Latest / The Story of Italy: Rome, Renaissance, and the Birth of Modern Europe — Fexingo History / Catherine of Siena: The Mystic Who Shook the Papacy
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the big power players in fourteenth-century Italy — popes, emperors, mercenary captains, bankers. But there's one figure who doesn't fit any of those categories and yet, for a few years, was arguably one of the most influential people in Europe. Luna: Who's that? Lucas: Catherine of Siena. She was a laywoman, a mystic, born in 1347 to a large family in Siena. She never went to school, never learned to read or write until she was twenty — and then she started dictating letters. Hundreds of them. To popes, kings, cardinals, mercenary captains. And they actually listened. Luna: A woman with no official position telling popes what to do? How did that work? Lucas: It's extraordinary. She claimed direct communication with Christ, and her reputation for holiness was so powerful that even cynical politicians took her seriously. In 1376, at the height of the War of the Eight Saints — which we covered in episode 24 — she traveled to Avignon to personally persuade Pope Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome. And she succeeded. Luna: Wait, the pope was in Avignon at that point? Lucas: Yes, the Avignon Papacy had been going on since 1309 — popes living in France under French influence. Gregory XI was the seventh Avignon pope, and by the 1370s, many in Italy were demanding a return to Rome. Florence was actually at war with the Papal States over this and other issues — that's the War of the Eight Saints. Catherine stepped into the middle of it. Lucas: She wrote to Gregory XI in terms that were astonishingly direct. In one letter she said, 'Come, father, and do not wait for time, because time does not wait for you.' She told him it was God's will that he return to Rome. And in January 1377, Gregory did leave Avignon — arriving in Rome that same month. Luna: That's incredible. One woman essentially ended the Avignon Papacy? Lucas: Well, it wasn't just her — there were other pressures, including the threat of losing the Papal States entirely. But her role was significant and well-documented. Gregory himself credited her influence. Unfortunately, her success was short-lived. Gregory died in 1378, and the ensuing papal election sparked the Great Western Schism. Lucas: The cardinals, under pressure from a Roman mob, elected an Italian pope — Urban VI. But Urban turned out to be hostile and possibly mentally unstable, so many cardinals declared the election invalid and elected a rival, Clement VII, who set up shop back in Avignon. Suddenly Western Christendom had two popes. Luna: And Catherine? What did she do? Lucas: She backed Urban VI. She wrote letters to the French cardinals, to kings, to anyone who would listen, arguing that Urban was the legitimate pope and that the schism was a disaster for Christendom. She even offered to go to Avignon herself to negotiate, but that never happened. Lucas: She also traveled to Rome to be near Urban, and she continued her intense ascetic life — fasting, sleep deprivation, and mystical visions. Her health deteriorated rapidly, and she died in 1380 at just thirty-three years old. Her last letters were dictated from her deathbed. Luna: And what became of her legacy? Obviously she's a saint, but was she taken seriously after her death? Lucas: Very much so. She was canonized in 1461 by Pope Pius II, himself a Sienese humanist. In 1970, Pope Paul VI declared her a Doctor of the Church — one of only four women to hold that title, alongside Teresa of Ávila, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Hildegard of Bingen. Her writings, especially 'The Dialogue', are considered classics of mystical literature. Lucas: And she had a lasting impact on the idea of church reform. She wasn't a theologian in the academic sense, but she embodied a kind of prophetic authority that later reformers — including Savonarola — would draw on, though with very different methods. Luna: It's amazing that someone with no formal education could have that kind of influence. What made people believe her? Lucas: Part of it was the sheer intensity of her faith. She claimed to have received the stigmata, though she asked that it remain invisible. She performed acts of charity, like nursing plague victims. Her confessor and biographer, Raymond of Capua, spread her reputation. And in a time of crisis — war, plague, schism — people were hungry for authentic spiritual authority. Lucas: She also had a pragmatic side. Her letters are full of detailed political analysis. She knew the names of key players, the stakes of each conflict. She wasn't just a visionary; she was a shrewd strategist who used her moral authority to try to broker peace. Luna: So she's almost like a medieval version of a diplomatic envoy, but operating outside any official structure. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what makes her so fascinating for our story of Italy. She shows that power in this period wasn't only about armies or money. Spiritual capital was real, and Catherine wielded it masterfully — even if, in the end, she couldn't prevent the schism. Lucas: One more detail: after her death, her head was separated from her body and taken to Siena, where it's still preserved in the Basilica of San Domenico. Her body remains in Rome at Santa Maria sopra Minerva. So even in death, she's divided between the two cities she tried to unite. Luna: That's a poetic, if grim, ending. Lucas: It is. But then, her whole life was a kind of high-stakes drama played out on the stage of papal politics. And for a few years, a young woman from a Sienese dye-maker's family was the one writing the script.