“Can you preserve Florence against a Borgia Pope and a French Conqueror?” he whispered.
“As God’s lieutenant, I can,” said Frà Girolamo in a firm and splendid voice.
Giovanni closed his eyes.
“I must forget Florence,” he answered. “I must forget the world.”
He drew the yellow intaglio from his finger and, still with his eyes closed, dropped it on the floor; it rolled away against the wall.
With slow movements he unwound the chain from his neck and cast that down too.
Then he opened his eyes.
“Bury me in your holy and humble habit,” he asked. “I have longed to wear it in life, and in death maybe I might be thought not unworthy–and lay me in St. Mark’s Church.”
“Giovanni, both these things will I do–yet I still think that you will not die.”