Catherine of Siena (1347–80) was one of the great saints of the later Middle Ages.Footnote 1 Immediately after her death many people recognized her as blessed (‘beata’); and after her canonization in 1461, she was officially venerated as a saint (‘sancta’).Footnote 2 Today her cult has spread all over the world. One place where she is especially venerated is the basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, where she was buried.Footnote 3
After a brief outline of Catherine's life, and a short analysis of the history and layout of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, this article examines the historical narratives of Catherine's death and burial in order to shed new light on the liturgical layout of the Dominican church c. 1380. It then considers each of five successive translations of Catherine's remains, and the changing appearance of her sepulchre, as known from what survives today and from literary documentation. It highlights aspects of Catherine's life that were especially commemorated at each renewal of her tomb, in the decoration and inscriptions on or near her sepulchre, showing aspects of her veneration through the centuries.
Catherine Benincasa was born in Siena in 1347, and she died in Rome in 1380. She was not a nun in an enclosed convent, but a religious woman, consecrated to God in virginity as a Dominican tertiary, called a ‘Mantellata’ in Siena.Footnote 4 In the early part of her life she lived at home with her family, going out to serve the sick and the poor. In later years she travelled through Italy, as well as to Avignon in France, to fulfil a very public and political mission in the Church and in the world.Footnote 5 Although she had no formal education, with the help of several scribes and an ability to write that she attributed to divine intervention, she authored many letters, a book known as The Dialogue, and numerous prayers.Footnote 6 From her childhood onwards she had strong mystical experiences, culminating in the stigmata, which she received at Pisa in 1375. In 1378 Pope Urban VI summoned her to Rome, where she went to live and pray for the Church during the ‘Great Schism’, when there were two rival contenders for the see of Peter.
When Catherine died in Rome on 29 April 1380, her body was taken to the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where it remained for three days before her burial. A few months later, Raymond of Capua translated her remains to a new sepulchre in the chapel south of the sanctuary of the church. Antonino Pierozzi (1389–1459), better known as Saint Antoninus of Florence, who was prior of the Minerva in 1430, moved her to a more dignified monument in that chapel. After her canonization in 1461 her tomb was raised above the chapel's altar. It was moved to a position below the altar in 1579. Finally, in 1855 her sarcophagus and effigy were located under the high altar of the church, where they are today.Footnote 7
In 1855 her effigy was modified (Fig. 1): her face and hands were tinted in flesh tones; her clothing was transformed into the white tunic, black mantle and white veil of a Dominican tertiary; the two pillows under her head were painted dark red; and a metal crown and a necklace were added as votive gifts. In 2000 Father Giovanni Monti, prior of the Minerva, decided to have Saint Catherine's tomb restored to its fifteenth-century appearance: an elegant white marble effigy of Catherine above a marble sarcophagus with gilded highlights (Fig. 2).Footnote 8
Fig. 1. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Saint Catherine's tomb before the restoration of 2000. (Photo: Alinari Archives — Alinari Archive, Florence.)
Fig. 2. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Saint Catherine's tomb after the restoration of 2000. (Photo: author.)
THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA
In order to grasp the significance of the various locations of Catherine's tomb, one needs to understand some aspects of the history and layout of the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva (Figs 3 and 4). Between 1255 and 1275 the nuns of Santa Maria in Campo Marzo ceded a small eighth-century church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva to the Dominican friars. From 1280 onwards, the Dominicans built a much larger basilica on the site, as their second church in Rome, the first being Santa Sabina, where they continued to serve.Footnote 9 The reason they wanted a second church was that Santa Sabina on the Aventine was far from where most people lived, whereas the Minerva was located in a more densely inhabited neighbourhood near the Pantheon.Footnote 10 Over the centuries they set up a large convent there, which by 1320 housed 50 friars.Footnote 11
Fig. 3. G. Fontana, S. Maria sopra Minerva, plan, 1838, detail. Photo U. Fi. C I, 131 g: Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome, with labels and site of choir added by author. (Reproduced courtesy of the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome.)
Fig. 4. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, interior. Photo U. Pl. D 33940: Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome. (Reproduced courtesy of the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome.)
The Dominicans built the church in the Gothic style, and indeed it was the only truly Gothic church in medieval Rome. It had a nave six bays long, two aisles, a transept and a polygonal apse, which was flanked by two stepped chapels on either side (Fig. 3). From the fourteenth century onwards other chapels were added to the building, one at either end of the transept, and six opening off each of the aisles. Apart from three doors in the west façade, there was one side entrance in the north aisle and another in the south aisle, as well as a door in the north transept close to the sacristy.
In the nineteenth century it was believed that the medieval church was designed and built by Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro, the Dominican lay-brothers and master builders who constructed Santa Maria Novella in Florence.Footnote 12 In 1848 Fra Girolamo Bianchedì, also a Dominican lay-brother, began to restore Santa Maria sopra Minerva according to neo-Gothic principles.Footnote 13 Bianchedì first analysed the building and then drew up plans to correct what he thought were its deficiencies.Footnote 14 He changed the semicircular arch at the entrance to the sanctuary into a pointed arch; he demolished the upper part of the apse (which had been restored in 1614) and inserted new pointed windows and ribbed vaulting; he replaced the rectangular sixteenth-century windows in the clerestory with rose windows; and he made the arches throughout the building more pointed (Fig. 4).Footnote 15 He managed to restore the structure of the church before he died in 1849, but the interior decoration was left incomplete. Then work stopped amid the political tensions c. 1849–50, when Pope Pius IX (1846–78) had to flee to Gaeta. After these setbacks, the interior was embellished with stained glass and frescoes, while real or fake marble covered the piers. This work was finished in 1855, when Pius IX rededicated the church.Footnote 16 The reordering included moving Saint Catherine's tomb to a prominent position under a new, neo-gothic high altar (Figs 1 and 2).
NARRATION: CATHERINE'S DEATH AND BURIAL
There are several historical sources for Catherine's life, including letters from eyewitnesses and early biographies. Raymond of Capua (1330–99), who completed his Legenda Maior in 1395, tells of Catherine's final years in Rome, her death, and what happened immediately afterwards.Footnote 17 In the early fifteenth century Tommaso Antonio of Siena, known as ‘Caffarini’ (1350–c. 1434), composed an abbreviated version of Raymond's life, entitled the Legenda Minor in Latin, or the Leggenda minore in Italian;Footnote 18 between 1401 and 1418 he wrote another work on Catherine, his Libellus de Supplemento.Footnote 19 In addition, he and some other Dominicans referred to Catherine's death at the Processo Castellano, a diocesan enquiry held in 1411–16 into the Dominican cult of Catherine in Venice before she was canonized.Footnote 20 From these historical sources, one can reconstruct the main events surrounding her death and burial.
Raymond, who had been Catherine's spiritual director from 1374 to 1378, explained that Pope Urban VI summoned her to Rome in November 1378, shortly after the election of a rival pope, Clement VII, plunged the Church into the Great Schism, which lasted from 1378 to 1417.Footnote 21 During the last two years of her life, Catherine stayed in Rome, walking almost every day to Saint Peter's to pray for the Church, and, according to Raymond, waging an intense spiritual battle against evil, which he considered a form of martyrdom.Footnote 22 As was normal with Catherine, she came to Rome with numerous disciples, men and women who formed her spiritual ‘family’ and who referred to her as ‘Mamma’. Raymond states that she and her followers lived in ‘Via del Papa, between the Minerva and Campo dei Fiori’.Footnote 23 She died at home surrounded by her disciples.
One of her disciples, Barduccio Canigiani, described her death in a letter immediately afterwards.Footnote 24 As Catherine neared the end of her life, her followers in Rome came to her deathbed. She prayed for each of them in turn, gave them advice, and she interceded for the Church and for the pope. She was very conscious of her sins, and twice received absolution. After a great struggle with the devil, she called for mercy through the precious blood of Jesus. Finally, having pronounced the words, ‘Father, into Thy Hands I commend my spirit’, she bowed her head, and expired.Footnote 25
Raymond was not present at her death, because in December 1378 he had become provincial of the Dominican province of Lombardy, and in April 1380 he was in Genoa.Footnote 26 Nevertheless, he recorded that his information came from eyewitnesses among Catherine's followers, thereby attesting its credibility.Footnote 27 While he himself had an intimation that Catherine had died,Footnote 28 he also mentioned the vision of a Roman woman called Semia, who saw Catherine as a young girl surrounded by saints and angels in heaven; there were three crowns on her head, one on top of the other — the lowest of silver, the middle one of gold mixed with silver that had a reddish glow, and the highest of pure gold inset with jewels.Footnote 29 Semia ran to Catherine's house, but found it locked up, for Catherine's disciples wanted to grieve in private, and they were perplexed about what to do. Finally, they decided to take Catherine's body to Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and request she be buried there.Footnote 30
Stefano Maconi, who on Catherine's advice became a Carthusian monk after her death,Footnote 31 recalled in 1411–16 how Catherine had died in his presence, and he had carried her body in his own hands to the Minerva.Footnote 32 Before Catherine's funeral, her body lay in the church for three days. When news of her death spread through Rome, many people were deeply moved, and a large crowd gathered, seeking her intercession. Her followers and the friars were afraid they would remove parts of her clothing and parts of her body to take home as relics.Footnote 33 For this reason, said Raymond, ‘they laid the corpse behind the iron railings in Saint Dominic's chapel in the church’.Footnote 34
This chapel was at the northern end of the transept, not far from the campanile and the door leading to the sacristy (Fig. 3).Footnote 35 Giacomo Alberini, a Roman citizen, had constructed it, probably shortly after 1350, and he had also paid for the nearby stairs from the sacristy to the dormitory, and for the doors of the sacristy and the bell-tower.Footnote 36 The Alberini family remained patrons of the chapel until 1634, when it was ceded to Alessandro Rondanini.Footnote 37 Through the centuries the chapel has been in this location, where Pope Benedict XIII totally rebuilt it in 1724.Footnote 38
The location of the chapel, the stairs and the sacristy is related to how the medieval Dominican friars used the church liturgically. Each morning they came down the stairs from the dormitory, and walked past the sacristy and Saint Dominic's chapel on their way to the enclosed choir in the church to celebrate the divine office (Fig. 3). Ambrosio Brandi's Cronica described the medieval choir in the nave of the church with altars around its exterior, where Mass was celebrated.Footnote 39 When the transfer of the choir to the apse was planned in 1539, reference was made to freeing the piers of the church, so that people could walk between them.Footnote 40 This suggests that the choir originally took up most of the eastern half of the nave with its enclosing partitions close to the piers.
From 1249 onwards, Dominican churches usually had their interior space clearly divided into two parts: in the east, the interior or friars' church, for the religious community, including the choir; in the west, the ‘exterior church’ for the lay congregation.Footnote 41 At Santa Sabina from 1238 onwards there was also an intermediary wall or ‘tramezzo’ built across the nave and aisles to mark this separation (Fig. 5).Footnote 42 At Santa Maria sopra Minerva, there is no mention of such a dividing wall. Raymond described protective railings closing the chapel of Saint Dominic in 1380, but he did not refer to a wall preventing people from entering the eastern half of the church. On the contrary, he said that many men, women and children came to venerate Catherine at Saint Dominic's chapel, and many were healed.Footnote 43
Fig. 5. Santa Sabina reconstruction. (Drawing J.M. Blake and author.)
Giovanni of Siena, an Augustinian Hermit, climbed into the pulpit, wanting to speak of Catherine's virtues, but he could not make himself heard over the hubbub, so he climbed down again, muttering that Catherine had no need of such sermons.Footnote 44 In a church belonging to the Order of Preachers, the pulpit was an important feature. Yet it is not clear exactly where it was located in Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Going on other mendicant churches, it may have been on top of the west wall of the choir, or against one of the aisle walls near the lay section of the church.Footnote 45
Raymond reported several miracles that happened in his absence, and also one that occurred when he came back to Rome, after he had been elected Master General of the Order of Preachers on 12 May 1380, an outcome he claimed Catherine had predicted.Footnote 46 The exact date Raymond returned to Rome is not known, but Father Timoteo Centi rightly argued that it must have been before 1382, because Raymond said that Alessia Saraceni was present at the miracle he witnessed in Rome, and she died in 1382.Footnote 47 Bianchi suggested convincingly that Raymond could have returned to Rome as early as September 1380.Footnote 48
Stefano Maconi recalled in 1411–16 that Catherine's body was placed in a coffin of cypress wood and then in a tomb of marble.Footnote 49 It is likely that the wooden coffin was needed immediately for her burial, while the marble monument was provided later. In a letter dated 30 May 1381 Maconi stated that very shortly after Catherine's death about 30 golden florins were paid for the ‘sacred vessel’ — meaning Catherine's body — and hence for her burial.Footnote 50 Besides, in a letter written in December 1380 Bartolomeo Dominici stated that 20 florins were paid at the time of her death.Footnote 51 Bianchi suggested that these two sums paid for Catherine's first tomb, perhaps the 30 florins for the casket of cypress wood, and the 20 florins for sculptural decoration of the monument.Footnote 52
Caffarini was in Bologna when Catherine died, so, when he wrote his works in the early fifteenth century, he mostly followed Raymond's account of her death and burial, while adding a few details of his own. In his Libellus de Supplemento, he stated that Catherine was interred in an alien grave made of stone.Footnote 53 He also noted that she was buried in a wooden coffin, and then in a beautiful marble tomb raised above the ground and located near the high altar of the church, where Pope Urban VI and the secular rulers of Rome came to honour her.Footnote 54 Again, the wooden coffin may have been for her initial burial, the marble tomb a later construction. Caffarini's recollection of its being near the high altar may reflect where he saw it some time after her death. It may refer not to its first, but to its second, location.
The exact place of Catherine's first burial is unknown. Until 1965 it was assumed that she was interred in the common cemetery of the convent, and that Raymond on his return to Rome created a new tomb, moving her from the cemetery into the church.Footnote 55 This would correspond with the two phases mentioned by the early sources: first in a wooden coffin, and then in a marble tomb. New studies have shown that medieval Dominicans had common cemeteries for lay people beside, in front of, and sometimes extending into their churches and cloisters.Footnote 56 If Catherine's original tomb were located in the cemetery at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, it would have been where the present cloister and northern side chapels were built in the sixteenth century; there was in that place an earlier medieval cloister, which Brandi described as being low and dark with ledges surmounted by twin colonnettes, next to the church, and surrounding the cemetery.Footnote 57
Caffarini also mentioned that rainwater was coming down upon Catherine's tomb.Footnote 58 This suggests that Catherine's first grave was out in the open. Centi, however, claimed that from her death until the nineteenth century Catherine's tomb was located in the chapel south of the apse; he suggested that the problem of rainwater was due to humidity inside the building, or a leak in the roof.Footnote 59 Hence, when Raymond came to Rome and saw the condition of Catherine's tomb, he needed only to fix the gutters on the chapel's roof.Footnote 60 This theory is not very convincing, for if the original grave were in the chapel, it would have been in an enclosed and possibly vaulted space; and the defective guttering may have been merely a figment of Centi's imagination.
It is clear, moreover, that Raymond really did move Catherine's body to a different tomb. Dominici in 1411–16 stated that Raymond had told him personally that he had moved Catherine ‘from one tomb to another’.Footnote 61 Raymond also wrote that Catherine had prophesied that he would translate her body on the eve of Saint Francis's feast-day (4 October).Footnote 62 If he returned to Rome in September 1380, this translation could have taken place as early as 3 October 1380, which is before early writers located the tomb in the church. There must have been a first grave where Catherine was buried, before Raymond translated her to another tomb. It is plausible that the first grave was located outside in the open-air cemetery beside the church, or in one of the ambulatories of the medieval cloister, a rather open space not well protected from the weather.
TRANSLATIONS
(1) RAYMOND'S TOMB, C. 1380
When Raymond returned to Rome, he translated Catherine from her first grave to a new tomb, and he took the opportunity to provide relics of the saint. He cut off her head, which Dominican Friars Tommaso della Fonte and Ambrogio di Luigi Sansedoni took to Siena, where it was placed in a reliquary of gilded copper.Footnote 63 At first it was kept secretly in the convent, until the head was taken in a solemn procession through Siena in 1385.Footnote 64 Raymond also placed her right arm in a silver reliquary, to be kept in the sacristy at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, ‘to serve the devotion of the faithful’.Footnote 65
A stone angel holding a scroll with an inscription was found in the bell-tower of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in 1867, and is believed to have been part of Raymond's monument for Catherine (Fig. 6).Footnote 66 The angel is a half-length figure, 65.5 cm high and 82 cm wide, with symmetrical wings and a robe carved in a linear style with pointed folds, typical of Roman sculpture of the Late Middle Ages. The angel's scroll bears an inscription in Gothic lettering of the late fourteenth century: ‘Here rests the humble, worthy, prudent, and kindly Catherine. She had zeal for the dying world. She flourished under her mother, Lapa, and then under Dominic, her father. This pure virgin was born in Siena’.Footnote 67 Raymond probably composed the epitaph.Footnote 68 From its shape, it seems the angel was placed originally in a shallow niche in the wall above the marble coffin, standing on the floor of the church, in which Catherine was buried.Footnote 69 Such ‘niche tombs’, usually with a canopy as well, were common in Rome from the twelfth century onwards.Footnote 70
Fig. 6. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, angel from Blessed Catherine's tomb, c. 1380. (Photo: author.)
Recent accounts of Raymond's tomb do not mention a painting of Catherine near the sepulchre.Footnote 71 Ambrogio Tantucci, however, located Catherine's tomb in the floor of the south transept, precisely because there was in the eighteenth century a faded painting thought to represent Catherine on the southeasternmost pier of the nave.Footnote 72 By the mid-nineteenth century no trace of that painting survived,Footnote 73 and Tantucci's theory of the tomb's location and his assertion that it was a floor slab are now discounted.
None the less, it is recorded that Raymond, with the help of some of Catherine's followers, notably Lisa Colombini, promoted her cult by having paintings of her made.Footnote 74 In fact, historical sources record a painting close to her tomb showing Catherine giving some clothes to a beggar, and then having a vision of Christ wearing them.Footnote 75 Maconi mentioned Catherine's generosity in 1411–16, adding that it was represented in Rome near her tomb, a fact also mentioned by Caffarini.Footnote 76 Besides, a marginal note in a fifteenth-century manuscript refers to a ‘very ornately painted’ image of this scene in Rome.Footnote 77 Although no such painting survives at the Minerva, another version of the event was painted in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, and can still be seen in the apse of the Dominican nunnery church of San Sisto in Rome.Footnote 78 It is clear that, at that time, people in Rome venerated Catherine because she helped the poor.
A painted inscription on the San Sisto fresco calls Catherine ‘B(ea)TA KATHERINA DE SENIS’, indicating that she was ‘blessed’, but she was not yet a canonized saint. Instead of a round halo, she has golden rays around her head. Indeed, the Dominicans in 1411–16 asserted that at that time she was never depicted with the round halo, as was customary in images of saints, but she was always given a radiating diadem around her head, as was usual for people who were ‘blessed’.Footnote 79
Catherine has no halo in a fresco portrait of her with a devotee in the church of San Domenico in Siena first mentioned in 1399, and painted by Andrea Vanni (c. 1330–1413/14), who had known her personally.Footnote 80 In Venice in 1411–16 other images of Catherine in varied media were mentioned at the Processo Castellano and the witnesses were careful to note the radiating halo, and that scenes from her life were all taken from Raymond's Legenda Maior, which by then had become an official text on Catherine.Footnote 81
One can imagine Raymond's tomb as having a marble coffin, standing on the floor and against a wall, with the angel in a shallow niche above it, holding the inscription, and nearby a painting of Blessed Catherine's generosity to the beggar.
CATHERINE'S TOMB IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES
Catherine's remains were translated three times in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Saint Antoninus of Florence moved her tomb to a more conspicuous place in the chapel south of the sanctuary, and added the effigy of Catherine c. 1430. In 1466 her tomb was raised above the altar in the chapel, five years after her canonization, when the sarcophagus seen today replaced Raymond's marble coffin. In 1579 the chapel was rededicated to Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, and Catherine's tomb was placed under the altar in the chapel. The effigy of 1430 and the sarcophagus of 1466 survive, as restored in 2000.
In 2005 Giancarlo Gentilini published four pieces of fifteenth-century sculpture, which also seem to have been made for Catherine's tomb.Footnote 82 In addition, he published a letter, dated 28 April 1592, from the art/antique dealer Marco Antonio Dovizio to Baccio Valori, which listed eight items for sale: a relief with Saint Catherine of Siena being crowned and given a palm by Christ and the Madonna; three plaques with figures almost in the round of Saints Catherine, Dominic and Michael; and two large, and two smaller angels. (Gentilini identified the four pieces he published as the first four of these items, but the whereabouts of the four angels is unknown.) This sculpture was apparently discarded in the remaking of Catherine's tomb in 1579. Its rediscovery adds to what is known of the form and iconography of the tomb, c. 1430, in 1466, and in 1579.
(2) SAINT ANTONINUS'S MONUMENT FOR CATHERINE, C. 1430
Saint Antoninus of Florence was so deeply impressed by Catherine that he wrote a short biography of her, based on Raymond's volume.Footnote 83 He also reported that after her burial in the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, when he was prior of that convent, the body of the virgin was translated c. 1430, ‘… in the church to a more prominent place in the chapel next to the sanctuary in a marble tomb …’.Footnote 84 Here Antoninus seems to assert that Catherine had been buried in the convent before his time, but he probably meant by ‘convent’ both the priory and the church as a single entity, or he may have alluded to the fact that originally she was buried in the cloister cemetery.Footnote 85
The new tomb included the white marble effigy of Catherine, which recently was restored (Fig. 2).Footnote 86 According to the restorer, the figure was carved from a single block of Carrara marble. Before restoration the face, hands, mantle, feet and pillow were coloured, so as to make the effigy look like a contemporary nineteenth-century devotional statue (Fig. 1).Footnote 87 Chemical analysis of samples of the colouration showed that it all dated from 1855 and later.
Catherine is represented reclining on two pillows, on one of which is an inscription in early fifteenth-century letters, ‘BEATA KATERINA’, indicating that she had not yet been canonized. Bianchi noted that the effigy was tilted so that it could be seen at an angle, suggesting that originally it was placed high up and against a wall.Footnote 88 Nerger added that the figure's inclination was much as it is today.Footnote 89 As it was customary to have an effigy's feet pointing towards the altar, it seems likely that the tomb was located against the south wall of the chapel.Footnote 90 Sibylle Nerger considered the figure an early fifteenth-century work of high quality.Footnote 91 It is not known who made it. Since the Florentine Dominican Antoninus commissioned it, and the marble came from Carrara, it is likely that the effigy was produced by a Tuscan or Florentine artist.Footnote 92
Berthier compared Catherine's tomb with that of Saint Monica in the church of Sant'Agostino in Rome, and attributed it to Isaia of Pisa, who made the effigy of Saint Monica in the mid-fifteenth century.Footnote 93 Pope Eugene IV in April 1430 translated the relics of Saint Augustine's mother from the church of Sant'Aurea in Ostia to the church of San Trifone in Rome, and they were installed later in the fifteenth century in the new church of Sant'Agostino.Footnote 94 Saint Monica's effigy appears more rigid than Catherine's, and the figure is not tilted. The attribution of Catherine's image to Isaia of Pisa is not accepted nowadays.Footnote 95 Instead, her effigy has been assigned to an anonymous Roman sculptor, influenced by Florentine art.Footnote 96
Gentilini connected a fragmentary relief of the Madonna to Saint Antoninus's version of Catherine's tomb (Fig. 7).Footnote 97 The relief, which is now in a private collection, was clearly part of a lunette, since a curve begins in the upper section. The Virgin Mary is shown in profile, seated and looking down towards the viewer's right; she holds up a gothic crown in her left hand, and she has another in her right hand on her lap. Surrounding the Virgin are several small cherubs. The style of carving is typical of Donatello, to whom the relief has been attributed convincingly. It could have been made in Rome in 1430, since a letter dated 23 September 1430 from Poggio Bracciolini to Niccolò Niccoli documents the presence of Donatello in the city then.Footnote 98
Fig. 7. Attributed to Donatello, Madonna Holding Two Crowns, relief fragment from the tomb commissioned by Saint Antoninus of Florence (?), 1430. Private Collection. (Photo: courtesy of owner.)
Gentilini has connected this fragmentary relief with Dovizio's letter of 28 April 1592, which describes a relief by Donatello in the centre of which Saint Catherine of Siena was portrayed piously kneeling with her hands joined, while on her right (the viewer's left) the Madonna held a crown up in one hand and another over her chest, while on the saint's left (the viewer's right) Christ proffered a palm in his right hand and held a third crown in his left; in addition, these three figures were surrounded by eighteen small cherubs.Footnote 99 Further, Dovizio said the relief was in the shape of a lunette, 8 palmi (1.79 m) wide and 6 palmi (1.34 m) high.Footnote 100 The presence of Catherine points to her tomb, while the three crowns and the palm represent an interesting iconography.
The two crowns seen in the relief fragment are of a type depicted in scenes where a saint is awarded an ‘aureola’.Footnote 101 In the Middle Ages it was believed that at the hour of death certain holy people — virgins, martyrs and doctors of theology — were awarded such crowns as a mark of special distinction.Footnote 102 In the case of Catherine, this may be linked also to Semia's vision, recorded by Raymond, where she saw Catherine at the hour of her death wearing three superimposed crowns.Footnote 103 These crowns were distinct from the halo, which was depicted only after canonization, and which was not shown in visual representations of Catherine before 1461.Footnote 104 Several other later images represent Catherine of Siena with all three ‘aureolae’.Footnote 105 Although she was not technically a martyr (a person put to death as a witness to her faith), Raymond, the official authority on her life, asserted that her suffering in Rome was a kind of martyrdom.Footnote 106 In the relief Christ himself handed Catherine a palm, symbol of martyrdom, thereby confirming Raymond's assertion. The imagery concentrates on her heroic virtues as a virgin dedicated to Christ, a ‘martyr’ who suffered grievously for the Church of her day, and a woman who taught and wrote Christian doctrine. Moreover, the iconography is based on the ‘official text’ of Raymond's Legenda Maior.Footnote 107 Antoninus wrote that many people who had not yet been canonized by the Church might have been superior in virtue to others inscribed in the catalogue of saints.Footnote 108 He may be arguing that Catherine was such a person who, although she had not been canonized, was certainly remarkable for her virtue. This could be shown visually c. 1430 by the three ‘aureolae’, if not yet by a halo.
An inscription, which was near Catherine's tomb in the sixteenth century, began ‘Virginity, doctrine, faith and a most holy life give to your head, O Catherine, the aureola …’.Footnote 109 It was probably related to the relief and may have been written by Saint Antoninus.
Possibly the tomb with the effigy and the carved lunette above it was of a type common in medieval Rome, like that of Bishop William Durandus (died 1296), which is also in Santa Maria sopra Minerva (Fig. 8).Footnote 110 This, too, has a raised marble coffin, an effigy, a lunette (in mosaic) and an elaborate framing canopy. Two angels stand at the head and feet of the effigy drawing back curtains (Fig. 9). Dovizio's letter records four angels, two of which were 4.5 palmi (1.01 m) high.Footnote 111 Perhaps they also formed part of Antoninus's monument for Catherine.
Fig. 8. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Tomb of Durandus, c. 1295. Photo: serie E54325, Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione. (Reproduced courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali — Istituto per il Catalogo e la Documentazione.)
Fig. 9. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Tomb of Durandus, c. 1295, detail: angel. Photo: serie N 71932, Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione. (Reproduced courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali — Istituto per il Catalogo e la Documentazione.)
(3) SAINT CATHERINE'S TOMB AFTER HER CANONIZATION
In 1449 patronage of the chapel south of the apse was transferred to Cardinal Domenico Capranica (1400–58), and his heirs.Footnote 112 His brother, Cardinal Angelo Capranica (1410–78) promoted Catherine's canonization, which was proclaimed on 29 June 1461 by the Sienese Pope Pius II Piccolomini (1458–64), who had begun his ecclesiastical career as Cardinal Domenico Capranica's secretary.Footnote 113 Pius II promulgated Catherine's sainthood in a papal bull; he pronounced an oration at the canonization ceremony; and he wrote three hymns in her honour for the new Office of her feast-day.Footnote 114 As he inscribed Catherine in the catalogue of virgin saints, he praised her vocation to virginity; the austerity of her life expressed in fasting and penance; her service of the poor, the sick and the imprisoned; her prudent speech and writings, filled with wisdom and doctrine that was infused rather than learned; her efforts to make peace between Florence and the papacy; her dedication to the Church in Rome; and the many miracles ascribed to her intercession.Footnote 115 Possibly one of his hymns was sung at the monastery of Santa Maria de Oliveto on 2 May 1462, when he recorded that in the refectory, ‘he introduced musicians who sang to them, while they ate, a new song about Saint Catherine of Siena so sweetly that they brought tears of joy to the eyes of all the monks’.Footnote 116
In 1466 Cardinal Angelo Capranica made further changes to Catherine's tomb.Footnote 117 Saint Catherine's monument was now placed above the altar in the chapel.Footnote 118 It became a place of pilgrimage, and Pius II granted visitors an indulgence.Footnote 119 A Sienese society, known as the ‘Compagnia della Nazione Senese’ or the ‘Compagnia di Santa Caterina presso la tomba’ began to meet there from c. 1470 onwards.Footnote 120
Beneath the effigy of 1430 there is now a sarcophagus with the inscription ‘Saint Catherine, Virgin of Siena, of the Order of Penitents of Saint Dominic’ (Figs 1 and 2).Footnote 121 The inscription calls her a saint, showing that the sarcophagus was made after her canonization. The ‘Order of Penitents’ refers to the Dominican Third Order, to which Catherine belonged, as opposed to the Second Order of cloistered nuns, and the First Order of Friars Preachers.
The restorer, after examining the sarcophagus closely, described it as ancient, but all the carving as sculpted between 1461 and 1466.Footnote 122 It seems to have been refashioned specifically for this translation of Catherine's remains.Footnote 123 (Brandi noted that Catherine's earlier sarcophagus was relocated in the large dormitory of the convent;Footnote 124 but it has not survived until today.)
The decoration of the sarcophagus was inspired by ancient Roman art. It has been attributed to Paolo di Mariano da Sezze, known as ‘Paolo Romano’.Footnote 125 In the front two small angels, dressed in short tunics, hold up a ‘tabula ansata’, a plaque with pointed handles, on which the inscription was carved. Around them are swirls of acanthus. These are all motifs all'antica. The two angels combine features from ancient sarcophagi of the second and third centuries ad, which had either two female winged victory figures, or two naked male amorini holding a central motif with an inscription (Figs 10 and 11). Examples of such Roman sarcophagi survive in Rome, Pisa and Florence. This ancient motif was also used in Byzantine art.Footnote 126
Fig. 10. Sarcophagus of Ulpia Domnina, end of second–early third centuries ad, Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano (Terme di Diocleziano), inv. 125891. (Photo: author.)
Fig. 11. Sarcophagus of Flavia Sextiliane, ad 120–50, Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano (Terme di Diocleziano), inv. 128578. (Photo: author.)
In the late thirteenth century Arnolfo di Cambio carved two angels flanking a ‘rose window’ on the tympana of his ciborium over the high altar at San Paolo fuori le Mura.Footnote 127 This in turn may have influenced a similar carving of two angels flanking an inscription in the tympanum over the door of the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnoli (now Sacro Cuore) facing Piazza Navona in Rome, where Mino da Fiesole collaborated with Paolo Romano, as attested by their ‘signatures’ on the relief, ‘OPUS MINI’ and ‘OPUS PAOLI’.Footnote 128
In the fifteenth century Florentine sculptors used this imagery to decorate tombs. On the monument to Leonardo Bruni in Santa Croce in Florence Bernardo Rossellino in 1449–51 carved a pair of angels holding an inscription commemorating the humanist scholar.Footnote 129 Luca della Robbia in 1450 decorated the tomb of Bishop Benozzo Federighi in the church of Santissima Trinità in Florence with a similar design.Footnote 130 Mino da Fiesole carved amorini displaying an inscription in a tabula ansata on the tomb of Bernardo Guigni in the Badia in Florence in 1466–8; and in 1469–81 he decorated the tomb of Count Hugo of Tuscany, the tenth-century founder of the abbey, with angels flanking the inscription.Footnote 131 This monument differs from contemporary tombs in that it commemorates an important historical figure, and hence it has connotations of a reliquary.Footnote 132 Earlier, in 1425–8, Lorenzo Ghiberti had fashioned a bronze reliquary for the relics of Saints Protus, Hyacinth and Nemesius, in the shape of a sarcophagus with angels flanking an inscription on the chest, and acanthus scrolls on the lid.Footnote 133 He thus clearly transferred the motif all'antica from sarcophagus to reliquary, making it suitable for the coffin of a saint. There is also a third-century sarcophagus with flying amorini and other figures at Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura, to which the portrait of Saint Agnes was later added.Footnote 134
On Saint Catherine's sarcophagus the acanthus scrolls and other parts of the surface are highlighted in gold. Nerger said the gold was applied in different layers.Footnote 135 From an analysis of its chemical composition, she discerned that one layer was added in the nineteenth century, another in the eighteenth, and a much earlier layer most probably in the fifteenth century. Only the earliest layer has been retained. She also found that the inscription originally was written in gold letters on a white background.Footnote 136 Gold highlights were used in sculptural reliefs in Rome in the second half of the fifteenth century, as can be seen in Mino da Fiesole's marble tabernacle in Santa Maria in Trastevere, and on some tombs by Andrea Bregno.
The sides of the casket are not straight, but have a slight ‘S’ curve (Fig. 12). This is a feature seen in some fifteenth-century tombs. The monument to Marsuppini in Santa Croce in Florence has a curved coffin, and in San Lorenzo in Damaso in Rome a small sepulchral monument made by an unknown artist for Giuliano Galli, who died in 1478, has an S-shaped base.Footnote 137 On each of the short sides of Catherine's sarcophagus an acanthus plant and two small birds were painted in the nineteenth century.Footnote 138
Fig. 12. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Saint Catherine's tomb after the restoration of 2000, detail. (Photo: author.)
At either end on the front of the sarcophagus there are carved some feathers (Fig. 12), which earlier authors thought belonged to ancient mythical winged figures, such as gryphons, sphinxes or harpies.Footnote 139 Moreover, there is evidence that the sides of the sarcophagus have been cut, to make it shorter.
At the ends of Roman sarcophagi of this type there were often additional figures, such as winged amorini holding torches, which are aflame and held upwards,Footnote 140 or held downwards, with the flame snuffed out, symbolic of death (Figs 10 and 11).Footnote 141 These figures had wings.
Lidia Bianchi found a nineteenth-century print by Luigi Banzo, which she thought illustrated the original appearance of Catherine's sarcophagus, showing two hybrid winged figures at either end under the saint's head and feet (Fig. 13).Footnote 142 These mythical creatures had human heads, birds' wings, animal feet, and tails that became swirls of acanthus ornament. Now in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the tomb of Florentine Francesco Tornabuoni, made by Mino da Fiesole in the late fifteenth century, has precisely these features (Fig. 14). Under the effigy's head and feet there are two winged figures with human heads and animal feet.Footnote 143 Nerger demonstrated, however, from the way the marble of Catherine's coffin was cut that it had been shortened long before the nineteenth-century print was made, most probably in the sixteenth century.Footnote 144 Banzo's print is therefore an imaginative reconstruction, most likely inspired by the Tornabuoni tomb. Moreover, if one compares Banzo's image of Catherine's tomb with what remains today, one can see that there is no room for mythical figures under the head and feet of the effigy. If there were winged figures standing at either end of the sarcophagus, it is more likely that they were angels holding candelabra. Angels with candelabra decorated some fifteenth-century Roman tombs, as can be seen on either side of the effigy of Giovanni Alberini in the northeastern chapel of the transept at Santa Maria sopra Minerva (Fig. 15). Besides, two angels holding lights are mentioned in Dovizio's letter.Footnote 145
Fig. 13. Luigi Banzo, Print Commemorating the Recognition of Saint Catherine's Relics, Showing her Tomb, Rome, 1855. (Photo: Biblioteca Panizzi di Reggio Emilia, Gabinetto delle Stampe ‘Angelo Davoli’.)
Fig. 14. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Mino da Fiesole, tomb of Francesco Tornabuoni, late fifteenth century. Photo: serie E 54265, Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione. (Reproduced courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali — Istituto per il Catalogo e la Documentazione.)
Fig. 15. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, tomb of Giovanni Alberini, detail of angel with lamp, c. 1494. Photo: serie E 54312, Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione. (Reproduced courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali — Istituto per il Catalogo e la Documentazione.)
Similar imagery can be seen too at San Domenico in Siena, where in 1466–9 the reliquary for Catherine's head was inserted into a marble tabernacle carved by Giovanni di Stefano (1443–1504) (Fig. 16).Footnote 146 In the centre there is an opening with a grille, through which the relic can be viewed, and on either side stand two angels, while in a lunette above, there is an image of the saint with a lily surrounded by cherubs. Framing the tabernacle are fluted pilasters and acanthus scrolls, typical motifs all'antica. On the base an inscription requests Catherine to take care of the patron, Nicolo Benzi.Footnote 147
Fig. 16. Siena, San Domenico, Giovanni di Stefano, Chapel of Saint Catherine with tabernacle for relic, 1466–9. Photo: serie D 974, Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione. (Reproduced courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali — Istituto per il Catalogo e la Documentazione.)
In Dovizio's letter of 1592, apart from the two angels holding lights, 2.5 palmi (0.56 m) high,Footnote 148 he mentions three plaques with figures almost in the round, representing Saints Catherine, Dominic and Michael, of the same height.Footnote 149 Although Dovizio claimed that all these figures were by Donatello, Gentilini argued that the attribution was intended to impress a prospective buyer.Footnote 150 Gentilini published photographs of three figures of Saints Catherine, Dominic and Michael, all standing in classicizing niches, and whom he convincingly connected with the description in the letter; he attributed them stylistically not to Donatello, but to an artist close to Isaia of Pisa.Footnote 151 Saint Michael must have been on the left, because he looks towards the right, probably towards Saint Catherine in the centre; and Saint Dominic would have been on the right.
The relief with Saint Catherine in a niche (Fig. 17) is now in the entrance of the part of the Palazzo Odescalchi in Rome that fronts via del Corso. The dove of the Holy Spirit is in an entablature above her head, perhaps alluding to the infused wisdom she had received.Footnote 152 In this representation she is identified clearly as a saint by having a round halo: hence the relief was made after her canonization. It seems plausible that the three reliefs and the two angels holding candelabra were added to her tomb after she was canonized, when the monument was moved to its new place above the altar in the Capranica chapel. The angels have not survived, but the fact that they were the same height as the three saints argues for their inclusion in the tomb as it was remade in 1466.
Fig. 17. Attributed to an artist close to Isaia of Pisa, Saint Catherine in a niche, 1466 (?), high relief, Rome, Palazzo Odescalchi. (Photo: Beth Hay.)
One therefore can imagine this version of Catherine's monument above the chapel altar with the new sarcophagus, flanked by angels holding lights; the effigy of 1430 above the stone coffin; Saints Michael, Catherine and Dominic standing in niches; and the lunette by Donatello of the coronation of Saint Catherine with the three ‘aureolae’ at the top. Perhaps the two larger angels still flanked the effigy.
(4) SAINT CATHERINE'S TOMB IN 1579
When in 1571 papal forces defeated the Ottoman Turks at Lepanto, Dominican Pope Pius V (1566–72) attributed this victory to people praying the Rosary. At Santa Maria sopra Minerva there was a strong Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary. In 1573 they obtained permission from Father Angelo Capranica to hold their meetings in the Capranica chapel, to restructure it, and to rededicate it to Our Lady of the Rosary.Footnote 153 The agreement stipulated that frescoes of the life and mysteries of Saint Catherine, which had been planned by Camillo Capranica, should be painted on the walls of the chapel; that the fifteen mysteries of the Holy Rosary should be depicted also; that the members of the Confraternity could not be buried in the chapel; that the sepulchre of the Capranica family should be preserved; and that the tomb of Saint Catherine of Siena should remain in the chapel in perpetuity under the altar.Footnote 154 The chapel was then redecorated. On 4 October 1579 a painted banner of the Madonna and Child (Fig. 18), then attributed to Beato Angelico, but now to one of his followers, was brought in procession to the chapel and placed above the altar, while Catherine's coffin and effigy were placed below the altar.Footnote 155 The chapel ceiling was covered with scenes illustrating the mysteries of the Holy Rosary, while Giovanni de Vecchi (1536–1614) decorated the walls with episodes from the life of Saint Catherine in six large compartments.Footnote 156 Similarly, a cycle representing scenes from Saint Catherine's life by Sodoma had been painted in 1526–36, in Saint Catherine's chapel in San Domenico in Siena (partly visible in Fig. 16).Footnote 157
Fig. 18. Attributed to a follower of Beato Angelico, Our Lady of the Rosary, banner, c. 1450, Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Photo: serie E 60494, Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione. (Reproduced courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali — Istituto per il Catalogo e la Documentazione.)
The Sienese community in Rome was outraged by these changes. They protested that the statue of Saint Catherine had been moved; that her noble sepulchre had been demolished; and that the Dominicans no longer came to sing the praises of Catherine in the chapel.Footnote 158 They claimed the tomb of their saint had been violated and they introduced litigation, which continued until 1639, when two statues of Saints Dominic and Catherine were placed in the chapel on either side of the altar.Footnote 159
Only the effigy and the sarcophagus from the previous monument were retained. It is likely that at this time Catherine's sarcophagus was shortened at each end,Footnote 160 probably so as to fit it under the altar. Probably all the other pieces of sculpture from the tomb — the lunette, the three standing figures of saints, and the four angels — were all removed, as there was no room for them under the altar. Shortly after the tomb was dismantled in 1579, these pieces of sculpture were put on the market, hence Dovizio's letter of 1592.
(5) SAINT CATHERINE'S TOMB IN 1855
When the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva was restored in 1848–55, Saint Catherine's effigy and sarcophagus were taken out of the chapel and placed under the new high altar of the church, the focal point of the whole building (Fig. 1). At that time the effigy was modified and coloured. The relics of the saint were enclosed in a new silver box placed inside the sarcophagus. When in 2000 this sculpture was restored, the position of the tomb under the high altar was retained (Fig. 2).
Saint Catherine has been greatly venerated from the nineteenth century until today.Footnote 161 Perhaps because she had prayed strenuously for the papacy, Pius IX honoured her, at the time of the Italian Risorgimento. On the feast of Saint Dominic, 4 August 1855, the pope consecrated the altars of the restored church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. On the following day the Senators of Rome came to pay their respects to Catherine and to present a chalice in her honour in the morning; and then in the evening there was a papal procession with her relics through the streets of the surrounding neighbourhood.Footnote 162 After three more days of rituals connected with Saint Catherine, on 9 August the silver box containing her relics and a commemorative parchment were placed in the sarcophagus, on top of which was located the effigy.Footnote 163 Pius IX in 1866 made Catherine a co-patroness of Rome.Footnote 164 Still today on her feast-day the Roman Comune sends flowers to the church, and deputies attend a special Mass there. Pius XII proclaimed her joint patron of Italy with Saint Francis of Assisi in 1939.Footnote 165 In 1961, on the fifth centenary of her canonization, the friars at Santa Maria sopra Minerva inaugurated a new monument to Saint Catherine near Castel Sant'Angelo.Footnote 166 Paul VI in October 1970 declared her and Saint Teresa of Avila the first two female Doctors of the Church,Footnote 167 and in 1999 John Paul II included her among the six patron saints of Europe.Footnote 168 Today on her feast-day (29 April) visitors can enter the space under the high altar and behind the tomb, where there is enough room for two people at a time. This seems to be an imaginative reconstruction of how a saint's tomb was venerated in the Middle Ages. Something similar can be seen in stained glass windows at Canterbury Cathedral that show the veneration of Saint Thomas Becket, and in manuscript illuminations people are depicted climbing under the tombs of Saint Edward the Confessor and Saint Alban.Footnote 169
CONCLUSION
Historical narratives tell of Saint Catherine of Siena's death and burial, her miracles and her canonization. From these accounts one catches a glimpse of the liturgical layout of the medieval church, with its choir enclosure, but no tramezzo (Fig. 3). It has been argued that it is plausible that Catherine was first buried in the common cemetery in the medieval cloister at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and then Raymond of Capua, possibly as early as 3 October 1380, translated her to the chapel south of the sanctuary, later known as the Capranica chapel (Fig. 3). At that time her tomb consisted of a marble coffin placed on the floor, and an angel holding an inscription (Fig. 6) perhaps located in a shallow niche above the coffin; nearby there was a painting of Catherine's generosity to a beggar. Saint Antoninus of Florence c. 1430 moved the sepulchre to a more prominent position in the chapel, provided an effigy (Fig. 2), and most probably a relief by Donatello showing Christ and the Virgin Mary crowning Catherine with three ‘aureolae’ (Fig. 7). An inscription stated she was worthy of this distinction. Perhaps this version of the tomb included two angels at either end of the effigy. After her canonization in 1461 the saint's tomb was raised above the altar in the chapel, with a new sarcophagus bearing an appropriate inscription. It is likely that above the stone chest and the effigy there stood the high-relief figures of Saints Michael, Catherine (with a halo) (Fig. 17) and Dominic. Probably Donatello's relief was placed above them. Perhaps there were still two angels beside the effigy, while two smaller angels holding lights flanked the casket. When the chapel was rededicated to Our Lady of the Holy Rosary in 1579, all this was dismantled, the sarcophagus was shortened, and both it and the effigy were placed beneath the altar, while the other parts of the tomb were put up for sale. Finally, the nineteenth-century restorers adapted and coloured the effigy, and placed it and the sarcophagus under the high altar of the church. In 2000 the surviving fifteenth-century parts of the tomb were restored and replaced under the high altar.
From 1380 until today Catherine of Siena has been honoured at Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Her tomb remains the focus of veneration of a saint whose appeal has endured over the centuries right up to the present day. The sepulchre, the works of art associated with it, and the inscriptions reveal many facets of her life and character: as a ‘humble, worthy, prudent, and kindly’ person who helped the poor; who was distinguished for her virginity, suffering and sound doctrine; an intercessor for the papacy; a patron of Italy; a female Doctor of the Church; and a patron saint of Europe.
