been critically apprehended.  The naivete of these records may be appreciated by the following extracts.  A Roman writes[2]:  ’I Lodovico Bonconte Monaldeschi was born in Orvieto, and was brought up in the city of Rome, where I have resided.  I was born in the year 1327, in the month of June, at the time when the Emperor Lodovico came.  Now I wish to relate the whole history of my age, seeing that I lived one hundred and fifteen years without illness, except that when I was born I fainted, and I died of old age, and remained in bed twelve months on end.’  Burigozzo’s Chronicle of Milan, again, concludes with these words:[3] ’As you will see in the Annals of my son, inasmuch as the death which has overtaken me prevents my writing more.’  Chronicles conceived and written in this spirit are diaries of events, repertories of strange stories, and old wives’ tales, without a deep sense of personal responsibility, devoid alike of criticism and artistic unity.  Very different is the character of the historical literature which starts into being in Florence at the opening of the fourteenth century.

[1] See Paul Scheffer-Boichorst, Florentiner Studien, Leipzig, 1874, Carl Hegel, in his defense of Compagni, Die Chronik des Dino Compagni, Versuch einer Rettung, Leipzig, 1875, admits the proof of spuriousness.  See the preface, p. v.  The point, however, is still disputed by Florentine scholars of high authority.  Gino Capponi, in his Storia della Repubblica di Firenze (vol. i.  Appendix, final note), observes that while the Villani are popular in tone the Malespini Chronicle is feudal.  Adolfo Bartoli (Storia della Lett.  It. vol. iii. p. 155) treats the question as still open.  The custom of preserving brief fasti in the archives of great houses rendered such compilations as the Malespini Chronicle is now supposed to have been both easy and attractive.  The Christian name Ricordano given to the first Malespini annalist does not exist.  It has been suggested that it is due to a misreading of an initial sentence, Ricordano i Malespini.

    [2] Muratori, vol. xii. p. 529.

[3] Arch.  Stor. vol. iii. p. 552.  Both Monaldeschi and Burigozzo appear to mention their own death.  The probability is that their annals, as we have them, have been freely dealt with by transcribers or continuators adopting the historic ‘I’ after the decease of the titular authors.

Giovanni Villani relates how, having visited Rome on the occasion of the Jubilee, when 200,000 pilgrims crowded the streets of the Eternal City, he was moved in the depth of his soul by the spectacle of the ruins of the discrowned mistress of the world.[1] ’When I saw the great and ancient monuments of Rome, and read the histories and the great deeds of the Romans, written by Virgil, and by Sallust, and by Lucan, and by Livy, and by Valerius, and Orosius, and other masters of history, who related small as well as great things