Page:Goldenlegendlive00jaco.djvu/16

2 which characterized the epoch. Yet their cloisters provided the calm atmosphere for prayer or study or art which could not be found in the world outside, and within them peace-loving souls, such as his who created the Summa Theologica or his who was called the 'Angelic' painter of Fiesole, found their leisure and their opportunity. To the same category with Thomas Aquinas and Fra Angelico belonged James of Varaggio, whose name was latinized—somewhat inappropriately—as 'Jacobus de Voragine'—'James of the Whirlpool.' Even when the external peace of his life was shattered, never to be recovered, he manifested both in action and in writing an amiable saintliness which was the aroma of the cloistered life he had unwillingly quitted.

Till the forty-fourth year of his age the career of Jacobus may be summarized as an uneventful one-he studied, wrote, prayed, preached and taught, was Superior of various houses and finally of a province of his Order. He disliked the charge of Superior; but heavier trials were to come. He had just laid aside his provincialate of Lombardy and was looking forward with satisfaction to some years of devotion and work in retirement, when in the year 1288 the archbishop of Genoa died, and the Chapter, assembling to choose his successor, fixed their choice upon the friar. A covetous or ambitious man would have rejoiced at the prospect thus opened up of revenues, palaces and power, but Fra Giacopo saw beneath the mitre only responsibilities which he believed himself too weak to bear. He succeeded in having the burden transferred to more willing shoulders. But it