Читать книгу The Mystical Element of Religion - Friedrich von Hügel - Страница 71

A sensible discussion of difficult or obscure points connected with her life occurs in the Bollandists’ Life of the Saint, written by Father Sticken in 1752 (Acta Sanctorum, September, Vol. V, ed. 1866, pp. 123-195). But the greater part of the discussion is vitiated by the assumption of the independent value, indeed of Catherine herself being the author, of the entirely secondary Dialogo; Sticken had not seen a single MS. life or document; and the most important part of her entire personality, her doctrine, had, according to the general plan of the work, to be passed over by him.

I have also had before me Alban Butler’s accurate compilation; Monseigneur Paul Fliche’s disappointing book, which, though he declares that he has consulted the MSS. Lives, is but a rhetorical amplification of the Life of 1551, with here and there a useful date or other detail added by himself (Paris, 1881); and the Rev. Baring Gould’s hasty and slipshod account, which completely ignores the “Works” (Lives of the Saints, Vol. X, ed. 1898).

But by far the most important printed matter which has hitherto appeared since 1551, indeed the only one which contains anything at all significant that is not already in the Vita ed Opere, is Sebastiano Vallebona’s booklet, La Perla dei Fieschi, Genova, 2nd ed., 1887, 109 pp. It publishes many a painstaking recovery and identification of various dates and sites, relationships, family documents and contemporary events; and has helped me greatly in such matters.