Reading room

Letters

Catherine of Siena

Some 380 letters dictated between c. 1370 and 1380 (381 according to the most widely cited count; editions range between 373 and 383), addressed to two popes, cardinals, kings and queens, condottieri, city governments, friars, nuns, disciples, her mother and anonymous people. Almost all begin with the formula 'In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary' and end with 'Sweet Jesus, Jesus love'. They mix spiritual doctrine and concrete politics: the pope's return to Rome, peace with Florence, the crusade, the defence of Urban VI in the schism. Among them stand out the letters to Gregory XI, whom she calls babbo, the letter to Raymond on the execution of Niccolò di Toldo and the one recounting her experience of January 1380. Their vigour and imagery make them a monument of Italian prose.