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And sent to his friends ZANOBI BUONDELMONTI And LUIGI ALAMANNI

CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI 1284-1328

It appears, dearest Zanobi and Luigi, a wonderful thing to those

who have considered the matter, that all men, or the larger

number of them, who have performed great deeds in the world, and

excelled all others in their day, have had their birth and

beginning in baseness and obscurity; or have been aggrieved by

Fortune in some outrageous way. They have either been exposed to

the mercy of wild beasts, or they have had so mean a parentage

that in shame they have given themselves out to be sons of Jove

or of some other deity. It would be wearisome to relate who these

persons may have been because they are well known to everybody,

and, as such tales would not be particularly edifying to those

who read them, they are omitted.