her. All of which was very beautiful and devoted and noble,
but not at all sensible, according to my way of doing or my way of
thinking.

Anyway, Messer Dante would go to visit Madonna Vittoria no more, and she
wondered at his absence and sent for me and questioned me, and I told
her the truth, how following her advice had brought Dante into disgrace
with his lady. Then Vittoria seemed indeed grieved, and she commended
Dante for keeping away from her, and vowed that he should be set right
some way or other in the eyes of his lady. Indeed, it was a pleasure and
a marvel that Madonna Vittoria could show such zeal and heat for so
simple a love-business as this of the boy of the Alighieri and the girl
of the Portinari.

X

THE DEVILS OF AREZZO

Now, the next page in the book of my memory that is concerned with the
fortunes of my friend has to do with the feast that Messer Folco
Portinari gave to the magnificoes and dignitaries, the notables and
worthies, the graces and the radiancies of Florence--a feast that,
memorable in itself, was yet more memorable from all that came of it by
what we in our wisdom or our ignorance call chance. It was a very
proper, noble, and glorious festival, and I am almost as keen to attend
it again in my memory as I was keen to be present at it in the days when
Time and I were boys together. Yet for all my impatience I think it good
before I treat of it and of its happenings to set down in brief certain
conditions that then prevailed in Florence--conditions which had their
influence in making Messer Folco's festival memorable to so many lives.

You must know that at this time the all-wise and all-powerful Republic
of Florence was not a little harassed in its peace and its comfort, if
not in its wisdom and its power, by the unneighborly and unmannerly
conduct of the people of Arezzo. These intolerant and intolerable folk
were not only so purblind and thick-witted as not to realize the
immeasurable supremacy of the city of Florence for learning,
statesmanship, and bravery over all the other cities of Italy put
together, but had carried the bad taste of their opinions into the still
worse taste of offensive action. For a long time past Arezzo had pitted
itself in covert snares and small enterprises against the integrity and
well-being of the Republic. Were Florence in any political difficulty or
commercial crisis, then surely were the busy fingers--ah, and even the
busy thumbs and the w