[1] In the Italian fisofoli: an evidently intentional distortion
[2] Villani, Istorie Fiorentine, iv. cap. ix., and Dante,Paradiso, xvi. 104, spell the name Barucci.
NOVEL 7. OF THE SIXTH DAY
— Madonna Filippa, being found by her husband with her lover, is cited before the court,and by a ready and jocund answer acquits herself,and brings about an alteration of the statute. —
Fiammetta had been silent some time, but Scalza's novel argument to prove the pre-eminent nobility of the Baronci kept all still laughing, when the queen called for a story from Filostrato, who thus began:—Noble ladies, an excellent thing is apt speech on all occasions, but to be proficient therein I deem then most excellent when the occasion does most imperatively demand it. As was the case with a gentlewoman, of whom I purpose to speak to you,who not only ministered gaiety and merriment to her hearers, but extricated herself, as you shall hear, from the toils of an ignominious death.