[Footnote 60: Filippo Villani.] [Footnote 61: Geneal. Deor.] [Footnote 62: Geneal. Deor.] [Footnote 63: Ibid.] [Footnote 64: Tiraboschi.] [Footnote 65: Filocopo.] [Footnote 66: This lady Mary cannot be the princess Mary, an acknowledged natural daughter of king Robert. The latter was beheaded during the troubles at Naples, a year after Boccaccio's death. The poems of Boccaccio declare that he outlived his lady Mary, Fiammetta, as he called her, many years; and his writings give proof that her royal and illegitimate origin was always preserved a secret.] [Footnote 67: La Fiammetta.] [Footnote 68: Rime.] [Footnote 69: Ameto.] [Footnote 70: Baldelli.] [Footnote 71: Petrarch's Letters.] [Footnote 72: This singular circumstance is not noticed by Petrarch in any of his letters. Did the Florentines act thus to punish him for his journey to Avignon, at the time they had invited him to take up his abode among them? Yet, on another occasion, the citizens petitioned the pope to give the poet a benefice within their walls, and so induce him to inhabit their city. Perhaps the expression used in Boccaccio's letter is ironical.] [Footnote 73: Guignenè.] [Footnote 74: It is not creditable to the learning of those times to learn, that the libraries of these two great revivers of knowledge were lost to the world soon after their deaths. Boccaccio's, it is true, was destroyed by an accident, being burnt when the convent to which he had left it was consumed by fire. But Petrarch's mouldered away in the palace given by the republic of Venice for its reception and preservation, so that dusty fragments were afterwards found to be all that remained of the venerable parchments which the laureate had expended so much time and labour in collecting.] [Footnote 75: Baldelli.] [Footnote 76: It is unknown who was the mother of this child, or grandchild, who died so young. Boccaccio had, besides, one son established at Florence, whom he does not mention in his will, but who presided at his funeral, and erected a tomb over his remains.] [Footnote 77: Baldelli, Cod. San. Epist. I.] LORENZO DE' MEDICI (considered as a poet); FICINO, PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, POLITIAN, THE PULCI, etc.