Saint of the Week: Catherine of Genoa
9/17/2025
Catherine of Genoa
Mystic and Nurse
1447 - 1510
Catherine of Genoa (Caterina Fieschi Adorno, 1447 – 15 September 1510) was an Italian Roman Catholic saint and mystic, admired for her work among the sick and the poor. We know much about her from various sources describing both these actions and her mystical experiences. Born into the noble Fieschi family of northern Italy, Catherine spent most of her life and means serving the sick, especially during two plagues which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501. She died in that city in 1510. Her fame outside her native city is largely due to the 1551 publication of a book translated into English as The Life and Doctrine of Saint Catherine of Genoa. Born in Genoa, she was the youngest of five siblings. At age 13, Catherine made it known that she wished to enter a convent but the nuns to whom her confessor applied on her behalf refused to accept her due her young age. After this Catherine appears to have put the idea aside without any further attempt. Her father died when Catherine was 16, and she was married according to her parents' wishes to a young Genoese nobleman, Giuliano Adorno. The marriage turned out to be a disaster. After ten years of marriage, she was converted by a mystical experience during confession on 22 March 1473. Thus began a life of closer union with God in prayer, without using forms of prayer such as the Rosary. She began to receive Communion almost daily, a practice extremely rare for lay people in the Middle Ages, especially a woman. She also began to experience remarkable mental and at times almost pathological episodes. She also committed the majority of her time to unselfishly ministering to the sick in a Genoese hospital. Her husband joined her after he, too, had been converted. Indeed, he later became a Franciscan tertiary, but she never joined a particular religious order. Since her husband's spending had ruined them financially, the couple decided to take up residence in one of the larger hospitals in Genoa. There, they dedicated themselves to works of charity to the poor and infirm. Better at managing money than was her husband, Catherine eventually became the hospital’s manager and treasurer. Towards the end of her life, a Father Marabotti was appointed to be her spiritual guide. He had been a director of the hospital where her husband died in 1497. To him she explained her states, past and present, and he compiled her Memoirs.
