[153] Stated about 1470 in Vespas. Fiorent. p. 554.
[154] The passage which followed in former editions referring to the Chronicle of Dino Compagni is here omitted, since the genuineness of the Chronicle has been disproved by Paul Scheffer-Boichhorst (Florentiner Studien, Leipzig, 1874, pp. 45-210), and the disproof maintained (Die Chronik des D. C., Leipzig, 1875) against a distinguished authority (C. Hegel, Die Chronik des D. C., Versuch einer Rettung, Leipzig, 1875). Scheffer’s view is generally received in Germany (see W. Bernhardi, Der Stand der Dino-Frage, Hist. Zeitschr. N.F., 1877, bd. i.), and even Hegel assumes that the text as we have it is a later manipulation of an unfinished work of Dino. Even in Italy, though the majority of scholars have wished to ignore this critical onslaught, as they have done other earlier ones of the same kind, some voices have been raised to recognise the spuriousness of the document. (See especially P. Fanfani in his periodical Il Borghini, and in the book Dino Campagni Vendicato, Milano, 1875). On the earliest Florentine histories in general see Hartwig, Forschungen, Marburg, 1876, and C. Hegel in H. von Sybel’s Historischer Zeitschrift, b. xxxv. Since then Isidore del Lungo, who with remarkable decision asserts its genuineness, has completed his great edition of Dino, and furnished it with a detailed introduction: Dino Campagni e la sua cronaca, 2 vols. Firenze, 1879-80. A manuscript of the history, dating back to the beginning of the fifteenth century, and consequently earlier than all the hitherto known references and editions, has been lately found. In consequence of the discovery of this MS. and of the researches undertaken by C. Hegel, and especially of the evidence that the style of the work does not differ from that of the fourteenth century, the prevailing view of the subject is essentially this, that the Chronicle contains an important kernel, which is genuine, which, however, perhaps even in the fourteenth century, was remodelled on the ground-plan of Villani’s Chronicle. Comp. Gaspary, Geschichte der italienischen Literatur. Berlin, 1885, i. pp. 361-9, 531 sqq.
[155] Purgatorio, vi. at the end.
[156] De Monarchia, i. 1. (New critical edition by Witte, Halle, 1863, 71; German translation by O. Hubatsch, Berlin, 1872).
[157] Dantis Alligherii Epistolæ, cum notis C. Witte, Padua, 1827. He wished to keep the Pope as well as the Emperor always in Italy. See his letter, p. 35, during the conclave of Carpentras, 1314. On the first letter see Vitæ Nuova, cap. 31, and Epist. p. 9.
[158] Giov. Villani, xi. 20. Comp. Matt. Villani, ix. 93, who says that John XXII. ‘astuto in tutte sue cose e massime in fare il danaio,’ left behind him 18 million florins in cash and 6 millions in jewels.
[159] See for this and similar facts Giov. Villani, xi. 87, xii. 54. He lost his own money in the crash and was imprisoned for debt. See also Kervyn de Lettenhove, L’Europe au Siècle de Philippe le Bel, Les Argentiers Florentins in Bulletin de l’Académie de Bruxelles (1861), vol. xii. pp. 123 sqq.
[160] Giov. Villani, xi. 92, 93. In Macchiavelli, Stor. Fiorent. lib. ii. cap. 42, we read that 96,000 persons died of the plague in 1348.
[161] The priest put aside a black bean for every boy and a white one for every girl. This was the only means of registration.
[162] There was already a permanent fire brigade in Florence.