Francesco Mannelli only
finished his copy nine years after the death of his friend; it came
into the possession of the Medici, but disappeared, and was fortunately
discovered and bought by Messer Baccio Baldini, doctor to the Grand
Duke Cosimo I. and librarian of the Laurentian library, where it now
is. At the end of the manuscript is written: _Qui finisce la decima
e ultima Giornata del libro chiamato Decameron cognominato Principe
Galeotto, Scripto per me Francesco d’Amaretto Mannelli di 13 d’Agosto
1384. Deo sit laus et gloria, in ecternum ad honorem egregi Simacu
Spinis et beneplacitum, et mandatum._
[Illustration: TOWER OF THE MANNELLI.]
Raimondo, his brother, was a sailor, and distinguished himself in an
engagement against Spinola, admiral of the fleet of Filippo Visconti,
who then held Genoa. The allied fleets of Venice and Florence met
the enemy off Rapallo on the 27th August, 1431, but the wind was
unfavourable and many of their ships found great difficulty in getting
out of Porto Fino. Raimondo, seeing his friends hard pressed, urged on
his crew with threats, ran down Spinola’s galley and took him and sixty
of his men prisoners. He was shabbily treated by the Venetian admiral
in command, who took, not only the honour and glory, but the prisoners
and consequently their ransom, from him. Mannelli’s portrait is painted
among other seafaring worthies on one of the ceilings in the Pitti
palace. Messer Coppo’s posterity died out in the XVIIth century, and
the present branch of the family descend from his brother Nerlo, whose
son Chele was surnamed Gorget, from his uncomfortable habit of wearing
that part of his armour by day and by night. He was a good soldier, and
at San Casciano killed with his own hand the leader of a strong body
of French troops sent by Henry VII. to raid the Florentine territory.
Jacopo Mannelli took a prominent part in the revolt against the Duke of
Athens, and was named custodian of the bridge of Sta. Trinita, but one
of his descendants, Filippo, a canon of the cathedral, disgraced the
name of Mannelli by revealing the deliberations of the Council of the
Republic to the enemy. He died by the hand of another priest in 1536.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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