Birth in Siena

Catherine of Siena was born as Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa on 25 March 1347 in the city of Siena, in the Tuscany region of Italy. Her birth is traditionally dated to the Feast of the Annunciation, a symbolically resonant day in the Christian liturgical calendar celebrating the announcement of the Incarnation to the Virgin Mary.

She was reportedly the twenty-third or twenty-fourth of twenty-five children born to Giacomo di Benincasa, a wool dyer, and his wife Lapa Piagenti, in a bustling artisan household typical of medieval Sienese city life. Catherine had a twin sister, Giovanna, who died in infancy, a common fate in an era of high child mortality.

Her birth date, while not corroborated by contemporary civil records (as was typical for the era), is affirmed by early hagiographical accounts, including the biography written by her confessor Raymond of Capua. The date has since become fixed in both popular devotion and scholarly tradition.

From this modest beginning in a merchant family, Catherine would rise to become one of the most influential religious and political figures of the fourteenth century, ultimately shaping the course of the Roman Catholic Church during one of its most turbulent periods, the Avignon Papacy and the beginnings of the Western Schism.