Page:Lifeofsaintcatha.djvu/18

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make known. The Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX. , condescended himself, to name it for our "Dominican Library," and we were delighted to follow an indication so paternal and so august.

The Blessed Raymond of Capua presents the most precious qualities that could be united in a historian. He is not a simple and credulous man whose imagination can be easily seduced, but a Religious of profound knowledge and renowned sanctity, who relates to the Church what he saw and heard; and he does it with all the conditions which oblige his testimony to be accepted. A descendant of the celebrated Pierre des Vignes, Chancellor of Frederick II., he employed eminently better than his ancestor, the activity of his mind and the splendor of his talents. Entering betimes into the Order of St. Dominic, he exercised its most important offices. After directing during four years, the Monastery of Montepulciano, he became Professor of Theology at Sienna, and was the Confessor of St. Catharine, whom he accompanied in her journeys to France and Italy. Urban VI., confided to him the most delicate and the most difficult affairs. In 1380, he was named General Master of his order which he governed during nineteen years. Schism and plague had enfeebled the children of St. Dominic; the Blessed Raymond restored its ancient vigor, and it was under his agency that was developed in the Order of Friar Preachers, that epoch so fruitful in virtues and talent. The blessed Jean de Dominici, Antoine Neyrot, Constant de Fabriano, Pierre Capucci, Saint Antonino, Fra Angelico, Fra Benedetto, are sons of that reform which he established In the convents of Lombardy, Tuscany, Sicily, Hungary, Germany, Spain and France He died in the midst of his work, in 1399, at Nurembarg, and his body was