Note 297 — Chapter IX · THE LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT

I cannot leave this interesting though obscure author without noticing the undoubted reference he makes in his Specchio to the Gipsies. ‘Certain people,’ he says (p. 351), ‘have a superstition regarding lucky and unlucky days, which have been pointed out to them by those who call themselves Egyptians.’ We have hitherto supposed that 1422 was the time when Gipsies first appeared in the West. That year is cited by Muratori in his Dissertazioni as the date of a document which speaks of the coming of Andrew, who called himself Duke of Egypt, and all his tribe. Passavanti, however, wrote about 1350, so that the epoch of migration must be carried back at least a century.