The story of the establishment of the Monti di Pietà, lending institutions for the poor in Italy, is one of the most interesting chapters not alone in the social work of this period, but of all periods. The original suggestion for them came from that great scholar, preacher and worker for the good of the people, St. Bernardine of Siena, who died just before the opening of Columbus' Century. Their organization, however, we owe to Blessed Bernardine of Feltre, that worthy son of St. Francis of Assisi, who is generally represented in his pictures with that symbol of a Monte di Pietà, a little green hill composed of three mounds and on the top either a cross or a standard, with the inscription, _"Curam illius habe"_ (Have the care of it). As thus established these institutions, the Monti di Pietà, were charitable lending houses, where the poor could obtain money readily for pledges and usually with very little cost to them beyond the repayment of the loan. At that time it was felt that charity might well care for the poor to this extent, and it was the custom for wealthy people who died to leave legacies by which unredeemed pledges of household necessaries might be restored to the poor without {181} the repayment of the loan. Such legacies, by the way, are not unusual even yet in the Latin countries, and at least two have been chronicled within the year. The spirit of these institutions was excellent and they accomplished great good, spreading all over Italy and finding their way in some form into the Latin countries at least during Columbus' period. St. Catherine of Genoa, whose work was done just about the beginning of Columbus' Century, is a typical example of the organizer of charity of this time. As a young widow she began to visit the patients in the hospital, and finally came to spend all of her time there, except such as was devoted to the visiting of the sick in their homes and the bringing of them into the hospitals. Soon she organized a number of others, or at least they gathered round her until a great work for charity was being done. Many of the noblewomen of the time devoted some hours at least every week to visiting the sick in the hospitals. There is a touching story told of Frances, Duchess of Brittany, who nursed through a severe illness her husband's successor on the ducal throne, who had treated her with great injustice. She afterwards retired to a Carmelite convent, where during an epidemic she nursed the stricken nuns through its whole course, and at the end of it laid down her own life. In the next century Evelyn, in his "Diary," tells of his surprise on visiting the hospitals in Paris to see how many noble persons, men and women, were waiting on them and "how decently and Christianly the sick in Charité [one of the great hospitals] were attended even to delicacy." This was only a continuation of the fine traditions of the older time, surprising to Evelyn because they had gone out entirely in Protestant England.