“Truly I will not swear that this is a story of the Bargello, for I am very particular as to truth, Signore, but I will swear that ’tis of a prison in Florence, and that when it happened the Bargello was the only prison there. And it runs thus: Giorgio, whoever he was, had killed a man, and as the law ran in his case, in those strange days, he could not be executed till he had confessed or owned the deed. And he would not confess. “Now there was a lawyer, _un notaio_, _ò chi che si fosse_ (or whoever he was), who declared that he would bring to pass with a trick what justice had not been able to do with torture. So going to the prison, he called for wine, and when they had drunk deep he cried heartily: “‘_Orsú_, _Giorgio_, _stiamo un poco allegri_, _cantiam qualche cosa_’—‘Come now, Giorgio, let’s be merry and sing something!’ “‘_Come ti piace_’—‘As you please,’ quoth Master Giorgio. ‘You sing one line.’ “So the notary began, touching a lute: “‘Giorgi hà morto l’huomo.’ “‘Giorgio once killed a man.’ “To which Giorgio, who was sharp as a razor, added: “‘Così non canta Giorgio.’ “‘But it was not thus that Giorgio sang.’ “So it passed into a proverb, meaning as much as _Così non dico io_—I don’t say that; or _Così non l’intendo io_—I don’t see it in that light. And so the notary found that you cannot see Verona from the top of every hill. “And there is another story of a prisoner, who had long curling hair in the old Florentine style. Hair, Signore, like charity, may cover much sin. Now this man, after he had been a while in the Bargello, got his sentence, which was to have his ears cropped off. But when the _boia_ or hangman came to do the job, he found that the man had had his ears cut off smooth long before. Whence came the proverb: “‘Quel che havea mozzi gli orecchi, E’ci sara de gli arreticati.’ “‘He whose ears had been cut away, Fooled another, or so they say.’ Which is a proverb to this day, when a man finds that somebody has been before him. “And it may have been that Donatello, the great sculptor, was in the Bargello when he said, ‘_E’rise a me ed io riso à lui_’—‘He laughs at me, and I do laugh at him.’ Donatello was _in quistione_, or in trouble with the law, and in prison, for having killed one of his pupils. The Marquis di Ferrara asked him if he was guilty. But Donatello had already received from the Marquis a license to slay any one in self-defence, and so he made that answer.” A LEGEND OF THE BARGELLO. “One day a young man, who had been gaming and lost, threw some dirt at an image of the Virgin in one of the numerous shrines in the city, blaming her for his bad luck. He was observed by a boy, who reported it to the authorities, and was soon arrested. Having confessed that he did it in a rage at having lost, he was hanged the same night from one of the windows of the Bargello.” {164} * * * * *