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 COLOMBA

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COLOMBIA

schools and for eminent scholars — .-Ubertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Dims Scotus — Cologne had no university until near the end of the fourteenth century, when Urban VI, at the instance of the Town Council, issued (21 May, 1388) the Bull of foundation. The university was inaugurated the following year with twenty-one mugiMri and 737 matriculated students. Further privileges were granted by Boni- face IX (1389, 1394), Duke Wilhelm von Geldem (1396), and Emperor Frederick III (1442); while special favour was .shown the university by Gregory XII (1406), Nicholas V (1447), and Pius II; the last- named pope addressed his "Bull of Retractation" (In minoribus agentes) to the Rector and University of Cologne (26 April, 1463). The university was represented at the Councils of Constance and Basle, and was involved in the controvensy regarding the authority of coimcil and pope. It took sides with the antipope Felix V, but eventually submitted to Nicholas V. The Renaissance movement met with opposition at Cologne, though among its professors were the humanists Ctesarius, Buschius, Glareanus, Gratius, Phrissemius, and Sobius. During the same period may be mentioned the theologians Arnold of Tongres and Hoogstraaten, O. P. All these were in- volved in the confliet which centred about Reuchlin (q. v.) and which did the university gi-eat harm. The "Epistolae obscurorum virorum" were directed against the theologians of Cologne. At the time of the Reformation, but few of the professors joined the Protestant movement ; the university as a whole was strong in its defence of the Catholic Faith and some of its students, as Cochlaeus and Eck, were afterwards foremost champions of the Church. Failing on the other hand to introduce the reforms needed in its own work and organization, the university declined rapidly during the sixteenth century. The vicissitudes of war, lack of means, and withdrawal of its students reduced it to a nominal existence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 178(3 the founding of the University of Bonn (q. v.) decided the fate of Cologne, which was unable to withstand its more vigorous rival. The French troops entered Cologne in October, 1794; in April, 1796, the university was closed.

Rashdall, Universities of / /- " '^ - 1/ '■''■ \ges (Ox- ford. 1895). II. 251; Bianco./' ' /. "(Cologne. 1855); KKVSSETi. Die Matrik; I <: /. A, v' bis I'.Kl (Bonn, 1S92>; Demfle, Du L lua ,^,!..:, n ,1. .. Millelallers (Berlin, 1885).

E. A. Pace.

Colomba of Rieti, Bles.sed, b. at Ricti, in Um- bria, Italy, 1467; d. at Perugia, l.'iOl. Blessed Co- lomba of Rieti is always called after her birthplace, though she actually spent the greater part of her life away from it. Her celebrity is based — as it w-as even inher lifetime — mainly on two things: the highly mi- raculous nature of her career from its verj' beginning, and her intense devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. She was one amongst a number of saintly Dominican women who seem to have l)een e.xpressly raised up by God in protest against, and as a .sharp contrast to, the irreligion and immorality prevalent in Italy during the fifteenth .and sixteenth centuries. The.se women, nearly all of the Third Order, had an intense de- votion to St. Catherine of Siena, and made it their aim to imitate her as nearly as possible. Many seculars, men as well as women, shared this devo- tion, amongst these being Ercole I, Duke of Ferrara, who had a deep admiration for Colomba and for some other holy Dominican religious, her contempor- aries, the most notable of whom were Blessed Osanna of Mantua and Blessed Lucy of Narni. For the latter Krcole's veneration was so great that he never rested until he had got her to come with some of her nuns to live in Ferrara, where he built her a convent and where she died after many troubles.

She began when quite a girl to practise austere pen- ances and to subsist almost entirely on the super- natural food of the Holy Eucharist, and continued this for the greater part of her life. At nineteen she joined the Dominican Tcrtiaries, of whom there were many in the town, though still living at home; and she soon won the veneration of her fellow towns- people by her personal holiness as well as by some miracles that she worked. But Colomba was not des- tined to remain in Rieti. In 1488 she left home and went to Perugia, where the inhabitants received her as a saint, and in the course of time built her the convent of St. Cathe- rine, in which she assembled all the Third Order Domini- canesses, who desired her as superior in spite of her youth. In 1494, when a ter- rible plague was rag- ing in Perugia, she offered herself as vic- tim for the city. The plague was staj'ed. but Colomba henself was struck down by the scourge. She recovered only to have her sanctity se- verely tried by wide- ly spread calumnies, which reached Rome, whence a commis- sion was sent to ex- amine into her life. She was treated for some time as an im- postor, and deposed from her office of prioress; but finally her innocence trium- phed. In 1495 Alex- ander VI, having heard of Colomba's holiness and mir- acles from his son the Cardinal Caesar Borgia, who had been living in Per- ugia, went himself to the city and saw her. She is said to have gone into an ecstasy at his feet, and also to have boldly told him of all personal sins. The pope was fully satisfied of her great sanctity, and set the seal of his approval on her mode of life. In the year 1499 she was consulted, by authorities who were examining into the matter, con- cerning the stigmata of Blessed Lucy of Narni, and spoke warmly in favour of their being genuine, and of her admiration for Blessed Lucy's holiness. Her relics are still venerated at Perugia, and her feast is kept by her order on 20 May.

Alberti. Vita della b. Colomba da Rieti sepolla a Penigia (Bologna. 152U; Papebroch, Comment. priFv. in Acta SS., May, V, 319-20; Rotelli. Vila delta b. Colomba da Rieti (M<jnza. 1875); Sf.bastiano degli Angeli, ed. Viretti, Vita della b. Colomba da Ricti (Perugia, 1777), tr.; Gard.n'er, Poe(« and Dukes in Ferrara (London, 1904).

F. M. Cape8.

Colombia, REPUBLir of (formerly United States OF Colomdia), forms the north-west corner of the South American C'ontinent. It is bounded on the north by the Caribbean Sea, on the east by Venezuela, on the south by Brazil and Peru, on the south-west by Ecuador. The Pacific Ocean bounds it on the west and on the north-west the Republic of Panama and the Gulf of Darien. Its area is variously calculated at