, and of such a character, in short,
that he was deservedly canonized in our own day by Adrian VI.

[Illustration: S. STEPHEN PREACHING

(_After the fresco by =Fra Giovanni da Fiesole= [Fra Angelico] Rome: The
Vatican, Chapel of Nicholas V_)

_Anderson_]

Great excellence was that of Fra Giovanni, and a thing truly very rare,
to resign a dignity and honour and charge so important, offered to
himself by a Supreme Pontiff, in favour of the man whom he, with his
singleness of eye and sincerity of heart, judged to be much more
worthy of it than himself. Let the churchmen of our own times learn
from this holy man not to take upon themselves charges that they cannot
worthily carry out, and to yield them to those who are most worthy of
them. Would to God, to return to Fra Giovanni (and may this be said
without offence to the upright among them), that all churchmen would
spend their time as did this truly angelic father, seeing that he spent
every minute of his life in the service of God and in benefiting both
the world and his neighbour. And what can or ought to be desired more
than to gain the kingdom of Heaven by living a life of holiness, and to
win eternal fame in the world by labouring virtuously? And in truth a
talent so extraordinary and so supreme as that of Fra Giovanni could not
and should not descend on any save a man of most holy life, for the
reason that those who work at religious and holy subjects should be
religious and holy men; for it is seen, when such works are executed by
persons of little faith who have little esteem for religion, that they
often arouse in men's minds evil appetites and licentious desires;
whence there comes blame for the evil in their works, with praise for
the art and ability that they show. Now I would not have any man deceive
himself by considering the rude and inept as holy, and the beautiful and
excellent as licentious; as some do, who, seeing figures of women or of
youths adorned with loveliness and beauty beyond the ordinary,
straightway censure them and judge them licentious, not perceiving that
they are very wrong to condemn the good judgment of the painter, who
holds the Saints, both male and female, who are celestial, to be as much
more beautiful than mortal man as Heaven is superior to earthly beauty
and to the works of human hands; and, what is worse, they reveal the
unsoundness and corruption of their own minds by drawing evil and impure
desires out of works from which,