not only of the common folk, but also of the Roman prelates, to his sermons at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, interrupted his discourse upon the following Friday, and held before the people the image of their crucified Saviour, entreating them to make peace.  As he pleaded with them, he wept; and they too fell to weeping—­fierce satellites of the rival factions and worldly prelates lifting up their voice in concert with the friar who had touched their hearts.[3] Another member of the Franciscan Order of Observance should be mentioned after Fra Roberto.  This was Fra Giovanni da Capistrano, of whose preaching at Brescia in 1451 we have received a minute account.  He brought with him a great reputation for sanctity and eloquence, and for the miraculous cures which he had wrought.  The Rectors of the city, together with 300 of the most distinguished burghers upon horseback, and a crowd of well-born ladies on foot, went out to meet him on February 9.  Arrangements were made for the entertainment of himself and 100 followers, at public cost.  Next morning, three hours before dawn, there were already assembled upwards of 10,000 people on the piazza, waiting for the preacher.  ’Think, therefore,’ says the Chronicle, ’how many there must have been in the daytime! and mark this, that they came less to hear his sermon than to see him.’  As he made his way through the throng, his frock was almost torn to pieces on his back, everybody struggling to get a fragment.[4]

    [1] See Graziani, pp. 565-68.

    [2] Graziani, pp, 597-601.

    [3] See Jacobus Volaterranus.  Muratori, xxiii. pp. 126, 156,
    167.

    [4] See Istoria Bresciana. Muratori, xxi. 865.

It did not always need the interposition of a friar to arouse a strong religious panic in Italian cities.  After an unusually fierce bout of discord the burghers themselves would often attempt to give the sanction of solemn rites and vows before the altar to their temporary truces.  Siena, which was always more disturbed by civil strife than any of her neighbors, offered a notable example of this custom in the year 1494.  The factions of the Monti de’ Nove and del Popolo had been raging; the city was full of feud and suspicion, and all Italy was agitated by the French invasion.  It seemed good, therefore, to the heads of the chief parties that an oath of peace should be taken by the whole body of the burghers.  Allegretti’s account of the ceremony, which took place at dead of night in the beautiful Cathedral of Siena, is worthy to be translated.  ’The conditions of the peace were then read, which took up eight pages, together with an oath of the most horrible sort, full of maledictions, imprecations, excommunications, invocations of evil, renunciation of benefits temporal and spiritual, confiscation of goods, vows, and so many other woes that to hear it was a terror; et etiam that in articulo mortis no sacrament should accrue to the salvation,