Seynt Katheryne of Sene: The English Reception of an Italian Saint

• In Event: English and Italian Hybridity: Intertextuality and Anatopicality

Abstract

This paper explores Catherine of Siena’s Dialogo as adapted into English as The Orcherd of Syon, currently in three extant manuscripts from the late 15th century, and as an early printed book done in 1519 by Wynkyn de Worde. Although Catherine’s Italian Dialogo was written for a general audience, the text was translated into English with the intended readership of the nuns of the Bridgettine Syon Abbey. Because the English translation utilized Raymond of Capua’s Latin translation of the text, the use of Latin as an intermediary language will be considered, as well as the gendered implications of a male rewriting the words of the female author for female readers. With an emphasis on the connections between Italian and English reception, as well as how expressions of spirituality were translated from the continent to England, this paper concludes with an examination of Catherine’s construction as a teacher of religious women.

Author

• Lisa Tagliaferri, Fordham University