Catherine of Siena

by Sigrid Undset

  Priests and monks were born and brought up in this spiritual climate. The intense feeling for the solidarity of the family, which has always been an outstanding feature in the Italian character, did not die because a man or woman went into a monastic order. It was not everyone who was capable, as Catherine was, of sinking his deep affection for his own flesh and blood in the “ocean of Divine Love”, or praying God to give such treasure as would make him rich in eternal life to all whom he loved. Worldly goods “are always bound up with so many evils, that I have never wished my relations that kind of riches”, Catherine told Raimondo. Many monks and nuns felt as she did, but failed when real misfortunes seemed to threaten those whom they had left behind in the world. Some never even attempted such unworldliness; they remained members of their families first and foremost and were willing to use, quite openly and with no sense of shame, the power and influence they had gained in the Church or their order to protect their blood relations and advance their well-being. It is not strange, therefore, that the mentality of violence penetrated the very monasteries. Both the annals of Siena and chronicles from other Italian towns tell ugly stories of monks fighting and killing each other inside the cloister walls, of nuns letting their relations and the friends of their relations use the hospitality of the convent, until the intrigues and scandals stink to heaven.

  In the autumn of 1368, when Catherine Benincasa’s father died, there began a period of bloody fighting and rioting which was without equal, even for Siena. In 1368 Siena was ruled by a government of twelve members—“le Dodici”—all belonging to the citizens’ party. The Benincasa sons belonged to this party, and Bartolommeo, the husband of Lisa Colombini, had been in the government the year before. But the nobles’ party was ready to rebel—in their opinion the Government of Twelve lacked both experience and dignity, and their politics were based on gaining as many advantages for themselves as possible. In the meantime the small people of the town—Popoli Minuti—the poor, the craftsmen and shopkeepers, casual labourers and journeymen—were bitterly dissatisfied with the Government of Twelve. Unrest seethed among the lower classes. But even though they were threatened by revolution from below, the nobles and citizens could not manage to put aside their differences. On September 2, 1368, a group of nobles broke into the Palazzo Pubblico, the magnificent town hall of Siena, threw out the Twelve and organised a government in collaboration with a few men from the citizens’ party whom they chose themselves. This Government of Nine—“le Noveschi”—lasted three weeks. Then came Malatesta Malatesta, the viceroy of the Emperor in Italy, and camped with his army outside the city. Even though Siena was a free and independently governed state it owed allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor and payed tribute to him. The Ghibellines, who in the old days had supported the Emperor against the Pope and his Guelphs when the struggle between the Pope and the Emperor decided all Italian politics, had always been the ruling party in Siena. Now however the old party names, “Ghibellines” and “Guelphs”, had lost something of their original meaning, and there were new difficulties which divided and split them.

  On September 24 the Salimbenis rushed fully armed out of their palace, joined the party of the Dodici, and opened the city gates for Malatesta and the soldiers of the Emperor. But they had to fight their way from street to street and at last take the Palazzo Pubblico by storm. A new Government of Twelve was set up—“Difensori del Popolo Sienese”—the defenders of the people. Le Popoli Minuti had five representatives, the citizens four, and the nobles three. As a reward for the services they had rendered the “people’s cause” the Salimbeni family was given “citizenship”—that is to say, any Salimbeni was eligible to enter the government, whichever of the Sienese factions was in power. Moreover they were given five fortresses outside the city of Siena.

  A fortnight later the Emperor Charles IV came to Siena with his consort. They were received with jubilation and every mark of respect by the governing party. The Emperor, who stayed in the Palazzo Salimbeni, only remained a few days in the town, but promised to come back and celebrate Christmas in Siena. But before he returned the new Government of Twelve had been overthrown after a rising of the people, and the government was again in the hands of fifteen defenders, or reformers as they called themselves, from the Popoli Minuti. After still more battles, the citizens managed to get some representatives in the government, but the nobles were kept out, and most of the old families were banished from the town.

  The Emperor returned on December 22nd, and again chose the Palazzo Salimbeni for his quarters; and now the Salimbenis hoped to be able to overthrow the reformers with the help of the Emperor’s troops. To make the confusion in the town even worse, a papal legate had now arrived—the Cardinal of Bologna, and it was rumoured that the Emperor had decided to sell his authority over Siena to the Pope. On January 18, 1369, Niccolo Salimbeni rode through the streets with a following of fully armed men, shouting, “Long live the people! Woe to all traitors who plan to bring back the nobles!” The Sienese seized arms and streamed to the Campo, the square in front of the town hall—surely one of the loveliest public squares in the world. Here they were met by Malatesta and his cavalry, and while the great bell in the campanile rang, calling everyone to arms, the battle raged in the square. The Emperor tried to make a sortie from the Palazzo Salimbeni, but was met by Malatesta’s cavalry, which were in wild retreat. Stones and missiles rained on the soldiers from the housetops, the Emperor himself only just managed to escape alive into the Salimbeni palace, but four hundred of his soldiers were killed and many more wounded.

  Weeping with rage and fear, the Emperor Charles embraced and kissed any of the victors who managed to force their way in to him. He swore that he had been tricked by Malatesta and the Salimbeni. “Il Capitano del Popolo”, the leader of the government, forbade, in the name of the people of Siena, that any supplies should be sold to the Emperor and his army. Charles promised to leave the town, but asked for a certain sum of money to cover the expenses of his departure. With obvious scorn the representatives of the reformers threw five thousand gold florins on the table before him, and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire withdrew humiliated from Siena.

  Charles IV belonged to the royal house of Bohemia, and although he had been chosen as Emperor his heart remained in his little fatherland. He was not much interested in his empire, still less in his Italian domains, and the unheroic part he played during his stay in Siena agrees with his general policy, which was concerned chiefly with the well-being of his own country. He was an intelligent man who lacked all sense of heroism and always tried to prevent war and bloodshed. He succeeded to a certain extent in maintaining peace in at least one corner of war-ridden Europe, and this at any rate speaks in his favour.

  After the departure of the Emperor, Siena fell into complete anarchy. The following summer something resembling peace was established; the banished nobles were allowed to return and the fifteen reformers managed to remain in power until 1385. The private feuds between the supporters of the Dodici and the Noveschi parties, between families of proud and embittered men, raged in the city in spite of the relatively stable government. It became more and more Catherine Benincasa’s chief work to try to make peace. The daughter of the dyer had, through her prayers and self-sacrifice, through the power of her oratory and her diplomatic persuasiveness, become a power which was often successful in pouring the oil of Christian charity on troubled waters and overcoming the pride and bitterness of haughty nobles, arrogant citizens and worldly priests and monks.

  Jacopo Benincasa was spared the sight of this wanton bloodshed and civil war. He died in August 1368, a day or two before the first revolution broke out, driving from power the party to which his sons belonged, and filling the narrow streets round his home with the clash of weapons and the smell of blood.

  Catherine knelt beside his bed and begged her Bridegroom to restore her father’s health. But in her soul she heard the reply—that Jacopo’s pilgrimage on earth had reached its end, and that
it was better for him to die now. (Did his daughter think of these words which her Saviour spoke to her, in the months which followed, when the fate of their beloved city and the dangers which threatened his sons would have cut the gentle and peace-loving old man to the heart?) From the talks which Catherine had with her father when they were alone she was convinced that the dying man had freed himself from all earthly cares and was happy to change this life for the life hereafter. But although Catherine knew what great gifts Our Lord had rained upon her, she still dared to beg for more—for her father’s sake, her father who had been the best friend she had on earth. She prayed with all her might that Jesus might receive Jacopo’s soul in heaven at the same moment that it left his body, for it was quite free from all graver sins. But the voice of Christ spoke within her and answered that it was true that Jacopo had lived a good and pure life as few men in his position in the world did, but his soul must go through purgatory to be cleansed of the dust accumulated by his small sins. Catherine would not give up: “Lord, I cannot bear that the awful flames shall sear my father’s soul for even a moment. He has looked after me all my life, he has brought me up with ceaseless care, he has been my consolation as long as he lived, I beg You for the sake of Your infinite mercy, if my father still has anything to atone for, let me suffer for him.” And before Jacopo breathed his last Catherine knew that God had granted her wish.

  When, after helping him in the last death-throes, she rose from her father’s deathbed, she felt a violent pain in her side. She was aware of it as long as she lived; it was not always equally violent, but she felt it always, and she loved this pain which was a pledge that her Bridegroom had given her father eternal bliss—the sight of God as He is—the sight she herself so longed to see.

  After Jacopo’s death things did not go so well in the dyer’s house at Fontebranda. The eldest son, Benincasa Benincasa, was now the head of the family. From letters which Catherine wrote to her brothers after they had fled from Siena and settled in Florence, it seems that Benincasa had difficulty in agreeing with his younger brothers and that his marriage was not of the happiest. But in the winter of 1368-1369 Jacopo’s heirs still hoped that they could continue the family business in the same place, even though time after time they were in the danger-zone.

  Once, when the people’s rage against their party was at its worst, the brothers planned to flee to the parish church of San Antonio and seek asylum there, but Catherine did not think it would be safe and offered to take her brothers to La Scala hospital. Clad in her white veil and black cape she went with her three brothers through the town, which was in the wildest uproar; but no one made any attempt to molest them—which shows something of the position the holy young woman from Fontebranda already had in her own town. The refugees in San Antonio were dragged out and either massacred or thrown into prison, while the Benincasas came home unscathed when the danger was over.

  Jacopo’s death, the terrible things which she saw and heard around her, the constant anxiety for the lives of her sons, were too much for Monna Lapa, who was by now an old woman.

  She began to fail, and after a while it became obvious to everyone in the house that she would never rise again from her sickbed. But Catherine prayed ceaselessly to her Lord that she should be allowed to keep her mother. Finally she was answered from above that Lapa was much more sure of salvation if she died now instead of continuing to live and experience all the sorrows which threatened her in the future. Catherine went to her mother and as tenderly and affectionately as she could tried to make Lapa understand how much better it would be for her if she would submit to Our Lord who called her to Him, and give herself over to the will of God without resistance. But Lapa was still bound to this world, which she was not willing to leave. She was terribly afraid to die and begged her daughter to pray even more earnestly that God might let her live—“never talk to me of dying.”

  However much it pained her, Catherine was bound to admit to herself that her mother was ill-prepared for death. She prayed with all the strength of her aching heart that God would not divorce her mother’s soul from the body before it had submitted to His will. Lapa grew worse and worse, but still lived; it was as though God’s maiden had thrown herself in front of her mother and protected her from death. But even though God seemed to listen to the prayers of the daughter, she begged her mother in vain to loosen her despairing grip on life and trust God to know best. Christ said to Catherine, “Say to your mother who to-day does not want to depart from the body, that a time will come when she shall call aloud and pray to die without being heard.”

  Nothing helped. And one day Lapa died—or so it seemed to all the women who stood round her bed. She had refused to confess and refused to receive the Last Sacrament, and Catherine lay over her mother’s corpse and prayed and wept aloud: “O my dear Lord, is this how You keep the promise You once made me that none in this house should suffer eternal death? You promised me too that You would not take my mother from this world before she could leave it in a state of grace, and here she lies dead, without having confessed or received the Sacrament. My beloved Saviour, I call to You in Your great mercy, do not fail me! I will not go alive from Your feet until You give me my mother back.”

  Speechless and overcome, the women round the deathbed saw that life seemed to creep back into Lapa’s body. She breathed faintly and made some slight movement. A day or two later Monna Lapa was on the way to recovery, and after a short time was quite well again.

  Raimondo mentions by name the women who were witnesses of this miracle: the two Mantellate, Caterina Ghetti and Andrea Vanni, and Lisa, Lapa’s daughter-in-law. He also tells us that Lapa lived to be eighty-nine. She lived to see the end of her family’s prosperity and happiness, and the death of her daughters and most of her grandchildren. She had a little house near the Porta Romana, far from the place where she had lived as a busy, robust housewife in the midst of a large and happy family; and sometimes she complained: “I think God has wedged my soul crossways in my body so that it cannot come out.”

  VIII

  IN THE YEARS 1369 AND 1370, while her home town was like a witches’ cauldron bubbling with hatred, and the atmosphere in her own home must have been very strained on account of the uncertain future of her brothers, Catherine too went through a period of violent experiences. Outwardly her life was spent between her cell, the churches and the hospitals. But as rumours about her began to fly over Siena and to the neighbouring cities the solitude which had been so precious to her came to be a thing of the past. Her spiritual family demanded to be allowed to follow their beloved “mamma” wherever she went; crowds of people who wanted to talk to her forced their way into her little room; beggars and all kinds of unhappy and wretched individuals followed at her heels when she went through the city streets. Enemies, critics and scandalmongers were always busy retailing the latest gossip about Catherine di Monna Lapa, as she was often called after her father’s death.

  Tirelessly the young woman put herself at the service of all who came to her with their sorrows and difficulties. Always calm, happy and patient, she received visits from people who she knew came only to try to catch her in some heresy, or unmask her as a traitor. Monks came to lay traps for her or to abuse her—in a far from Christian spirit: Catherine thanked them seriously for showing such interest in the welfare of her soul. Young men about town who kept the whole of Siena talking of their mad pranks and wild life, broke into the solitary woman’s cell to express their contempt for her and to rage at her for causing their friends to desert the gang and creep away to some dark church where they grovelled on their knees before confessors and crucifixes. The slender young woman in her coarse black and white robes met them with the friendliness and confidence of a sister; it was impossible to intimidate her. It often happened that after leaving her they went to find a confessor, and returned to Catherine to beg her to be their mother too, and support their faltering steps along the new road of life.

  But to be alone, so that her sou
l could be free to raise itself towards the presence of That which was the cause of her power over men and women, the cause of all her joy and her ceaseless patience; to be able to pour out her burning love to the Origin of Life and to all she loved for His sake—this was a happiness which Catherine tasted now only when ecstasy overcame her soul, and her body lay still and lifeless. So it seemed only natural and in accordance with the economic principle of the spiritual world that her ecstasies became more and more frequent and of longer duration, and that the visionary was allowed to penetrate deeper and deeper into the secrets of the Faith.

  When, after Catherine’s death, the Blessed Raimondo of Capua was working on the biography of the saint who had been his penitent and his mother in Christ, he exclaimed in a sudden outburst: “O Lord, Your mercy is boundless! How good You are towards those who love You! How loving towards those who understand You! But what must You be for those whose thirst You quench so miraculously! Lord, I do not think that those who have no experience of such wonders can understand them—I know that I cannot. We only know them as the blind know colours, and the deaf, melodies. But in our attempts not to be entirely ungrateful we ponder over and admire the great gifts of grace which You give so generously to Your saints, and to the best of our ability offer our poor thanks to Your majesty.”

  It is of course futile to expect to understand the experience of the saints, unless one has seen a glimpse of the invisible beauty and majesty which they were allowed to contemplate while they were still divorced from it by the barriers of the visible world. Catherine herself had to give up when she once tried to describe in words to Fra Tommaso della Fonte what she had experienced while in ecstasy; she who had the whole of the lovely and rich Tuscan language at her disposal said, “It is impossible, it is like dipping pearls in the mud.”