Paradise and hell are but the creations of our own mind. Epicurus
taught this, and many since his day have known it to be true. You
yourself, Fra Ambrogio, have you not read in your book: "For that which
befalleth the sons of men befalleth Beasts; as the one dieth so dieth
the other." But if, like ordinary souls, I believed in God, I would
pray to him to leave the whole of me here after death, that soul and
body alike might be buried in my tomb beneath the walls of my beautiful
San Giovanni. All around are coffins hewn out of stone by the Romans
to receive their dead. Now they are open and empty. In one of those
beds I would wish to rest and sleep at last. In life I suffered
bitterly in exile, and yet I was but a day's journey from Florence.
Farther away I should have been more wretched still. I desire to remain
for ever in my beloved city. May my descendants remain there also.