A letter from the Father General Olivieri now called me to Rome. On my arrival he saluted me as rector of the Minerva, and spoke to me of certain arrangements he had made with regard to the collegians and professors. Prudence forbade my showing any opposition at that moment, and suggested the expediency of my letting him say and do whatever he thought fit, till an opportunity should present itself of getting quit of my embarrassing situation, and leaving Rome altogether. Meanwhile he charged me with several occupations, in proof of his particular esteem; making me privy to certain important secrets, and submitting to me the decision of some of the affairs of the Order. One of the most important of these was in the monastery of Santa Sabina, upon the Aventine Hill in Rome, in which at that time was the general noviciate of two provinces, the Roman and the Lombard. This monastery was immediately under the General, and he elected me as visitor in his place. This was an appointment I could not refuse; and since I had accepted it, it became me to fulfil it with all due care and exactitude. The superior of the monastery of Santa Sabina, Fra Savoldello, a Venetian, was one of the most extraordinary men I had ever seen among the Dominicans. He had under him two other strange beings, little inferior to himself in eccentricity; and these were as his arms, wherewith to work the machine which was to transform innocent, docile, good young men, apt and easy to be trained in all that is right, into malicious, headstrong, ill-educated monks, capable of no one thing useful to themselves or to society. Such was the spirit of that noviciate, as ordered by the late Father General Jabalot. As soon as these monks saw me, they resolved, as they knew me well, to hide as much as possible from me, and whispered in the ears of the young men that they must not reveal anything relative to the establishment. But I, seeing the embarrassment of the heads of the monastery, easily imagined their malice, and therefore gave orders that the novices should be brought before me immediately, one by one in succession; and not in a body, as the prior had proposed. I also requested both the prior and the novice master to leave the room. The first of these poor creatures who was introduced began to weep, and said: