[101] A long balustrade of stone raised several feet above the Piazza, with steps leading up to it, which once occupied the front of the Palazzo Vecchio to the left of the door. The erection was decreed on May 27, 1323, of “unam nobilem, pulchram et decentem arengheriam, in muris seu juxta muros Palatii Populi in eo loco seu parte dicti palati ubi videbitur officia dominorum priorum.”
[102] Luigi Pulci was born in Florence on August 15, 1432, of Jacopo Pulci and Brigida de’ Bardi. His brothers Luca and Bernardo were also poets. and Bernardo’s wife Antonia was a poetess of some repute. Luca went into trade but failed, and died in gaol in 1470, leaving his widow and children dependent on his brothers. Luigi, an intimate friend of the Medici family, wrote La Giostra (sometimes attributed to his brother Luca) to celebrate the tournament held by Lorenzo de’ Medici in honour of the marriage of Braccio Martelli, but really of Lucrezia Donati just before his marriage with Clarice Orsini. The poem Driades was first published under the pseudonym of Lucio Pulcro in Florence in 1479, but the later editions bear his name. His greatest work, less read than it deserves, Morgante Maggiore, was, as Mr. Armstrong says, a growth rather than a composition. Stanzas were recited at table, and Lucrezia de’ Medici urged him to collect them into an epic poem. Besides being a poet, Luigi Pulci was an acute and clever politician, often employed by Lorenzo in missions to foreign courts. He died in 1484, probably at Padua whilst on the road to Venice.
[103] Lettere di Luigi Pulci a Lorenzo il Magnifico, Nelle Nozze della Volpe Zambrini, p. 6. Salvatore Bonghi, Lucca, 1868.
[104] Laurentii Medicis Vita, op. cit. ii. 47.
[105] Laurentii Medicis Vita, op. cit. ii. 49.
[106] Ibid., ii. 36.
[107] Laurentii Medicis Vita, op. cit. ii. 36.
[108] Probably Tanai, son of Vieri de’ Medici.
[109] Lettere di Luigi Pulci, op. cit., p. 26. The Palle are the balls in the Medici arms, and the people saluted the Medici by shouting “Palle, Palle.”
[110] Her own daughters.