Feast Day: March 9
As a girl, Catherine de’Vigri was a maid of honor at the ducal court in Ferrara, in Italy. Well-educated at court, she joined a group of Franciscan tertiaries who later became Poor Clare nuns. In 1456, she went back to Bologna as abbess of a new convent. From an early age, she had experienced visions, some of which she judged to be temptations. But she effectively led her convent, while also exploring a talent for calligraphy and painting miniatures. Her Bologna convent still has a breviary she penned and ornamented, along with some of her unpublished writings in prose and verse.
