ABSTRACT
Catherine of Siena (1347–80) was the daughter of Jacopo Benincasa, a Sienese dyer, and his wife Lapa. As an adolescent she refused to marry and led a solitary life of piety and mortification for some years in her own home. Her spiritual life became more focused after she became a Mantellata, i.e. a member of the Third Order of St Dominic. In the Middle Ages the Dominican Order or Order of Preachers, which had been founded to combat heresy by preaching and teaching, consisted of the First Order of Friars Preachers, the Second Order of enclosed nuns, sometimes called Dominicanesses, and a Third Order for women who lived under vows but in the world, either at home or in small groups, and engaged in works of mercy, caring for the sick and the poor.
