Catalina de Ribera y MendozaFeminismo, Humanismo y Renacimiento

Abstract

Catalina de Ribera was an example of a pious, noble lady and head of her lineage who, with her actions, not only marked the path to be followed by her descendants and other members of the family, but also became a true example of charity, hospitality and humility through the ages for many people. She was a good woman and she showed it, both in the effort she put into such a great charitable work, and in trying to match the inheritance of her two children (founding a very balanced double estate), and in being herself the organizer of everything that she was able, to the point that her eldest son would affectionately call her the “matron of Seville”. Not in vain, the pious work of the Hospital of the Five Wounds was an exercise in Christian charity, of assistance to the weakest in society, attending to the material and spiritual needs of these poor people. In addition, Catalina de Ribera was an example of humility because she founded and then left the work in the hands of the church, she left it in the hands of a triple patronage that would be a link between the papacy and the hospital itself, which became an example for others similar foundations, also a paradigm of Christian work and propagation of evangelical values.