Note 3b — THE THREE HORNS OF MESSER GUICCIARDINI

Necessità fa la vecchia trottare. On which proverb Matteo Villani comments as follows: “And thus he truly verified the saying of Valerius Maximus, that ‘the wants caused by human weakness are a common bond of security,’ all of which is briefly expressed in the French proverb, ‘Need makes the old woman (or old age) bestir herself.’” Valerius Maximus was the prototype of Guicciardini.