COLOMBA
121
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
