[300] _La Storia di Ginevra Almieri che fu sepolta viva in Firenze_ (Pisa, Nistri, 1863).
[301] The same point is illustrated by the tales of the Marchese di Saluzzo and the Principe di Salerno, which produced the novels of _Griselda_ and _Tancredi_. See notes to p. 250, above.
[302] _Raccolta dei Novellieri Italiani_, vol. xiii.
[303] _Op. cit._ vol. xiii. An allusion to Masuccio in this novel is interesting, since it proves the influence he had acquired even in Florence: "Masuccio, grande onore della città di Salerno, molto imitatore del nostro messer Giovanni Boccaccio," _ib._ p. 34. Pulci goes on to say that the reading of the _Novellino_ had encouraged him to write his tale.
[304] See D'Ancona, _La Poesia Popolare Italiana_, pp. 64-79.
[305] A fine example of these later _Lamenti_ has been republished at Bologna by Romagnoli, 1864. It is the _Lamento di Fiorenza_ upon the siege and slavery of 1529-30.
[306] A medieval specimen of this species of composition is the _Ballata_ for the _Reali di Napoli_ in the defeat of Montecatini. See Carducci's _Cino e Altri_, p. 603.
[308] _Sermintese Storico di A. Pucci_, Livorno, Vigo, 1876. It will be remembered that Dante in the _Vita Nuova_ (section vi.) says he composed a _Serventese_ on sixty ladies of Florence. The name was derived from Provence, and altered into _Sermintese_ by the Florentines. We possess a poem of this sort by A. Pucci on the Florentine ladies, printed by D'Ancona in his edition of the _Vita Nuova_ (Pisa, Nistri, p. 71), together with a valuable discourse upon this form of poetry. Carducci in his _Cino e Altri_ prints two _Sermintesi_ by Pucci on the beauties of women.
[309] D'Ancona, _Poesia Popolare Italiana_, pp. 47-50, has collected from Leonardo Bruno and other sources many interesting facts about Pope Martin's anger at this ditty. He seems to have gone to the length of putting Florence under an interdict.
[311] One of the last plebeian rhymes on politics comes from Siena, where, in the year 1552, the people used to sing this couplet in derision of the Cardinal of the Mignanelli family sent to rule them:
Mignanello, Mignanello, Non ci piace il tuo modello.
See Benci's _Storia di Montepulciano_ (Fiorenza, Massi e Landi, 1641), p. 104. An anecdote from Busini (_Lettere al Varchi_, Firenze, Le Monnier, p. 220) is so characteristic of the popular temper under the oppression of Spanish tyranny that its indecency may be excused. He says that a law had been passed awarding, "quattro tratti di corda ad uno che, tirando una c---- disse: Poi che non si può parlare con la bocca, io parlerò col c----."