House and Sanctuary of Saint Catherine

On your left stands the House and Sanctuary of Saint Catherine, the place where Catherine Benincasa was born and raised, the daughter of a dyer who became the patron saint of Italy and one of the great spiritual figures of the Middle Ages. After her canonization, the family home was purchased by the city and turned into a sanctuary. Visitors enter through the Portico dei Comuni d’Italia, built in 1939 to welcome the growing number of pilgrims. Inside, a series of small oratories recalls key moments of her life: the Kitchen, where she is said to have fallen into ecstasy above the fireplace without being burned; the Bedroom, where the stone she used as a pillow for her nightly prayers is preserved; and her father’s old dye workshop, now the Oratorio della Tintoria, the official oratory of the Contrada dell’Oca, which houses a polychrome statue of Catherine carved in 1474 by Neroccio di Landi. The sanctuary also includes the Church of the Crucifix, built in the 17th century to enshrine the Pisan crucifix before which Catherine received the stigmata in Pisa in 1375. Frescoes, altarpieces, and baroque paintings enrich the visit, while relics such as a fragment of her shoulder blade or the cloth that covered her head during her transfer from Rome add to the sense of presence. Although her principal relics are kept at San Domenico, the sanctuary lets you walk quite literally in her footsteps and immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the very neighborhood where she lived, between Fontebranda and the nearby basilica.