hat they knew of her, and partly to MS. memorials left by her
confessor and others concerning her. Whence F. Echard calls this life a
work accurately written. It was printed in 4to. at Lucca, in 1594. Her
life was again compiled by F. Philip Galdi, confessor to the saint and
to the duchess of Urbino, and printed at Florence, in two vols. 4to., in
1622. FF. Michael Pio and John Lopez, of the same order, have given
abstracts of her life. See likewise Bened. XIV. de Can. Serv. Dei, t. 5,
inter Act. Can. 5. SS. Append.

A.D. 1589.

THE Ricci are an ancient family, which still subsists in a flourishing
condition in Tuscany. Peter de Ricci, the father of our saint, was
married to Catharine Bonza, a lady of suitable birth. The saint was born
at Florence in 1522, and called at her baptism Alexandrina: but she took
the name of Catharine at her religious profession. Having lost her
mother in her infancy, she was formed to virtue by a very pious
godmother, and whenever she was missing, she was always to be found on
her knees in some secret part of the house. When she was between six and
seven years old, her father placed her in the convent of Monticelli,
near the gates of Florence, where her aunt, Louisa de Ricci, was a nun.
This place was to her a paradise: at a distance from the noise and
tumult of the world, she served God without impediment or distraction.
After some years her father took her home. She continued her usual
exercises in the world as much as she was able; but the interruptions
and dissipation, inseparable from her station, gave her so much
uneasiness, that, with the consent of her father, which she obtained,
though with great difficulty, in the year 1535, the fourteenth of her
age, she received the religious veil in the convent of Dominicanesses at
Prat, in Tuscany, to which her uncle, F. Timothy de Ricci, was director.
God, in the merciful design to make her the spouse of his crucified Son,
and to imprint in her soul dispositions conformable to his, was pleased
to exercise her patience by rigorous trials. For two years she suffered
inexpressible pains under a complication of violent distempers, which
remedies themselves served only to increase. These sufferings she
sanctified by the interior dispositions with which she bore them, and
which she nourished principally by assiduous meditation on the passion
of Christ, in which she found an incredible relish, and a solid comfort
and joy. After the recovery of her he