Note 1 — Chapter V · The Blind Scholar and his Daughter.

A sign that such contrasts were peculiarly frequent in Florence, is the fact that Saint Antonine, Prior of San Marco, and afterwards archbishop, in the first half of this fifteenth century, founded the society of Buonuomini di San Martino (Good Men of Saint Martin) with the main object of succouring the poveri vergognosi—in other words, paupers of good family. In the records of the famous Panciatichi family we find a certain Girolamo in this century who was reduced to such a state of poverty that he was obliged to seek charity for the mere means of sustaining life, though other members of his family were enormously wealthy.