HKB
painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer at once, who a few years later was to complete and crown the architectural glories of Florence by that masterpiece of grace, his marble Campanile.
[Footnote 19: See the curious letters of John de Monte Corvino, about his mission in Cathay, 1289-1305, in Wadding, vi. 69.]
[Footnote 20: E.g. the Mozzi, of Greg. X.; Peruzzi, of Philip le Bel; Spini, of Boniface VIII.; Cerchi del Garbo, of Benedict XI. (G. Vill. vii. 42, viii. 63, 71; Dino Comp. p. 35).]
Fifty years made then all that striking difference in domestic habits, in the materials of dress, in the value of money, which they have usually made in later centuries. The poet of the fourteenth century describes the proudest nobleman of a hundred years before "with his leathern girdle and clasp of bone;" and in one of the most beautiful of all poetic celebrations of the good old time, draws the domestic life of ancient Florence in the household where his ancestor was born:
A così riposato, a così bello Viver di cittadini, a così fida Cittadinanza, a così dolce ostello Maria mi diè, chiamata in alte grida.--Par. c. 15.[21]
[Footnote 21:
Florence, confined within that ancient wall, Whence still the chimes at noon and evening sound, Was sober, modest, and at peace with all. Myself have seen Bellincion Berti pace The street in leathern belt; his lady come Forth from her toilet with unpainted face. * * * * Oh happy wives! each soon to lay her head In her own tomb; and no one yet compelled To weep deserted in a lonely bed. * * * * To such pure life of beauty and repose-- Such faithful citizens--such happy men-- The virgin gave me, when my mother's throes Forced her with cries to call on Mary's name.--WRIGHT.]
There high-born dames, he says, still plied the distaff and the loom; still rocked the cradle with the words which their own mothers had used; or working with their maidens, told them old tales of the forefathers of the city, "of the Trojans, of Fiesole, and of Rome." Villani still finds this rudeness within forty years of the end of the century, almost within the limits of his own and Dante's life; and speaks of that "old first people," il primo Popolo Vecchio, with their coarse food and expenditure, their leather jerkins, and plain close gowns, their small dowries and late marriages, as if they were the first founders of the city, and not a generation which had lasted on into his own.[22] Twenty years later, his story is of the gaiety, the riches, the profuse munificence, the brilliant festivities, the careless and joyous life, which attracted foreigners to Florence as the city of pleasure; of companies of a thousand or more, all clad in white robes, under a lord, styled "of Love," passing their time in sports and dances; of ladies and knights, "going through the city with trumpets and other instruments, with joy and gladness," and meeting together in banquets evening and morning; entertaining illustrious strangers, and honourably escorting them on horseback in their passage through the city; tempting by their liberality, courtiers, and wits, and minstrels, and jesters, to add to the amusements of Florence.[23] Nor were these the boisterous triumphs of unrefined and coarse merriment. How variety of character was drawn out, how its more delicate elements were elicited and tempered, how nicely it was observed, and how finely drawn, let the racy and open-eyed story-tellers of Florence testify.
[Footnote 22: G. Vill. vi. 69 (1259).]
[Footnote 23: G. Vill. vii. 89 (1283).]