Saint Catherine of Siena - Infinite Women

Born: 25 March 1347, Italy
Died: 29 April 1380
Country most active: Italy
Also known as: Caterina Benincasa

From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Saint Catherine of Siena was the daughter of a tradesman, and the youngest of a large family. With the first development of intelligence her religious passion revealed itself. When a child, she believed herself to have seen a holy vision, and became convinced that God Himself had come to call her to a better life. She gave up childish amusements, and, fasting and praying, even scourging herself, she filled her life with penances in the manner of the grown-up holy men and women about her.
Arrived at the age of maidenhood, she cut off her hair to make marriage impossible, and her infuriated mother sought to break her stubborn spirit by compelling her to take the place of a stubborn spirit by compelling her to take the place of a servant, kept for rough work in the kitchen. But Catherine made religious play out of her parents’ harshness, and went about diffusing radiance and a sober joy, bewildering those who wanted to see her crushed and penitent. The system of ill-treatment was soon abandoned, her father gave consent to the pursuance of a religious vocation, and Catherine became a member of the order of St. Dominic.
At the age of 18 she began to work in the world by her constant attendance at the hospitals and among the lepers. Gradually she extended her gracious influence to fallen sinners, and unfortunates condemned to death, her smile like some living radiance passing into the hearts of those she looked at. Forestalling the Christian Scientists, she healed the sick by prayer, while her mere enticements brought about the end of many virulent dissensions among the war-like Sienese.
During fifteen years she continued her noble work as a consoler and peace-maker in a violent age, beloved by the people, and listened to by popes and cardinals.
At the age of 33, her physical strength exhausted, she died, surrounded by a passion of regret and tenderness, and it is said, her body, until her burial, retained a wonderful beauty and fragrance.

From Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.:
SAINT AND LITERARY CELEBRITY.
CATHARINE of Siena was born in Siena in 1347, and early devoted herself to an austere life. The monks relate of this saint that she became a nun of the Dominic at the age of seven, that she saw numberless visions, and wrought many miracles while quite young, that she conversed face to face with Christ, and was actually married to him.
In 1365 she received the habit of the third order of St. Dominic, and soon became celebrated for her recluse life, revelations, and miraculous powers of conversion. Her influence was so great that she reconciled Pope Gregory XI to the people of Avignon, in 1376, after he had excommunicated them; and in 1377 she prevailed upon him to reestablish the pontifical seat at Rome, seventy years after Clement V. had removed it to France.
These public events in her life are hardly less extraordinary and surprising than those which obtained for her the preeminence of saintship. Especially the latter. To put an end to the papal court of Avignon, and to bring back the papacy to Italy, had been urgently pressed by both Petrarch and Dante, as well as by the French cardinals and the king of France; but without avail. The French pope’s own prejudices and wishes were even enlisted in opposition to removal. It was under such circumstances that Catharine tried her powers of persuasion and succeeded in moving the center of Europe back again to its old place in Rome after the princes of the Church and the greatest men of Italy had attempted it in vain.
One legend, among many which have sprung up and attached themselves to the life of this saint, is likely to cause most readers to feel an interest in her name. It is said that in revenge for the discomfiture of a company of heathen philosophers, with whom she had been compelled to dispute, the holy and learned lady was bound to a wheel with spikes, in such way that every turn of the machine would cause the spikes to pierce her body. But the cords were miraculously broken, and the malice of her enemies foiled. Hence St. Catharine, virgin and martyr, is always represented with a wheel.

The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Sanctified by Pio II, in the year 1461. In the literary field she was “as clean in her writing, as she was uncontaminated in her life.” Of her we have a large number of works of ascetic character. The Misciatelli writes: ‘The greatest poem of the XIV Century was that created by the sentiments and the visions of Dante Alighieri and Santa Caterina; the first a perfect exemplar of what can be a man, the second a splendid type of woman; of aristocratic blood the Poet, of good popular blood the Guide of men; both magnificent champions of a race created for victories. She died aged thirty-three, after long sufferings endured with admirable firmness and charity.