Transcribed from the 1895 David Nutt edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org Legends of Florence Collected from the People _And Re-told_ _by_ _Charles Godfrey Leland_ (_Hans Breitmann_) * * * * * First Series * * * * * _LONDON_: _DAVID NUTT_ 270–71 _STRAND_ 1895 _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _At the Ballantyne Press_ PREFACE This book consists almost entirely of legends or traditions of a varied character, referring to places and buildings in Florence, such as the Cathedral and Campanile, the Signoria, the Bargello, the different city gates, ancient towers and bridges, palaces, crosses, and fountains, noted corners, odd by-ways, and many churches. To all of these there are tales, or at least anecdotes attached, which will be found as entertaining to the general reader as they will be interesting, not to say valuable, to the folklorist and the student of social history; but here I must leave the work to speak for itself. I originally intended that this should be entirely a collection of relics of ancient mythology, with superstitions and sorceries, witchcraft and incantations, or what may be called occult folk-lore, of which my work on “Etruscan-Roman Remains in Popular Tradition” consists, and of which I have enough additional material to make a large volume. But having resolved to add to it local legends, and give them the preference, I found that the latter so abounded, and were so easily collected by an expert, that I was obliged to cast out my occult folk-lore, piece by piece, if I ever hoped to get into the port of publication, according to terms with the underwriters, following the principle laid down by the illustrious Poggio, that in a storm the heaviest things must go overboard first, he illustrating the idea with the story of the Florentine, who, having heard this from the captain when at sea in a tempest, at once threw his wife into the raging billows—_perche non haveva cosa più grave di lei_—because there was nought on earth which weighed on him so heavily.