However that may be, he obeyed the call of the Pope and journeyed by easy stages, passing from convent to convent, until the Holy City was reached. It would have been an interesting journey to have taken with the pious monk. One could have seen how the various monasteries exercised one of the most beneficial purposes of their organization, that of ministering to tired and hungry travellers. At many convents at whose doors he appeared, a stranger, he probably left pictures and certainly the memory of a charming personality. Perhaps he relieved for an hour some weary illuminator of the parchment and left a page of his work to encourage the tired monk. The Pope who called Angelico to Rome did not live long after the painter's arrival there, but he did not die before he had shown special favor to the monk of San Marco. Taking for granted that, because Angelico could paint such beautiful pictures he could do everything else equally well, he asked him to become the Archbishop of Florence, one of the most important church offices within the gift of the Pope. How we admire the good brother when he responded, with the simplicity which was so marked a characteristic of him, "I can paint pictures but I cannot rule men." And further, how we delight in him as he recommends another brother of his order, Fra Antonio. That his judgement in this matter was equal to his generosity is proved by the fact that Antonio became the wisest archbishop Florence had ever had. The successor of Pope Eugenius, Nicholas V., also extended his friendship and protection to the painter. Here in Rome he lived for the last ten years of his life. His work here was largely confined to the chapel of Nicholas V., in the Vatican, which he decorated with scenes from the lives of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen. For years this chapel was closed to the public and the key lost, so that when it was re-opened it seemed as if a new set of works belonging to Fra Angelico had been discovered. [Illustration: FLIGHT INTO EGYPT] When the heat of summer came on in Rome, the painter from the hills of the Arno wilted under the depressing influence and he longed for his native heights. An opportunity for release from the stagnant weather of Rome during the months of June, July and August came from an unexpected quarter. It was the time of the building of the great Italian cathedrals. Every large community seemed bent on excelling its neighbor in the splendor of the church it erected. Florence reared her Duomo, the Santa Maria del Fiore, Siena built her fine cathedral, striped black and yellow like a tiger.