Legends of Florence: Collected from the People, First Series

This book consists almost entirely of legends or traditions of a varied character, referring to places and buildings in Florence, such as the Cathedral and Campanile, the Signor...

What was my astonishment, on arriving at the villa or palazzo, at beholding on the wall in the court a large shield bearing the three horns. Sir John Edgar informed me that it w...

"'Now I wish to do thee a service. Go, with these onions in thine hand, and stand there in the street till the Lords Strozzi go forth, and see thee with the vegetables, and then...

Very near to the Church of Santa Maria Novella is the small piazza or open place of the _Croce al Trebbio_. This is a column with a crucifix, the whole being of beautiful propor...

"The house to which they were led was ugly and repulsive outside, but within there were beautiful rooms of all kinds, magnificently furnished, and the new-comers were promptly b...

"'_Eureka_! I have it,' he at last exclaimed, 'by the neck and tail. I will _spogliar la tesoria_--rob the treasury and spoil the Egyptian--_si non in errore versatus sum_--unle...

This story is so widely spread in many forms, that the reader can hardly have failed to have heard it; in fact, there are few colleges where it has not happened that a basket ha...

"Then the contadino or _asinaio_ had Bagnai brought before the Podesta, and claimed damages for his injured animal. And Rubaconte decided that Bagnai should keep the ass in his...

In no country in the world has unscrupulous vigorous intellect been so admired as in Italy, the land of the Borgias and Machiavellis. In the rest of Europe man finds a master in...

"And when morning came, he passed the gate, but stopped and asked whether Barlacchia had been there the night before. To which the guard answered, 'Yes,' and that he had been ve...

"Their chief was a matron who always held a pair of scales. Now when they were to judge the fate of any one, they took with great care the earth from one of his footprints, and...

"Little by little, as summer makes frogs croak in a ditch, there spread about a rumour that the damsel was a witch. They showed her scanty mercies; with cruelty extreme, with bl...

"_Haec fabula_ of the head of San Miniato," wrote the immortal Flaxius on the proof, "teaches that he who would get round a priest in small trickery must arise uncommonly early-...

"Truly I will not swear that this is a story of the Bargello, for I am very particular as to truth, Signore, but I will swear that 'tis of a prison in Florence, and that when it...

The reader should never at once infer that a legend is recent because it is attached to a new place. Spirits and traditions are like the goblin of Norse tale, who moved with the...

"Now, it is true that bad people put ten times as much strong will and hard work into their evil acts as good folk do into better deeds, because the latter think their cause wil...

"'She, poor weak thing, could not endure the strain, So flickered out, and all within a day; And then the priest, without apparent pain, Began mysteriously to waste away, And, s...

"'Quando vedo le femmine rammone, Mi sento andare il cuore in convulsione, Hanno certe facette vispe e sane, Da fare entrare in sen la tentazione, Oh donnina! Non siate disumana...

True it is that _this_ Florence seems to have had dazzling eyes and ringlets curled; and it is on the other hand not true that Orpheus sang his spouse from hell--he only tried t...

And here we are brought to a subject so strange and witch-like that it is difficult to discuss or make clear. It is evident enough in "Manfred" that the great crime was the hero...

"And Cain also was a good man, and set himself contentedly to work, believing that he could become as rich as his brother, but he did not succeed in this, for which reason he be...

{269} It is amusing that this stealing oil wherewith to make love-charms, which was denounced so bitterly as damnable sorcery at one time, and frequently punished by death, _i.e...