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Updated: May 9, 2025
'It is too cold, said the boy, creeping into the bare room, 'and I am hungry. 'Hungry! and poor Mona Lapaccia cast her eyes upwards, as if she would ask the saints if they too were not filled with surprise to hear this word. 'And when art thou anything else? It is ever the same story with thee: eat, eat, eat. Now, the saints help me, I have borne this burden long enough.
True, there was his aunt, old Mona Lapaccia, who said he had once had a father and mother like other boys, but she always added with a mournful shake of her head that she alone had endured all the trouble and worry of bringing him up since he was two years old. 'Ah, she would say, turning her eyes upwards, 'the saints alone know what I have endured with a great hungry boy to feed and clothe.
For some time he lived in the care of a certain Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, who hardly brought him up till he was eight years old, when, as Vasari tells us, no longer able to support the burden of his maintenance, she took him to the Carmelites, who promised to make a friar of him.
But there were no processions to-day, and there remained only one thing to be done. He must go home and see if Mona Lapaccia had anything to spare. Perhaps the saints took notice when he was hungry. Down the street he ran, keeping close to the wall, just as the dogs do when it rains. For the great overhanging eaves of the houses act as a sheltering umbrella.
Ah! here they were at the great square of the Carmine. He had often crept into the church to get warm and to see those wonderful pictures on the walls. Could they be going there now? But it was towards the convent door that Mona Lapaccia bent her steps, and, when she had rung the bell, she gave Filippo's shoulder a final shake, and pulled his coat straight and smoothed his hair.
But presently he heard his own name spoken and then he looked up and remembered. 'And so, Filippo, thou wouldst become a monk? the prior was saying. 'Let me see how old art thou? 'Eight years old, your reverence, said Mona Lapaccia before Filippo could answer. Which was just as well, as his mouth was still very full.
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