While Messer Antonio d’Orso, a prelate both
worthy and wise, was Bishop of Florence, there came
thither a Catalan gentleman, Messer Dego della Ratta
by name, being King Ruberto’s marshal. Now
Dego being very goodly of person, and inordinately
fond of women, it so befell that of the ladies of
Florence she that he regarded with especial favour
was the very beautiful niece of a brother of the said
bishop. And having learned that her husband,
though of good family, was but a caitiff, and avaricious
in the last degree, he struck a bargain with him that
he should lie one night with the lady for five hundred
florins of gold: whereupon he had the same number
of popolins(1) of silver, which were then current,
gilded, and having lain with the lady, albeit against
her will, gave them to her husband. Which coming
to be generally known, the caitiff husband was left
with the loss and the laugh against him; and the bishop,
like a wise man, feigned to know nought of the affair.
And so the bishop and the marshal being much together,
it befell that on St. John’s day, as they rode
side by side down the street whence they start to run
the palio,(2) and took note of the ladies, the bishop
espied a young gentlewoman, whom this present pestilence
has reft from us, Monna Nonna de’ Pulci by name,
a cousin of Messer Alesso Rinucci, whom you all must
know; whom, for that she was lusty and fair, and of
excellent discourse and a good courage, and but just
settled with her husband in Porta San Piero, the bishop
presented to the marshal; and then, being close beside
her, he laid his hand on the marshal’s shoulder
and said to her:—“Nonna, what thinkest
thou of this gentleman? That thou mightst make
a conquest of him?” Which words the lady resented
as a jibe at her honour, and like to tarnish it in
the eyes of those, who were not a few, in whose hearing
they were spoken. Wherefore without bestowing
a thought upon the vindication of her honour, but
being minded to return blow for blow, she retorted
hastily:—“Perchance, Sir, he might
not make a conquest of me; but if he did so, I should
want good money.” The answer stung both
the marshal and the bishop to the quick, the one as
contriver of the scurvy trick played upon the bishop’s
brother in regard of his niece, the other as thereby
outraged in the person of his brother’s niece;
insomuch that they dared not look one another in the
face, but took themselves off in shame and silence,
and said never a word more to her that day.
In such a case, then, the lady having received a bite,
’twas allowable in her wittily to return it.
(1) A coin of the same size and design as the fiorino
d’oro, but worth only two soldi.
(2) A sort of horse-race still in vogue at Siena.
NOVEL IV.
— Chichibio, cook to Currado Gianfigliazzi,
owes his safety to a ready answer, whereby he converts
Currado’s wrath into laughter, and evades the
evil fate with which Currado had threatened him. —
