File:Men and manners of old Florence (1909) (14584698870).jpg

Identifier: menmannersofoldf00biag (find matches)
Title: Men and manners of old Florence
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Biagi, Guido, 1855-1925
Subjects:
Publisher: Chicago, A. C. McClurg and co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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d distinctive mark—some were pitted with small-pox, some had moles, others were scarred ; the nosewas generally squat and flat, the lips thick and pro-minent, the eyes dull and small, the forehead low andfreckled. To these pen-sketches made by pedanticand precise lawyers some portraits correspond thatare still extant of these women. In a rare and curiousbook, the memoranda of Baldovinetti, in which thisancestor of the famous painter used to illustrate bydrawing his jottings, there are preserved for us theportraits of three slaves he bought in the years, 1377,1380 and 1388 : Dorothea, a Tartar, from Russia,eighteen years or more of age ; Domenica, of whiteskin, from Tartary; Veronica, sixteen years old,whom I bought almost naked from Bonaroti, son ofSimon de Bonaroti—that is to say, from anancestor of Michael Angelo. These three—Dorothea,Domenica and Veronica—could, when a little older,have easily served as models to the future Buonarrotifor his Three Fates. Such women, ugly or
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PRIVATE LIFE OF THE FLORENTINES loi beautiful, entered the houses of the rich Florentinesto perform the most humble services and to take careof the children. They caused much anxiety on everyaccount to the poor house matrons. Pucci, in one ofhis sonnets, tells us that the slaves had the best of itin everything, and better off than any one, check-mating their mistresses. He maliciously explainssome reasons, and tells that they often knew howto play ugly tricks on their mistresses, who, as Ales-sandra Macinghi, the mother of the Strozzi, confessedsome years later, would avenge themselves by layinghands on these same slaves. Still, pests though theywere, it seems the families could not do without them.They were the nurses, the maids-of-all-work, of theirday ; and Alessandra wrote to her son Filippo whenat Naples : Let me remind you of the need we haveof a slave, and, if you have the opportunity, give ordersto have one bought : ask for a Tartar, for they arethe best for hard work, and are

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