Note [320] page 161. This knavish student seems to be identical with a certain Caio Caloria Ponzio, who was born at Messina. Of his life little more is known than that he studied law at Padua between 1479 and 1488, and, after residing two years at Venice, returned to Sicily. For an account of a short poem by him in praise of Venice, and of his dialect comedy dedicated to the Marquess of Mantua, see Vittorio Rossi’s Caio Caloria Ponzio, e la poesia volgare letteraria di Sicilia nel Secolo XV, reprinted (Palermo, 1893) from the Archivio Storico Siciliano, N. S., A., xviii.

Note [321] page 161. The only belfry at Padua answering to this description is said to be that of San Giacomo.

Note [322] page 162. Gonnella. This name was borne by two famous jesters employed by the d’Este family. The one here referred to was probably the later of the two, who lived at the courts of Dukes Niccolò III and Borso, was the son of a Florentine glover Bernardo Gonnella, and married one Checca Lapi. The next buffoon referred to was probably Ludovico Meliolo, who acted as steward to the court of Mantua about 1500, and was a brother of the goldsmith and sculptor Bartolommeo Meliolo (1448-1514). He was called “the father of jests.”

Note [323] page 163. This is an instance of the use of the word calunnia (rendered ‘imputation’) in its primitive sense of malicious accusation without reference to truth or falsity.

Note [324] page 164. These characters occur in the sixth tale of the Third Day, and in the seventh and eighth tales of the Seventh Day of Boccaccio’s “Decameron.”

Note [325] page 164. The queen here mentioned is of course Isabella the Catholic; see note [391].

Note [326] page 164. Fabié says that this Countess of Castagneta was Brazaida de Almada, daughter of a Portuguese cavalier Juan Baez de Almada and Violante de Castro (of the same nation). She was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Isabella, and her husband Don Garci Fernandez Manrique (third Count of Castagneta and first Marquess of Aguilar) took part in the conquest of Granada.

Note [327] page 167. If unconvinced by the “Decameron,” readers of the Corbaccio will surely be persuaded of the justice of this opinion.

Note [328] page 167. According to one form of the legend of Orpheus, his grief at the final loss of his wife Eurydice, when his lyre had all but enabled him to recover her from Hades, led him to treat contemptuously the Thracian women, who avenged the insult by tearing him in pieces under the excitement of their Bacchanalian orgies.

Note [329] page 167. ‘Braccesque leave’ (una licentia bracciesca in the Aldine folio of 1528, and una licentia Bracciesca in the more correctly printed Aldine folio of 1545) is a phrase derived from the name of Braccio Fortebracci, a captain who was famous for his violence to friend and foe, and whose followers were called Bracceschi. To give a man Braccesque leave meant to dismiss him with blows.