "
- (translated from the Presentation of the first published edition of "I Sermoni", Ed. Barghigiani, Bologna 1999)

Works

* "Treatise on the Seven Spiritual Weapons Necessary for Spiritual Warfare"
* "Laudi, Trattati e Lettere"
* "I dodici giardini"
* "Rosarium"
* "I sermoni"

See also

*The Incorruptibles

References

*Chadwick, Whitney, "Women, Art, and Society," Thames and Hudson, London, 1990 ISBN 978-0500203934
*Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, "Women Artists: 1550-1950", Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976 ISBN 978-0875870731

Notes

External links

*Saint Catherine of Bologna Parish, Ringwood, New Jersey, [http://www.scobolognaringwoodusa.org/index.html]