Caterina dei Vigri was born in Bologna, September 8, 1413; died there on March 9, 1463, but spent most of Her life in Ferrara. She was the daughter of a diplomatic agent of the Marquis of Ferrara, Nicholas III d'Este.  From an early age Catherine was subject to visions, some of which from their nature and effects she judged to be diabolical temptations, while others were consolatory and for Her good.

At the age of eleven, She was appointed maid of honor to the daughter of the Marquis, Margaret d'Este, and shared her training and education until 1427, when Margaret was married.
In this environment Catherine apparently received a humanist education and learned music:  later, She wrote Latin hymns, composed, produced frescoes, free-standing paintings, and illuminated manuscripts.
The frescoes are gone, but some of her other art has survived: a breviary written out and ornamented by Her still exists at the Bologna convent.
When art scholars write of Her work, they use Her family name, Caterina dei Vigri.

After Margaret's marriage and the death of Her own father, Catherine left the court.  Despite the opportunity to live a noble life,   She eagerly responded to her call to lead the religious life and became a Franciscan Tertiary at the age of fourteen, joining a community of about 15 lay women in Ferrara. 

The women wished to join one of the established religious orders but disagreed as to which. Twenty years earlier a Frenchwoman, Colette of Corbie, had established a reformed branch of the Poor Clares, the order that had been founded by Clare of Assisi 200 years earlier but that had, over the years, grown far away from Clare's vision. Word of Colette's reform had spread to Italy, and Catherine and some of the other women in Her group wished to join the Reformed Poor Clares.    The disagreement among the women was severe and lasted until 1435: in 1431, the bishop briefly disbanded the entire group; in 1432, Catherine and some others were professed as Poor Clares, although not according to the reformed Rule; in 1434, 14 nuns, including Catherine, were absolved by the pope of unnamed crimes involving "apostasy". It wasn't until the following year that the new monastery was officially allowed to follow Colette's reformed Rule.

From "Other Women's Voices"
Translations of pre-1600 Women Writers by Dorothy Disse

It was printed by the nuns at Bologna (one of the earliest printed works there) and was frequently reprinted during the 1500s.

"The seven spiritual weapons" seems to be almost two separate documents. The first six chapters and the start of the seventh are very practical and down-to-earth, intended for newcomers to the religious life. This part is brief, the organization is clear and easy to follow, and the dominant image is that of the almost constant warfare familiar to the courtier families from which her novices had come. The rest of the long Chapter 7 and Chapters 8-10 describe Catherine's visionary experiences and Her attempts to make sense of them. Like Chapters 1-6 they are addressed to the novices, but content and structure are quite different. For the modern reader, the last chapters are perhaps the most interesting because of what they reveal of Catherine's internal conflict.

From "Other Women's Voices"
Translations of pre-1600 Women Writers by Dorothy Disse

In Lent of 1463, Catherine became seriously ill, and She died on March 9th. Her name was added to the Roman Martyrology by Clement VIII in 1592; and She was canonized 1712 by Clement XI, bull of canonization published by Benedict XIII in 1724. Buried without a coffin, Her body was exhumed eighteen days later because of cures attributed to her and also because of the sweet scent coming from her grave. Her body was found to be incorrupt and remains so today.

Her life and the occurrences after Her death were described by an eyewitness, BLESSED ILLUMINATA BEMBI:
"Thereupon the grave was prepared and when they lowered the corpse which was not enshrined in a coffin, it exhaled a scent of surpassing sweetness, filling the air all around. The two sisters, who had descended into the grave, out of compassion for her lovely and radiant face covered it with cloth and placed a rough board some inches above the corpse, so that the clods of earth should not touch it. However they fixed it so awkwardly that when the grave was filled up with earth it covered the face and body nevertheless.

"The sisters came to visit the churchyard often, wept, prayed, and read by the grave and always noticed the sweet odor in the air around it. As there were no flowers or herbs near the grave-- nothing but arid earth- -they came to believe that it arose from the grave itself. Soon miracles occurred, for some who visited the grave in ill health were cured. Therefore the sisters repented that they had interred Her without a coffin, and complained to their father confessor.

"He a man of sound judgment asked what they wanted to do about it.
"We replied: 'To take Her out again, place her in a wooden coffin and rebury her.'
He was taken aback by this request it was 18 days after Her death and he thought that by now the corpse must be decomposed.
We, however, pointed out the sweet odor, and finally he granted permission to disinter Her, provided no smell of putrefaction would make itself felt during the digging.

When we found the body and laid the face free, we found it crushed and disfigured by the weight of the board placed above it. Also, in digging, three of the sisters had damaged it with the spade. So we placed her in a coffin, and made ready for re-interment, but by some strange impulse were driven to place Her for some time under the portal.
"Here the crushed nose and the whole face gradually regained their natural form. The deceased became white of color, lovely, intact, as if still alive, the nails were not blackened, and She exhaled a delicious odor. All the sisters were deeply stirred; the scent spread throughout the church and convent, attaching itself to the hands that had touched Her, and there seemed to be no explanation for it.
"Now after having been quite pale, She began to change color and to flush, while a most deliciously scented sweat began to pour from Her body.  Changing from paleness to the color of glowing ember, She shed an aromatic liquid which appeared sometime like clear water and then like a mixture of water and blood.
Full of wonder and perplexity we called our confessor; the rumor had already spread to the town and he hurried to us accompanied by a learned physician, Maestro Giovanni Marcanova, and they closely observed and touched the body. Others joined them: priests, physicians, laymen."