St. Catherine of Siena (c1347-1380) was frequently depicted with the imagery of the much older St. Catherine of Alexandria (see Bagnacavallo the younger above) and her mystic marriage to the Virgin usually takes the form of her kneeling, with her characteristic veil, before the Virgin and Christ Child. Her vision of the Virgin Mary is unusual in Christian iconography as it was recorded in her lifetime, spent as a Dominican Nun, in helping the needy and the sick. As a church politician, she is remembered as having persuaded Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, following Papacy’s hundred-year long exile in Avignon.

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