Images of Clare & Francis in Caterina Vigri's Personal Breviary

177 Franciscan Studies 62 (2004) IMAGES OF CLARE & FRANCIS IN CATERINA VIGRI’S PERSONAL BREVIARY Caterina Vigri (figure 1) (fol.185v, Gualenghi d’Este Hours, J.P. Getty Museum, California) was a young, educated Ferrarese noblewoman who fled the court of Niccolo d’Este III in July, 1426, after the marquis had summarily executed his son and second wife, Parisina d’Este, for whom Caterina had worked as lady-in-waiting.1 At first she lived in a house of pious widows (pinzochere or beguines), and then became a Poor Clare nun in the convent of Corpus Domini, Ferrara. From 1432-1456 Caterina served as convent mistress of novices, baker of bread, and healer; she also secretly wrote several mystical religious tracts, including the Sette Armi Spirituali.2 Shortly 1 For Caterina’s life, see Giuseppe Alberigo, “Caterina da Bologna dall’agiografia alla storia religiosa,” Atti e Memorie della Deputazione di Storia Patria per il Provincia di Romagna 15-16 (1967), 5-23; Serena Spano Martinelli, “Per uno studio su Caterina da Bologna,”Studi medievali, ser. 3, 12:2 (1971): 713-759; idem, “Caterina de’Vegri,” Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 22, 381-83; idem, “La Canonizzazione di Caterina Vegri: un problemma cittadino nella Bologna Seicento,” Culto dei santi: istitutioni e classi sociali in eta pre-industriale (Aquila: Japadre Editore, 1984), 722-733; Marco Bartoli, Caterina La Santa di Bologna (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 2003); Paola Rubbi, Una Santa Una Citta (Firenze: SISMEL, 2004). Caterina Vigri: la santa e la città ; atti del convegno, Bologna, 13-15 novembre 2002, ed. Claudio Leonardi (Firenze: SISMEL, 2004). For the d’Este court, see Werner Gundesheimer, Ferrara: The Style of Renaissance Despotism (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), 66-91; Thomas J. Tuohy, Herculean Ferrara: Ercole D’Este 1471-1505 and the Invention of a Ducal Capital (Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996), 1-25; Charles Rosenberg, The Este Monuments and Urban Development in Renaissance Ferrara (Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997). 2 For Caterina’s writings, see, S. Caterina da Bologna, ed. Piero Puliatti, Le Sette Armi Spirituali (Modena, Edizioni della Felce: 1963); Caterina de’ Vegri, ed. Cecilia Foletti, Le Setti Armi Spirituali (Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1985); Joseph R. Berrigan, “ Saint Catherine of Bologna Franciscan Mystic,” in Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1987), 81-95; Claudio Leonardi, “Caterina Vegri e l’obbedienza del diavolo,” Medieovo e Umanismo 72 (1988): 119-122; Francesco Cardini, “Santa Caterina da Bologna e il Trattato Le Sette Armi Spirituali,” Studi Francescani 86 (1989): 53-64; Gabriella Zarri, “Ecrits inedits de Catherine de Bologne et de ses soeurs,” in Sainte Claire d’Assise et sa Posterite’ Actes du Colloque international VIIIe Centenaire de la naissance de sainte Claire (Paris: UNESCO, 1994) 219-230; Caterina Vigri, I Dodici Giardini, ed. Gilberto Sgarbi (Bologna: Sintesi, 1996); Caterina de’Vigri ed. Gilberto Sgarbi, Rosarium (Bologna: Giorgio Barghigiani Editore, 1997); Catherine of Bologna, trans. Hugh Feiss & Daniela Re, The Seven Spiritual Weapons (Toronto: 178 KATHLEEN ARTHUR after her death in 1463 another nun, Suor Illuminata Bembo, wrote a biography describing how Caterina wept and prayed as she copied and illuminated her personal breviary.3 Caterina’s small codex, still preserved in her chapel in Corpus Domini, Bologna, is not only a sacred relic, but also a precious document of female religious spirit and artistic production in the mid-fifteenth century. Although a description of the manuscript was published in 1911, because of its inaccessibility it has only recently received critical attention and analysis.4 The breviary’s Peregrina, 1998); Caterina de’Vigri, I Sermoni ed. Gilberto Sgarbi (Bologna: Giorgio Barghigiani Editore, 1999); Caterina Vigri, ed. Antonella Degl’Innocenti, Le Sette Armi Spirituali (Firenze: SISMEL, 2000); Caterina Vigri, ed. Silvia Serventi, Laudi, Trattati e Lettere (Firenze: SISMEL, 2000); Lisa Mora, “Charismatic Authority in the Writings of Caterina Vigri and Teresa de Cartagena,” Annual Conference of the Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society. Los Angeles, CA., 2002; Sarita S. Tamayo, Hiddenness and the Imitation of Christ in Caterina Vegri’s Le Sette Armi Spirituali, (Ph.D. diss., Univ. Chicago, 2002). 3 Suor Illuminata Bembo, ed. Silvia Mostaccio, Specchio di Illuminazione (Firenze: Sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2001). See also, Frances van Ortroy, “Une vie italienne...