[399] Legnaja is said to be famous for big pumpkins.
[400] i.e. they think of and cherish us alone, holding us as dear as their very eyes.
[401] i.e. Fat-hog and Get-thee-to-supper, burlesque perversions of the names Ipocrasso (Hippocrates) and Avicenna.
[402] i.e. love her beyond anything in the world. For former instances of this idiomatic expression, see ante, passim.
[403] Syn. cauterized (calterita), a nonsensical word employed by Bruno for the purpose of mystifying the credulous physician.
[404] Syn. secretary, confidant (segretaro).
[405] A play of words upon mela (apple) and mellone (pumpkin). Mellone is strictly a water-melon; but I have rendered it "pumpkin," to preserve the English idiom, "pumpkinhead" being our equivalent for the Italian "melon," used in the sense of dullard, noodle.
[406] According to the commentators, "baptized on a Sunday" anciently signified a simpleton, because salt (which is constantly used by the Italian classical writers as a synonym for wit or sense) was not sold on Sundays.
[407] Syn. confusedly (frastagliatamente).
[408] La Contessa di Civillari, i.e. the public sewers. Civillari, according to the commentators, was the name of an alley in Florence, where all the ordure and filth of the neighbourhood was deposited and stored in trenches for manure.