Page:The Lady Poverty - a XIII. century allegory (IA ladypovertyxiiic00giovrich).pdf/33

 by his great endowments, is the ideal author for so exquisite an allegory. The "Chronica xxiv. Generalium," which was completed in 1379, and begun perhaps twenty years earlier, distinctly states that Giovanni is the author ("quendam libellum devotum composuit quem intitulavit Commercium Paupertatis"), and this opinion was followed by all succeeding old writers (except Fra Bartolommeo da