Caterina Colombini (1304 ca.-1387) o della cugina sedotta. Una ‘ricostruzione’ della figura di Caterina attraverso i testi letterari, in Le vestigia dei gesuati. L’eredità culturale del Colombini e dei suoi seguaci, a cura di I. Gagliardi, Firenze, Firenze University Press, 2020, pp. 57-71 ISBN 978-88-5518-227-0

In this essay the author demonstrates that it is possible to reconstruct the figure of Caterina Colombini (1340?-1387) – Giovanni Colombini's cousin – through a group of texts: the hagiography of Caterina, the letters sent to her by Giovanni Colombini and, finally, Giovanni's biography written by Feo Belcari. The author divides his text into four parts: the first part analyzes the content of Caterina's hagiography; the second examines the linguistic form of the hagiographic text; in the third, the author analyzes the latent meaning of the window, a symbolic place where Giovanni and Caterina converse on divine topics; in the last part, to conclude, the teachings that Giovanni gives to Catherine and her spiritual daughters – the Gesuate – are analyzed.