Again, he says that there was a difference of less than 8 months between the age of Beatrice and himself (she was 8 years 4 months old when he was nearly nine),[545] that she died in June 1290,[546] and was then on the threshold of her “second age,”[547] that is in her 24th year, or 23 years old. This gives 1267 for the year of her birth, and he must have been born in the same or the preceeding year. Historical documents show that Dante spoke in the Council of the Hundred in 1295, and Brunetto Latini says no man could hold office in Florence under thirty years of age; but Brunetto wrote in exile in France and died in 1290, and in a translation from his original French into Italian the age has been altered to 25, so it is possible that the age had been lowered before 1295.[548] There remains the story told by Boccaccio, that a Ser Piero di Messer Giardino (a notary whose name occurs in legal documents of the time), heard from Dante himself shortly before his death that he had been 56 years old in the preceding May. The date of his death is unanimously given as 1321, so this story, if we may accept it as authentic, is one clear piece of evidence that Dante was born in 1265. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [545] _V. N._ ii. 1-15. [546] _V. N._ xxx. 4-13. [547] _Purg._ xxx. 124, 125; _Cf. Conv._ IV. xxiv. 11-13. [548] Imbriani: _Quando nacque Dante?_ and _Che Dante probabilissimamente nacque nei MCCCLXVII_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On the whole, we must say that it is doubtful whether the “mezzo del cammin” means Dante’s 35th year, and if it does, we are not certain that he reached that age in 1300.