"As to preserve the memory of the dead, the tombs given them on earth bear the impress of their features as they were in life, so each time one weeps over them the pious heart is pierced with the remembrance." "Nicholas V.," said the prior to the Greek, "was inconsolable at the death of his painter and friend, and survived him but a few weeks. It is this great Pope who has erected this monument to Fra Angelico, and who composed the epitaph you can read on this stone:
"'Hic jacet ven. Pictor.
Fr. Jo. de Flor. Ord. P.
MCCCCLV.
Non mihi sit laudi quod eram velut alter Apelles.
Sed quod lucra tuis omnia Christe dabam
Altera nam terris opera extant, altera caelo;
Urbs me Joannem flos tulit Etruriae.'"
"Here lies the venerable painter. [Footnote 195] Brother John, of Florence, of the order of Brother Preachers; 1455. Let me not be praised because I have painted as another Apelles, but because I have given all I made to the poor. O Christ! I have worked for heaven at the same time as for earth. I am called John, the town which is the flower of Etruria was my country."
[Footnote 195: We must remark this title of venerable given the Angelico immediately after his death, and which justifies the popular canonization which has surnamed him in Italy, Il Beato.]
Argyropoulos remained long kneeling by the tomb, then on rising said to the prior: "Tell me exactly the day of his death; for me it will ever be an anniversary to be celebrated with prayers and tears." "It was the 18th of last March," replied the prior, "that the blessed one went to heaven, there to contemplate the true models of the dear and holy pictures which, with so much love, he painted on earth."
ORIGINAL.
"I AM THE WAY."
"I am the way." I well believe thy word;
The truth of it is plain enough to see.
For never was there yet a man, O Lord,
So roughly trodden under foot like thee!