The friars whom Poggio satirizes with such severity in his dialogue on Avarice, were a branch of the order of Franciscans, who, on account of the extraordinary strictness with which they professed to exercise their conventual discipline, were distinguished by the title of _Fratres Observantiæ_. The founder of this new subdivision of the ecclesiastical order was the above-mentioned Bernardino, of Siena, who appears by the testimony of Poggio to have been a man of great virtue and of considerable talents. Several of his disciples, however, who were not endued either with his good principles or his abilities, emulous of the reputation which he had acquired by preaching, began also to harangue the people from the pulpit. Of these self-constituted instructors Poggio has drawn the following striking picture. “Inflated by the pretended inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they expound the sacred scriptures to the populace with such gross ignorance, that nothing can exceed their folly. I have often gone to hear them for the sake of amusement; for they were in the habit of saying things, which would move to laughter the gravest and most phlegmatic man on the face of the earth. You might see them throwing themselves about as if they were ready to leap out of the pulpit; now raising their voices to the highest pitch of fury—now sinking into a conciliatory whisper—sometimes they beat the desk with their hands—sometimes they laughed, and in the course of their babbling they assumed as many forms as Proteus. Indeed they are more like monkeys than preachers, and have no qualification for their profession, except an unwearied pair of lungs.”[164]