[078]
The two brothers, who much misdoubted Ser Ciappelletto's power
to deceive the friar, had taken their stand on the other side of a
wooden partition which divided the room in which Ser Ciappelletto
lay from another, and hearkening there they readily heard and understood
what Ser Ciappelletto said to the friar; and at times could
scarce refrain their laughter as they followed his confession; and
now and again they said one to another:
[079]
"What manner of man
is this, whom neither age nor sickness, nor fear of death, on the
threshold of which he now stands, nor yet of God, before whose
judgment-seat he must soon appear, has been able to turn from his
wicked ways, that he die not even as he has lived?"
[080]
But seeing that
his confession had secured the interment of his body in church, they
troubled themselves no further.
[081]
Ser Ciappelletto soon afterwards
communicated, and growing immensely worse, received the extreme
unction, and died shortly after vespers on the same day on which he
had made his good confession.
[082]
So the two brothers, having from
his own moneys provided the wherewith to procure him honourable
sepulture, and sent word to the friars to come at even to observe the
usual vigil, and in the morning to fetch the corpse, set all things
in order accordingly.
[083]The holy friar who had confessed him, hearing
that he was dead, had audience of the prior of the friary; a chapter
was convened and the assembled brothers heard from the confessor's
own mouth how Ser Ciappelletto had been a holy man, as had
appeared by his confession, and were exhorted to receive the body
with the utmost veneration and pious care, as one by which there
was good hope that God would work many miracles.
[084]
To this the
prior and the rest of the credulous confraternity assenting, they went
in a body in the evening to the place where the corpse of Ser
Ciappelletto lay, and kept a great and solemn vigil over it; and in
the morning they made a procession habited in their surplices and
copes, with books in their hands and crosses in front; and chanting
as they went, they fetched the corpse and brought it back to their
church with the utmost pomp and solemnity, being followed by
almost all the folk of the city, men and women alike.
[085]
So it was laid
in the church, and then the holy friar who had heard the confession
got up in the pulpit and began to preach marvellous things of Ser
Ciappelletto's life, his fasts, his virginity, his simplicity and
guilelessness and holiness; narrating among other matters that of which
Ser Ciappelletto had made tearful confession as his greatest sin, and
how he had hardly been able to make him conceive that God would
pardon him; from which he took occasion to reprove his hearers;
saying: "And you, accursed of God, on the least pretext, blaspheme
God and His Mother, and all the celestial court."
[086]
And much
beside he told of his loyalty and purity; and, in short, so wrought
upon the people by his words, to which they gave entire credence,
that they all conceived a great veneration for Ser Ciappelletto, and
at the close of the office came pressing forward with the utmost
vehemence to kiss the feet and the hands of the corpse, from which
they tore off the cerements, each thinking himself blessed to have
but a scrap thereof in his possession; and so it was arranged that
it should be kept there all day long, so as to be visible and accessible
to all.
[087]
At nightfall it was honourably interred in a marble tomb
in one of the chapels, where on the morrow, one by one, folk came
and lit tapers and prayed and paid their vows, setting there the
waxen images which they had dedicated.
[088]
And the fame of Ciappelletto's
holiness and the devotion to him grew in such measure that
scarce any there was that in any adversity would vow aught to any
saint but he, and they called him and still call him San Ciappelletto,
affirming that many miracles have been and daily are wrought by
God through him for such as devoutly crave his intercession.
