the service of some bishop, whose name I do not remember, and was
thoroughly tainted with a very foul disease. While he was yet a lad and
living in Florence, they used in certain places of the city to meet
together during the nights of summer on the public streets; and he,
ranking among the best of the improvisatori, sang there. His recitations
were so admirable, that the divine Michel Agnolo Buonarroti, that prince
of sculptors and of painters, went, wherever he heard that he would be,
with the greatest eagerness and delight to listen to him. There was a
man called Piloto, a goldsmith, very able in his art, who, together with
myself, joined Buonarroti upon these occasions. [1] Thus acquaintance
sprang up between me and Luigi Pulci; and so, after the lapse of many
years, he came, in the miserable plight which I have mentioned, to make
himself known to me again in Rome, beseeching me for God's sake to help
him. Moved to compassion by his great talents, by the love of my
fatherland, and by my own natural tenderness of heart, I took him into
my house, and had him medically treated in such wise that, being but a
youth, he soon regained his health. While he was still pursuing his
cure, he never omitted his studies, and I provided him with books
according to the means at my disposal. The result was that Luigi,
recognising the great benefits he had received from me, oftentimes with
words and tears returned me thanks, protesting that if God should ever
put good fortune in his way, he would recompense me for my kindness. To
this I replied that I had not done for him as much as I desired, but
only what I could, and that it was the duty of human beings to be
mutually serviceable. Only I suggested that he should repay the service
I had rendered him by doing likewise to some one who might have the same
need of him as he had had of me.

The young man in question began to frequent the Court of Rome, where he
soon found a situation, and enrolled himself in the suite of a bishop, a