Note 402 — Appendix I

This strong feeling concerning the incestuous nature of connexion between cousins, however strange to us, appears to have been very real in Italy in the sixteenth century. Sorella germana, a common term for a female cousin, is in itself sufficient evidence of the feeling. Readers of the novelle will remember the discussion on the subject by Pietro Fortini in his Novelle de' Novizi, xxxi. The explanation of the phenomenon is no doubt to be sought in the peculiar conventions of Italian society.