[56] "Perfected life and high desert enheaveneth a lady more aloft," she said, "by whose rule down in your world there are who clothe and veil themselves,
That they, even till death, may wake and sleep with that Spouse who accepteth every vow that love hath made conform with his good pleasure.
From the world, to follow her, I fled while yet a girl, and in her habit I enclosed myself, and promised the way of her company.
Thereafter men more used to ill than good tore me away from the sweet cloister; and God doth know what my life then became."
–Paradiso iii. Wicksteed's translation.
[57] The lover of Florentine history cannot readily tear himself away from the Casentino. The Albergo Amorosi at Bibbiena, almost at the foot of La Verna, makes delightful headquarters. There is an excellent Guida illustrata del Casentino by C. Beni. For the Conti Guidi, Witte's essay should be consulted; it is translated in Witte's Essays on Dante by C. M. Lawrence and P. H. Wicksteed. La Verna will be fully dealt with in the Assisi volume of this series, so I do not describe it here.
[58] The parentage of Ippolito and Alessandro is somewhat uncertain. The former was probably Giuliano's son by a lady of Pesaro, the latter probably the son of Lorenzo by a mulatto woman.