Note 305 — Chapter VI

Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., cap. ii. p. 45, where by the mouth of Fiammetta his apprehensions are expressed. "La tua città [Florence]," she says to him, "as you yourself have already said, is full of boastful voices and of cowardly deeds, and she serves not a thousand laws, but even as many, it seems, as she has men. She is at war within and without, so that a citizen is like a foreigner, he trembles. She is furnished with proud, avaricious, and envious people, and full of innumerable anxieties. And all this your soul abhors. Now the city you would leave is, as you know, joyful, peaceful, rich, and magnificent, and lives under one sole king; the which things I know well are pleasing to you. And besides all these, I am here; but you will not find me whither you go."