Note 337 — THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE OF PULCI.

[In the first edition of the Morgante Maggiore (Firenze, 1482 [B.M.G. 10834]), which is said (vide the colophon) to have been issued "under the correction of the author, line 2 of this stanza runs thus: "comegliebbe u armano el suo turpino;" and, apparently, it was not till 1518 (Milano, by Zarotti) that Pipino was substituted for Turpino. Leonardo Bruni, surnamed Aretino (1369-1444), in his Istoria Fiorentina (1861, pp. 43, 47), commemorates the imperial magnificence of Carlo Magno, and speaks of his benefactions to the Church, but does not—in that work, at any rate—mention his biographers. It is possible that if Pulci or Bruni had read Eginhard, they thought that his chronicle was derogatory to Charlemagne. (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 1825, iii. 376, note 1, and Hallam's Europe during the Middle Ages, 1868, p. 16, note 3; et vide post, p. 309.)]