bring to bear on the popes had hitherto
failed to induce them to return. In these circumstances Catherine
determined to try her powers of persuasion and argument, attempting
first by correspondence to reconcile Gregory and the Florentines, who
had been placed under an interdict, and then going in person as the
representative of the latter to Avignon, where she arrived on the 18th
of June. Gregory empowered her to treat for peace, but the Florentine
ambassadors were first tardy and then faithless. Nothing daunted,
Catherine herself besought Gregory, who, indeed, was himself so minded,
to return, and he did so, in September (taking the sea route from
Marseilles to Genoa), though perhaps intending only to make a temporary
stay in Italy. Catherine went home by land and stayed for a month in
Genoa with Madonna Orietta Scotti, a noble lady of that city, at whose
house Gregory had a long colloquy with her, which encouraged him to push
on to Rome. To this year, 1376, belongs the admission to Catherine's
circle of disciples of Stefano di Corrado Maconi, a Sienese noble
distinguished by a character full of charm and purity, and her healing
of the bitter feud between his family and the Tolomei. Another family
quarrel, that of the Salimbeni at Rocca D'Orcia, was ended by her
intervention in 1377. This year also she turned the castle of Belcaro,
which had been given to her, into a monastery.

Meanwhile the returned pope was not having an easy time. Besides
perpetuating the strife with his enemies he was alienating his friends,
and finding it increasingly difficult to pay his mercenaries. He vented
his anger upon Catherine, who reproved him for minding temporal rather
than spiritual things, but in the beginning of 1378 sent her on an
embassy to Florence and especially to the Guelph party. While she was
urging the citizens to make peace with the pope there came the news of
his death. During the troubles that ensued in Florence Catherine nearly
lost her life in a popular tumult, and sorely regretted not winning her
heart's desire, "the red rose of martyrdom." Peace was signed with the
new pope, Urban VI., and Catherine, having thus accomplished her second
great political task, went home again to Siena. Thence on the outbreak
of the schism Urban summoned her to Rome, whither, somewhat reluctantly,
she journeyed with her now large spiritual family in November. Once
arrived she gave herself heartily to Urban's cause, and wore her slender