-sensible while still
imprisoned in the flesh." The prayers (twenty-six in all) are mostly
mystical outpourings repeating the aspirations found in her other
writings. Of more interest are the letters, nearly four hundred in
number, and addressed to kings, popes, cardinals, bishops, conventual
bodies, political corporations and private individuals. Their
historical importance, their spiritual fragrance and their literary
value combine to put their author almost on a level with Petrarch as a
14th century letter-writer. Her language is the purest Tuscan of the
golden age of the Italian vernacular, and with spontaneous eloquence
she passes to and fro between spiritual counsel, domestic advice and
political guidance.

AUTHORITIES.--The sources for the personal life of Catherine of Siena
are (l) the _Vita_ or _Legenda_, Fra Raimondo's biography written
1384-1395, first published in Latin at Cologne, 1553, and widely
translated; (2) the _Processus_, a collection of testimonies and
letters by those of her followers who survived in 1411, and had to
justify the reverence paid to the memory of one yet uncanonized; (3)
the _Supplementum_ to Raimondo's _Vita_, compiled by Tommaso Caffarini
in 1414; (4) the _Legenda abbreviata_, Caffarini's summary of the
_Vita_, translated into beautiful Italian by Stefano Maconi; (5) the
_Letters_, of which the standard edition is that of Girolamo Gigli (2
vols., Siena, 1713, Lucca, 1721). A selection of these has been
published in English by V.D. Scudder (London, 1905). A complete
bibliography is given in E.G. Gardner's _Saint Catherine of Siena_
(London, 1907), a monumental study dealing with the religion, history
and literature of the 14th century in Italy as they centre "in the
work and personality of one of the most wonderful women that have ever
lived."

FOOTNOTE:

[1] See the study in Baron Fr. von Hugel's _Mystical Element in
Religion_ (1909).

CATHERINE I. (1683-1727), empress of Russia. The true character and
origin of this enigmatical woman were, until quite recently, among the
most obscure problems of Russian history. It now appears that she came
of a Lithuanian stock, and was one of the four children of a small
Catholic yeoman, Samuel Skovronsky; but her father died of the plague
while she was still a babe, the family scattered, and little Martha was
adopted by Pastor Gluck, the Protestant superintendent of the