I have naturally taken some liberty as regards mere text in translating this tale, in order to render the
better the spirit of the original; but not so much as may be supposed, and spirit and words are, on the whole, accurately rendered.
The reader is not to suppose that there are any traces of true history in this fairy tale. I am very greatly indebted to Miss Wyndham of Florence (who has herself made collections in folk-lore), for investigating this subject of the Feroni family, with the following result—it being premised that it had occurred to the lady that the “cannon-balls” or Medicean pills, or pawnbroker’s sign, whatever it was, had been attributed by mistake to the Feroni. Miss Wyndham, after consulting with authority, found that the Feroni themselves had not the balls, but, owing probably to transfer of property, there is found on their palaces the Alessandri shield, on which the upper half and lower left quarter contain the Medici spheres. She also sent me this extract from the old work, Marietta di Ricci:
“The Feroni family, originally named from Balducci da Vinci, and of peasant origin, owes its fortune to Francesco, son of Baldo di Paolo di Ferone, a dyer of Empoli. Going as a merchant to Holland, he accumulated a large fortune. Made known to Cosimo III. (just called to the Grand Duchy) by his travels, he was called to Florence. In 1673 he was made citizen of Florence, in 1674 he was elected senator, and in 1681 appointed Marquis of Bellavista. He left a colossal fortune, which has been kept up by his heirs to the present day. His grandson Guiseppe was made cardinal in 1753.
“Their arms are an arm mailed in iron, holding a sword, and above it a golden lily in a blue field.”
This extract is interesting, as showing how a family could rise by industry and wealth, even in one generation, by the work of a single man, to the highest honours in Florence. And it is very remarkable that some impression of the origin of this vigorous artisan and merchant, of peasant stock, is evident in the tale. He is there clever
and strong, but vulgar and familiar, so that he was not personally liked. He remains standing open-mouthed, like a comic actor, when the fairy vanishes. In fact the whole tale suggests the elements of a humorous melodrama or operetta, a bourgeois gentilhomme.
“And should it come to pass that any read
This tale in Viesseux, his library,
In the Feroni palace, let them think
That, even in the rooms where they do read,
The things which I have told once came to pass—
Even so the echo ever haunts the shrine!”
LA VIA DELLE BELLE DONNE
“The church of San Gaetano, on the left of the Via Tornabuoni, faces the Palazzo Antinori, built by Giuliano di San Gallo. Opposite is the Via delle Belle Donne, a name, says Leigh Hunt, which it is a sort of tune to pronounce.”—Hare, Cities of Central Italy.
The name of this place is suggestive of a story of some kind, but it was a long time before I obtained the following relative to the Street of Pretty Women: