Note 396 — Chapter X

It has been said by Hortis that the "olim" is unlikely to have referred to so recent an embassy, one which, in fact, was only in being two months before. I do not see the force of this. The "olim" is used in our sense of late, "the late ambassador." In November, as we shall see, Boccaccio was back in Florence. In the sense of "late" we find the "olim" used in the document already quoted in which Giovanni is appointed guardian of his brother Jacopo (supra, cap. x. n. 4): "... et heredis D. Bicis olim matris suæ," i.e. "and heir of Donna Bice, his late mother."