Observations placeholder
St. Catherine de' Ricci – Her body exuded a scent resembling vivuole mammole
Identifier
024262
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Friar Herbert Thurston - The Physical Phenomenon of Mysticism
Most widely known is the case of St. Catherine de' Ricci. In the official investigations, in view of her canonization, we find some twenty or thirty of the nuns in her convent at Prato bearing witness upon oath to the strange celestial odour which was especially noticeable in the chamber of death, although some of them had also perceived a similar perfume clinging to her on certain occasions in her life-time. Some of the nuns described it as resembling the scent of vivuole mammole, apparently a species of violet, though these flowers were not then in season, but most of them considered that it could not be compared to the odour of any flowers or to any artificial perfumes.
It was perceptible around her tomb for more than a year, though the body had been enclosed in a leaden coffin.