n: HIGH ALTAR

(_After =Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli=. Bologna: S. Maria dei Servi_)

_Alinari_]

Friends of Fra Giovanni Agnolo, while he was living at Messina, were the
above-named Signor Don Filippo Laroca, and Don Francesco of the same
family; Messer Bardo Corsi, Giovan Francesco Scali, and M. Lorenzo
Borghini, all three Florentine gentlemen then in Messina; Serafino da
Fermo, and the Grand Master of Rhodes, which last many times sought to
draw him to Malta and to make him a Knight; but he answered that he did
not wish to confine himself in that island, besides which, feeling that
he was doing ill not to be wearing the habit of his Order, he thought at
times of going back to it. And, in truth, I know that even if he had not
been in a manner forced to do it, he was determined to resume the habit
and to go back to live like a good Churchman. When, therefore, in the
time of Pope Paul IV, in the year 1557, all the apostates, or rather,
friars who had thrown off the habit, were constrained to return to
their Orders under threat of the severest penalties, Fra Giovanni
Agnolo abandoned the works that he had in hand, leaving his disciple
Martino in his place, and went in the month of May from Messina to
Naples, intending to return to his Servite Monastery in Florence.

But before doing any other thing, wishing to devote himself entirely to
God, he set about thinking how he might dispose of his great gains most
suitably. And so, after having given in marriage certain nieces who were
poor girls, and others from his native country and from Montorsoli, he
ordained that a thousand crowns should be given to his nephew Agnolo, of
whom mention has been already made, in Rome, and that a knighthood of
the Lily should be bought for him. To each of two hospitals in Naples he
gave a good sum of money in alms. To his own Servite Convent he left a
thousand crowns to buy a farm, and also that at Montorsoli which had
belonged to his forefathers, on the condition that twenty-five crowns
should be paid to each of two nephews of his own, friars of the same
Order, every year during their lifetime, together with other charges
that will be mentioned later. All these matters being arranged, he
showed himself in Rome and resumed the habit, with much joy to himself
and to his fellow-friars, and particularly to Maestro Zaccheria. Then,
having gone to Florence, he was received and welcomed by his relatives
and friends with incredible pleasure and