And if she had joy over souls coming into the world, she had sorrow over souls leaving it. For in the single year 1502 she lost her only sister, Limbania, and her two elder brothers Jacopo and Giovanni. It is true that the Vita says: “There died several of her brothers and sisters; but, owing to the great union which she had with the tender will of God, she felt no pain, as though they had not been of her own blood.”[148] But then we have already often found how subject to caution and rebate are all such general, absolute statements; this passage in particular is, by its vagueness and ambiguity (she had but one sister of her own), stamped as late and more or less secondary; and we shall trace, later on, a similar even more extensive a priori modification of her authentic image in the Dialogo. Certainly her Wills show no kind of indifference to her own relations. In that of 1498 she specially and carefully remembered these very three relations; and in proportion as these two brothers’ children grow up and at all require her help, Catherine specially refers to and plans for them,—so for Jacobo’s eldest daughter Maria, in view of getting her married (Wills of 1498, 1503, 1506, 1509); and for Giovanni’s three sons (Wills of 1503, 1506, 1509). Jacobo’s second daughter seems also to have died at this time, as she no more appears after the Will of 1498. We shall see how exactly the same affectionate interest is shown by her towards her still remaining brother and his two sons.[149]
3. The Triptych “Maestà.”
And she evidently still went on increasing the number of the objects of her interest and affection, and the degree of her attachment to such objects as she already loved. For in her Codicil of the next year, January 1503, she gives a careful description of a picture now belonging to herself, “a ‘Majesty,’ representing the Virgin Mary with Saint Joseph, and the Lord Jesus at their feet, with her” (Fieschi-Adorni) “coat-of-arms painted within and without.” The picture evidently represented the Adoration of the Infant Jesus, and was painted on wood,—a triptych: with Catherine’s arms painted both inside and outside the two wings. She again describes it thus fully in her Wills of 1506 and 1509, leaving it, on all those occasions, to a certain Christofero de Clavaro (Christofer of Chiavari?). It is then quite clear both that this picture had been specially painted by some one for Catherine, and that Catherine, for some reason or reasons, greatly treasured it. Who then was the painter and what was the reason? I think both are not difficult to find.
We have seen how Catherine’s much-loved cousin, the widowed Tommasina Fiesca, had in 1497 moved into the Monastero Nuovo in the Aquasola quarter,—close to Catherine’s abode; so that the cousins will have met constantly from that time forward. We have also seen that this distinguished artist painted many a “Pietà” (the dead Christ on His Mother’s lap, possibly with Angels on each side), and executed a piece of needlework again representative of a group,—this time God the Father with many Angels above, and Christ below. Indeed Federico Alizeri has succeeded in rediscovering one of her works, a representation of Christ crowned with thorns and surrounded by the Instruments and Mysteries of His Passion, painted in fine outline upon sheepskin mounted on a wood-panel.[150] And we have seen how much Catherine had, as a child, been affected by a “Pietà,” and shall find her, even after this date, still affected by a religious picture. There can then be no reasonable doubt that Suor Tommasina was the painter and giver of this picture,—again a group, a “Maestà,” instead of the usual “Pietà.”
And the facts of Catherine caring to possess, to preserve, and to transmit something thus specially appropriated to herself, with her family arms upon a religious picture, are all deeply significant touches, and quite unlike what all the secondary, and even some of the primary, parts of the Vita would lead one to expect.
4. Increasing care for Thobia.
And this same Codicil shows us how her care, and no doubt her genuine affection, for Thobia was growing. For she now leaves her the income on two shares of the Bank of St. George (no doubt only a slight gift, about £2 10s. a year; but Catherine possesses but very little that she is free to leave as she likes, the claims upon her are very many, and the young woman is already well provided for, considering her social station), her better silk gown, a skirt, and various veils. The poor girl died in 1504 or 1505, for in Catherine’s Will of 1506 she appears as “the late Thobia.” She must have been about thirty years old at the time.
5. Argentina del Sale; story of Marco del Sale’s death.
But in lieu of poor Thobia, Catherine was now given by Providence a new lowly object of affection and interest. For it was doubtless in the late spring of 1505 that occurred the incident, of which we have the beautifully simple and naïf record in Chapter XLVI of the Vita; a record certainly based upon information supplied by Argentina, but which I take to be the literary work of Vernazza, and to be more or less contemporary with the events described. A humble young friend or acquaintance of Catherine’s, who had perhaps already been her occasional little day-servant, one Argentina de Ripalta, had now been away from her and married, for a year, to a poor navvy working in the Molo (Quay) quarter of the town; and this her husband, Marco del Sale, was now dangerously ill, indeed he was dying of a cancer in the face. And, having tried every kind of remedy, and seeing himself incurable, and being thus in great and hopeless pain, Marco had lost all patience and was as one beside himself. And then Argentina bethought herself of Catherine, and came to the Hospital, and begged her to come and see her husband, and pray to God for him.