[1] The old diarists throw in their consonants with a regard rather to quantity than position, well typified by the Ragnolo Braghiello (Agnolo Gabriello) of Boccaccio’s Ferondo.
“It’s the Frate’s doctrines that he’s to prove by being burned,” said that large public character Goro, who happened to be among the foremost gazers. “The Signoria has taken it in hand, and the writing is to let us know. It’s what the Padre has been telling us about in his sermon.”
“Nay, Goro,” said a sleek shopkeeper, compassionately, “thou hast got thy legs into twisted hose there. The Frate has to prove his doctrines by not being burned: he is to walk through the fire, and come out on the other side sound and whole.”
“Yes, yes,” said a young sculptor, who wore his white-streaked cap and tunic with a jaunty air. “But Fra Girolamo objects to walking through the fire. Being sound and whole already, he sees no reason why he should walk through the fire to come out in just the same condition. He leaves such odds and ends of work to Fra Domenico.”
“Then I say he flinches like a coward,” said Goro, in a wheezy treble. “Suffocation! that was what he did at the Carnival. He had us all in the Piazza to see the lightning strike him, and nothing came of it.”
“Stop that bleating,” said a tall shoemaker, who had stepped in to hear part of the sermon, with bunches of slippers hanging over his shoulders. “It seems to me, friend, that you are about as wise as a calf with water on its brain. The Frate will flinch from nothing: he’ll say nothing beforehand, perhaps, but when the moment comes he’ll walk through the fire without asking any grey-frock to keep him company. But I would give a shoestring to know what this Latin all is.”
“There’s so much of it,” said the shopkeeper, “else I’m pretty good at guessing. Is there no scholar to be seen?” he added, with a slight expression of disgust.
There was a general turning of heads, which caused the talkers to descry Tito approaching in their rear.
“Here is one,” said the young sculptor, smiling and raising his cap.
“It is the secretary of the Ten: he is going to the convent, doubtless; make way for him,” said the shopkeeper, also doffing, though that mark of respect was rarely shown by Florentines except to the highest officials. The exceptional reverence was really exacted by the splendour and grace of Tito’s appearance, which made his black mantle, with its gold fibula, look like a regal robe, and his ordinary black velvet cap like an entirely exceptional head-dress. The hardening of his cheeks and mouth, which was the chief change in his face since he came to Florence, seemed to a superficial glance only to give his beauty a more masculine character. He raised his own cap immediately and said—