In The Saintly Politics of Catherine of Siena, F. Thomas Luongo combines literary-critical readings of Catherine's letters—she was the author of one of the largest collections of medieval letters—with political and social analysis, thus situating the saint firmly within her time and place. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, Luongo investigates how Catherine’s spiritual authority and sanctity were linked with contemporary political and cultural developments. He shows how the political situation of the Church in Italy and a culture that privileged female spirituality and prophetic speech facilitated Catherine’s emergence into a public role.
The Catherine that emerges from Luongo’s well-written pages is a splendid example of what can result when a historian asks fresh questions about a familiar figure’s life and brings new materials and methods to bear in formulating answers. The Saintly Politics of Catherine of Siena offers a more complex, more interesting, woman than the figure portrayed in most contemporary scholarship.
