Chapter XXVII: Introduction

The following laborious study of the growth and upbuilding of the Life and Legend of St. Catherine is a study worth the making. For this study will bring out fully the test and reasons which have guided the process of documentary selection and estimation adopted throughout the second part of this book, indicating thus the precise degree of reliability pertaining to my narrative. But especially will it furnish a detailed, and peculiarly instructive, example of what, with numberless differences in degree, kind, and importance, can be traced throughout the history of the transmission of the image and influence of great religious personalities and teachers. These continuously recurring phenomena can be taken as, together, constituting the general forms and laws which regulate the growth of all religious devotional biography.

I.

These general laws appear to be as follows.

1. _Three Laws._

There is the law of _contemporary, simultaneous, spontaneous variation of apprehension_. Vernazza and Marabotto, writing down, at the time of their occurrence or communication, certain facts and sayings with an equal self-oblivion, sincerity, and truthfulness, give us apprehensions which, in great part objectively valuable, are, nevertheless, more or less differing pictures of one and the same fact or saying, or different selections from amongst the moods and manifestations of one living personality observed by them.--There is the law of _posterior, successive, reflective variation of elaboration_. The Dominican Censor and Battista Vernazza, re-thinking Catherine and her teaching, in other times and away from her direct influence, necessarily see her differently again: they are, as it were, spiritual grandchildren, who rather themselves absorb her and re-state her to their generation than they are themselves absorbed by her.--And there is the law of _conservation_, _juxtaposition_, and _identification_. First the Redactor of the Book of 1528-1530, and lastly the Redactor of that of 1551--probably, both times, Battista--with, in between, in 1547, the Redactor who attempted a quadripartite reschematizing of the _Life_--could not but try and soften the variations produced by the two other laws.

2. _The third law tends to confuse the operation of the other two._

And note how it is precisely this third law and stage which largely tends to make the effects of the two other laws into causes of vagueness, confusion, and scepticism. For instead of conceiving the unity and identity of the subject-matter (a deep spiritual personality) as essentially inexhaustible, and as requiring, for its least inadequate apprehension, precisely both those simultaneous and spontaneous, and those successive and reflective experiences and reproductions of it, as furnished by the two other laws, this stage tends to confuse the identity of the apprehended subject-matter with a sameness in the apprehension of it; and, whilst thus robbing that subject-matter of its richness and movement, to introduce an element of arrangement and timidity into the originally quite _naïf_, and hence directly impressive, evidences of the observers. Yet the instinct and object of this third law is as legitimate and elementary as are those of the other two, since a real unity and utilization of all the preceding variety is as necessary as the variety to be thus integrated, and since the other two laws show a similar variety of actuation throughout religious literature.

3. _Examples._

We find (to move in Church History back from St. Catherine) these three tendencies at work in the constitution of the Life and Legend of St. Francis of Assisi, A.D. 1181(?)-1226, traced for us now, with so much sympathy and acumen by M. Paul Sabatier and the Bollandists. We get them again in the case of St. Thomas of Canterbury, A.D. 1118-1171, especially in that of his Death and Miracles, so carefully studied in Dr. Edwin Abbot’s remarkable book (1898). And, once more, in those Merovingian Saints, the great Martin of Tours in their midst, at the end of the fourth century, whose Lives have been so interestingly described by Bernouilli (1900). And we find them, with especial clearness, in the growth of the Life of St. Anthony, about A.D. 250-356, as contained in Palladius’s _Historia Monachorum_, now that Abbot Cuthbert Butler has given us his admirable analysis and edition of that deeply instructive compiler (1898, 1904).

If we take the Bible, we find (on moving here in a contrary direction) these laws again at work in the elucidation and elaboration of the great figure of Moses and of his world-historic life-work. For if here we get but little that can claim to be by his pen, or even, as literature, to be contemporaneous with him (since the earliest Corpus of Laws, the Book of the Covenant, reaches probably only in its substance back to him), yet here, too, the earliest consecutive descriptions of his life, by the Jahvist and Elohist writers, give us two different, though probably more or less simultaneous, largely _naïve_, accounts and impressions of his life and work. And these simultaneous variations are followed, later on, by the successive, increasingly reflective variations and developments of Deuteronomy and of the Priestly Code. And lastly, these documents get constituted (in probably two great stages), by Redactional work, into the great composite History and Legislation of our present last four Books of Moses.--So again with David. We have the David of some few of the Psalms; the David of the Books of Samuel, in a double series of most vivid and spontaneous, more or less simultaneous but somewhat differing, accounts; the David of the greater part of the Psalter, the result of a long process of devout successive reflection and re-interpretation; and the David of the Books of Chronicles, where pragmatic systematization reaches its height.--And so too with the Maccabean Heroes, whose history appears, apprehended with varying degrees of contemporary, simultaneous, spontaneous vividness, and of subsequent, successive, reflective pragmatism, in the documents and redactional settings of the First and Second Books of Maccabees.--And the growth indicated in these three cases covered respectively some eight hundred, seven hundred, and one hundred years.

But it is, of course, in the New Testament that the interest and importance of these laws reaches its height. If here we once more move backwards, the case of St. Paul (martyred A.D. 64) furnishes us with parallel contemporary accounts of the spontaneous type, in his own Epistles and in the six “We”-passages by the eyewitness St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles; whilst the remaining account in the Acts is doubtless by a later, more reflective and pragmatic, writer.--And in the apprehension and interpretation of Our Lord’s inexhaustible life, character, teaching, and work, we find very plainly the three tendencies and stages. We get the contemporary, simultaneous, spontaneous stage, in the cases of the Aramaic annotations of the Apostle Levi-Matthew, which we still possess, translated and incorporated both in the larger and later book, our canonical Greek St. Matthew, and in the corresponding parts of our St. Luke; and in the reminiscences of another eyewitness, presumably St. Peter, given us by a disciple in what is still the substance of our Canonical St. Mark. We get the posterior, successive, increasingly reflective or contemplative stage, chiefly in the two great types furnished, first by the Pauline, and then by the Joannine writings. And we get the juxtaposing, unifying, largely identifying stage and law operating above all in the, partly successive, Canonization of the New Testament _Corpus_. And these three stages can be taken as having their downward limits in about A.D. 30, 100, 200; so that here we cover a period of some hundred and seventy years.

4. _Three different attitudes possible._

And, in all these and countless other cases, we can take up three different attitudes: the impoverishing, sectarian, “purity” attitude; the destructive, sceptical, “identity” attitude; or the fruitful, truly Catholic “approximation” and “development” attitude. The first attitude assumes (ever in part unconsciously) the possibility and necessity of a purely objective apprehension of Personality, of such a Personality being a static entity, both in itself and in its effects upon, and its apprehendedness by, other souls, and of the earliest among the observations concerning such a Personality ever giving us such a purely objective, exhaustive picture and experience, or at least the nearest approach (in all respects) to such an exhaustive objectivity. The third attitude would so understand the admitted identity of the Personality observed as practically to identify also the simultaneous and successive observers and observations, and to eliminate all variety and growth in that spirit’s own inner life and in its apprehension by other minds. Only the second attitude would, by recognizing both the constant, necessary presence of a subjective element in all these simultaneous and successive apprehensions, and the indefinite richness and many-sided apprehensibleness of all great spiritual Personalities, welcome and draw out all the difference in unity of these many “reactions,” as so many means, for a growing soul, towards a growing knowledge of that life and character, whose very greatness is, in part, measurable by the depth, variety, and persistence of these several effects, pictures, and embodiments of itself in different races, times, and souls.

Let us, then, betake ourselves to a systematic examination of one example of these world-wide three laws: the trouble taken will be well spent.

II.

Had I found room to print my notes in justification of the text adopted by me, the reader would have gained some idea of the exceeding complexity of the materials furnished by the printed _Vita e Dottrina_. Indeed the original Preface to that book (1551) finds it necessary to conclude with the words “we therefore” (because of the book’s utility, indeed necessity, “in these turbulent times”) “beg the devout reader not to be disturbed” (_stomacharsi_ now changed to _meravigliarsi_) “if he finds here matters which appear to be out of their proper order” (_non ben ordinate_), “and which are sometimes repeated; since attention has been given, neither to much precision” (_distinzione_), “nor to the order of events, nor to elegance of form, but only to that truth and simplicity with which its facts and discourses were gathered by devout spiritual persons” (“her Confessor and a Spiritual Son of hers”) “from the very lips of that Seraphic Woman.” Both the praise and the blame of this pregnant sentence will appear to be most fully deserved.

In our Second Part we have, in imitation of all experience in life itself, been thrown _in medias res_, and have thus gained some general idea and curiosity as to the sources of our knowledge; in this Appendix we will now, without repeating details already given, take this evidence, as much as possible, in its chronological order. And at each stage I shall attempt so to analyze the evidence of that stage, as to be able to use it as a check and test of the evidence of the next stage.--We shall, however, have to bear in mind that this method has necessarily, at each earlier stage, somewhat to beg the question; for, in order to make its meaning everywhere sufficiently clear, it has from the first to assume a confidence of tone, which can be justified only by the whole argument, and which therefore has its logical place only at the very end.

This Appendix shall consist of two Divisions, of seven stages and eight sections respectively. The first Division gives the dated Documents, or such as can readily be restricted to within certain years; and the second Division analyses the remaining, undated Corpus and attempts to fix its origin and value.

FIRST DIVISION: ACCOUNT AND ANALYSIS OF THE DOCUMENTS PREVIOUS, AND IMMEDIATELY SUBSEQUENT TO, THE “VITA E DOTTRINA” WITH THE “DICCHIARAZIONE.”

I. FIRST STAGE, 1456 TO SEPTEMBER 12, 1510, ALL LEGAL.

The documents of the first stage are all legal papers, and entirely contemporary and authentic. They have to furnish the skeleton which receives its clothing of flesh from the other documents. I shall here describe only those not described in Part II, and shall refer back to that Part for those already described there.

1. _Deed of 1456._

There is, first, a deed of August 27, 1456. From amongst the shares belonging to Pomera (formerly) wife to (the late) Bartolommeo de Auria (Doria), but now (Sister) Isabella, in the convent of St. David; at the instance of Andrea de Auria, her only son, her heir, and of Francesca, the mother of Catherine, daughter of Jacobo de Fiesco: two shares of the Bank of St. George (£200) are set apart, for the benefit of the said Catherine, for her marriage, if she marries according to her Mother’s advice.[360] Note how early (Catherine is not yet nine years old) her mother, Francischetta (so a note to the copy of this document, no doubt correctly, calls her, and suspects Pomera to have been her sister), is thinking of Catherine’s marriage; and how, although Catherine’s father is still alive, nothing is said as to his consent, perhaps simply because, this money coming from a maternal aunt and cousin, only the mother’s wishes are considered to be important here.

2. _Catherine’s Marriage Settlement, January 1463._

There is, next, Catherine’s marriage settlement, made “at Genoa, in the quarter of St. Laurence, to wit in the sitting-room (_caminata_) of the residence of Francisca, formerly wife to the late Don Jacobo de Fiescho,” “with the public street in front, the house of Urbano de Negro at its right, and that of Sebastiano de Negro at its left and back”; “in the evening of Thursday, January 13, 1463”; between Giuliano Adorno, son of the late Don Jacobo, on the one hand, and Francisca, mother of Caterinetta and Jacobo and Giovanni de Fiesco, brothers of the same. Giuliano thereby pledges himself to give Catherine on their marriage, £1,000, and he “mortgages to her,” up to this amount, “a certain house of his own, situate in Genoa in the quarter of St. Agnes, with the public street in front, the house of Baldassare Adorno at the right hand” (it belonged before this to Don Georgio Adorno), “and on the other hand the public street.” And Francesca, Jacobo, and Giovanni promise to pay Giuliano, in bare money and in wedding outfit for Catherine, £400 on completion of the marriage, and another £400 in the course of the following two years; and they mortgage to him, up to this amount, the house in which the settlement is being made. Giuliano is to be free to live with his wife and her family in this same house, for these first two years after his marriage, without any payment.

At this date, then, Giuliano is already fatherless, and Catherine’s brother Lorenzo is still too young to have any legal voice in the matter. Although Catherine is, after the first two years, not guaranteed anything beyond £1,000 capital, or say £40 a year income, her outfit is a handsome one.

3. _Catherine’s first Will, June 1484._

Then there is Catherine’s first Will, June 23, 1484, after twenty-one years of marriage. She is “lying” although “fully herself in mind, intellect, and memory,” yet “languid in body and weighted down by bodily infirmity, in the room, her residence, in the women’s quarters of the Hospital of the Pammatone,” which “she has inhabited for a considerable time (_jamdiu_).” “And knowing herself to be without children, and without hope of future offspring,” she leaves the life-interest in her marriage-dowry of £1,000 to her husband, Giuliano; bids divide up, at his death, the bulk of this capital between the Hospital and her eldest brother Jacobo (£300 to each), and her two younger brothers Giovanni and Lorenzo (£150 to each); and orders her body to be buried in the Hospital Church.[361]

Ten years, then, after her Conversion, Catherine had already been living for a considerable time within the Hospital. They do not as yet occupy a separate building, or even a set of rooms within the Hospital; and, though both live within it, they evidently occupy separate rooms in different parts of the great complex of buildings; for the room here mentioned is simply Catherine’s (_camera residentiae testatricis_, where _residentiae_ must be a descriptive and not a partitive genitive), and forms part and parcel of the women’s wards (_in domibus mulierum_). Her absence of hope as to offspring evidently arises primarily from the life of continence she is leading. Yet this latter determination is clearly not caused by any specific knowledge of her husband’s past infidelity: for Thobia must have been now some ten years old, yet there is no kind of mention of her; whilst, later on, Catherine never fails to remember her, with one exception to be presently explained. There is no mention of nephews and nieces, doubtless because her brothers were, as yet, either unmarried or childless, or, at least, daughterless. She is fairly well off, for besides this possession of £1,000 she gets her room and board free, and Giuliano has still some property of his own more considerable than hers. And the share left by her to relations is large--£600--as over against £300 to a public charity (the Hospital), and £100, presumably, for the funeral, minor charities, and Masses. If she says nothing, as yet, as to burial in the same grave with her husband, this is doubtless because she herself appears now to be the one likely to die first.

4. _Giuliano’s Will, October 1494._

There is, fourthly, the first and last Will, October 20, 1494, of “the Reverend Sir, Brother Giuliano Adorno, professing the Third Order of St. Francis, under the care of the Friars Minor Observants,” already described on pages 151, 152. The will is drawn up in the “sitting-room” (_caminata_) of the “habitation” of the Testator. Now the Notary, Battista Strata, in a foot-note to a first draft of an (unfinished) Will of Catherine, writes: “On the day on which I drew up Don Giuliano’s”; which words (owing to a multiplicity of converging indications) can only refer to this Will of October 2, 1494. And in this draft Catherine leaves legacies to the servants Benedetta (Lombarda) and Mariola Bastarda, as “abiding with, and dwelling in the house with, Testatrix.” It is clear then that, by now, Catherine and Giuliano are living under the same roof, in a distinct house within the hospital precincts, with two personal attendants for their common use. They will have moved, out of their separate single rooms, into this house, upon Catherine becoming Matron, in 1490. In this draft there appear also, for the first time, her brother Jacobo’s two daughters (£100 each); and her sister, the Augustinianess Limbania (£10).

5. _Four minor documents, 1496-1497._

There are, next, certain minor documents of 1496-1497, which modify points of previous Wills and clear up details of her life. Thus, on June 17, 1496 Catherine signs a deed of consent to the sale of the Palace in the S. Agnese (Adorni) quarter.--On January 10, 1496, Giuliano, “sane in mind although languid in body,” orders, in a Codicil, that Catherine shall carry out, according to the directions of a certain Friar Minor, a vow made by himself to St. Anthony of Padua; notes that the Palace has been sold; and declares that she is to be free to annul, amend or diminish, according to her own judgment, his legacy of £500 to the Hospital.[362] And, in the Cartulary of the Bank of St. George, Catherine’s name appears as an Investor: on July 14, 1497 as “wife of Giuliano Adorno”; but on October 6 as “wife and testamentary heiress of the late Giuliano Adorno.”[363] These entries were considered on page 149 note. On the second occasion she orders that the Bank shall, after her death, annually pay over the interest of the fourteen shares (£1,400), now bought by her, to the Hospital of the Pammatone, in return for “the enjoyment and usufruct of a house and a greenhouse (_viridario_) of (within) the said Hospital,” which had been conceded to her for her lifetime. The sum (about £56 a year) thus ceded by her is a handsome one, as she had, by now, well earned the use of this house by her constant labours for the Hospital, including her matronship from 1490 to 1496. I take it that she was again thinking of Thobia; so that this relatively large sum would cover at least part of the Hospital’s expenses incurred for this poor girl.

6. _Catherine’s second Will, May 1498._

This has been studied on pages 152-154.

7. _Deed of Cession, September 18, 1499; and Codicil of January 1503._

These have been studied on pages 155, and 168, 169.

8. _Third Will, May 21, 1506; and Codicil of November 1508._

These have been described on pages 172-174; and 175, 176.

9. _Fourth and last Will, March 18, 1509; and two last Codicils, August 3 and September 12, 1510._

These have been described on pages 185-187; 202, 203; and 212-214, respectively.

We have thus described all the fifteen documents which alone still bear dates within the range of Catherine’s lifetime, and whose contemporaneousness is above all challenge. They all have the pedantic, at first sight unmoving, indeed repulsive, form of legal documents. Yet the substance of quite ten of them undoubtedly proceeds from Catherine; and they all give us a most precious, precise certainty with regard to many cardinal points of locality, date, sequence, and self-determination in her life. True, neither the day, nor even the month, of her Birth or Baptism; nor the year of her Conversion; nor the date of the beginning of her Daily Communions; nor the facts as to the rarity or frequency of her Confessions; nor the day or month of Giuliano’s death, have been recoverable by any contemporary attestations. But on other points we thus possess a series of absolutely reliable documents, ranging from 1456 to 1510, whose testimony nothing can be allowed to shake.

II. SECOND STAGE: FIVE FURTHER OFFICIAL AND LEGAL DOCUMENTS, 1511-1526; AND FOUR MORTUARY DATES, 1524-1587.

And this first stage of the evidence is followed by a second, as dry and legal, and as absolutely reliable, as the other; yet which still does not refer to any chronicle or notes of her life, (as either already extant or as in process of registration or radaction), but only to the fate of her remains and to certain turning-points in the lives of her disciples and eyewitnesses. I note here only those documents which fix for us the dates of the beginning of her Cultus, and which give us the latest contemporary proof for those persons being still alive.

1. We get thus the Hospital Account for the Moneys spent on the Religious Clothing of the Maid-Servant Mariola Bastarda, July 7, 1511; the entry in the Hospital Cartulary of the expenses incurred for the transport of stone and for a picture, in connection with the first opening of Catherine’s Deposito, July 10, 1512; the account, in the same book, concerning the funeral of Don Jacobo Carenzio, who had died occupying Catherine’s little house within the Hospital precincts, on January 7, 1513; a Will of the little widow-attendant Argentina del Sale, of January 15, 1522; and the Will of Don Cattaneo Marabotto, still “in good bodily and mental health,” May 11, 1526,--a document drawn up in his dwelling-place, the house belonging to his friends, the Salvagii.[364]

2. And to this group we can add four further dates, the first and last two of which are completely certain. Ettore Vernazza died on June 26 or 27, 1524; the year is fixed by the great plague epidemic which carried him off, and the month and day, by his daughter’s letter. Cattaneo Marabotto died, there is no reason to doubt, in 1528. Catherine’s Dominican cousin and close friend, Suor Tommasa Fiesca, died, eighty-six years of age, in 1534. And Battista Vernazza died, aged ninety, on May 9, 1587.[365]

Hence, up to eighteen years after her death, the two closest of Catherine’s confidants were alive; whilst one who had known her, and had been thirteen at the time of Catherine’s death, was still alive seventy-seven years after that event.

III. THIRD STAGE: BISHOP GIUSTINIANO’S ACCOUNT OF CATHERINE’S LIFE, REMAINS, AND BIOGRAPHY, 1537.

Our third stage is in strikingly manifold contrast to the other two. It is represented by but one single, largely vague and rhetorical, but human and directly psychological, document; and is the first that tells us of a Life.

1. _The text._

Monsignore Agostino Giustiniano, Bishop of Nibio, published his _Castigatissimi Annali … della Republica di Genova_, in Genoa, in 1537. There, on p. 223, he tells us that he was born (of socially distinguished parents) in that city in 1470. And under the date of 1510 (p. 266) he writes: “And in the month of September, it pleased God to draw to Himself Madonna Catarinetta Adorna, who was daughter of Giacobo di Flisco, Vice-Roy of Naples for King René, and wife to Giuliano Adorno, with whom she lived many years in marital chastity. And her life, after the Divine goodness had touched her heart in the years of her youth, was all charity, love, meekness, benignity, patience, incredible abstinence, and a mirror of every virtue, so that she can be compared to St. Catherine of Siena. And all the city has participated in, and has perceived, the odour of the virtues of this holy matron, who, when rapt in the spirit, spoke, amongst other matters, of the state of the souls that are in Purgatory, things excellent and rare and worthy of being attended to by such persons as have a taste for the religious and spiritual life. Her body is deposited in the Oratory of the larger Hospital, and offers a spectacle no less admirable than venerable, appearing (_come che sia_) all entire with its flesh, so that she looks alive,--as though she had been placed there to-day; and yet full twenty-five years have passed since she began to lie there dead. The great consciousness of God, the special virtues, the saintly deeds, accompanied by an immense love, which were manifested by this venerable matron, would furnish matter well worthy of being recorded here. Yet we shall pass them over, for the sake of brevity; especially since a book worthy of respect (_un digno libro_) has been composed, concerning these things exclusively, by persons worthy of confidence (_digne di fede_).”

2. _Its testimony._

Now this is a statement which we have every reason to trust. For Bishop Giustiniano, himself a native of Genoa, forty years of age at the time of Catherine’s death, was a man of education, of solid character, and of social position; who, throughout his long book, is uniformly truthful and generally accurate; and who had here no conceivable reason for inventing or seriously misstating the few facts alleged by him. These facts, as regards the matter in hand, are three: that she spoke of various (evidently various spiritual) matters, and, amongst these, of the state of the souls in Purgatory; that a Book was extant at the end of 1535, which concerned itself exclusively with Catherine; and that persons worthy of trust had produced this Book.

(1) Giustiniano knows of no writings of hers: she had not written, but had only “spoken excellent and rare things,” and she had done so “when rapt in the spirit.” The exaggeration here (for when in ecstasy, she spoke nothing, or but a few broken words at most) is interesting, since it probably grew up as an explanation of, and consolation for, her not having herself written anything; since during the ecstasy she would be incapable of anything but speech, and out of the ecstasy she would not remember the sights and sounds perceived during the trance. And yet, thus, what had to be written down by others, whilst she was in ecstasy, would be more precious, because more immediately “inspired,” than what she herself could have thought, remembered, and written down, in her ordinary psycho-physical condition.

(2) The Book, in existence at the end of 1535, not only contained sayings concerning the state of the souls in Purgatory, but must have contained these sayings already collected together in a separate chapter or division. For her sayings concerning this matter by no means form the larger, or the most immediately striking, part of her authentic teaching, taken as a whole; and only if already collected into a more or less separate _corpus_ would they have been singled out in this manner.--But, if this reasoning is sound and proves the existence of the _Trattato_, already more or less separate as at present, similar reasoning will prove the non-existence of the _Dialogo_. For the _Trattato_, even in its present length, fills but fifteen large-print octavo pages; while the _Dialogo_ fills ninety. It is practically inconceivable that the latter document, which can never have existed otherwise than more or less separately, should have been overlooked here, where another, so much shorter, and at first sight less authoritative, is dwelt on with emphasis.

(3) More than one hand had participated in the production of the Book. It is characteristic of the rhetorically loose phraseology of the times that the word “composto” is so used as to leave it quite uncertain whether several original contributors of materials and but one Redactor who constituted these materials into a Book are meant, or whether a succession of Redactors is already implied.

3. _Surviving eyewitnesses._

Certainly by this time the three chief eyewitnesses of her later earthly existence, Carenzio, Vernazza, and Marabotto were all dead, since respectively twenty-two, eleven, and seven years. Tommasa Fiesca had died in the previous year. Only Mariola Bastarda and Argentina del Sale, her old maid-servants, were probably still alive, from among the circle of Catherine’s constant companions; and Battista Vernazza, who was but thirteen when her God-mother died, had still fifty-two years to live. Yet we have to come still later down amongst extant documents before we can get any further evidence, whether external or internal, as to which of these persons, or who else (probably or certainly) wrote down the original contemporary notes; and as to who constituted these notes, (on one or on successive occasions) into this “Giustiniano-book,” as I shall call the manuscript “Vita e Dottrina,” extant in 1535.

IV. FOURTH STAGE: THE TWO OLDEST EXTANT MANUSCRIPTS OF THE “VITA E DOTTRINA” WITH THE “DICCHIARAZIONE.”

The fourth stage of evidence is, as to its contents, the most important of all: but it is, as we shall see, twelve years younger: it belongs to the years 1547, 1548. It consists of two Manuscripts, the duodecimo-volume B. 1. 29 of the University Library; and the square octavo-volume of the Archives of the Cathedral Chapter, both in Genoa. Here, at last, we are face to face with an actual _Life_ of our Saint. I have carefully collated them both upon the ninth Genoese Edition of the _Vita ed Opere_, Genova, Sordi Muti: the first MS., throughout, and the second one, sufficiently to make sure of its entire dependence upon the first. I have named them MS. A and MS. B respectively.

1. MANUSCRIPT A.

1. _Its date and scribe._

Manuscript A is very interesting. It opens out as follows: “Jesus. Here beginneth the book in which is contained the admirable life and holy conversation of Madonna Catherinetta Adorna.… This book was begun and written at the request of her Magnificent Ladyship, the Lady Orientina, Consort to the most magnificent and generous, illustrious Lord Adam Centurione, when she was being vexed by a grave and well-nigh incurable infirmity, during now already thirteen months, by a Religious of the Observance … on the 7th of October of the year fifteen hundred and forty-seven.”--And Catherine’s Life concludes with the words: “_Laus Deo semper._ This book was written at the request of the Consort, of happy memory, of the … Lord Adam Centurione, who lay vexed by a most grave infirmity, during now two years. Many a time she would sit and find consolation, in her most painful torments, by reading of the burnings (_incendii_) which were suffered, for so long a time, by this holy woman.… At the thirteenth hour of the fourth of February God took her to Himself. She, a few days before she passed away, begged me with tears, in the presence of the Magnificent Lady, the Lady Ginetta, her most beloved daughter, to finish that which I had undertaken to produce for her own self. And so it will be of use to the latter, and will help her to bear her pains and travails, which may the Lord alleviate, by giving her good patience.”--After this follow thirty pages; containing an Italian version of St. Bernard’s Sermon on the death of his Brother Gerard, (Chapter XXVI of his _Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles_). And the whole concludes with the words: “Finished in the year Fifteen hundred and forty-eight, on the thirteenth of February.”

We have here, then, very precise dates: this _Life_ was written between October 7, 1547, and February 4-13, 1548, by a Franciscan Observant, first for the wife, and then for the daughter, of a Doge of Genoa.

2. _Comparison with the Printed “Life.”_

Now the whole forty-two chapters of this _Life_, together with the Sermon, are engrossed throughout, in a careful and upright uncial script. On close comparison with the Printed _Life_ the differences turn out to consist, either of vocabulary and dialect, of a simply formal kind; or of additions and variations in the subject-matter, of an exceedingly trite and would-be edifying character; or of a very few additional passages of genuine importance; or of divisions, transpositions, and _lacunae_--the latter mostly of a significant and primitive kind; or, finally, of one highly interesting change, effected in his own copy, by the copyist himself.

(i) _Vocabulary._

The Observant’s vocabulary is a curious mixture of downright (late) Latin, old French, and modern Italian. So “pagura” (_paura_); “in si” (_se_, Fr. _soi_); “despecto” (_dispetto_); “alchuna,” “anchora” (_alcuna_, _ancora_); “lingeriare” (_ligare_, Fr. _lier_); “summissa” (_sommessa_, Fr. _soumise_); “una fiata” (_una volta_, Fr. _une fois_); “dido” (_digito_, o. Fr. _doight_).[366] Some of these and such-like forms no doubt stood in his Prototype. Thus, whilst he simply copies, he writes--“pecto” and “licet”; when he makes up sentences of his own, he writes “petto” and “abenchè.” And his single Chapter XIII has, on two pages, “per il che”; but, on its last two pages, it has the elsewhere universal “perochè” (_perchè_).--Yet his language is, upon the whole, so uniform, whilst his sources (as we shall see) are so varied; and again his uniform language is in such marked contrast to Giustiniano’s educated Genoese Italian of 1535, and to that of the Printed _Vita_ of 1551: that much of it, even where he is copying the substance of his Prototype, must be his own.

(ii) _Worthless additions and variations, of two kinds._

The additions and variations are mostly of two kinds. They are either of a directly edificatory character. So the three pages descriptive of the devotion of the crowd, on occasion of the opening of the coffin, in the spring of 1512; the very general statement as to the miracles that occurred on that occasion; and, further back, the expansion (by this Franciscan scribe) of Catherine’s comments on (the Franciscan) Jacopone da Todi’s “la superbia in cielo c’è.”[367] And in one place, to produce edification by a sense of contrast, he adopts a touch of (doubtless legendary) gossip against Giuliano, for the heading of his