[299] Even the little engraving of the title-page of the first edition of the Vita (1551), which shows Catherine kneeling before a crucifix, represents her, not indeed with a nimbus, but with a diadem upon her head.
[300] Reprinted in Vita, p. 282b.
[301] A little Prayer-book marker picture, which will, I think, have been first engraved in 1737, when the body was, as indeed it is to this hour, considered quite incorrupt, already gives the large paper rose which has lain ever since in the place of the mouth and nose, which have perished long ago. But I have been unable to test the claim to incorruption further back than this.
[302] Vita, pp. 165c, 27b, 277a. In this last passage Maria Fiesca makes a declaration as to the partial fleshiness and elasticity of the body, e.g. of the right shoulder; and as to its extraordinary weight.
[303] All three classes of cases are represented in Padre Maineri’s account, reproduced in the Vita, p. 282b, c.
[304] Maineri, in Vita, p. 278, b, c. The first edition of the Vita calls her “Beata” on its title-page. MS. “A,” of 1547, 1548, has simply “Madonna Catherineta Adorna” on the Franciscan copyist’s own title, and “Beata” on the title copied by him from the MS. used by him.
[305] There is evidence that the many-sided Queen took an interest in Catherine, in the Oratorian G. Parpera’s very careful Beata Caterina di Genova Illustrata, Genova, 1682. But the Index of her Latin (and Italian) MSS. in the Vatican Library contains no indication of any MS. “Life” or “Doctrine” possessed by Christina.
[306] The main facts and dates of these paragraphs devoted to the various Processes are derived from Padre Maineri’s very clear account, first published in 1737, and reprinted at the end of the Vita, pp. 278-282.
[307] Copy in MS. Vita in the Biblioteca della Missione.
[308] So Padre Celesia, op. cit. p. 1121.