The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

JOHN OF GOD. 285
religious Order ; this was the congregation of the Fatebene-
fratelU. After a long life spent as a shepherd and as a soldier,
its founder, John of God, had been suddenly filled with the
deepest sorrow for his past life by a sermon of the Apostle of
Andalusia, John of Avila. By Avila's advice he began to
devote himself to the service of the sick. He first estabUshed
a small house at Granada, and then a large hospital, of which
he took charge with a few companions until his death in 1550.^
Most likely John of God had no thought of founding a new
Order ;
he and his companions, however, wore a special dress,
but they took no vows of religion, and thus remained seculars.
They only adopted a definite rule through the efforts of
Rodrigo de Siguenza, who also had been a soldier, and had
then devoted him.self to the service of the sick in the hospital
at Granada, and was soon afterwards elected Superior of the
little company. Rodrigo then sent his predecessor in that
office, Sebastian Arias, to Rome, to obtain from the Pope his
approval of their pious fraternity, and leave to wear a religious
habit, which could not then be worn by others, since the one
which they had hitherto used had been made use of by impostors
in order to obtain alms. The bull in which the Pope
granted this request, and placed the brotherhood under the
Augustinian rule,^ gives some particulars as to the extent and
activities of the congregation. In the hospital at Granada
more than 400 incurables, lunatics, cripples and aged persons
were maintained. The annual cost was more than 16,000
ducats, gathered by the Brothers as voluntary alms. Besides
the one at Granada, the congregation had similar hospitals
at Cordova, Madrid, Toledo and Lucena. The bull of Pius V.
did not as yet give the Fatebenefratelli the right to elect a
superior for the whole congregation, nor did it oblige them to
take the three vows of religion.
Pius V. had only a short span of life left to him when he
signed the bull in favour of the Fatebenefratelli, but at the
close of his days he could truly say that the work of reform
^ Cf. Vol. XI. of this work, p. 529 seq.
2 Of January i, 1572, Bull. Rom., VII., 959.