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(Translator: Alfred Allinson)

TO JULES LEMAÎTRE

Guido, di Messer Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti, fu un de’ migliori loici che avesse il mondo, et ottimo filosofo naturale…. E perciò che egli alquanto tenea della opinione degli Epicuri, si diceva tra la gente volgare che queste sue speculazioni eran solo in cercare se trovar si potesse che Iddio non fosse.[1] (The Decameron of Messer Giovanni Boccaccio, Sixth Day, Novella IX.)

DIM
NON. FVI. ME.
MINI. NON. SVM.
NON. CVRO. DO.
NNIA. ITALIA. AN.
NORVM. XX. HIC.
QVIESCO.[2]

(Inscription from the Cippus of Donnia Italia as read by M.
Jean-Fran�ois Bladé.)

[Footnote 1: “Guido, son of Messer Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti, was one of the best Logicians the world held, and a most finished Natural Philosopher…. And forasmuch as in some degree he held by the opinion of the Epicureans, it was therefore said among the vulgar folk how that these his speculations were only pursued for to discover if it might be there was no God.”]

[Footnote 2: “To the Gods of the Lower World.–I was not. I remember. I am not and I heed not. I, Donnia Italia, a maid of twenty, rest here.”]

Messer Guido Cavalcanti was, in the twentieth year of his age, the most agreeable and the best-built man of all the Florentine nobles. Beneath his long, dark locks, which escaping from under his cap, fell in jetty curls over his white brow, his eyes, that had a golden gleam in them, shone out with a dazzling brilliance. He possessed the arms of Hercules and the hands of a Nymph. His shoulders were broad, and his figure slim and supple. He was well skilled in breaking difficult horses and wielding heavy weapons, and a peerless rider at the ring. Whenever he passed along the city streets to hear Mass at San Giovanni or San Michele, or walked by Arno side in the water-meadows, that were pranked with flowers like a beautiful picture, if any fair ladies, going in a troop together, met him in the way, they never failed to say the one to the other with a blush: “See, yonder is Messer Guido, son of the Lord Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti. ‘Tis a very St. George for comeliness, pardi!” And men report that Madonna Gemma, wife of Sandro Bujamonte, one day sent her Nurse to let him know how she loved him with all her soul, and was like to die of longing. Nor less ardently was he invited to join the Companies the young Florentine lords were used in those days to form among themselves, feasting, supping, gaming and hunting together, and sometimes so dearly loving each other that one and all would wear garments of a like cut and colour. But with equal disdain he shunned the society of Florentine ladies and the assemblages of her young Nobles; for so proud and fierce was his humour, he took no pleasure but in solitude.

He would often stay all the day shut up in his chamber, then forth to wander solitary beneath the holm-oaks that bordered the Ema road at the hour when the first stars are a-tremble in the pale evening sky. If by chance he encountered riders of his own age, he never laughed, and said little–and that little was not always comprehensible. His strange bearing and ambiguous words were a grief and a grievance to his comrades–and above all to Messer Betto Brunelleschi, for he dearly loved Messer Guido, and had no fonder wish than to make him one of the Brotherhood which embraced the richest and the handsomest young noblemen of Florence, and of which he was himself the glory and the delight. For indeed Messer Betto Brunelleschi was reputed the fine flower of chivalry and the most perfect knight of all Tuscany–after Messer Guido.

One day as the latter was just entering the Porch of Santa Maria Novella, where the Monks of the Order of Saint Dominic kept at that time a number of books that had been brought to Italy by the Greeks, Messer Betto, who was crossing the Piazza at the moment, loudly hailed his friend: