This lady was, perhaps, one of these two sisters; and it is tempting to infer from Dante’s words that a tender affection existed between him and her. It was from Dante’s nephew, Andrea Poggi, that Boccaccio obtained some of his information concerning the poet, and it would be pleasant to think that Andrea’s mother is the heroine of this canzone (_V. N._ xxiii.); but there are chronological difficulties in the identification. SOURCES.--Our sources for Dante’s biography, in addition to his own works, are primarily a short chapter in the Chronicle of his neighbour Giovanni Villani, the epoch-making work of Boccaccio, Filippo Villani’s unimportant sketch at the end of the fourteenth and the brief but reliable life by Leonardo Bruni at the beginning of the fifteenth century. In addition we have some scanty hints given by the early commentators on the _Divina Commedia_, and a few documents, including the _consulte_ or reports of the deliberations of the various councils of the Florentine Republic. Boccaccio’s work has come down to us in two forms: the _Vita di Dante_ (or _Trattatello in laude di Dante_) and the so-called _Compendio_ (itself in two redactions, the _Primo_ and _Secondo Compendio_); the researches of Michele Barbi have finally established that both are authentic, the _Compendio_ being the author’s own later revision. The tendency of recent scholarship has in a considerable measure rehabilitated the once discredited authority of Boccaccio, and rejected the excessive scepticism represented in the nineteenth century by Bartoli and Scartazzini.