The two monks, who did not know the poet, gave the most pleasing accounts of his brother.
The plague, they said, having got into the convent of Montrieux, the prior, a pious but timorous man, told his monks that flight was the only course which they could take: Gherardo answered with courage, "Go whither you please! As for myself I will remain in the situation in which Heaven has placed me." The prior fled to his own country, where death soon overtook him.

Gherardo remained in the convent, where the plague spared him, and left him alone, after having destroyed, within a few days, thirty-four of the brethren who had continued with him.

He paid them every service, received their last sighs, and buried them when death had taken off those to whom that office belonged.

With only a dog left for his companion, Gherardo watched at night to guard the house, and took his repose by day.

When the summer was over, he went to a neighbouring monastery of the Carthusians, who enabled him to restore his convent.
While the Carthusians were making this honourable mention of Father Gherardo, the prelate cast his eyes from time to time upon Petrarch.