Ricci, Catherine Dei, (1522–90), Dominican nun. She was born of a wealthy Florentine family and entered the Dominican convent at nearby Prato, founded under Savonarola's influence, in 1535. Here she made her profession and became in turn novice-mistress, subprioress, and in 1552 prioress. Unusually she was confirmed in this office for life. A good administrator, she also enjoyed nursing the sick. She became much admired outside her convent for her wisdom and exceptional ‘psychological healthiness’. One of her admirers was Philip Neri who not only corresponded with her but is claimed to have talked to her from Rome while she was at Prato.

She is specially famous for her extraordinary ecstasies experienced every week from 1542 to 1554. On Thursday and Friday the Passion of Christ was experienced by her not just passively, but her bodily movements conformed exactly to those of Christ whose passion she witnessed. Although unconscious, she stretched out her hands for the arrest, she stood majestically for the scourging, and bent her head to receive the crown of thorns. These visions were accompanied by the impression of the stigmata: news of them caused much talk and frequent visitors. In 1554 the nuns prayed efficaciously for them to cease. Another curious phenomenon was that a gold and diamond ring, given her, it was claimed, in an ecstasy by Christ, was visible to Catherine alone: others saw only a red ‘lozenge’ and a circlet round her finger. She died after a long illness, patiently suffered.

The canonization cause, in which the ‘Devil's Advocate’ was the future Pope Benedict XIV, critically examined all relevant claims. Catherine's own enduring admiration for Savonarola and the difficult psycho-physical phenomena were not insurmountable obstacles. As in the case of her younger contemporary, Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, canonization was granted in 1746 not for extraordinary phenomena but for heroic virtue and complete union with Christ. A striking portrait, attributed to Nardini, survives in the Pinacoteca of Montepulciano. Feast: 2 February.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• Acta Canonizationis…Catharinae de Ricci (1749); Letters ed. by S. da Pisa (1912); G. di Agresti, S. Caterina de' Ricci, Fonti (1963), translated byJ. Petrie (1986); Lives by F. M. Capes (1905), G. Bertini (1935), and S. Razzi in Collana Ricciana Fonti (1965); B.L.S., ii. 18–19 and Bibl. SS., iii. 1044–5