[A] Lettere di una Gentildonna fiorentina, Firenze, Sansoni, 1877.
[227] Notice the discussion of wet-nurses, the physical and moral evils likely to ensue from an improper choice of the nurse (op. cit. ii. 52-56).
[228] These topics of Amicizia, as the virtue on which society is based, are further discussed in a separate little dialogue, La Cena di Famiglia (op. cit. vol. i.).
[229] [Age of the Despots], [pp. 239-243].
[230] In stating the question, and in all that concerns the MS. authority upon which a judgment must be formed, I am greatly indebted to the kindness of Signor Virginio Cortesi, who has placed at my disposal his unpublished Essay on the Governo della Famiglia di Agnolo Pandolfini. As the title of his work shows, he is a believer in Pandolfini's authorship.
[231] I use this word according to its present connotation. But such literary plagiarism was both more common and less disgraceful in the fifteenth century. Alberti himself incorporated passages of the Fiammetta in his Deifira, and Jacopo Nardi in his Storia Fiorentina appropriated the whole of Buonaccorsi's Diaries (1498-1512) with slight alterations and a singularly brief allusion to their author.
[232] Such information, as will be seen, is both vague and meager. The MSS. of the Governo in particular do not seem to have been accurately investigated, and are insufficiently described even by Cortesi. Yet this problem, like that of the Malespini and Compagni Chronicles, cannot be set at rest without a detailed comparison of all existing codices.
[233] The anonymous biographer expressly states that the fourth book was written later than the other three, and dedicated to the one Alberti who took any interest in the previous portion of the work. This, together with the isolation and more perfect diction of Book iii. is strong presumption in favor of its having been an afterthought.
[234] The Œconomicus of Xenophon served as common material for the Economico and the Governo, whatever we may think about the authorship of these two essays. Many parallel passages in Palmieri's Vita Civile can be referred to the same source. To what extent Alberti knew Greek is not ascertained; but even in the bad Latin translations of that age a flavor so peculiar as that of Xenophon's style could not have escaped his fine sense.
[235] See Op. Volg. vol. i. pp. lxxxvi.-lxxxviii.