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St. Catherine was born at Genoa in 1447, died at the same place 15 September, 1510. The life of St. Catherine of Genoa may be more properly described as a state than as a life in the ordinary sense. When about twenty-six years old she became the subject of one of the most extraordinary operations of God in the human soul of which we have record, the result being a marvellous inward condition that lasted till her death. In this state, she received wonderful revelations, of which she spoke at times to those around her, but which are mainly embodied in her two celebrated works: the Dialogues of the Soul and Body , and the Treatise on Purgatory . Her modern biographies, chiefly translations or adaptations of an old Italian one which is itself founded on Memoirs drawn up by the saint's own confessor and a friend, mingle what facts they give of her outward life with accounts of her supernatural state and doctrine , regardless of sequence, and in an almost casual fashion that makes them entirely subservient to her psychological history.
