Part 2 — APPENDIX TO PART II CHRONOLOGICAL ACCOUNT AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MATERIALS FOR THE RE-CONSTITUTION OF SAINT CATHERINE’S LIFE AND TEACHING. (continued 3)

As to “Confessore,” we get one mentioned as Confessor to the Convent of S. Maria delle Grazie in 1460, p. 2b the same or another Confessor of the same Convent in 1473, p. 4a, c, is called “buon Religioso.” Both these men, or this one man, heard Catherine’s Confessions at those dates. But, a most important point: all the other Confessore-passages throughout the book refer to after 1499, and to Marabotto alone. For this is a list of them all. On p. 7c: here she is “so gravely ill, as to be unable to eat,” a thing belonging to the times after 1499. (In events of an obviously earlier date,—her fervent Communions,—pp. 8a, c, we get not “Confessore” but simply “Sacerdote.”) On p. 10c: here “to test her, he commanded her to eat,” an action of which the results are described on pp. 117b, 119c. On page 108b: but here her fasting is liable to damage her health, which points to after 1501. On p. 113b: but here the Confessore remains her sole aid, as in the accounts referring to Marabotto in January 1510 and shortly before, pp. 120a, 121b; 120b, 139a-c. On p. 115b: but here the possessed “spiritual daughter” is certainly Mariola Bastarda, who did not live with Catherine till after Giuliano’s death in 1497. On pp. 117b-121b: the Confessore is throughout avowedly Marabotto, and a treble indication here forces us to date his Confessorship from not before 1499. The remaining “Confessore”-references,—pp. 130a, 138c, 139a, b, c; 140b, c; 143c, 156c, 157b,—are all explicitly subsequent to 1501 and pertinent to Marabotto alone.

Now there is no good reason for doubting Marabotto’s original, and still largely unmodified, authorship of all the above passages in which he himself occurs. Only as to the scene with the possessed Mariola, Chapter XLIII, pp. 115a-c, have I long hesitated to attribute something so insignificant in substance, and yet so pompous in form, to Marabotto, either as action or as composition. Yet I have ended, for the reasons given in my Chapter IV, by thinking that, after all, this scene does go back, more or less, to him.

3. References to other witnesses.

There are but few other references to witnesses in the Vita. On p. 124a, in the account of Suor Tommasa Fiesca, there are “the Nuns of her first and second Monastery”—San Silvestro and the Monastero Nuovo,—and “secular persons, her familiar and devoted friends.” I take this admirably vivid and naïve account, pp. 123b-124b (which exists in the MSS. without this sentence and Tommasa’s death-date, 1534), to rest upon Suor Tommasa’s own reminiscences of her heaven-storming cousin, but to be the composition of Battista Vernazza.—And on p. 158c “several of the ten Physicians,” who assembled by Catherine’s bedside on September 10, 1510, “are still alive in this year (1551),” but the very vague account of their examination is no doubt due to a non-medical pen.

VI. Analysis of the Conversion-Narratives.

Let us now take the first of the four Narrative Passages in which the largest or clearest conflations of original documents and of subsequent glosses are traceable: the Conversion-Scene and subsequent Apparition, March 1473; the “Scintilla”-Experience, November 11, 1509; the Temptation of August 23, 1510; and her Death on September 14, 1510. Roman and Arabic numerals indicate the probable provenances from different contributors, and from different narratives of each contributor, respectively; square brackets indicate glosses; and E, C, and B stand respectively for the handiwork of Ettore Vernazza, of Cattaneo Marabotto, and of Battista Vernazza.

The Two Conversion-Scenes, pp. 4a-5c.

(a) In the Chapel.

I. 1. Il giorno dopo la Festa di San Benedetto [ad istanza di sua sorella monaca] andò Caterina [per confessarsi d’] al Confessore di esso Monistero, benchè non fosse disposta a confessarsi: ma la sorella le disse, “almanco vattegli a raccommandare, perchè è buon religioso”; ed, in verità era un uomo santo. 2. Subitochè se gli fù inginocchiata innanzi, ricevè una ferita al cuore d’immenso amore di Dio, con una vista così chiara delle sue miserie e diffetti e della bontà di Dio, che nè fù quasi per cascare in terra.

II. 1. Onde per quei sentimenti d’immenso amore e delle offese fatte al suo dolce Iddio, fù talmente tirata [per affetto purgato] fuor delle miserie del mondo, che restò quasi fuor di sè; I. 3. e [perciò] internamente gridava con ardente amore: “non più mondo, non più peccati.” Ed in quel punto, se ella avesse avuto mille mondi, tutti gli avrebbe gettati via.

III. Per la viva fiamma del infocato amore che essa sentiva, il dolce Iddio impresse in quell’ anima, e le infuse, in un subito, tutta la perfezione per grazia: onde la purgò di tutti gli affetti terreni, la illuminò col suo divin lume, facendola vedere coll’ occhio interiore la sua dolce bontà, e finalmente in tutto la unì, mutò e trasformò in sè, per vera unione di buona volontà, accendendola da ogni parte col suo vivo amore.

[Stando la Santa per quella dolce ferita quasi alienata da’ sensi innanzi al confessore e senza poter parlare]

I. 4. Nè avvedendosi il Confessore del fatto, per caso fù chiamato e levasi. Dappoichè assai presto fù retornato, non potendo ella appena parlare per l’intrinseco dolore ed immenso amore, allo meglio che potè gli disse: “Padre, se vi piacesse, lascerei volontieri questa Confessione per un’ altra volta”: e così fù fatto. 5. Si parti dunque Caterina e retornata a casa [si sentì così accesa e ferita di tanto amor di Dio, a lei interiormente mostrato colla vista delle sue miserie, che pareva fuors di sè] ed entrata in una camera la più segreta che potè, ivi molto pianse [e sospirò con gran fuoco].

[In quel punto fù istrutta intrinsecamente dell’ orazione, ma la sua lingua] I. 6. non poteva dir altro salvo questo: “O Amore, può essere che mi abbi chiamata [con tanto amore] e fattomi conoscere in un punto quello che colla lingua non posso esprimere?” II. 2. Le sue parole in tutti quei giorni altro non erano che sospiri, e così grandi che era cosa mirabile: ed aveva una si estrema contrizione [di cuore] per le offese fatte a tanta bontà, che se non fosse stata miracolosamente sostenuta, sarebbe spirata e crepatole il cuore.

(b) In the Palace.

I. 7. (?) [Ma volendo] il Signore [accendere più intrinsecamente l’amor suo in quest’ anima ed insieme il dolore dei suoi peccati,] se le mostrò in ispirito colla Croce in spalla, piovendo tutto sangue, [per modo che la casa le pareva tutta piena di rivoli di quel sangue,] il quale vedea essere tutto sparso per amore: il che le accese nel cuore tanto fuoco, che nè usciva fuor di sè [e pareva una cosa insensata per lo tanto amore e dolore che ne sentiva.]

II. 3. (?) [Questa vista le fù tanto penetrativa, che] le pareva sempre vedere (e cogli occhi corporali) il suo Amore tutto insanguinato e confitto in Croce; e perciò gridava: “O Amore, mai più, mai più peccati.” I. 8 (?) Se le accese poi un odio di sè medesima, che non si poteva sopportare, e diceva: “O Amore, se bisogna, sono apparechiata di confessare i miei peccati in pubblico.”

I. 9. Dopo questo fece la sua [generale] Confessione con tanta contrizione e tali stimoli, che le passavano l’anima [. E benchè] Iddio [in quel punto che le diede la dolce ed amorosa ferita, le avesse perdonato tutti i suoi peccati, abbrucciandoli col fuoco del suo immenso amore; nondimeno volendo soddisfare alla giustizia, la fece passare per la via della soddisfazione] disponendo che questa contrizione [lume e conversione] durasse [ro] circa quattro [dici] anni, in capo a quali [, poichè ella ebbe soddisfatto, le fù levata della mente la predetta vista in forma tale che] mai più non vide neppure una minima scintilla dei suoi peccati, come se tutti fossero stati gettati nel profondo del mare.

There is a striking parallelism of sights, sayings, and their sequences, between the dated events in the Convent-Chapel, and the undated ones in the Palace, divided off by the passage II 2, with its vague “all these days.” Both sets have a “Vista,”—partly of “offese fatte”; have next “and hence she cried ‘no more sin’”; and the first concludes with a wish, expressed to the Confessor, to put off her Confession, and the second with an exclamation, addressed to God, of her readiness for even a public Confession.—This Christ-Vision, or any other Passion-scene, is nowhere implied or referred to in all her recorded post-Conversion sayings and doings; the legendary instinct, we know, developed, from this single adult occupation with the Passion, the “interior stigmatization” story; and in the Palace Narrative itself there has been, in any case, some uncertainty, shifting, or doubling of the tradition as to that figured vision,—for the actual vision cannot have represented Christ both as walking and carrying His Cross, and as motionless and hanging upon it. Are the two sets, then, but two variant records of one sole event, and is the second but the result of an early determination to find more of an historical, pictorial element in Catherine’s spiritual experiences than had actually been present in it?

Yet strong reasons operate on the other side. We have one, and only one, absolutely certain detail from her childhood, the presence, in her bedroom, of a Pietà (Vita, pp. 1c, 2a); yet nowhere, in her subsequent actions and sayings, is there the slightest allusion to this picture-scene which had so deeply moved her childhood.—And the most vivid and characteristic details of the two Conversion-experiences are delicately different in each set.

The first set, (a), consists of three documents. Document I 1, 2; 3; 4-6 continues the story of Catherine’s relations with the “monistero” of the Madonna delle Grazie, and of her prayer on the eve of St. Benedict’s day, told on pp. 2b-3c; is most vivid, precise, and homely; and is doubtless the work of E. Document II 1, 2 is a colourless parallel to I 2, 6; yet in I 2 she sees her own miseries, in II 1 she is drawn out of the miseries of the world: II is thus probably an ancient doublet, and, if so, then part of some annotations by C. And document III is obviously from yet another, later, hand,—that which produced the originally tripartite scheme of Catherine’s Convert life (pp. 5c-bc), for the three “la” (her, Catherine) after “onde” of III require but three stages of perfecting; whilst now the printed text attempts (by italicizing “unì” and “transformò”) to produce four stages, in keeping with the following, now quadripartite scheme. The second set, (b), begins as though nothing had yet happened or as if, at least, the past event had been but a step towards something greater. Yet precisely such series of apparent anti-climaxes occur demonstrably elsewhere in her life.—The account of II 3 (?) is irreconcilably different from that of I 7 (?): for there Christ is moving, carrying His Cross and raining blood upon objects not Himself, here He is motionless, probably dead, affixed to the Cross, and His blood has merely stained His own body; there she sees “in the spirit,” here “with bodily eyes”; there, for some minutes, here continuously; there, followed by speechless ecstasy, here, by penitential exclamations. And this II 3 (?) is not a later stage of the vision given in I 7 (?), as though, dissolving-view-like, the Moving Christ had shaded off into a Fixed Christ, (although Catherine’s Viste give us such changes, e.g. that of the Divine Fountain’s successive self-communications, Vita, pp. 32c, 33a). For the very Redactor treats the second “Vista” as simply identical with the first; and Battista, we saw, so entirely realizes the contradiction between the two accounts, as to make two quite distinct events out of them (Dialogo, pp. 209b, 211a, b).—This second account can hardly be a gloss, for Battista already found and respected it when at work on the Giustiniani-book of 1529 or 1530, and was thus powerfully influenced by it when composing her Dialogo in about 1547. Indeed, this II 3 (?) has been the starting-point of all the stigmatization-glosses elsewhere, and can hardly be a gloss itself.—If all this be so, then either Catherine herself told the Christ-Vision to one disciple in two different ways; or told it to two companions, to each in a different way; or told the story so vaguely, or with such rich vividness and ambiguity, as to be differently understood by these two different hearers. Only one of the two latter alternatives would cover the facts, since no one writer could remain unaware of the contradiction between these two accounts. Hence we here require two writers, both considerably prior to Battista and much respected by her; only E and C answer to these tests; and, in that case, the Living Christ, seen in the Spirit, comes to us through E, and the Dead Christ, seen with the bodily eyes, reaches us through C.—And then comes I 8, of clearly first-hand authority, and belonging, I think, to E’s account.

I 9, concluding the Vita’s Conversion-story, must evidently contain some words, originally belonging to document I, concerning her Confession, since I has already twice (I 4, I 8) referred to such a coming Confession. And such words are here: “Dopo questo—l’anima”; “Iddio disponendo-circa quattro anni” (this is the original text here); and a vivid description of her suddenly ceasing to see her particular sins.

VII. The Sayings-Passages: Three Tests for discriminating Authentic from Secondary Sayings.

As to the Sayings, it is obviously more difficult to decide as to their provenance, authenticity, and date of enunciation and literary fixation. Yet three tests have proved solidly helpful towards gaining a respectably large collection of texts which can, with high historical probability or even certainty, be reasoned from as truly Catherine’s, even in their form.

1. Rhythm.

There is the test of rhythm and rhyme, since the Vita describes her “wont” of “making rhymed sayings in her joy,” and gives irrefragable proofs of her deep love of Jacopone’s poetry.[463] The still obviously rhymed or rhythmical sayings all answer to the other tests of genuineness; and many sayings now turned, by successive Redactors, into more or less sheer prose, can still be restored to their original poetic form. All these rhythmic, rhymed sayings have an utterly naïve, expansive tone, markedly different from the high-pitched redactional rhetoric in which they are now embedded, or again from Battista’s far more literary poetry: hence they cannot spring from this strong and busy intellect.—Thus she hears her Love say: “Chi di Mè | si fida, || di sè | non dubita”; possibly simply quoting, she says to her soul, “ama chi t’ama, | e chi non t’ama lascia”; and she sums up her life’s ideal as, “s’io mangio o bevo, | s’io [] taccio o parlo, | dormo o veglio; | s’io son in chiesa, in casa, in piazza: | s’io son inferma | o sana: | s’io muojo o non muojo: || ogni ora di vita mia, | tutto voglio che sia, | Dio e prossimo: || non vorrei potere ne volere, | fare, parlare nè pensare | eccetto tutto Dio.||”[464]—And there are her repetitive utterances, beginning with “non più mondo, non più peccati,” on March 22, 1472, and finishing with “andiàmo, non più terra, non più terra,” of August 25, 1510.[465]

2. Simplicity.

The second test requires the sayings to be short and simple, and to be followed, in the present text, by carefully clausulated doublets, or to be themselves now glossed and expanded. Such sayings occur specially in Chapters I to VIII; XVIII and XIX; XXVII to XXIX; XXXVI to XXXVIII; XLIV to XLVI; and in Chapter L. All these Chapters are largely narrative; can in great part be traced to Vernazza or Marabotto; and yield sayings readily attributable to her first Conversion-Period (which she doubtless recounted to those Friends), or to 1495-1510, the years of her intercourse with those intimates.

3. Originality.

And the third test consists of a daring originality, which, often softened and counteracted by the successive Redactors, precludes all idea of sayings expressive of it proceeding from any one of less authority than herself. These sayings again are all short; they too occur, all but exclusively, in the Chapters indicated and in the Dicchiarazione; they are all referable to the years 1495-1510, and to the registration first of Vernazza, and, later on, of Marabotto.

Very few of the sayings grouped together by me in my Chapter VI but satisfy at least two of these three tests.

VIII. Conclusion. At least Six Stages in the upbuilding of the Complete Book of 1551. The Slight Changes introduced since then. First claims to Authorship for Catherine.

1. The Stages.

It would appear, then, from the preceding analyses, that the successive stages in the composition and redaction of the Vita-Dicchiarazione complex of documents cannot have been fewer than the following:—

(i) Description and Registration, (1) first by Vernazza (1495-1510), (2) then also by Marabotto (1499-1510), more or less on the day of their occurrence and utterance, of Catherine’s actions, psycho-physical condition, and sayings expressive of her present spiritual experiences; and of her deliberate reminiscences concerning her past, especially her early Convert life. And similar contemporary Annotations, of much lesser volume, by (3) Suor Tommasa Fiesca, (4) Maestro Boerio, and (5) Don Giacomo Carenzio—the latter two, only since May 1510.

(ii) Redaction, probably in connection with the first public Cultus in the summer or autumn of 1512, of (1) a short Conversione-booklet, by Vernazza, perhaps already with slight contributions by Marabotto; (2) a short Dicchiarazione-booklet, also by Vernazza, probably as yet without the theological “corrections”; and (3) a short Passion-account, by Marabotto, with additions by Carenzio and, in substance, contributions by Argentina.

(iii) Redaction, after the death of the last of the two chief friends (Marabotto, in 1528), by Battista Vernazza, in 1529 or 1530, of a tripartite Vita, made up chiefly of II (1) and II (3), and a longer Dicchiarazione, now with the theological glosses,—these latter presumably from the pen of Fra Gaspar Toleto, O.P., the Inquisitor for the Republic of Genoa, or his successor, Fra Geronimo da Genova.

(iv) Partial change of the tripartite scheme of the Vita-Dottrina to a quadripartite one, early in 1548.

(v) Composition by Battista Vernazza of (1) the Dialogo, “Chapter” I alone, 1549; and then (2) of “Chapter” II (the present Parts II and III), in 1550.

(vi) Final Redaction of the text of the Printed Vita-Dicchiarazione-Dialogo, by means of all the preceding Documents, of which I (4) and possibly the Confession-descriptions of I (2) are now incorporated in the complete Vita for the first time; and, with the help of gossipy reminiscences of Argentina, possibly only now reduced to writing—in 1550, 1551. This final Redactor would again be Battista Vernazza.

2. The Changes.

Now from 1551 onwards this whole corpus has remained stationary, with the exception of purely formal modifications, such as one synonym for another; of, since 1737, her designation, on the title-page and in some other places, as “Santa Caterina da Genova,” and, throughout the text, as “Caterina” (only the Ancient Preface still retains the strictly correct “Caterinetta,” Vita, p. viii); and of two other, more important changes.

The first important change is the insertion (later than the fourth edition, Venice, 1601) at her death-moment,—between “e in quel punto” (after raising her forefinger heavenwards) “quest’ anima beata” and “con una gran pace … spirò,”—of the words: “dicendo: In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.” This, intrinsically appropriate, last saying prevented henceforth her last, directly recorded, words from being something so little beautiful or characteristic as the “cacciate via questa bestia” with which all the MSS., and all the editions till at least 1601, had the fine courage to conclude the series of her sayings.

And the second change is a modification in the titles of the Book and of its several parts, of significance as indicating the growth of the legend attributing literary composition to her. The First Printed Edition (1551) has: “Book of the admirable Life and holy Doctrine of the Blessed Caterinetta of Genoa, in which is contained a useful and Catholic Demonstration and Declaration” (Elucidation) “of Purgatory”; and in the body of the Book this “Demonstrazione” appears as Trattato del Purgatorio, after the Vita-proper. But though the complete Dialogo appears here, behind the Trattato and divided into two “Chapters,” no mention is made of it on the title-page.—The Second Edition, Florence, 1568, adds to the title: “with a Dialogue between the Soul and the Body, composed by the same,” thus attributing, apparently, full literary authorship by Catherine to precisely that document with which she has least of all to do.—The Fourth Edition, Venice, 1601, simply adds, after “Dialogue,” “divided into two Chapters”; and the Fifth, 1615, modifies this to “three Chapters, between the Soul, (and) the Body; Humanity, (and) Self-love; the Spirit and the Lord God, composed by the Beata herself.”

The first French translation, Paris, 1598, puts the Dialogue before the Treatise, and still attributes Catherine’s direct authorship to the Dialogue alone. But the first Latin translation, Freiburg in Breisgau, 1626, has “Life and Doctrine of Blessed Catherine Adorna … (and) the two excellent Treatises of the same: 1. Dialogue between the Soul and the Body; 2. Concerning Purgatory.” Here both works are attributed to her, in exactly the same degree; but that degree is not clearly specified.[466]

I do not know how soon after the Sixth Edition, Naples, 1645, which is still without it, the quite unambiguous title of the Thirteenth Edition, Genoa, of about 1880: “Vita ed Opere di S. Caterina da Genova,” was adopted, nor how soon the present Second Title-page to the Trattato and Dialogo—“Works of St. Catherine”—was inserted. Yet even here the old correct name for the whole Book still appears as the heading on p. 1: Vita e Dottrina, although now, owing to that Second Title-page, “Doctrine” only covers the Doctrinal Chapters of the Vita-proper.

Thus not till 1568 was anything claimed as a composition of Catherine’s pen, and then only the Dialogue; and not till 1626 was the Treatise put into the same category as the Dialogue. Pope Clement XII, in his Bull of Canonization in 1737, declares the Dialogue to be her composition, whilst nothing is said concerning the Treatise, although the Bull itself most wisely follows the account of the Vita-proper, and softens down or ignores the different version of the Dialogue, in the two crucial cases of Catherine’s Vision of the Bleeding Christ and of the degree of her poverty.[467]