TO FACE PAGE
BEATRICE AND LUDOVICO KNEELING. ALTAR PIECE BY ZENALE AT BRERA[Frontispiece]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Anderson
STATUE IN WOOD OF ST. CATHERINE, BY NEROCCIO LANDI[2]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Lombardi
ST. CATHERINE’S HOUSE AT SIENA[16]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Lombardi
CATHERINE PRAYING AT AN EXECUTION. FRESCO BY SODOMA[18]
THE BRIDGE AT PAVIA[61]
BEATRICE D’ESTE. BUST IN THE LOUVRE[64]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Levy
PORTRAIT, PROBABLY OF CECILIA GALLERANI, SAID TO BE BY AMBROGIO DA PREDIS[90]
From the Collection of the Earl of Roden
LUCREZIA CRIVELLI, BY LEONARDO DA VINCI[96]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Mansell
PROBABLE PORTRAIT OF BIANCA SFORZA, WIFE OF GALEAZZO SANSEVERINO[98]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Mansell
CHURCH OF ST. MARIA DELLE GRAZIE AT MILAN[100]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Brogi
EFFIGY OF BEATRICE D’ESTE AT SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM[102]
FROM THE CALENDRIER, IN ANNE’S BOOK OF HOURS IN THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE, PARIS[120]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Berthaud
ANNE KNEELING. FROM THE BOOK OF HOURS IN THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE[128]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Berthaud
ST. URSULA. FROM ANNE’S BOOK OF HOURS IN THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE[140]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Berthaud
PROBABLE PORTRAIT OF LUCREZIA IN “ST. CATHERINE AND THE ELDERS,” BY PINTORRICCHIO[152]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Brogi
VIRGIN AND CHILD, BY PINTORRICCHIO, IN THE HALL OF ARTS AT THE VATICAN[159]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Anderson
THE ANNUNCIATION. FROM THE SERIES OF FRESCOES PAINTED BY PINTORRICCHIO AT THE VATICAN[171]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Anderson
SUSANNAH AND THE ELDERS. FROM THE SERIES OF FRESCOES PAINTED BY PINTORRICCHIO AT THE VATICAN[188]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Anderson
HEAD OF GASTON DE FOIX[206]
From the Monument at Milan
CHARLES V.[226]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Giraudon
MARGARET D’ANGOULÊME. FROM A DRAWING AFTER CORNEILLE DE LYON[248]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Giraudon
RENÉE OF FERRARA, AGED FIFTEEN, BY CORNEILLE DE LYON[254]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Giraudon
THE CASTELLO AT FERRARA[260]
RENÉE, DUCHESS OF FERRARA. FROM A DRAWING AT THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE[294]
From a Photograph by Messrs. Giraudon

QUEENS OF THE
RENAISSANCE

CATHERINE OF SIENA

1347-1380

CATHERINE of Siena does not actually belong to the Renaissance. At the same time she played an indirect part in furthering it, and she represented a strain of feeling which continued to the extreme limits of its duration. During the best period of the desire for culture, a successor—and imitator—of Catherine’s, Sister Lucia, became a craze in certain parts of Italy. Duke Ercole of Ferrara, then old and troubled about his soul, took as deep and personal an interest in enticing her to Ferrara as he did in the details of his son’s marriage to Lucrezia Borgia, just then being negotiated. The atmosphere Catherine created is never absent from the Renaissance. She fills out what is one-sided in the impression conveyed by the women who follow. She was also the contemporary of Petrarch and Boccaccio, the acknowledged forerunners of the intellectual awakening that came after them, and being so, is well within the dawn, faint though it still was, of the coming Renaissance day. Finally, in her own person she contained so much power and fascination that to omit her, when there exists the least excuse for inclusion, would be wilfully to neglect one of the most enchanting characters among the women of Italian history.

The daughter of a well-to-do tradesman, Giacomo Benincasa, Catherine was born in Siena in 1347. Her father possessed several pleasant qualities, and a great reserve of speech, hating inherently all licence of expression. Catherine’s mother, Lapa, on the other hand, belonged to an ordinary type of working woman—laborious, but irritable and narrow. She brought twenty-five children into the world, and her irascibility may have been not unconnected with this heroic achievement. The sons also, after their marriages, continued to live, with their wives—it being the custom at that time—under the parental roof. Even a sociable temperament would easily have found such a community difficult always to handle cordially.

STATUE IN WOOD OF ST. CATHERINE
BY NEROCCIO LANDI