st gentlemen, and of the longest descent,
not merely in Florence, but in the world and the Maremma to boot.
Wherefore 'twas not without reason that Pamfilo, being minded to declare
Messer Forese's ill-favouredness, said that he would have been hideous
beside a Baroncio.

(1) In the Italian fisofoli: an evidently intentional distortion.

(2) Villani, Istorie Fiorentine, iv. cap. ix., and Dante, Paradiso, xvi.
104, spell the name Barucci.

NOVEL VII.

--
Madonna Filippa, being found by her husband with her lover, is cited
before the court, and by a ready and jocund answer acquits herself, and
brings about an alteration of the statute.
--

Fiammetta had been silent some time, but Scalza's novel argument to prove
the pre-eminent nobility of the Baronci kept all still laughing, when the
queen called for a story from Filostrato, who thus began:--Noble ladies,
an excellent thing is apt speech on all occasions, but to be proficient
therein I deem then most excellent when the occasion does most
imperatively demand it. As was the case with a gentlewoman, of whom I
purpose to speak to you, who not only ministered gaiety and merriment to
her hearers, but extricated herself, as you shall hear, from the toils of
an ignominious death.

There was aforetime in the city of Prato a statute no less censurable
than harsh, which, making no distinction between the wife whom her
husband took in adultery with her lover, and the woman found pleasuring a
stranger for money, condemned both alike to be burned. While this statute
was in force, it befell that a gentlewoman, fair and beyond measure
enamoured, Madonna Filippa by name, was by her husband, Rinaldo de'
Pugliesi, found in her own chamber one night in the arms of Lazzarino de'
Guazzagliotri, a handsome young noble of the same city, whom she loved
even as herself. Whereat Rinaldo, very wroth, scarce refrained from
falling upon them and killing them on the spot; and indeed, but that he
doubted how he should afterwards fare himself, he had given way to the
vehemence of his anger, and so done. Nor, though he so far mastered
himself, could he forbear recourse to the statute, thereby to compass
that which he might not otherwise lawfully compass, to wit, the death of
his lady. Wherefore, having all the evidence needful to prove her guilt,
he took no further counsel; but, as soon as 'twas day, he charged the
lady and had her summoned. Like most ladies that are veritably enamoured,
the la