At that time I obtained the gracious leave of his Holiness, who with
infinite lovingness and condescension sent me the Bulls expedited free
of charge, to erect in the Pieve of Arezzo a chapel and decanate, which
is the principal chapel of that Pieve, under the patronage of myself and
of my house, endowed by me and painted by my hand, and offered to the
Divine Goodness as an acknowledgment (although but a trifle) of the
great obligation that I feel to the Divine Majesty for the innumerable
graces and benefits that He has deigned to bestow upon me. The
altar-picture of that chapel is in form very similar to that described
above, which has been in part the reason that it has been brought back
to my memory, for it is isolated and consists likewise of two pictures,
one in front, already mentioned above, and one at the back with the
story of S. George, with pictures of certain Saints on either side, and
at the foot smaller pictures with their stories; those Saints whose
bodies are in a most beautiful tomb below the altar, with other
principal reliques of the city. In the centre comes a tabernacle passing
well arranged for the Sacrament, because it serves for both the one
altar and the other, and it is embellished with stories of the Old
Testament and the New all in keeping with that Mystery, as has been told
in part elsewhere.
I had forgotten to say, also, that the year before, when I went the
first time to kiss the Pope's feet, I took the road by Perugia in order
to set in place three large altar-pieces executed for a refectory of the
Black Friars of S. Piero in that city. In one, that in the centre, is
the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, at which Christ performed the Miracle
of converting water into wine. In the second, on the right hand, is
Elisha the Prophet sweetening with meal the bitter pot, the food of
which, spoilt by colocynths, his prophets were not able to eat. And in
the third is S. Benedict, to whom a lay-brother announces at a time of
very great dearth, and at the very moment when his monks were lacking
food, that some camels laden with meal have arrived at his door, and he
sees that the Angels of God are miraculously bringing to him a vast
quantity of meal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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