After sunrise my workmen went into the shop, and saw that it had been broken open and all the boxes smashed. They began to scream at the top of their voices: “Ah, woe is me! Ah, woe is me!” The clamour woke me, and I rushed out in a panic. Appearing thus before them, they cried out: “Alas to us! for we have been robbed by some one, who has broken and borne everything away!” These words wrought so forcibly upon my mind that I dared not go to my big chest and look if it still held the jewels of the Pope. So intense was the anxiety, that I seemed to lose my eyesight, and told them they themselves must unlock the chest, and see how many of the Pope’s gems were missing. The fellow were all of them in their shirts; and when, on opening the chest, they saw the precious stones and my work with them, they took heart of joy and shouted: “There is no harm done; your piece and all the stones are here; but the thief has left us naked to the shirt, because last night, by reason of the burning heat, we took our clothes off in the shop and left them here.” Recovering my senses, I thanked God, and said: “Go and get yourselves new suits of clothes; I will pay when I hear at leisure how the whole thing happened.” What caused me the most pain, and made me lose my senses, and take fright-so contrary to my real nature-was the dread lest peradventure folk should fancy I had trumped a story of the robber up to steal the jewels. It had already been paid to Pope Clement by one of his most trusted servants, and by others, that is, by Francesco del Nero, Zana de’ Biliotti his accountant, the Bishop of Vasona, and several such men: [1] “Why, most blessed Father, do you confide gems of that vast value to a young fellow, who is all fire, more passionate for arms than for his art, and not yet thirty years of age?” The Pope asked in answer if any one of them knew that I had done aught to justify such suspicions. Whereto Francesco del Nero, his treasurer, replied: [2] “No, most blessed Father, because he has not as yet had an opportunity. “Whereto the Pope rejoined: “I regard him as a thoroughly honest man; and if I saw with my own eyes some crime he had committed, I should not believe it.” This was the man who [3] caused me the greatest torment, and who suddenly came up before my mind.