these men would have had me sent to prison and punished without too
close a reckoning. [1] But the good Prinzivalle put a stop to that. So
they sentenced me to pay four measures of flour, which were to be given
as alms to the nunnery of the Murate. [2] I was called in again; and he
ordered me not to speak a word under pain of their displeasure, and to
perform the sentence they had passed. Then, after giving me another
sharp rebuke, they sent us to the chancellor; I muttering all the while,
"It was a slap and not a blow," with which we left the Eight bursting
with laughter. The chancellor bound us over upon bail on both sides; but
only I was punished by having to pay the four measures of meal. Albeit
just then I felt as though I had been massacred, I sent for one of my
cousins, called Maestro Annibale, the surgeon, father of Messer
Librodoro Librodori, desiring that he should go bail for me. [3] He
refused to come, which made me so angry, that, fuming with fury and
swelling like an asp, I took a desperate resolve. At this point one may
observe how the stars do not so much sway as force our conduct. When I
reflected on the great obligations which this Annibale owed my family,
my rage grew to such a pitch that, turning wholly to evil, and being
also by nature somewhat choleric, I waited till the magistrates had gone
to dinner; and when I was alone, and observed that none of their
officers were watching me, in the fire of my anger, I left the palace,
ran to my shop, seized a dagger and rushed to the house of my enemies,
who were at home and shop together. I found them at table; and Gherardo,
who had been the cause of the quarrel, flung himself upon me. I stabbed
him in the breast, piercing doublet and jerkin through and through to
the shirt, without however grazing his flesh or doing him the least harm
in the world. When I felt my hand go in, and heard the clothes tear, I
thought that I had killed him; and seeing him fall terror-struck to
earth, I cried: "Traitors, this day is the day on which I mean to murder
you all." Father, mother, and sisters, thinking the last day had come,