Note 335 — Chapter VIII

Yet there may be something in it. Baldelli tells us that he wrote the Vita di Dante in 1351, and in 1349 we find him in communication with Petrarch. That Beatrice di Dante was in Ravenna in 1346 seems certain. Pelli, Memorie per servire alla vita di Dante (Firenze, 1823), p. 45, says: "As for the daughter Beatrice ... one knows that she took the habit of a religious in the convent of S. Stefano detto dell' Uliva in Ravenna." We know from a document seen by Pelli that in 1350 the Or San Michele Society sent Beatrice ten gold florins by the hand of Boccaccio. What I suggest is that Boccaccio found her in Ravenna in 1346 very poor. He represented the facts to the Or San Michele Society, who, after the Black Death of 1348, had plenty of money in consequence of all the legacies left them and, as is well known, were very free with their plenty.

I give the document Pelli saw as he quotes it. He says he found it in "un libro d' entrata ed uscita del 1350 tra gli altri esistenti nella cancelleria de' capitani di Or San Michele risposto nell' armadio alto di detta cancelleria." There, he says, is written the following disbursement in the month of September, 1350: "A Messer Giovanni di Bocchaccio ... fiorini dieci d' oro, perchè gli desse a suora Beatrice figliuola che fu di Dante Alleghieri, monaca nel monastero di S. Stefano dell' Uliva di Ravenna," etc. See also Bernicole in Giornale Dantesco, An. VII (Series III), Quaderno vii (Firenze, 1899), p. 337 et seq., who rediscovered the document which is republished by Biagi and Pesserini in Codice Diplomatico Dantesco, Disp. 5 (1900).