Description
The Sanctuary of Saint Catherine is the house where Saint Catherine of Siena was born, in the Fontebranda district, turned into a sanctuary of porticoes, loggias and oratories. It stands on the Costa di Sant'Antonio, in an area that was once a quarter of wool workers, workshops and dye works.
Catherine was the daughter of the dyer Jacopo Benincasa. Right after her canonization, in 1461, the commune bought the house and the buildings next to it to make a sanctuary, and the transformations began in 1464.
The house can still be recognized by its Renaissance portal with the inscription "Sponsae Kristi Catherine Domus" and by the small loggia with terracotta columns.
You enter through the Portico dei Comuni d'Italia, in neo-Renaissance style, built to celebrate Pius XII's proclamation of Catherine as patron saint of Italy in 1939.
The name has a curious reason: begun in 1941, it was built with a symbolic sum, equal to the cost of one brick, paid by every Italian municipality. Work stopped for the war and was completed in 1947.
Further on is the Church of the Crucifix, built between 1614 and 1623 on the ground where, according to tradition, the Benincasa family's garden lay.
It keeps the Pisan-school crucifix, from the second half of the thirteenth century, before which Catherine received the stigmata in 1375 in the church of Santa Cristina in Pisa.
Opposite is the Oratory of the Kitchen: originally it was the Benincasa family's kitchen. Under the altar are the remains of the hearth, where, according to the story, Catherine fell into ecstasy on the burning embers and came out unharmed.
The walls are covered with canvases showing scenes from the saint's life, painted mostly between 1578 and 1635.
Going down the stairs you reach the Oratory of the Room, where you can see the cubicle in which Catherine slept, with the stone she used as a pillow. Lower down, the Oratory of the Dye Works stands where her father's dye works used to be.
The latter, also called the Oratory of Santa Caterina in Fontebranda, was turned into a church between 1465 and 1474 and belongs to the Oca contrada. This is how the sanctuary is visited, going down floor by floor to the place where the saint's family worked the wool.
Catherine was the daughter of the dyer Jacopo Benincasa. Right after her canonization, in 1461, the commune bought the house and the buildings next to it to make a sanctuary, and the transformations began in 1464.
The house can still be recognized by its Renaissance portal with the inscription "Sponsae Kristi Catherine Domus" and by the small loggia with terracotta columns.
You enter through the Portico dei Comuni d'Italia, in neo-Renaissance style, built to celebrate Pius XII's proclamation of Catherine as patron saint of Italy in 1939.
The name has a curious reason: begun in 1941, it was built with a symbolic sum, equal to the cost of one brick, paid by every Italian municipality. Work stopped for the war and was completed in 1947.
Further on is the Church of the Crucifix, built between 1614 and 1623 on the ground where, according to tradition, the Benincasa family's garden lay.
It keeps the Pisan-school crucifix, from the second half of the thirteenth century, before which Catherine received the stigmata in 1375 in the church of Santa Cristina in Pisa.
Opposite is the Oratory of the Kitchen: originally it was the Benincasa family's kitchen. Under the altar are the remains of the hearth, where, according to the story, Catherine fell into ecstasy on the burning embers and came out unharmed.
The walls are covered with canvases showing scenes from the saint's life, painted mostly between 1578 and 1635.
Going down the stairs you reach the Oratory of the Room, where you can see the cubicle in which Catherine slept, with the stone she used as a pillow. Lower down, the Oratory of the Dye Works stands where her father's dye works used to be.
The latter, also called the Oratory of Santa Caterina in Fontebranda, was turned into a church between 1465 and 1474 and belongs to the Oca contrada. This is how the sanctuary is visited, going down floor by floor to the place where the saint's family worked the wool.