[1033] Giov. Villani, iii. 29, says this clearly a century later.
[1034] L’Ordine. Probably the tablet with the inscription I. H. S. is meant.
[1035] He adds, ‘and in the seggi,’ i.e. the clubs into which the Neapolitan nobility was divided. The rivalry of the two orders is often ridiculed, e.g. Bandello, iii. nov. 14.
[1036] Nov. 6, ed. Settembrini, p. 83, where it is remarked that in the Index of 1564 a book is mentioned, Matrimonio delli Preti e delle Monache.
[1037] For what follows, see Jovian. Pontan. De Sermone, l. ii. cap. 17, and Bandello, parte i. nov. 32. The fury of brother Franciscus, who attempted to work upon the king by a vision of St. Cataldus, was so great at his failure, and the talk on the subject so universal, ‘ut Italia ferme omnis ipse in primis Romanus pontifex de tabulæ hujus fuerit inventione sollicitus atque anxius.’
[1038] Alexander VI. and Julius II., whose cruel measures, however, did not appear to the Venetian ambassadors Giustiniani and Soderini as anything but a means of extorting money. Comp. M. Brosch, Hist. Zeitscher. bd. 37.
[1039] Panormita, De Dictis et Factis Alphonsi, lib. ii. Æneas Sylvius in his commentary to it (Opp. ed. 1651, p. 79) tells of the detection of a pretended faster, who was said to have eaten nothing for four years.
[1040] For which reason they could be openly denounced in the neighbourhood of the court. See Jovian. Pontan. Antonius and Charon. One of the stories is the same as in Massuccio, nov. ii.
[1041] See for one example the eighth canto of the Macaroneide.
[1042] The story in Vasari, v. p. 120, Vita di Sandro Botticelli shows that the Inquisition was sometimes treated jocularly. It is true that the ‘Vicario’ here mentioned may have been the archbishop’s deputy instead of the inquisitor’s.