The first addition (in the order of the Printed Vita) is the beautifully vivid and daring, certainly historical scene between Catherine and the Friar (Chapter XIX, pp. 51a-53b), a record doubtless due to Ettore Vernazza, and which will have been omitted by the Franciscan Scribe of MS. A from scruples with regard to the doctrine implied.
The second is Chapter XLIV, omitted from p. 117b to p. 121b,—Catherine’s declarations as to her lonely middle period and the account of her Confessions to Don Marabotto, undoubtedly here recorded by this Priest; matter again which the Franciscan Friar might well consider dangerously daring, but which, we have seen, had not yet been incorporated with the Franciscan’s Prototype, perhaps indeed not with any copy of the then extant Vita.
The third is the fourth paragraph of Chapter XLVIII, p. 133b, giving a new and beautiful description of the “Scintilla” experienced by Catherine on November 11, 1509. It is of late composition, and Battista Vernazza is no doubt its author.
The fourth consists of three new paragraphs to Chapter XLIX, descriptive of Maestro Boerio’s three-weeks’ attempt at curing her, sometime in May-July 1510 (pp. 146c-147c), and of evidently the same Physician’s visit in his scarlet robes on September 2 (p. 154b). Both passages, of transparent authenticity and still but little enlarged, will have been contributed by this Physician’s Priest-son Giovanni Boerio, who, dying in his seventies, in 1561,[458] must himself have been twenty at the time of his Father’s attendance, and may well have had his Father’s contemporary notes before him when composing these interestingly vivid contributions.
And the fifth brings three new paragraphs for the events of September 4, 1510 (Chapter L, pp. 155b-156a), already referred to here, on pp. 209, 210.
The MSS. read: “On the following day [4th September], being in great pain and torment, she extended her arms in suchwise as to appear in truth a body fixed to a cross; so that, according as she was interiorly, so also did she show in her exterior, and she said—”[459] Hereupon follows a long prayer so obviously modelled throughout upon Our Lord’s High-Priestly prayer (John xvii, 1-26), and so elaborately reflective, that it cannot but most distantly represent anything spoken now by her who had been so interjectional in her remarks ever since August 16 (pp. 149b-155b).—Now the Printed Vita introduces between “… exterior,” and “and she said,” the following account: “Whence, it appears to me, we should indeed believe that the spiritual stigmata were impressed in that body which was so afflicted and excruciated by her Love; and although they did not appear exteriorly, they nevertheless could easily be recognized through the Passion which she felt; and that she suffered in her body that pain which her Love had suffered on the Cross: as we read of the Apostle (Gal. vi [17]) who bore the stigmata of Our Lord Jesus Christ, not indeed exteriorly but interiorly, through the great love and desire which he felt within himself for his Lord.”
“In proof that this holy woman bore the stigmata interiorly, a large silver cup was ordered to be brought in, which had a very high-standing saucer”; the cup was “full of cold water, for refreshing her hands, in the palms of which, because of the great fire that burned within her, she felt intolerable pain. And on putting her hands into it, the water became so boiling that the cup and the very saucer were greatly heated. She also sustained great heat and much pain at her feet, and hence she kept them uncovered; and at her head she similarly suffered great heat with many pains.”
Argentina is then quoted as having seen how “one of” Catherine’s “arms lengthened itself out by more than half a palm beyond its usual length; yet she never said one word as to whence such great pains proceeded. It is true that, on one occasion, before her last infirmity, she predicted that she would have to suffer a great malady, which would not be natural but different from other infirmities, and that she would die of it; and that, before her death, she would have within herself (in sè) the Stigmata and the Mysteries of the Passion: and this the aforesaid Argentina revealed later on to many persons.
“Now this Beata being thus, with her arms extended, in pains so great that she could not move.…” And then follows the “said” with the long prayer, as given in the MSS.[460] Stigmatization is thus attributed, but in two degrees and of two kinds. “Spiritual Stigmata,” like St. Paul, who had them “through the great love and desire which he felt within himself for his Lord”: this is the conception of the writer of the first paragraph, doubtless Battista Vernazza. “Stigmata impressed within her body,” intense interior physical pain, proved to be such by the intense interior physical heat, and this heat proved by the insides of Catherine’s hands causing cold water to boil: this was no doubt Argentina’s view—at least as time went on. And note the interesting combination of both views effected by the Redactor in the clauses “the spiritual stigmata were impressed in her body,” “through the Passion which she felt,” and “she bore the stigmata interiorly.”