Although shut up in a monastery, Curione’s soul burnt with zeal for the Word of God. He regretted that Germany on which he had so much reckoned, and unable to increase his light at the altar of Wittemberg, he wished at least to make use of what he had for the benefit of the monks commissioned to convert him. He was grieved at the superstitious practices of their worship, and would have desired to enfranchise those about him. A shrine, put in a prominent place on the altar, enclosed a skull and other bones reported to be those of St. Agapetus and St. Tibur the martyr, and which during certain solemnities were presented to the adoration of the people. Why set dry bones in the place which should be occupied by the living Word of God? Are not their writings the only authentic remains of the apostles and prophets? Curione refused to pay the slightest honor to these relics, and in his private conversation he went so far as to speak to some of the monks against such idolatrous worship, instructing them in the true faith.[815] He resolved to do something more. In the convent library he had found a Bible, to which no one paid any attention; he had, moreover, noticed the place where the monks kept the key of the shrine they held so dear.[816] One day—probably in 1530—taking advantage of a favorable opportunity when the monks were occupied elsewhere,[817] he went into the library, took down the holy Word of which David said it was _more to be desired than gold_, carried it into the church, opened the mysterious coffer, removed the relics, put the Bible in their place, and laid this inscription upon it: ‘_This is the ark of the covenant, wherein a man can inquire of the true oracles of God, and in which are contained the true relics of the saints_.’ Curione, with emotion and joy, closed the shrine and left the church without being observed. The act, rash as it was, had a deep and evangelical meaning: it expressed the greatest principles of the Reformation. Some time after, at one of the festivals when the relics were to be presented to the adoration of the worshippers, the monks opened the shrine. Their surprise, emotion, and rage were boundless, and they at once accused their young companion of sacrilege. Being on the watch, he made his escape, and, quitting Piedmont, took refuge at Milan.