When the terrible plague of 1348 devastated Florence, his charity and devotion to the sick made him so popular that the people of Fiesole elected him their bishop, a choice ratified by the Pope. He lived for the poor and for his beloved cathedral, which he restored, and of which he built the façade, and was beatified soon after his death, and canonized in 1629 by Urban VIII. His younger brother Matteo went as a lad to London in 1342, where his uncle was Master of the Mint, and made a considerable fortune in trade. On returning to Florence twenty years later he began the family history already mentioned, and wrote the _Rosaio della Vita_, often quoted in the Della Crusca dictionary for purity of style. Amerigo Corsini was the first Archbishop of Florence, as Martin V. raised the See to an archbishopric during his tenure, and the great dome of the cathedral was begun [1423] in his lifetime. His brother Bertoldo filled various high offices under the Republic, and was a devoted adherent of the Medici; while Luca, Bertoldo’s eldest son, was the Prior whose name is famous as shutting the door of the Palazzo della Signoria in the face of Piero de’ Medici after he had ceded Pisa and other towns to Charles VIII. of France in 1494. Another son, Piero, a gallant soldier and a good engineer, was Commissary of several of the small wars of the Republic and built the first fortifications of Leghorn, which withstood all the efforts of the Emperor Maximilian. Gherardo, another son, was a wealthy wool merchant, and four times one of the _Dieci di Guerra_. He became an adherent of the Medici, and his son Bertoldo was so trusted by the Duke Alessandro that he made him Governor of the newly-erected fortress of S. Giovanni. After the murder of the Duke he offered to give up the arms and ammunition to the people in order to fight for the liberty of the city. Such an offer from a well-known Pallesco, as the friends of the Medici were called, was regarded with suspicion, and Bertoldo fell between two stools. Banished as a rebel by the young Duke Cosimo I. and ruined by the confiscation of all he possessed, he joined the exiles, fought at Montemurlo, Siena and Orbetello, where he was taken prisoner and sold to the Duke for 600 scudi. He was decapitated in March 1555.