FOOTNOTES:
[61] Lorenzo tells us in the original, that the ladies who rendered themselves thus insupportable, were called (vulgarly) Saccenti:—query—vulgarly, Blue-stockings?
[62] Lorenzo de' Medici to his wife Clarice:—
"I arrived here in safety, and am in good health: this, I believe, will please thee better than any thing else, except my return, at least so I judge from my own desire to be once more with thee. Associate as much as possible with my father and sisters. I shall make all possible speed to return to thee, for it appears a thousand years till I see thee again. Pray to God for me—if thou want any thing from this place write in time. From Milan, 22d July, 1469. Thy Lorenzo."
CHAPTER XII.
THE FAIR GERALDINE.
In the reign of the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, of Lorenzo's family, (Cosmo I.) Florence, it is said, beheld a novel and extraordinary spectacle: a young traveller, from a court and a country which the Italians of that day seemed to regard much as we now do the Esquimaux,[63] combining the learning of the scholar and the amiable bearing of the courtier, with all the rash bravery of youthful romance, astonished the inhabitants of that queenly city, first, by rivalling her polished nobles in the splendour of his state, and gallantry of his manners, and next, by boldly proclaiming that his "lady love" was superior to all that Italy could vaunt of beauty, that she was "oltre le belle, bella," fair beyond the fairest,—and maintaining his boast in a solemn tourney held in her honour, to the overthrow of all his opponents.
This was our English Surrey; one of the earliest and most elegant of our amatory poets, and the lover of the Fair Geraldine.