Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/230

 THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER made large enough to hold both, and kept replying: ' Make it so much the larger.' Now you see what good judgment this abbot had." 52 — Then messer Pietro Bembo said: •' And why do you not tell the story of your friend the Floren- tine commander who was besieged in Castellina'"* by the Duke of Calabria? Finding one day some poisoned crossbow missiles that had been shot in from the camp, he wrote to the duke that if the warfare was to be carried on so barbarously, he too w^ould have medicine put on his cannon shot, and then woe to the one who had the worst of it.""^ Messer Bernardo laughed, and said: " Messer Pietro, if you do not hold your peace, I will tell all the things I have seen and heard about your dear Vene- tians (which are not few), and especially when they try to play the horseman." " Do not so, I beg of you," replied messer Pietro, " and I will keep quiet about two other delightful tales that I know of the Florentines."™ Messer Bernardo said: " They must have rather been Sienese, who often slip in this way; as was recently the case with one, who, on hearing some letters read in council wherein the phrase 'the aforesaid' was used (to avoid such frequent repetition of the name of the man who was spoken of), said to the man who was reading: 'Stop there a moment and tell me, is this Aforesaid a friend to our commune?'" Messer Pietro laughed, then said: " I am speaking of Florentines, not of Sienese." " Speak out freely then," added my lady Emilia, " and do not stand so much on ceremony." Messer Pietro continued: " "When the Florentine Signory was waging war against the Pisans,"" they sometimes found their money exhausted by their great expenses; and the method of finding money for daily needs being discussed in council one day, after many ways had been proposed, one of the oldest citizens said: ' I have thought of two methods whereby we could soon get a goodly sum of 130