LITMIR.BIZ

1

A votive image of Lorenzo, in wax, hung up in the Church of the Annunziata, supposed to have fallen at the time of his death. Boto is popular Tuscan for Voto.

2

The phrase used to express the absence of disqualification—i.e., the not being entered as a debtor in the public book—specchio.

3

A sign that such contrasts were peculiarly frequent in Florence, is the fact that Saint Antonine, Prior of San Marco, and afterwards archbishop, in the first half of this fifteenth century, founded the society of Buonuomini di San Martino (Good Men of Saint Martin) with the main object of succouring the poveri vergognosi—in other words, paupers of good family. In the records of the famous Panciatichi family we find a certain Girolamo in this century who was reduced to such a state of poverty that he was obliged to seek charity for the mere means of sustaining life, though other members of his family were enormously wealthy.

4

A play on the name of the Dominicans (Domini Canes) which was accepted by themselves, and which is pictorially represented in a fresco painted for them by Simone Memmi.

5

“Arte di Calimara,” “arte” being, in this use of it, equivalent to corporation.

6

A sum given by the bridegroom to the bride the day after the marriage. Morgengabe.

7

The name given to the grotesque black-faced figures, supposed to represent the Magi, carried about or placed in the windows on Twelfth Night: a corruption of Epifania.

8