| Saint Catherine of Bologna, O.S.C. | |
|---|---|
Painting by St. Catherine of Bologna |
|
| Virgin | |
| Born | 8 September 1413 Bologna |
| Died | 9 March 1463 (aged 49) |
| Honored in | Roman Catholicism |
| Beatified | 1703 |
| Canonized | 1712 |
| Feast | 9 March |
| Patronage | Artists |
Saint Catherine of Bologna, O.S.C. (8 September 1413 – 9 March 1463) was an Italian nun, artist and saint.
The patron saint of artists and against 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.
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Catherine came from an aristocratic Bolognese family, 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 Abbess of a monastery of the same Order, which was to be established in association with the Church of Corpus Domini. Catherine is the author, among other things, of Treatise on the 7 Spiritual Weapons Necessary for Spiritual Warfare.[1] She was attributed with having visions both of God and of Satan, which are discussed at length in Treatise, and with performing miracles.
Some of her art and manuscripts survive, including a depiction of St. Ursula from 1456, now in the Galleria Academica in Venice. Some historians have called her style naive. That these works of Catherine de'Vigri remain existent might be due to their status as relics of a saint.
When she died at the age of 49, Catherine was buried and after eighteen days of reported graveside miracles, her incorrupt body was exhumed and relocated to the chapel of the Poor Clares in Bologna,[1] where it remains on display, dressed in her religious habit and seated upright behind glass.
In the last years of the millennium, new works by Catherine de'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) She is also the Patroness of Artists. She is honored because of her clean and centered heart which helped her turn away from sin,and is also a virgin.