Honouring Two Female Saints
MANSUETI, Cristoforo.
Vita della beata Caterina di Bologna, raccolta da varii scrittori, dal molto rever. S. Christoforo Mansueti da Monte Chiaro. ‘In Roma, & ristampata in Bologna’, Giovanni Battista Bellagamba, 1599.
[bound with:] [TRIQUET, André.] Sommaire de la vie admirable de S. Aldegonde. Vierge angelique, miroir de vertus, patronne de Maubeuge. Par un père de la Compagnie de Iesus ... Liège, Jean Tournay, 1625. [and:] Petit exercice en l’honneur de la saincte & angelique Aldegonde, pour les chanoinesses tant seculieres de Maubeuge, que regulieres de la ville de Huy, les dames du soleil en la ville de S. Omer, & autres qui s’en voulant servir, se le pourront facilement accommoder. Liège, Jean Tournay, 1625.
Three works in one vol., 8vo; Vita: pp. [16], 208, [11 (index)], [3 (blank)], without final blank leaf; woodcut of St Catherine to title-page, woodcut initials, typographic head- and tailpieces; small tears at foot of title-page, two ink stains to p. 97, small loss at foot of last blank; Sommaire: pp. [12], 60; woodcut ‘IHS’ device to title-page, woodcut initials, headpieces; two ink stains to p. 1; Petit exercice: pp. 8; woodcut ‘MRA’ device to title-page; very good copies in seventeenth-century vellum over boards, yapp fore-edges, edges blue, title in manuscript to spine; ties wanting, spine dusty, boards rubbed; ownership inscription at head of first title ‘Collegii Soc[ieta]tis Jesu Louanii 1638'.
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Vita della beata Caterina di Bologna, raccolta da varii scrittori, dal molto rever. S. Christoforo Mansueti da Monte Chiaro.
Three very rare works on two female saints: the artist and writer St Catherine of Bologna (1413–1463), and the Frankish Benedictine abbess St Aldegund (c. 639–684).
The life of St Catherine of Bologna by the Montichiari priest Cristoforo Mansueti, here in the second edition (first Rome 1597), is reworked and expanded from an earlier sixteenth-century biography by Dionisio Paleotti. This edition is dedicated to the abbess and nuns of the Corpus Domini monastery in Bologna where St Catherine’s enthroned incorrupt body – depicted here on the title-page – sits on display to this day.
‘Artist and writer as well as a saint, Catherine is an impressive example of a specially gifted and devout later medieval woman ... After her father’s death she joined a group of Augustinian tertiaries at Ferrara ... At this time she was the community’s baker and feared that the glare of the oven would ruin her sight. Soon she became novice-mistress and wrote a treatise On the Seven Spiritual Weapons, largely autobiographical ... Her community had adopted the strict Rule of St Clare in 1432 ... [it] grew quickly and foundations were requested elsewhere in Italy, notably at Bologna. Catherine was chosen as superior, in spite of her protest that she was not fit to look after the chickens ... Her overwhelming kindness was the quality which attracted her most closely to her community. She frequently and devotedly visited the sick and like many true mystics she abhorred external publicity for visions ... she is honoured … as a patron saint of artists. Her miniatures are preserved in her convent’ (Oxford Dictionary of Saints).
St Aldegund, a near relation of the Merovingian royal family, is said to have ‘walked dry-shod over the Sambre, and built on its banks a small nunnery at a deserted place called Malbode. This foundation afterwards, under the name Maubeuge, became a famous abbey of Benedictine nuns, though at a later date these were replaced by canonesses’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). The biography of her here is by the Jesuit catechist and confessor André Triquet (1591-1668), himself a native of Maubeuge. The final item, a short devotional exercise, aimed at the canonesses of Maubeuge and other women, encourages its readers to meditate for seven days on Aldegund’s life and pray before an image of her.
Provenance: the Jesuit College of Louvain, Belgium.
Vita: No copies traced in the UK or US; EDIT16 CNCE 64409; USTC 840149. Sommaire: No copies traced in the UK or US; De Theux, Bibliographie Liégeoise p. 38; Sommervogel VIII, col. 249; USTC 1121166. Petit exercice: No copies traced in the UK or US; De Theux, Bibliographie Liégeoise p. 38; Sommervogel VIII, col. 249; USTC 1121167.