into a basin; this he adorned with a figure of the Madonna, by his own hand. For the fountain which is erected near the Palace of the Signore, Don Filippo Laroca, Giovann’ Agnolo sculptured the figure of a Boy from a certain stone much used in Messina: the Child is surrounded by marine animals, and pours water into a vase. He also executed a statue, four braccia high, of the Virgin Martyr, Santa Caterina; this work, which was an exceedingly beautiful one, was sent to Taurinima,[1] a place which is situate some four and twenty miles from Messina.
While Giovann Agnolo thus dwelt at Messina, he had for his friends and associates the above named Signore, Don Fillipo Laroca, and Don FVancesco, who- was of the same family with Messer Bardo Corsi, Giovanfrancesco Scali, and Messer Lorenzo Borghini; all three Florentine gentlemen then in Messina. Serafino da Fermo was also one of his intimates, as was the Grand Master of Rhodes, who frequently invited them to go to Malta, and would willingly have made him a knight; but the Frate replied that he had no mind to confine himself to that island; he had indeed become dissatisfied with himself, for not wearing the habit of his Order, and frequently entertained thoughts of returning to the Cloister. Indeed, I know of my own knowledge, that if he had not been in a certain manner forced to defer his purpose, he would have retaken the habit, as I have said, and returned to live in the manner of a pious monk. When, therefore, it was decreed, in the year 1557, and during the pontificate of Pope Paul IV., that all the apostates, or, more properly, all those who had left their monasteries, and laid down the habit, should be compelled to return under the heaviest penalties, Fra Giovann’ Agnolo abandoned the work which he had in hand, and, leaving his disciple Martino, in Messina, he departed from that city in the month of May, and repaired to Naples, proposing thence to return to the Monastery of the Servites.
But before completing that arrangement, and to the end that he might devote himself entirely to God, Giovann’ Agnolo bethought himself of the best mode in which he might suitably dispose of his large gains. He first gave certain of his nieces, who were very poor, in marriage, as he
- ↑ Taormina.
