borhood, to pass the time of
affliction in merry doings and sayings; and with four maids and three
men-servants, move eastward out of the gloomy city. Their first
habitation is clearly indicated as what is known to-day as the Poggio
Gherardi, under Maiano. After the second day they return towards the
city a short distance and establish themselves in what seems a more
commodious abode, and which I consider incontrovertibly identified as
the Villa Pasolini, or Rasponi, and which was in their day the property
of the Memmi family, the famous pupils of Giotto. The site of this villa
overlooks the Valley of the Ladies, which figures in the framework of
the "Novelle," and in which then there was a lake to which Boccaccio
alludes, now filled up by the alluvium of the Affrico, the author's
beloved river, and which runs through the valley and under the villa.
The valley now forms part of the estate of Professor Willard Fiske. As
the entire adventure is imaginary, and the "merry company" had no
existence except in the dreams of Boccaccio, it is useless to seek any
evidence of actual occupation; but the care he put in the description of
the localities and surroundings, distances, etc., shows that he must
have had in his mind, as the framework of the story, these two
localities. The modern tradition ascribing to the Villa Palmieri the
honor of the second habitation has no confirmation of any kind.

The house-flitting is thus told:--

"The dawn had already, under the near approach of the sun,
from rosy become golden: when on Sunday, the Queen[3] arising
and arousing all her company, and the chamberlain--having
long before sent in advance to the locality where they were
to go, enough of the articles required so that he might
prepare what was necessary--seeing the Queen on the way,
quickly loading all other things as if it were the moving of
the camp, went off with the baggage, leaving the servants
with the Ladies and the Gentlemen. The Queen, then, with slow
steps, accompanied and followed by her Ladies and the three
Gentlemen, with the escort of perhaps twenty nightingales and
other birds, by a little path not too frequented, but full of
green plants and flowers which by the rising sun began to
open, took the road towards the west; and gossiping,
laughing, and exchanging witticisms with her brigade, arrived
before having gone two thousand steps at a mos