Novella, his portrait was suspended in the choir of that Church. In it
he was shown kneeling, with praying hands, at the feet of the Blessed
Virgin, easily recognizable by his cap of red worsted, his furred hood,
his yellow face swimming in fatness and his little keen eyes. His good
wife, Monna Bismantova, a worthy-looking woman with a mournful air, and
seeming as though no man could ever have taken aught of pleasure with
her, was on the other side of the Virgin in the humble attitude of
supplication. Nicolas Nerli was one of the chiefest citizens of the
Republic; seeing he had never spoken against the laws, and because he
had never regarded the poor nor such folk as the great and powerful
condemn to fine and exile, nothing had lowered in the estimation of the
Magistrates the high repute he had won in their eyes by reason of his
great riches.

Returning one winter evening later than usual to his Palace, he was
surrounded on the threshold by a band of half-naked mendicants who held
out their hands and asked alms.

He repulsed them with hard words. But hunger making them as fierce and
bold as wolves, they formed a circle round him, and begged him for bread
in hoarse, lamentable voices. He was just stooping to pick up stones to
throw at them when he saw one of his serving-men coming, carrying on his
head a basketful of loaves of black bread, intended for the stablemen,
kitchen helpers and gardeners.

He signed to the pantler to approach, and diving both hands into the
basket, tossed the loaves to the starving wretches. Then entering the
house, he went to bed and fell asleep. In the night, he was smitten
with apoplexy and died so suddenly he believed himself still in his bed
when he saw, in a place "as dark as Erebus," St. Michael the Archangel