Chapter XLI: here, corresponds to the Dicchiarazione (Trattato)

there; and is followed here by a final Chapter (XLII), made up of a bewilderingly different succession of paragraphs,--paragraphs which, in the Printed _Life_, stand in Chapters XLIX; XVII; and XLVIII to LII. And, whereas the first forty Chapters of this MS. average six or seven pages in length, Chapters XLI and XLII are respectively forty-five and forty-eight pages long.

(v) _Lacunae._

These transpositions would alone suffice to show how complicated is the textual history of the _Vita_: we may have to consider some of them later on. But it is the _lacunae_ which are especially interesting. One of these is quite certainly right, as against the printed text. Paragraphs 23 to 25 of Chapter L of the Print are wanting here. Those pages give an entirely fantastic, and formally vague, account of a supposed interior stigmatization of Catherine, and of a preposterous elongation of one of her arms,--both “facts” based explicitly upon the authority of Argentina.[373] And the circumstance of the scribe being a disciple of the stigmatized St. Francis, and the probability that Argentina was still accessible, conjoin to render the absence of these paragraphs from this MS. simply decisive against their historical character.--The longest of all the omissions, that of the _Dialogo_, must, even more, be explained on the ground of its non-existence at this time, or, at least, of its not being known to the Scribe, or again, of its having as yet no kind of authority. For not only does he make no use of, or allusion to this, very long, and (were it primitive) simply supreme document, but, as we shall find, quite a number of his facts contradict the _Dialogo’s_ version of them; and we shall soon see that, had he known and esteemed the document, he would not have allowed such a defiance of it to remain without correction.

Over against these two non-appearances of spurious or secondary matter, we have to set three omissions of highly valuable material. The two interconnected, obviously entirely historical, paragraphs concerning Maestro Boerio,--his attempt to cure Catherine, and the excessive impression made upon her by his scarlet robes,[374]--are both wanting here. But we shall see that they were probably not incorporated in any _Vita_, till the preparation of the Printed _Life_ of 1551.--Matters stand differently with respect to the third omission,--the beautifully vivid, inimitably daring and characteristic, Chapter XIX, containing Catherine’s dialogue with the Friar, who, according to the well-informed Parpera, was a Franciscan Observant.[375] It is impossible to hold that this, most historical and well-preserved, story did not stand in the Observant’s Prototype, or that it was otherwise unknown to him; its omission is doubtless deliberate and “prudential.”--An interesting instance of demonstrable omission on his part, is indeed furnished also by his version of the beautiful story of Suor Tommasa’s life: his abbreviation of it is so obvious and yet so unintelligent, that only a reference to the full account, which lay certainly before him and is still preserved in the Printed _Life_, makes any satisfactory sense of what he has retained.[376]

3. _Modification from a tripartite scheme to a quatripartite one._

But the most interesting of all the differences between this MS. A of 1547 and the Printed _Life_ of 1551 is another group of omissions, connected, as these are, with the one single modification introduced into his own text by the Scribe himself. The whole of the matter corresponding to the Printed _Life’s_ Chapter XLIV (all but the first seven lines) and that corresponding to the first three paragraphs of its Chapter XLIX, which treat consecutively, and with an inimitable vividness and a daring, unreflective truthfulness, of her most unusual self-revelations to her Confessor Don Marabotto,[377] is omitted--possibly, again, in part at least, from fear of scandal; but more probably because, even at this time, this (the most private and consecutive) contribution to the _Life_, still existed separately, perhaps from all, and presumably from most, copies of the _Vita_ then in circulation. And such a copy will have been the Observant’s Prototype.--Only when he had finished copying out his manuscript, will he have discovered that, if he would take any, even though silent, account of that contribution, which, by now, will have become known to him, he must, at all costs, break up and seriously modify one of his chapters. We have already studied the treble, most solemn affirmation, by Catherine and her Confessor themselves, in that Printed Chapter XLIV, as to her twenty-five years of spiritual loneliness and guidance by God alone;[378] and we have seen that (since we cannot place her Conversion before 1474, nor the beginning of her later practice of Confession after 1499) we are forced (if we take her words in their obvious sense, as applying to Confession as well as to Direction, and assume her First Convert-Period, the penitential time, to have been accompanied throughout by repeated Confessions) to make this first Period very short.

Now the volume of 1547, 1548, consists throughout of paper, all but the first three leaves and the tenth leaf, which are of parchment. The first leaf remains blank; the second contains the Observant’s Preface on its obverse; the third holds, on its two sides, the first two pages of the _Vita_. That Preface was certainly written before all the rest, or at least certainly during the lifetime of Donna Orientina Centurione, _i.e._ before February 4, 1548; nor does anything in those first two (parchment and paper) pages of text suggest that they are an insertion subsequent to the following (paper) pages. At first, then, the copy will have consisted of three parchment leaves, and then of nothing but paper leaves; and the Observant will have made the last of these parchment leaves the sole and opening parchment leaf of the text of the Book.

But matters stand differently with the tenth leaf, pp. 19, 20 of the MS., which begins with the words “bisogna, sono apparecchiata a confessar”--“(if) necessary, I am prepared to confess my sins in public” (Catherine’s words, on occasion of her Conversion); and ends with “(abru) savano insino al core. Poi fù tirata al Petto”--“Love, with those penetrating rays of its own, which burnt her, even to the heart. She was then drawn to the Breast” (narrative words which, in the scheme of her _Life_ that follows upon the Conversion-story, mark the transition from one of this scheme’s stages to another).

Now here we have clear indications that these two parchment pages hold a modified text. For that last parchment-leaf word “Petto” is picked up, on the paper continuation, by “Pecto,” the ordinary form of the Observant’s Prototype: see his page 81. And the whole book (all but this parchment leaf and its highly restricted effects), still attributes _four years_ to her First Convert-Period, her Penitential, Purgative Stage.

Indeed, this solitary parchment leaf itself still allows us to trace, (as though the leaf were a Palimpsest), both this, the original, length of that Period, and the fact of that Period having then been the first of three, and not, as now, of four such periods.--For this leaf, in finishing up the manuscript’s fourth chapter, the history of her Conversion,[379]--declares that “this sight (of her sins) and this contrition (for them) lasted _fourteen months_, during which she went on confessing herself, continually increasing her self-accusation (_aggravando la colpa_); after the passing of which months, all sadness was lifted from her, nor did she have any memory of her sins,--as though she had cast them into the depths of the sea.” And then, in the opening of the fifth chapter,[380] the scheme and conspectus of her Convert Life runs as follows. She is first “drawn to the feet of Christ” and abides there “_one year_ until she had satisfied her conscience by Contrition, Confession, and Satisfaction.”--“She next felt herself drawn, with St. John, to repose on the Breast of her Loving Lord.… _The sight of the sins committed by her against God would come to her_, so that she would be, as it were, wild (_arrabbiava_) with grief, and would lick the ground with her tongue; and in this wise she appeared to derive relief for her tempestuous feelings (_affannato cuore_). And she abode thus for _three years_, during which she was, as it were, wild with grief and love, with those penetrating rays of its own, which burned her to the very heart.[381] She was then drawn to the Breast”--which last parchment-leaf word is taken up by the next, ordinary paper-leaf: “Breast; and here she was shown the Heart of Christ.… And she abode _many years_ with this impression of His burning Heart.--And then she was drawn (still) further up, that is, to the Mouth; and there she was found worthy of being kissed by the true Solomon.… And she no more (directly) recognized her human acts, whether they had been done well or evilly; but she saw all in God.”[382]

We see here how the original four years of her First Period, which are still retained elsewhere by the Printed _Vita_,[383] have been broken up by the scribe of this Manuscript into two shorter (first and second) Periods, of fourteen months (one year), and three years respectively; how the copyist, both in his first apportionment of length to his new First Period, “fourteen months,” and in his second assignment, now of one year (since he has to divide up the original Four years so as to get them again by addition, “_one_ year” and “_three_ years”), leaves us two curious echoes of the “Four” of his Prototype; how his amended description of his new second Period is still largely the old Penitential description, for she still sees her sins (a sight which is here an anachronism), and she is still prostrate on the ground (a prostration which exactly suits the Feet, but in no way the Breast of Christ); how the Observant has been half-hearted and clumsy, for he has now left two successive Breast-Periods, hardly differentiated from each other; and how he was able to shift (though not to change) the original single Breast-Period (now his second Breast-Period), because of its conveniently vague time-note of “many years.” All this laborious, yet timid, incomplete and ineffectual change, thus forced upon an evidently long-established, toughly resisting composition, can only have taken place under some severe pressure of evidence; and the root-causes of the change are somehow connected with the question as to the duration, in her life, of the perception and Confession of her sins. For the Confession of her sins, which (in the old scheme) extended over four years, is now restricted to fourteen months or one year; and if contemplative and restful love are now anticipated (from the original second Period) in the new second Period of three years, yet an intense sight of her particular sins, piercing contrition for them, and a complete prostration on the ground, are all indeed retained, from the original Feet-Period, for this new second Period, but Confession has disappeared from these three years.

Now we have precisely such absolutely constraining evidence in Marabotto’s treble chronicle of Catherine’s own words, with regard to the twenty-five years during which she was led by God’s spirit alone. It is clear then that the most important of Marabotto’s notes did not exist incorporated with, or at least had not originally formed part of, and did not dominate, the scheme of the _Vita_ which the Observant had before him; and that, upon his later knowledge of, or pondering over them, he understood Catherine’s words to have applied, not simply to Direction but to (at least at all habitual) Confession as well.

2. MANUSCRIPT B.

1. _Its very primitive heading._

Manuscript B starts indeed with a heading demonstrably older than that of MS. A. For its “De la Mirabile Conversione et Vita de la q(uondam) donna Catherinetta Adorna” is more primitive, because of its “the late,” which indicates a time of writing not yet far removed from the date of her death; its “Donna,” less honorific than the “Madonna” of the other MSS.; and, above all, its giving “Conversione” before “Vita,” instead of “Conversatione” after “Vita,” since thus we are assured of “Conversione” being no slip of the pen for “Conversatione,”--Conversion coming necessarily before, and holy Conversation coming after, in consequence of, an admirable life.--And this title will originally have headed a booklet containing simply the story of her Conversion and early Convert life, say, up to the end of Chapter VI of the Printed _Vita_, p. 17_b_; or, since even the “et Vita” of this title reads like a later addition, only up to the end of the present printed Chapter II, p. 6_c_. I think there is no doubt that we have here the original heading of a tract put together on occasion of the first public Cultus, in the summer of 1512.

2. _Body of MS. B dependent upon MS. A._

But the body of MS. B is demonstrably later than, indeed dependent upon, MS. A; for here the scribe silently adopts the modification, effected by the writer of MS. A in his own text, with regard to doubling the Breast-Period; and yet, even here, we have still the Observant’s “Petto” for the first period, and the “Pecto” of the Observant’s Prototype for the second period.[384] “Come” now appears throughout, in lieu of MS. A’s “Como.” And Giuliano’s name is omitted (all but once, in Catherine’s mouth) in the Husband-Chapter.[385]

3. _Order, division, numeration of the Chapters._

The order, division, and numeration of the Chapters is identical with those of MS. A, all but that Chapter XXXIX of MS. A (equivalent to the unimportant pp. 82_b_-83_a_ of Chapter XXXI in the Printed _Life_) is here omitted. No Chapter numbered XXXIX appears here, but, after a small break behind Chapter XXXVIII, the _Trattato_ follows, as Chapter XL.

4. _Laceration at end of Manuscript._

And this Chapter XL is abruptly broken off in the midst of a penultimate paragraph: “et per gratia li sono monstrati et” are the last words. The authentication of the MS., appended immediately after this rough ending, shows this laceration to be at least as old as 1672. Nor is it a case of some complete set or sets of leaves being lost, since one leaf has had to be torn off, from the still remaining other half-sheet.[386] The last part, no doubt, contained the end of the _Trattato_ and the Passion-Chapter; and will, like its Prototype, MS. A, have been without a trace of the _Dialogo_. Indeed I suspect that it was the latter circumstance which, when once this elaborate composition had come to be prized, gave rise to the, surely deliberate, destruction of the evidence for its absence here. MS. A will, in that case, have been saved from a similar fate, by its special appropriation to a powerful family; by its superior, uncial kind of script; and, above all, by its important contemporary date and dedication at the end.

V. FIFTH STAGE: MANUSCRIPT C.

Our next, deeply interesting stage, is represented by one single MS. in the University Library, Genoa,--catalogued as B. VII 17. It is a careful copy, made throughout by the Protonotary Angelo Luigi Giovo, and subscribed by himself on April 20, 1671, of, as he there says, “Another ancient MS. received from the Signora ----, Matron of the Great Hospital, who declared that she had herself received it from the Nuns of the Madonna delle Grazie; and which is believed, with great probability, to be the MS. copied by Ettore Vernazza and sent to the Venerable Donna Battista, his daughter. The book, in view of the antiquity of the paper, of the character of the binding of the copy, and of the other peculiarities, has been judged by experts to belong to the above-mentioned Period.” The reader will soon see why I place (not necessarily the execution, but the text of) the MS. thus copied by Giovo, before the printing of the _Vita_ in 1551, and will thus be helped to a decision as to the “greatly probable” attribution to Ettore Vernazza.

1. _Differences in text of MS. C from MSS. A and B._

Giovo’s Copy (my MS. C) follows, up to the end of its Chapter XLI (the _Trattato_), the division, number, and sequence of the chapters, and the peculiarities of the text, of MS. A, with an all but unbroken closeness: even the slip, of 1506 (for 1509), in the date of the great attack of “fire at heart,” reappears here as it stands there (fol. 33_v_ of MS. C, compared with p. 193 of MS. A). But the “Petto” and “Pecto,” of respectively the first and second Breast-Periods in MSS. A and B, read here, in both cases, as simply “Petto” (MS. C, fol. 3).--There is but one at all remarkable addition in this, the _Vita_-part of the MS. In the account of the refusal to accept Catherine on the part of the Nuns of the very Convent where, as we shall see, the Prototype copied by Giovo was no doubt written, there occur the new words: “Although her Confessor was instant with them (to take her), knowing her, as he did, better than the Nuns knew her” (MS. C, fol. 1_v_).--And, in concluding further on (on its fol. 71_v seq._) with the Passion-Chapter, as this stands in MS. A (Chapter XLII), a Chapter which here (for a reason to be given in a minute) is not numbered, the MS. still follows closely (although now with a few generally unimportant additions, omissions, and transpositions of paragraphs), the matter, order, and literary form of MS. A.--Only one, formally slight, but materially significant, difference exists here between Giovo’s text and the Printed _Life_. The Printed _Life_, p. 142_b_, reads: “After this, she felt a hard nail at heart”; to this MS. C adds (fol. 72_r_) “so that she seemed nailed to the Cross.” Neither set of words occurs in MSS. A and B. MS. C here gives us something unlike Catherine’s, but very like Battista’s, special spirit.

2. _The great addition: the “Dialogo,” Part First._

(1) _The “Dialogo” originally no longer._

But it is in the pages intermediate between the _Trattato_ and the Passion (foll. 53_v_ to 71_v_), that lies the interest of this MS. For here we get, for the first time, the _Dialogo_, although, as yet, only its eventual First Part (pp. 185-225 in the Printed _Life_). Chapter XLI (the _Trattato_) has just finished, by only six lines short of its printed form, with the words “because that occupation with Himself which God gives to the soul, slight though it be, keeps the soul so occupied, that it exceeds everything, nor can the soul esteem anything else.” And immediately next there come (53_v_) the title-words: “Here follows a certain beautiful Allegory (_Figura_) which this holy soul institutes (_fà_) concerning the Soul and the Body.”--The eventual division into (17) chapters is still absent, and the work seems, at this time, to have been planned to be no longer than it is here. For it concludes with the emphatic climax: “Now the Spirit, having come to hold this creature in this manner, declared: ‘I am determined henceforth no more to call her a human creature, because I see her (to be) all in God, without any (mere) humanity.’” For these words simply re-cast the last words of the scheme of her entire life, given by the _Vita_: “She said: ‘I live no more, but Christ lives in me.’ Hence she could no more recognize the quality of her human acts, in themselves--whether they were good or evil; but she saw all in God” (Pr. L., p. 6_c_).

(2) _The “Dialogo’s” two stages, each comprising two steps, and their suggestions in the “Vita.”_

Now the _Dialogo_, as here given, consists of two chief stages, and each stage contains two steps.

Chapters I to VI give the first stage--the history of a soul in a state of moral and spiritual decline and contraction: all this, in the form of a Dialogue between the Soul, the Body, and Self-Love.--Throughout this first stage Self-Love holds dominion. But, during the first step, the Soul (although it already distinguishes, with regard to what it intends to practise, between simply avoiding grave sin and striving after perfection) still continues fairly determined not to commit sin, and still leads the Body. During the second step, on the contrary, even this simple avoidance of grave sin has ceased, for now the Body leads the Soul. Thus first the Soul, and then the Body, each leads the other during one step, for “one week.”--These two steps or weeks stand for the two lustres of Catherine’s pre-Conversion-Period, for the lukewarm, and then the positively dissipated, lustre respectively. Chapters I to III give the first week, equivalent to the first five years of her married life, 1463 to 1468; and Chapters IV to VI give the second week, and correspond to the second five years, 1468 to 1473.[387]

Chapters VII to XXI describe the second stage, that of Conversion and Transformation, which (notwithstanding its appearance of instantaneous and complete attainment of its end) is here presented as, in reality, by far the longer and the more difficult, although the alone fruitful and happy one. Chapters VII to XIII describe the first step. Chapters VII to IX give us the Soul’s longing for Light; the spark of Pure Love shown to it, on its conversion-day; and a long address by the Soul to the Body and Self-Love, and the answers of these two.[388] In this address the Soul for the first time speaks of “_the Spirit_.”[389]