(28). Item, a small gold Salerno ring, written on the outside, not like a posey in the inside, but on the out—Bene scripsisti de ME, Thoma. The story of it is, that Thomas Aquinas, being at Salerno, and in earnest in a church before a certain image there of the blessed Virgin Mary, his earnest devotion carried him so far as to ask her whether she liked all that he had writ of her, as being free from original sin, the Queen of Heaven, &t.; and intreated her to give him some token of her acceptance of his indeavours in the writing so much in her behalf. Upon which the image opened its lipps, and said, Bene scripsisti de ME, Thoma.

Salerno layeth a little beyond Naples, on the Mediterranean sea; and the goldsmiths of the place, for their profit, make thousands of these rings, and then have them touch that image which spake. And no marchant or stranger that cometh thither but buyeth of these rings for presents and tokens. An English marchant gave me this at Naples. The Schola Salernitana was anciently famous for physicians.