ABSTRACT
Every year, on the weekend of, or following, 29 April – the day on which Catherine of Siena died in Rome in 1380 – her annual festival is celebrated in the city of her birth. Although the celebrations extend over an entire weekend, the principal events occur on the Sunday. In the morning, a procession takes place from the Palazzo Pubblico – the town hall of Siena – to the Sanctuary of Saint Catherine which is located near to San Domenico, the Dominican church in Siena, in the neighbourhood of Siena known as Fontebranda. The Sanctuary – built on the site of the house in which Catherine’s family lived – consists principally of a church, the Chiesa del SS. Crocifisso, that houses the wooden crucifix in front of which Catherine claimed to have experienced the stigmata in April 1375, and two oratories, the Oratorio della Cucina and the Oratorio della Camera, as well as a spacious courtyard and portico, the Portico dei Comuni, which acts as an entrance to the complex of buildings.1
