lordship. [3] This I began; but while I was working at it I caught a
quartan fever. During each access of this fever I was thrown into
delirium, when I cursed Mantua and its master and whoever stayed there
at his own liking. These words were reported to the Duke by the Milanese
goldsmith, who had not omitted to notice that the Duke wanted to employ
me. When the Prince heard the ravings of my sickness, he flew into a
passion against me; and I being out of temper with Mantua, our bad
feeling was reciprocal. The seal was finished after four months,
together with several other little pieces I made for the Duke under the
name of the Cardinal. His Reverence paid me well, and bade me return to
Rome, to that marvellous city where we had made acquaintance.

I quitted Mantua with a good sum of crowns, and reached Governo, where
the most valiant general Giovanni had been killed. [4] Here I had a
slight relapse of fever, which did not interrupt my journey, and coming
now to an end, it never returned on me again. When I arrived at
Florence, I hoped to find my dear father, and knocking at the door, a
hump-backed woman in a fury showed her face at the window; she drove me
off with a torrent of abuse, screaming that the sight of me was a
consumption to her. To this misshapen hag I shouted: "Ho! tell me,
cross-grained hunchback, is there no other face to see here but your
ugly visage?" "No, and bad luck to you." Whereto I answered in a loud
voice: "In less than two hours may it [5] never vex us more!" Attracted
by this dispute, a neighbour put her head out, from whom I learned that
my father and all the people in the house had died of the plague. As I
had partly guessed it might be so, my grief was not so great as it would
otherwise have been. The woman afterwards told me that only my sister
Liperata had escaped, and that she had taken refuge with a pious lady
named Mona Andrea de' Bellacci. 6