Chapter V (1)

LITERATURE OF THE VULGAR TONGUE. POPULAR AND SACRED POETRY.

THE period succeeding Petrarca and Boccaccio gave indications that the spirit of poetry was extinguished for some time to come. After Boccaccio’s death, his would-be rival, Franco Sacchetti, a man not only skilled in grave and gay compositions, but able to unite literary work with political office at home and abroad, a man capable of thoroughly appreciating the varied circumstances of life, merrily sang:

The spring of poetry is now grown dry,
No living form dwells on the Muses’ mount;
Nor can we think that Dante could return,
Since none will slake their thirst at his pure fount.
Where’er we listen we but hear the tone
Of horns, that blow the signal to refrain:
Where’er we look we see but dead leaves strewn,
And time must pass ere verdure clothes the plain.

Nor were indications deceptive. For many centuries elapsed ere a poet of real significance arose. Here and there a hand touched the lyre of Petrarca, as, for instance, the Roman Giusto de’ Conti, the best among the imitators of Madonna Laura’s poet. We can hardly call poetry the greater works of the Florentine Antonio Pucci, in which he recounts the chronicle of Villani in _terzine_ and the Pisan war in _ottava rima_, the eight-lined stanza. He was a popular poet, who was not wanting in either feeling or talent, as many of his sonnets testify. Whatever might be attempted in various quarters passed without leaving a trace amid the efforts of the humanists, who despised the language of the people, and thought of nothing but perpetuating ancient culture, compared to which, according to the prevailing opinion, this language took the position of an inferior in birth. All its native power, and the cheerful, calm energy of the Tuscan people, were necessary to prevent its perishing in the midst of a twofold danger. Contempt might have excluded the language from any application to nobler ends, and so caused it to deteriorate. The attempts of the philologists to elevate the vulgar tongue after their fashion might have robbed it of naturalness, independence, character, and originality, and made it a clumsy compromise between old and new, without life or root in the people. The Tuscan language, which became the written speech of Italy, was in the fifteenth century threatened with both these dangers from a want of appreciation of its true spirit and life.

At the commencement of this century we meet with a work which, like its author, still represents the thirteenth, but which casts some rays of light over the following period. It is the tract, ‘Del governo di cura familiare,’ by the Dominican monk Giovanni Dominici, who has been already mentioned (p. 426). The book originated at the suggestion of a noble lady, Bartolommea degli Obizzi, who, with her husband Antonio degli Alberti and four children, were involved in the fearful persecution which the family had to endure in consequence of the implication of one of the Alberti in the events of 1378. The sensible, God-fearing woman, suddenly overwhelmed with all the cares of the household and the education of her children under the most distressing circumstances, had turned to a pious preaching friar whose counsel stood in high repute in and beyond his native town. He answered with this book, which was preceded by others of the same kind. It is an introduction to Christian life, and to the duties of a Christian education, containing many small details inseparable from the opinions and manners of the time. It is full of a manly spirit, with a clear recognition of the position and duties of parents and heads of families in the midst of changes which arose everywhere in consequence of the newly discovered antique world having already begun to penetrate, as it were, into a society hitherto hedged about by the narrow limits of mediæval culture and customs. From a special reference to the duties of a mother left in some sense in the position of a widow, the book passes to general remarks and considerations suggested by the state of a commonwealth torn by sectarian hatred.[410] The domestic ordinances for a Christian education in reference to respect for parents and authorities are followed by those which are dictated by active patriotism, zeal for the common good, and the preservation of unity. Parts of this book afford us a complete picture of the domestic condition of the time. The language is still that of the thirteenth century, but the structure of the sentences has no longer the graceful simplicity and transparent clearness which characterise more than one of the author’s brethren in orders.

More than a generation after Fra Giovanni Dominici, a man standing in the midst of the new classical school took up the same subject from a wider point of view. He belonged to the family for whose use the book of his predecessor had been destined. We meet with Leon Batista Alberti in almost every field—in science, literature, and art—and only his unexampled versatility hindered him from ascending to the height which he often approached. In his dialogue, consisting of several books, ‘La Cura della Famiglia,’[411] Alberti, to whom in a certain sense all the knowledge of the times lay open, displays, in his moral and philosophical view of life, the greatest harmony with the monk who hardly crossed the threshold of his age, and expresses himself on education and the true relation of the authors of antiquity to Christian morality in the same sense, and sometimes in the same words, as Giovanni. Dante and Petrarca had completed and purified by Christian wisdom the old philosophy as it had appeared to them; Alberti, a disciple of Greek learning, maintained the doctrine that, without Christianity, the world would remain in a valley of error, and wisdom would be impossible or vain. There was no lack of similar tendencies; out of the theological circle no book has spoken so decidedly.

If we regard the style of this work, which purported to be popular, we feel the difference between it and that of the book which gave the author the impulse to its composition. Here is a learned man who endeavours to make use of a language despised by the learned, if not for strictly scientific purposes, yet for the discussion of questions which include a philosophy of life. He will, so he declares, write in a simple, naked style, though he has always Xenophon in his mind. More than the lost sovereignty of the world, he laments the loss of the rich and harmonious language of the world; but he does not understand why the Tuscan language of his day should excite so much aversion that even excellent things composed in it should displease. It was only a question of being easily understood, and knowing how to handle the language. It would be foolish to despise what was in daily use or to praise what no one understood. The ancient language had attained such authority because numerous learned men had written in it. It would be the same with that of the present day if learned men would expend real industry and pains to purify and cultivate it. Thus wrote Leon Batista Alberti about the middle of the century. His words indicate the direction of the effort then made to impart to the popular language dignity and euphony, not merely by an imitation of Latin phrases like Boccaccio’s, but even by a Latin formation of words. The error was not entirely avoided by this gifted man, who in the book under discussion, though striving after simplicity and comprehensiveness did not overcome the pedantry which sought safety in foreign elements only. When the accomplished scholar, Cristoforo Landino, at the commencement of his explanation of Petrarch’s poetry, before the ‘Padri Conscripti,’[412] expressed his opinion of the feasability of cultivating the Tuscan language which, like the Latin, ought to be subjected to grammar, he propounded the aphorism ‘He who would be a good Tuscan must be a Latinist.’ He then praised Leon Batista as the foremost master of the prose of later times, Leonardo Bruni as the reviver of antique poetry, and the hendecasyllabics as Sapphic and heroic verses. Knowing all this we cannot see from whence the fresh spirit was to come that could alone breathe life into the forms of language.

How far they went in this direction, when dead if learned imitation triumphed over nature, genius, and the laws of a living language, which, as a modern writer expresses it, produced a greater reverence for the dead than for the living, is shown best by the Academy of Languages held in 1441, principally at the instigation of Alberti, under the patronage of Piero de’ Medici, in Sta. Maria del Fiore, to celebrate the presence of Pope Eugenius IV. The rectors of the university proclaimed a poetical competition, the theme of which was to be a eulogy on friendship. A silver laurel-wreath was appointed the prize; from this is derived the name of ‘Academia coronaria;’ the papal secretaries were the umpires. Before the Signoria, the archbishop, the Venetian ambassadors, prelates, nobles, and people, eight poets read their verses, most of them in triplets or _terza rima_, and one in stanzas or _ottava rima_, on Sunday, October 22. The worst poets certainly would not have presented themselves; but we search in vain for poetry in these dry and bombastic productions. The amusing yet pathetic character of this competition was most manifested in the dialogues recited by a celebrated man, Leonardo Dati, the first and second part of which were in hexameters, the third in Sapphic metre, and the fourth ended in a sonnet, composed, as it was said, after antique rules. The metres corresponding with the language, neither Italian nor Latin, were modelled after Latin words and syntax; an incomprehensible and most indigestible mixture of new and old.[413] The judges awarded the prize to none of the competitors, but gave it to the Church, which, in respect to poetry, was accustomed to something different when the ‘Divine Comedy’ was expounded in her lofty halls. He who gave the impulse to the competition seems, however, not to have found this degradation of poetry so dreadful, for he arranged a second tournament on Envy, which, however, happily did not take place. This corrupted taste found sufficient defenders in the following century, and even men of genius retained the morbid taste for mingling languages and exaggerated artificial forms of words, which these times made a fashion, and which bore the same relation to the true language as periwigs to natural hair. Happily a counterpoise to such a caricature was not wanting—a counterpoise that weighed all the heavier because connected with the inward nature and life of the people, with their faith and feeling, their religious requirements and traditions, which, if much degenerated into superficiality and mere observance, not only opposed the progress of worldliness, but won before the end of the century a victory, the echoes of which were long heard. Not to speak of the low comic branch of popular poetry, the people’s language was preserved living and fresh in letters, both those relating to business and those of a religious character, in smaller writings intended for the people, and in sacred poetry.

Thus in the second half of the fourteenth century, when the schism in the Church oppressed the minds of men, when that which had been held to be unchangeable began to totter, as well as in the first half of the following, when humanism began to develop its necessary but undermining effects, there still existed a fervent and living religious sense, which held together many things that threatened to fall asunder, and explains much that would otherwise be a riddle. Caterina of Siena is the greatest and most brilliant figure in the first epoch; all the more significant because in her the purest piety is united to penetration, blended with mysticism. Her insight into the secrets of the soul and the nature of doctrine, and her clear perception of the requirements of the age, were combined with unwearied activity and frank courage. The respect due and willingly shown by her to popes and princes, detracts in nothing from the decided character and expressive language of her discourses. But St. Caterina, unequalled before or since, does not stand alone. In writings which contain the natural unadorned expression of feeling and opinion, and in letters which, unlike those of learned men, were not intended for the public and for national collections, we find the explanation of many phenomena that contrast with the facts of public life noted by history. These phenomena must surprise him who does not regard the domestic life of the people in all ranks, or who has not sounded the inner working of a religious feeling, the manifestation of which in architectural monuments in an age full of violence and predominating worldly activity, attracts our principal attention, and scarcely seems in accord with the time. Besides several ecclesiastical representatives of this school, like Giovanni Dominici and Giovanni delle Celle, who was also canonised, Chiara Gambacorti—the foundress of the Pisan convent of Dominican nuns of the Strict Observance, who died in 1420—may be mentioned. We find others certainly not less important in that class of laymen, who were as numerous as they were influential in the towns of Tuscany in the two centuries we have spoken of—men who divided their activity between public offices and private business, and who with time and power, had an open eye, and a warm heart for whatever concerned intellectual interests, especially religious tendencies and ecclesiastical matters. These fervent natures, whose numbers increased as worldliness became more threatening, finally gathered round Fra Girolamo Savonarola as round a fixed centre in their protest against the pagan tendencies which constantly gained ground, in spite of many contradictory phenomena, in the second half of the fifteenth century. And the same natures, thirty years later, at the last flash of this mystic piety and ascetic reformatory movement in the decisive battle for life or death of the commonwealth, lent their best powers to the champions of freedom, who were overthrown for a second and last time.[414]

With this intellectual tendency a style of poetry was connected to which the philologists of the Renaissance period would have disdained to award a place in literature, even if they would have noticed it at all, had not their attention been in a certain measure forced to it by persons of high standing who guided the general taste in their circles. Popular sacred poetry was as old as the language of Dante’s time, and Fra Jacopone of Todi, to whom some pathetic if not grand Latin hymns of the later Middle Ages are ascribed, touched the keynote in his Canticles, which was echoed for three centuries in the lauds or hymns of praise. But Fra Jacopone himself only transmitted the tradition, which had remained alive since Francis of Assisi. The great number of fraternities, who assembled after the day’s work in churches and chapels and at the corners of streets and sang hymns; the numerous processions and pilgrimages, even if we except those which, like the processions of the White Penitents, set whole villages and towns in commotion; the frequent evening devotions, which were shared in by others than members of the confraternities; the expressions of pious feeling and religious aspiration, after the labour and toil of the day—all this contributed to the growth of a species of popular poetry which bore rich fruit, especially in the fifteenth century. The continuance of Christian feeling and the desire to manifest it among the people at a time when paganism had revived in the learned world is remarkable, and to judge of the general opinions and tendencies merely by the literary monuments of the age would lead to wrong conclusions.

If, as we have said, the full development of this kind of poetry belongs to the fifteenth century, the preceding age, when trials of every kind—sanguinary civil wars, devastating marches of mercenary and robber bands, pestilence and Church schism—called men to serious reflection, presents hardly less activity in this direction. The crowds of Florentine burghers who, during the strife with Pope Gregory XI. on his return from Avignon, sought compensation for the discontinuance of Divine worship in the city while under the interdict by devotions in the open air, by prayer and psalmody before the tabernacles in the streets, were a remarkable and, in their way, elevating sight. The oldest company, or _schola_, of the psalm-singers, or _laudesi_, which originated in a chapel near the cathedral church where the bell-tower now stands, and was named after the Holy Virgin or St. Zanobi, was instituted before the end of the twelfth century. From it proceeded the pious men who founded the order of Servi di Maria (Servites), who had their residence in Florence, near the church of the Annunziata, on the wooded heights of the Apennines, in the far-seen cloisters of Monte Senario, and who are often mentioned in connection with the history of the Florentine patriciate.[415] Other societies followed: the companies of Or San Michele, Sta. Maria Novella, Sta. Croce, Sto. Spirito, of the Carmine and Ognissanti. In short from all the large churches were formed brotherhoods which, in conjunction with similar ones for benevolent purposes, included a considerable part of the higher class of citizens, and several of which still exist. The style of poetry fostered in and by these fraternities had a long life, and sent forth aftershoots centuries later, when Vincenzo da Filicaia composed hymns for the society of St. Benedict, which, in the Jubilee year 1700, undertook a pilgrimage to Rome at the same time as the last but one of the Medicean rulers.

Nor do we meet with these phenomena in Florence alone, but in the neighbouring towns of Tuscany also. In Siena—where, as in adjacent Umbria, in the midst of all civil disturbances, not seldom accompanied with bloodshed, a peculiar spiritual life penetrated with mysticism had been developed and long upheld—arose the society of Jesuates about the middle of the fourteenth century, originally a congregation of laymen which formed themselves into an order and, like the Humiliates before them, combined monastic life with the practice of arts and industry. When in 1367 Pope Urban V., for whom all the serious and believing inhabitants of Rome longed, arrived at Corneto on his return from Avignon to Rome, Giovanni Colombini, the founder of this congregation, marched with his followers singing lauds through Viterbo to the sea-shore. With olive branches in their hands they accompanied with hymns the procession of the Holy Father, who granted the white robe to them in Toscanella. From its origin this popular order had sacred poets,[416] by whom the tradition of Fra Jacopone was kept alive, himself a member of one of the most popular orders. When the Venetian Antonio Bembo, who belonged to the Jesuates, lay on his death-bed in Pistoja, the two brethren who tended him began at his wish to sing the hymn of the saint of Todi, ‘Thou love of God hast wounded me.’ Towards the end of the century we find the fraternity of the Bianchi in Siena singing lauds like the Florentine brotherhoods. In Lorenzo de’ Medici’s days these consisted principally of artisans who assembled on Saturdays, after nine, in a church and sang lauds in four voices before a picture of the Madonna, changing about among themselves with every hymn. It was partly a kind of _canto fermo_, and partly sung after popular melodies. If we consider that till the reform of church music, undertaken at the wish of the Council of Trent by Giovanni Pierluigi of Palestrina, Divine worship had been accompanied by vaudeville melodies, we cannot be surprised if the same tunes to which carnival songs were sung—Italian, French, and Flemish—were occasionally used with the lauds without anyone taking offence at it. Thus we find them founded on melodies as those of the ‘Leggiadra damigella,’ or ‘Una donna d’amor fino,’ ‘O Rosa mia gentile,’ ‘O crudel donna ch’hai lassato me,’ ‘Vicin, vicin, vicin, chi mol’ spazar camin,’ ‘Plus que je vis le regar gracieuse,’ and similar ones. Occasionally it is remarked that the melody is the same as that of dances or _strambotti_, as the popular songs were called, which might be referred to King Manfred’s days and make the nearest approach to our street-tunes.

This sacred poetry is very prolific, and though the frequent recurrence of the same motive is wearying, we are astonished at the endless wealth of the variations and the delicate expression of effect, elegant in its simplicity. The form and metre of the hymns, some of which are quite short and others extending to several verses, are very different. Fra Jacopone was succeeded by the Minorite, Fra Ugo Panziera of Prato; the Dominican, Fra Domenico Cavalco of Vico Pisano, who, as an ascetic writer, has proved himself a master of prose; Bianco dall’Anciolina, one of the companions of Giovanni Colombini; and, about the beginning of the fifteenth century, by the learned Venetian Leonardo Giustiniani, brother of the patriarch Lorenzo who was venerated as a saint; contemporaneous with him were Fra Giovanni Dominici, Francesco d’Albizzo, and many others. The succeeding epoch witnessed the appearance of the two men who have given this popular poetry its greatest brilliancy and importance: they were Feo Belcari and Girolamo Benivieni.[417]

The birth of Feo Belcari[418] occurred at a time when the sad divided condition of the Church—which the Pisan Council did not help by the choice of a third Pope—had excited in Florence a movement which was only terminated by the restoration of unity. He was born on February 4, 1410, and belonged to a respectable family extinct before the sixteenth century. He filled many public offices, sat in the magistracy of the priors in the summer of 1454, was secretary in the office of the Public Debt, and died on August 16, 1484. He is the best representative of the tendency, intellect, and feeling which we are now considering. Feo Belcari was no dreamer, but a man of active life, a sharer in the cheerful society, principally composed of artists, which was a characteristic element of the social condition of the time. All that we possess of him belongs to devotional literature. His book on the founders of the Jesuates, dedicated to Giovanni de’ Medici, describes times and circumstances which he knew from oral tradition, being in the most intimate connection with the orders that had acquired importance in Florence. His letters—one of which on humility, addressed to his daughter Orsola, gives a clear view of his opinions—are moral philosophical treatises, in which the familiarity with the Fathers of the Church and Christian authors of the Middle Ages would make us take them for the work of a theologian, had not the knowledge of this literature been so widely disseminated among a portion of the laity. His dramatic works are among the most important of the kind which introduced Sacred History into the circle of festivals, half ecclesiastical half secular, and claimed the equal attention of high and low. In 1449 his mystery of the ‘Sacrifice of Abraham’ was acted in the church of Cestello. But more than all, his _laudi_ have made him a name. The number of them is very great, for many are only variations of the same theme—that of Divine love and the powerlessness of human nature without grace. But the different turns and shades of meaning are remarkable, and the ease with which the metre harmonises with the hymn is astonishing, whilst there is no want of reality. In 1455, when the author was at the height of his powers and activity, a collection of this poetry had been arranged for the Compagnia de’ Battuti di San Zanobi, and the plays were kept in use till far into the following century. The style is mostly simple, as befits popular productions, but it is not entirely free from Latinisms and affectation in his prose writings.

The death of Feo Belcari, the ‘Christian Poet,’ was sung by Girolamo Benivieni[419] in _terza rima_, where we read among other things:

The darkened world has now long missed the star
Which, while the shade still hung before my eyes,
Shone like a guide unto my steps afar.

Ne’er will the sweet and heavenly tones resound,
Silent the harmonies of that sweet lyre,
Now only in the angels’ bright world found.

Girolamo Benivieni, as his own words suggest, was in a measure the successor of Belcari. But while the latter wrote entirely under the influence of strictly orthodox Christianity, Benivieni sought to impart to his work the spirit of Greek philosophy which ruled the age in which he had grown up. While Belcari, again, united public activity with the contemplative life in which he loved to indulge, we are not informed that Benivieni, however deeply the events in his native country might move him, had any share in them beyond that of an author and a friend of many of the actors. Born in 1453, he survived friends and foes and the Republic itself. Intellectually active up to his last years, he kept true to the recollections of his most active years, and to the convictions he had then formed. Feo Belcari had been his leader in youth; Fra Girolamo Savonarola was the guiding star of his ripe manhood. Between the two, the representative of the contemplative man and the strenuous ascetic, stands a grave, beautiful figure, Pico of Mirandola, who had no less influence on Benivieni than the others. Only from its intimate connection with these three has Benivieni’s life—of which nothing else is known—a significance and importance, that cannot otherwise be explained. As he sang Belcari’s death, and defended the truth of Savonarola’s doctrines and predictions—more than thirty years after his death—before Pope Clement VII.,[420] so did he choose his last resting-place beside Pico,[421] whose death preceded his own by half a century. Benivieni illustrated his friend’s canzonets on Divine Love with a detailed commentary which proved how their minds accorded with one another.

Benivieni attempted the most various kinds of poetry—eclogues, canticles, canzonets, sonnets—which give him a place beside the two men whom we shall soon see taking the first places in poetry, Poliziano and Lorenzo de’ Medici; while in popular songs, the _Frottole_, he retained the tradition which, whatever the learned might say, still represented the popular element in literature. He translated the Psalms and the ‘Dies Iræ’ into the _terza rima_, remodelled a novel of Boccaccio’s into stanzas, and made poetic translations from the Greek and Latin. His poems on religious philosophical subjects show him to have been in form and meaning one of those who aspired to mediate between Christianity and Platonism, a tendency also evinced by the commentary accompanying the poems we have mentioned, and addressed to Pico’s nephew, Giovan Francesco. Benivieni’s principal historical importance, so to say, consists in the sympathy he showed for the movement commenced by Savonarola, which found its especial poetical expression through him. His lauds, which, in their mysticism tinged with sensuousness, remind us at times of Fra Jacopone’s sentimentality, were sung by the people in the streets of the city, by high and low members of the Dominican order, in places where shortly before Medicean carnival-songs had resounded, and where piles of worldly vanity were heaped up to be followed soon by other forms of terrible ruin.

In the style which gives importance to Belcari’s and Benivieni’s poetry when the former still lived and the latter was in youthful manhood, a woman appeared who claims peculiar attention, because she exercised a decided influence on the personage who has given to this epoch the special stamp of his individuality. Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ Medici was eminently gifted; we have seen her in several positions in life which display her clear understanding, caution, affection for her family, and care for their welfare, without arrogance or forgetfulness of her station. Her productions as a poet belong to the intellectual class. The six lauds[422] which remain of her poetry have this peculiarity, that they include the ecclesiastical year; and if their poetical value does not exceed others of the kind, they produce a favourable impression by avoiding the endless repetitions of similar poems. The Birth of Christ, the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Life of Christ on earth, these are the themes of her hymns, some of which were sung to sacred, and some to profane airs. Beside these processional songs, Lucrezia wrote various Biblical histories in _terza rima_ or in eight-lined stanzas: _e.g._, the ‘Lives of the Virgin and John the Baptist,’ the ‘History of Esther, Judith, and Tobias.’ Angelo Poliziano revised her poems, and her grandsons learned them by heart. Another poetess of the time, whose family was intimately acquainted with Lucrezia’s, Antonia Giannotti Pulci, attempted sacred dramas, in which her husband Bernardo made himself a name.

Besides poetry another branch of literature deserves attention, although the humanistic school diminished its powers, and restricted its influence without entirely depriving it of importance. It will be easily understood that, in the native country of Dino Compagni and the Villani, there could be no lack of such as continued to note down what they felt and heard, and what they had themselves a personal share in. Nowhere, perhaps, were such notices, either in the form of annals or chronicles, or as narratives of personal experience with a predominance of character drawing, so frequent and so valuable as here. In the last decades of the fourteenth century several writers had followed in the steps of the Villani with far more talent than they had. Donato Velluti, Marchionne Stefani, Gino Capponi wrote a description of the popular insurrections of 1378, in the course of which the reader is in danger of losing the thread if he does not keep the separate elements apart. The following century was active in this department, but however important in many cases the material may have been, the form and language betray the lowly position to which the humanistic literature had condemned this despised sister. Buonaccorso Pitti, Jacopo Salviati, and Neri Capponi wrote histories and commentaries which are partly personal memoirs, and all the more instructive because the epoch was one which claimed so fully the active participation of capable citizens at home and abroad. We may, perhaps, blame the weakness of the last-mentioned writer for placing his own deeds and those of his father, relations, and friends, in the foremost rank in commentaries, which extend nearly to his death in 1456; but where men like Gino and Neri Capponi have laboured in such a conspicuous manner, the circumstantial style is willingly accepted, as the inner life of a people can only be recognised and understood by a closer view of important persons. Other chroniclers, like Domenico Buoninsegni and Goro Dati, from whom less is to be gained for political history, are the more readily pardoned for their gossiping patriotism because the subject of their preference is a deserving one, and they furnish us with a quantity of information that is important for the history of civilisation.

A special place belongs to Giovanni Cavalcanti, the principal authority for the time from 1420 to 1440. The humanistic school had exercised more influence on him than on any of the historians of his day who wrote in the vulgar tongue, but in a manner which imprints the strangest character on his history. For we find here, grafted on the passionate description of a partisan who had fallen out with his own faction in the course of his work, a rhetorical wordiness and elegant would-be eloquence which clothes the strife of faction, with its loves and hatreds, in antiquated speeches and moralising sentences. The personality of the author in and for itself, as it meets us in his writings (we know nothing else of him), is characteristic; a nobleman of one of the oldest families, poor, oppressed, without any share in the administration, and with a full consciousness of the old conservative claims of the patricians, with a fierce contemptuous hatred of the lower classes, and a bitter grudge against the heads of the State, which leads him to charge Cosimo de’ Medici whom he so often praises with a diabolical design to destroy freedom. To all these annalists and historians we may add others, whose works are mostly printed, and include the times of Lorenzo or later, namely, Benedetto Dei, Bartolommeo Cerretani, Pietro Parenti, Giovanni Cambi. Similar to this branch of history, biography placed her achievements in the vulgar tongue beside those of the humanists, who, rivalling the Greeks and Romans, created much that was important and permanently valuable in a higher sense than their great historical works. Most unassuming, and, in spite of all solecisms and defects of form, most pleasing is the popular form of biography, in the hundred characteristic portraits by Vespasiano da Bisticci, to whom we owe innumerable deep views into the inner life for which we vainly seek among the learned historians.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Vasari, in Michelozzo’s Life (_Vite_, Lemonnier’s edition, Flor. 1846, ff., iii. p. 271); and in Brunelleschi’s Life, a. a. O., p. 228. Michelozzo was born about the year 1391. It is generally understood that the building of the Palace took place before Cosimo’s exile, and they quote from Migliore (_Firenze Illustrata_, Flor. 1684, p. 198 ff.), which specifies ‘circa all’Anno 1430.’ There is no foundation for this statement. Moreover, Michelozzo was not in Florence in the year supposed (Fantozzi, _Guida di Firenze_, Flor. 1842, p. 457).

[2] Vasari in the Life of Lorenzo di Bicci, a. a. O., ii. p. 225. The house came afterwards to the Ughi family. At present it is all built round, even the adjoining Lorenzi Palace, which up to our day preserved its ancient, solemn aspect.

[3] _Ordinamenta justitiæ communis et populi Florentiæ anni_ 1293, a Francisco Bonainio edita, in Archivio Storico Italiano, serie ii. i. p. 1-93 [1855]. C. Hegel, _Die Ordnungen der Gerechtigkeit in der Florentinischen Republik_, Erlangen 1867. Compare P. Capei, Arch. Stor. Ital. ser. iii. vii. p. 132.

[4] Fr. Bonaini, _Della Parte Guelfa in Firenze_, in Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani (Flor. 1857), ii. p. 171, 257; iii. p. 77, 167; iv. p. 3. Unfortunately this laborious work remains incomplete. The oldest constitution of the Capitani and the Guelf party was in 1335, and is printed in Bonaini, i. p. 1-41. The office was in existence up to the year 1769.

[5] Gio. Villani, xi. chap. 92, 93.

[6] G. Canestrini, _La Scienza e l’Arte di Stato desunta dagli Atti Officiali della Repubblica Florentina e dei Medici_. Parte 1, L’imposta sulla ricchezza mobile e immobile. Florenz. 1862. No more has appeared of this work, which was to be the economical and administrative history of the Republic and of the first Medici period. The first part treats of the _Estimo_, of the _Cadastre_, and of the _Decima_ of 1494. Cf. L. Banchi in the Archivio Stor. Ital., serie iii. i. p. 90 (G. F. Pagnini). _Della Decima e delle altre gravezze imposte dal Commune di Firenze_ (Lucca, 1763) has in its first volume, p. 10, a short account of Florentine taxation, up to the introduction of the _decima_ (p. 214-231.—Provision of May 22, 1427, for the formation of the _cadastre_).

[7] The Peruzzi in 1325 were an instance of this. _Storia del Commercio e dei Banchieri di Firenze._ Flor. 1868, p. 197.

[8] Varchi, _Storia Fiorentina_, at the end of book xiii. (Edit. Arbib. Flor. 1844, iii. p. 36.)

[9] ‘Ipse quidem nescit si fructus sequetur, vel non; sed, auditis aliis civibus, idem secutus est.’ ‘Consulta’ of May 12, 1427, by P. Berti, Nuovi documenti intorno al Catasto florentino, in the _Giorn. Stor. degli archivi Toscani_, iv. 32. Giovanni Cavalcanti (_Storia Fiorentina_, Flor. 1838, i. 196.)—a contemporary, who has left us the most lifelike description of that period, but who must be used with great caution on account of his decided and enthusiastic party views—has been followed by all later writers in his opinion of the Medici. At the head of these is Machiavelli, who took him as the principal source of information for those times.

[10] Gio. Cavalcanti, l. c. p. 262.

[11] Domenico Moreni, _Continuazione delle Memorie della Basilica di S. Lorenzo_. Flor. 1816, i. p. 27.

[12] _Monuments Sépulcraux de Toscane_, Flor. 1821. Table xiii. The inscription is as follows:

‘Cosmus et Laurentius de Medicis v. d. Joanni Averardi f. et Picardæ Adovardi f. carissimis parentibus hoc Sepulchrū faciendum curarunt. Obiit autem Johannes x. Kl. Martias MCCCCXXVIII. Picarda vero xiii. Kl. Maias quinquennio post e vita migravit.

Si merita in patriam, si gloria, sanguis et omni Larga manus nigra libera morte forent, Viveret heu patriæ casta cum coniuge felix Auxilium miseris portus et aura suis; Omnia sed quando superantur morte, Johannes, Hoc mausoleo tuque Picarda iaces, Ergo senex mœret, invenis, puer, omnis et ætas, Orba parente suo patria mœsta gemit.

[13] G. Cavalcanti, l. c. p. 269.

[14] The xv. and xvi. cantos of _Il Paradiso_ contain eloquent descriptions of historical importance, to the explanation of which the translation of Philalethes has contributed valuable materials.

[15] G. F. Berti, _Cenni storico-artistici di S. Miniato al Monte_, Flor. 1850. The MSS. of Bishop Hildebrand of the year 1013 show that the reconstruction of the church had already begun at that time.

[16] V. Marchese, _Memorie dei più insigni pittori, scultori, e architetti Domenicani_. Flor. 1845. I. p. 44 ff. F. Moisè, _Santa Croce di Firenze_, Flor. 1845. I. p. 42 _et seq._

[17] L. Passerini, _La Loggia di Or San Michele_, l. c. p. 113 ff.

[18] _Regesta florentina internam Reipublicæ historiam spectantia ab a._ MCCXXV, _ad a._ MD., by Gaye, Carteggio inedito d’Artisti, i. 413 _et seq._

[19] M. Rastrelli, _Illustrazione istorica del Palazzo della Signoria_. Flor. 1792. F. Moisè, _Illustrazione storico-artistica del Palazzo de’ Priori_. Flor. 1843.

[20] Fr. Becchi, _Sulle Stinche di Firenze, in Illustratore fiorentino_. Flor. 1840.

[21] Inferno xix. 17 (‘in my beautiful San Giovanni’). Purgatory xii. 100. Even with the present transformation of the hillside a great flight of steps is to be seen hard by.

[22] Concerning the various kinds of the _macigni_ (Dante uses the expression, _Inferno_ xv. 63, speaking of the obdurate nature of the Florentines of his time), the _pietra forte_, _pietra fina_, _serena_, _bigia_, see Targioni, _Viaggi per la Toscana_, i. p. 18 _et seq._

[23] The opinion expressed in the book of the Carmelite, P. Fr. M. Soldini—_Delle eccellenze e grandezze della nazione fiorentina_ (Flor. 1780),—respecting the palace Tosinghi on the old market-place, destroyed, according to Gio. Villani, in the party wars of the middle of the 13th century, is, no doubt, a modern conjecture.

[24] Gaye, l. c. p. 498 (Anno 1344).

[25] Baldinucci, Professori del disegno (D. M. Manni’s Ausg.), vol. i. p. 24, Gaye l. c. p. 483.

[26] G. Masselli and G. P. Lasinio, _Il Tabernacolo della Madonna d’Orsanmichele_: Flor. 1851.

[27] L. Passerini, _La Loggetta del Bigallo_, l. c. p. 89 _et seq._

[28] Benedetto Dei, in Varchi, _Storia Fiorentina_, book ix. (ii. p. 116), names twenty-one loggias on private houses in the latter half of the 15th century. Lastro, _Osservatore Fiorentino_ (published Flor. 1821), iii. p. 203 _et seq._

[29] _Cronaca di Matteo Villani_, book vii. chap. 41.

[30] L. Passerini, _La Loggia della Signoria_ l. c. p. 99. Gaye l. c. p. 527.

[31] Passerini l. c.; after him Il. Semper in A. v. Zahn’s _Fine Arts Annals_, iii. p. 35-37. The tradition respecting Orcagna is in Lemonnier’s _Vasari_, ii. p. 130.

[32] G. Aiazzi ‘Illustrazione della Capella gentilizia della _Famiglia Rinuccini_,’ in the _Ricordi di Filippo Rinuccini_: Flor. 1840, p. 304-327.

[33] Gaye l. c. p. 536.

[34] C. Guasti, _La Cupola di Sta. Maria del Fiore_: Flor. 1857, p. 9, 37, 89.

[35] Plan and sketch in the _Osservatore Fiorentino_, ii. p. 167.

[36] _Book of Statutes_, part vii. book 4.

[37] Inscription on the back: ‘Clarissimi viri Cosmas et Laurentius fratres neglectas diu Sanctorum reliquias martyrum religioso studio ac fidelissima pietate suis sumptibus æneis loculis condendas colendasque curarunt.’ Figured in the _Monuments Sépulcraux_, Table XX. In the time of the French invasion broken up and destined to be melted down, but rescued and restored, and now in the National Museum in the Palace of the Podestà.

[38] Pagnini, _Della decima_, etc., ii. p. 80. S. L. Peruzzi, p. 61. _Osservatore fiorentino_, iii. p. 185, vi. p. 157.

[39] Gio. Villani, xi. chap. 93.

[40] P. Berti, _Documenti riguardanti il commercio dei Fiorentini in Francia nei secoli xiii. e xiv._ in the _Giornale storico degli Arch. Tosc._ i. pp. 163, 217. The most abundant material is contained in Francesco Balducci Pegolotti’s _Pratica della Mercatura_, 14th century, and Pagnini, iii.

[41] _Osservatore fiorentino_, iv. p. 124. F. Fantozzi, _Notizie biografiche di Bernardo Cennini_, Flor. 1839, p. 33. Fantozzi regards the Calimaruzza as the former Via Francesca, where the magazines of foreign cloth were, and the Calimala as the place for the sale of the native fabrics.

[42] G. Gargioli, _L’Arte della Seta in Firenze trattato del secolo_ xv., Flor. 1868. The lists from 1225 to 1337 are printed p. 282-290. L. Venturi, _Filippo Matteoni_ (the biography of one of the most intelligent silk-weavers of our time), in verse and prose, Flor. 1871, p. 321. S. Bongi, _Della Mercatura dei Lucchesi nei sec._ xiii. e xiv. _Osservatore fior._ iv. p. 103; vi. p. 36. Peruzzi, p. 36, where there are also the portraits of a crimson-dyer and a silk-spinner, after a MS. in the Laurentiana.

[43] _L’Inferno_, xvii. 43. Compare E. Morpurgo, _I prestatori di denaro al tempo di Dante_, in _Dante e Padua, Studj storico-critici_, Padua, 1865, p. 193.

[44] _Divine Comedy_, ‘Paradise,’ xix. 119.

[45] Kervyn de Lettenhove, _Les Argentiers Florentins_, in the _Bulletins de l’Académie r. de Belgique_, 1861, pp. 295-312. Compare also his treatise, _Recherches sur la part que l’ordre de Citeaux et le Comte de Flandre prirent à la lutte de Boniface VIII. et de Philippe le Bel_, in the _Mémoires_ of the same Academy, xxviii. On the Franzesi family see Repetti, _Dizionario della Toscana_, article ‘Figline, Staggia.’

[46] Vol. x. chap. 88.

[47] Fr. Balducci Pegolotti, in Pagnini, p. 198.

[48] Bartolommeo Cerretani, in Fabroni _M. Cosmi Med. Vita_, ii. 63. Concerning this still unprinted chronicler, see Moreni, _Bibliografia della Toscana_, i. 249.

[49] Del Migliore, p. 6. See Gaye, p. 424.

[50] Extracts in Gaye, in the registers.

[51] _Paradiso_ xv. 97. _Purgat._ xvi. 117.

[52] L. Mehus: _Ambrosii Traversarii Epistolæ et Orationes_. Flor. 1759, ccclxxiv.

[53] On the Bardi see Ademollo, _Marietta de Ricci_, 2nd edit. by L. Passerini, Flor, 1815, iii. 1135.

[54] ‘Io confesso—che il concilio non è per me. Ma che debbo fare, se haggio uno fato che mi ci tira?’—Luca della Robbia, _Vita di Bartolommeo Valori_, in the _Arch. Stor. Ital._ iv. part i. 262.

[55] _Documenti relativi alla liberazione dalla prigionia di Giovanni XXIII._, in the _Arch. Stor. Ital._ 429. Writings of Averardo di Medici to Michele Cossa, Flor. Dec. 31, 1419. Fabroni as above, ii. 11.

[56] Ciacconio: _Historia Pontificum_, etc., Rome, 1677, ii. 795, and the _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate xi., give an illustration. From Michelozzo’s Survey-Declaration in Gaye, as above, 117, we see that the monument was still unfinished in 1427, and the price agreed upon had been 800 florins.

[57] L. Passerini: _Gli Alberti di Firenze_, Flor. 1870, i. 118; ii. 227.

[58] _Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi per il comune di Firenze dal 1399 al 1433_. Edited by Cesare Guasti. 3 vols. Flor. 1867-73.

[59] _Gio. Cavalcanti_, 319: _Albizzi Family_. See Ademollo, as above, ii. 695. _Genealogij_, by Gius. Ajazzi, MS. in possession of the author.

[60] Niccolò’s conversation with Niccolò Barbadoro, in Cavalcanti as above, p. 380 (copied, with alterations, by Machiavelli in the 4th book of the _Florentine Hist._), gives the best insight into the feelings of the party.

[61] Vasari: _Life of Lorenzo di Bicci_, ii. p. 229. The building of the Sapienza already begun, served later as a cage for lions, and is now employed as an educational institution.

[62] Vasari: Life of Masaccio, vol. iii. p. 160.

[63] _Vitæ CIII. Virorum Illustrium qui sæculo xv. extiterunt_, auctore coævo Vespasiano Florentino. (In the _Spicilegium Romanum_, edited by Cardinal Angelo Mai.) Rome, 1839, reprint. _Vite di nomini illustri del secolo xv._ scritte da Vespasiano da Bisticci, stampate nuovamente da Adolfo Bartoli. Flor. 1859. _Palla di Noferi Strozzi_, p. 271. Messer Leonardo is Leonardo Bruni.

[64] Vespasiano da Bisticci as above, 278.

[65] _Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi_, iii. 507.

[66] Gio. Cavalcanti as above, 320-327.

[67] Fabroni as above, i. 27; ii. 31, 58.

[68] L. Passerini: _Genealogia e storia della famiglia Guadagni_, Flor. 1874, p. 52.

[69] Cosimo’s own memoranda, Fabroni as above, ii. 96, which give no information as to the grounds and form of the action, must be compared with Cavalcanti’s relation, 507, which supplied Machiavelli with his materials. The protocols of the Signory give no information as to these proceedings.

[70] Gio. Cavalcanti as above, 558, 610.

[71] _Storia Fiorentina dai tempi di Cosimo de’ Medici a quelli del gonfaloniere Soderini._ Flor. 1859. Vol. i. of the _Opere inedite di Fr. Guicciardini, illustrate da G. Canestrini_, p. 4.

[72] ‘Fermare lo Stato’—to give a settled form to a Government, introduced by the sovereign or a political party. ‘Stato’ means in this case the rule with which they exercise it.

[73] _I Capitoli del Comune di Firenze Inventario e Regesto_, i. Flor. 1866.

[74] Published by D. M. Manni, Flor. 1720. Constantine Höfler has in his history of King Rupert (Freiburg, 1861) placed the activity of Buonaccorso Pitti in its right light.

[75] Printed by D. M. Manni Cronachette Antiche, Florence, 1733. The history of the conquest of Pisa, printed there likewise, is probably by his son Neri.

[76] _Storia Fiorentina_, chap. i.

[77] P. Litta: _Genealogy of the Acciaiuoli_. L. Taufani: _Nicola Acciaiuoli_, Florence, 1863. Gaye has published in the _Carteggio inedita d’Artisti_, i. 57-69, the remarkable letters of the seneschal for the years 1355-56, on the building of the Certosa. Vespasiano da Bisticci as above, 351 (on Agnolo Acciaiuoli).

[78] Vespasiano da Bisticci as above, 332. Angiolo Segni: _Vita di Donato Acciaiuoli_, edited by Tommaso Tonelli, Florence, 1841.

[79] Franc. Guicciardini: _Recordi di Famiglia_, in his _Opere inedite_, x.

[80] Description and narrative which Vespasiano da Bisticci, 525, gives of Alessandra de Bardi Strozzi and her sad fate, give a deep insight into the miseries of this time.

[81] _Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi_, iii. 651, 669.

[82] _Commissioni_, iii. 672, 677.

[83] _Idem_, 680.

[84] Vespasiano de Bisticci as above, 417.

[85] L. Basserini: _Baldaccio da Anghiari_, in the _Arch. Stor. Ital._, 3, iii. 131, 166. The author is of the opinion that the connections of Baldaccio to the Pope Gregory IV., still residing in Florence, were the cause of the Medicean party wishing to get rid of him.

[86] Gio. Cavalcanti, I. c. ii. 195.

[87] Register of 1458, Canestrini, as above, 168. Progressive scale, _id._ 213.

[88] Gio. Cavalcanti as above, ii. 210.

[89] Etiam nobis esset reputatio et utilitas si Papa hic veniret. Rinaldo degli Albizzi, _Commissioni_, iii. 589.

[90] C. Milanesi, ‘Osservazioni intorno agli esemplari del decreto d’unione della chiesa Greca con la Latina che si conservano nella biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana o nell’Archivio di Stato,’ with Greek and Latin text of the decree of union, in the _Giorn. stor. degli Arch. tosc._ i. 196-225. This is not the place to refer to the newest historico-critical literature on this subject.

[91] Fabroni as above, ii. 163.

[92] _Life of Eugenius IV._ as above, 16.

[93] _Life of Agnolo Acciaiuoli_ as above, p. 357.

[94] Giannone, _Storia civile del Regno di Napoli_, book xxvi. chap. 2.

[95] _Ricordi storici di Filippo di Cino Rinuccini dal 1282 al 1460, colla continuazione di Alamanno e Neri suoi figli fino al 1506 per cura di G. Aiazzi_, Flor. 1840, lxxxix.

[96] Letter of Pius II., and his answer, in Fabroni, ii. 254.

[97] Document of the purchase of the ‘sclava,’ twenty-two years old, for the price of 60 ducats, Fabroni, ii. 214.

[98] Fabroni as above, ii. 251.

[99] _Idem_, 253.

[100] The list of the masses ordered by Piero de’ Medici after his father’s death, and the grants for mourning habits to the members and servants of his family, among them five chamber-women and four maids (_schiave_), are given by Fabroni, ii. 254.

[101] M. Ficino, _Epistol._ i. 85.

[102] Fabroni, ii. 257.

[103] Litta, ‘Family Tornabuoni,’ in the _Famiglie celebri Ital._, Ademollo as above, iv. 1200. The Tornabuoni became extinct in 1635, and the name and inheritance of the Tornaquinci, extinct in 1790, passed to the branch of the Medici which is still flourishing in Florence.

[104] January 1, 1448, after Florentine style (annus ab incarnatione, _i.e._ from March 25), is the same day 1449.

[105] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, per Nicolaum Valorium edita ad Leonem X.P.M. First printed by L. Mehus after a Laurentian MS., Flor. 1749; more recently in Philippi Villani _Liber de civitatis Florentiæ famosis civibus et de Florentinorum litteratura principes fere synchroni scriptores_. Ed. G. C. Galletti. Flor. 1847, p. 161. An Italian translation had already appeared, Flor. 1568. Niccolò Valori was a pupil of Marsilio Ficino, and a member of the Platonic Academy.

[106] On Gentile of Urbino, as he was commonly called, see A. M. Bandini, _Specimen literaturæ Florentinæ_, sæc. xv., Flor. 1752, i. 182; ii. 111. Desjardins-Canestrini, _Négotiations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane_, Paris 1859, i. 317. _Embassy of Becchi and Piero Soderini to King Charles VIII._, 1493, _idem_, 321-365. _Address to Pope Innocent VIII. on occasion of the Neapolitan war of the Barons_, 1485, p. 205-214. Gentile, bishop of Arezzo 1473, died April 19, 1497.

[107] Fabroni, _Laur. Med. Magnif. Vita_, Pisa, 1784, ii. 9.

[108] N. Valori as above, 166.

[109] Politian, _Conjuratio Pactiana_, at the end.

[110] Litta, _Family Pazzi_, Ademollo, as above, iv. 1228.

[111] As above, 372.

[112] For documents referring to the embassy, see Desjardins, as above, 109, 135.

[113] Vespasiano, as above, 375.

[114] L. Passerini, _Genealogia e storia della famiglia Rucellai_, Flor. 1861.

[115] L. Passerini, _Genealogy of the Soderini_, continuation of Litta’s _Famiglie celebri_.

[116] Vasari, _Life of Donatello_, iii. 250. For illustration see Litta.

[117] _Cronica di Napoli di Notar Giacomo_, pubbl. da P. Garzilli, Naples, 1845, p. 100. Giovan. Pietro Cagnola, _Storia di Milano_ (‘Cronache Milanesi,’ in the _Arch. stor. ital._ iii. Flor. 1842), informs us (p. 170) of Don Federigo’s arrival and the causes of the delay of the wedding, which was connected with Jacopo Piccinino’s affairs (see below, p. 219). Ippolita arrived on September 14 at Naples, after having waited two months in Siena, till her father permitted her to proceed. (_Cronica di Notar Giacomo_, 112; Cagnola, 171.)

[118] Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, xcv.

[119] Luigi Pulci’s letter, see Roscoe, App. ix., but more correct in the _Lettere di Luigi Pulci a Lorenzo il Magnifico e ad altri_ (edited by Salvatore Bongi), Lucca, 1868, p. 1. There are various notices of the writer here, but unfortunately no notes to the letters, which are often unintelligible, and will probably remain so, in spite of all notes, with regard to various persons mentioned.

[120] Fabroni, l. e., ii. 51 _seq._

[121] Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, xcvi.

[122] Fabroni as above, ii. 47; letter of March 22, _idem_, 49.

[123] Desjardins as above, 136-141.

[124] Guicciardini, in whom the traditions of grandfather and granduncle are united in cap. ii. of the _Storia fiorentina_, p. 18; Machiavelli, who, in consequence of the death of Girolamo, his ancestor in Cosimo’s time, could not be very favourable to Luca Pitti and his adherents, in book vii. of his history. G. M. Bruto, _Florentinæ historiæ_, book ii.

[125] On this affair, which has never been fully cleared up, see Ricotti, _Storia delle Compagnie di Ventura_, iii. 191, where the judgment of contemporaries is referred to; and Canestrini, _Documenti per servire alla storia della Milizia italiana_, Flor. 1851 (_Arch. stor. ital._ xv.), series lxxviii. 179-184, where the letters of Francesco Sforza and the King are to be found.

[126] Vespasiano da Bisticci as above, p. 360.

[127] Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, xcix.

[128] _Lettera di Jacopo Acciaiuoli ad Agnolo_, Naples, September 6, 1466. See Fabroni as above, ii. 28. The time of Lorenzo’s journey cannot be precisely fixed, but it must have taken place before or towards the middle of August, for the later events leave no time. Jacopo writes: ‘Lorenzo di Piero fu quà. Il S. Rè li fece carezze assai.’

[129] _Paradiso_, xv. 109.

[130] Francis Joseph Sloane, who died in 1871. The villa passed by inheritance to the Russian family Boutourlin.

[131] The name Camaldoli, which is borne in Florence by two districts of the city inhabited by the poorer classes—that of San Frediano and that behind San Lorenzo—is derived from the Camaldulensian church of San Salvatore, pulled down in 1529, which stood near the city walls on the left bank of the Arno. To the district of San Lorenzo the name was transferred from the other behind Sta. Croce, and at Porta San Niccolò there are other districts so named.

[132] The prevailing opinion among the opponents of the Medici of the events of 1466 is expressed decidedly in the notices of Alamanno Rinuccini, who continued those of his father Filippo from the year 1460, as above, coll. xcix.

[133] _Cronachetta Volterrana di autore anomino del 1362 al 1478_, given by M. Tabarrini in the _Arch. Stor. Ital._ App. iii. 317.