it in that light. And so the notary found that you cannot see Verona from the top of every hill.
“And there is another story of a prisoner, who had long curling hair in the old Florentine style. Hair, Signore, like charity, may cover much sin. Now this man, after he had been a while in the Bargello, got his sentence, which was to have his ears cropped off. But when the boia or hangman came to do the job, he found that the man had had his ears cut off smooth long before. Whence came the proverb:
“‘Quel che havea mozzi gli orecchi,
E’ci sara de gli arreticati.’“‘He whose ears had been cut away,
Fooled another, or so they say.’
Which is a proverb to this day, when a man finds that somebody has been before him.
“And it may have been that Donatello, the great sculptor, was in the Bargello when he said, ‘E’rise a me ed io riso à lui’—‘He laughs at me, and I do laugh at him.’ Donatello was in quistione, or in trouble with the law, and in prison, for having killed one of his pupils. The Marquis di Ferrara asked him if he was guilty. But Donatello had already received from the Marquis a license to slay any one in self-defence, and so he made that answer.”
A Legend of the Bargello.
“One day a young man, who had been gaming and lost, threw some dirt at an image of the Virgin in one of the numerous shrines in the city, blaming her for his bad luck. He was observed by a boy, who reported it to the authorities, and was soon arrested. Having confessed that he did it in a rage at having lost, he was hanged the same night from one of the windows of the Bargello.” [164]
Thereby adding another ghost or folletto to those who already haunt the place. It should be noted that according to Italian witch-lore a ghost is never simply the spirit of the departed as he was, but a spirit transformed. A witch becomes a fata, good or bad, and all men something more than they were.
Among other small legends or tales in which the Bargello is referred to, I find the following, of which I must first mention that debito in Italian means not only debt but duty, and that fare un debito is not only to get into debt, but to do what is just, upright, and honourable.
“It happened once, long ago, that a certain good fellow was being escorted, truly not by a guard of honour, but by several bum-bailiffs, to the Bargello, and met a friend who asked him why he was in custody. To which he replied, ‘Other men are arrested and punished for crime or villainy, but I am treated thus for having acted honourably, per aver fatto il debito mio.’
“And it happened to this same man that after he had been entertained for a time at the public expense in that gran albergo, or great hotel, the Bargello, that the Council of Eight, or the public magistracy, gave him a hearing, and told him that he must promptly pay the debt which he owed, which was one of fifty scudi or crowns. To which he replied that he could not. Then the chief of the Eight said, ‘We will find out a way to make you pay it, be sure of that.’ To which he answered, ‘De gratia, Signore, while you are about it, then, make it a hundred, for I have great need just now of another fifty crowns.’”