Much has been said about Boccaccio’s tomb being “torn up and desecrated by bigots;” and Lord Byron has made this the subject of his eloquent invective. The story seems, however, to have originated in mistake. Rosellini has given an authentic account of the whole transaction. It appears that many years since, after a law had been passed by the Grand Duke Leopold in 1783, forbidding the burial of the dead under church pavements, the tomb of Boccaccio, which lay in the centre of the church of St. James and St. Michael at Certaldo, covered by a stone bearing his family escutcheon, his effigy, and the four lines above quoted, was opened. Nothing was found, except a skull, and a tin tube containing several written parchments, which the persons present could not understand. What became of these is not known, perhaps they were destroyed like the MSS. found by the old woman. The tombstone was purchased by some one on the spot, and having since been broken, one fragment alone remains, which the Signora Lenzoni has recovered and placed inside Boccaccio’s house. All this is asserted in a notarial document drawn up at Certaldo in 1825, and certified by ocular witnesses then surviving, who were present at the opening of the vault. But, besides this gravestone, there was a monument placed high on one of the side-walls of the church, consisting of Boccaccio’s bust, which is a good likeness, holding with both his arms against his breast a book, on which is written ‘Decameron,’ and under the bust are the two inscriptions by Salutati and Tedaldo, such as Manni transcribed them. To this monument, and not to the tomb, Byron’s reproach partly applies, for it was of late years removed by some fanatics from its place, and thrown in a corner at the end of the church. But the authorities interfered and caused it to be restored in a more conspicuous position, facing the pulpit, where it is now to be seen.