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Updated: June 22, 2025
Doctor Fifanti was writing busily at the table when I intruded. He looked up, thrusting his horn-rimmed spectacles high upon his peaked forehead. "What the devil!" quoth he very testily. "I thought you were in the garden with Madonna Giuliana." "My Lord Gambara is there," said I. He crimsoned and banged the table with his bony hand.
You would plant horns upon my head. Well, well! Do not complain if you are gored by them." Then he laughed hideously. "This poor Astorre Fifanti is blind and a fool. He is to be sent packing on a journey to the Duke, devised to suit my Lord Cardinal's convenience. But you should have bethought you that suspicious husbands have a trick of pretending to depart whilst they remain."
Since God has made you a fool, it but remains for man to make you a priest, and thus complete God's work." "You cannot move me by your taunts," I said. "You have a foul mind, Messer Fifanti." He approached me slowly, his untidily shod feet slip-slopping on the wooden floor.
And my absent-mindedness was visible to Fifanti when I came to my studies with him later. He grew more peevish with me than was habitual, dubbed me dunce and wooden-head, and commended the wisdom of those who had determined upon a claustral life for me, admitting that I knew enough Latin to enable me to celebrate as well as another without too clear a knowledge of the meaning of what I pattered.
Of the Ghibelline faction were the Uberti, Manelli, Ubriachi, Fifanti, Amidei, Infangati, Malespini, Scolari, Guidi, Galli, Cappiardi, Lamberti, Soldanieri, Cipriani, Toschi, Amieri, Palermini, Migliorelli, Pigli, Barucci, Cattani, Agolanti, Brunelleschi, Caponsacchi, Elisei, Abati, Tidaldini, Giuochi, and Galigai.
As for the murder of Fifanti, the thing was grievous; but it had been done in the heat of combat, and he could not think that I had meant the poor man's death. And Fifanti himself was not entirely without blame. Largely had he contributed to the tragedy. There had been evil in his heart.
To my relief she sent word that she was not well and would keep her chamber; and Fifanti smiled oddly as he stroked his blue chin and gave me a sidelong glance. We ate in silence, and when the meal was done, I departed, still without a word to my preceptor, and went to shut myself up again in my room. I slept ill that night, and very early next morning I was astir.
There came a clatter of hooves under our windows, which stood open to the tepid September morning, and soon there was old Busio ushering in an officer of the Pontificals with a parchment tied in scarlet silk and sealed with the arms of Piacenza. Messer Fifanti took the package and weighed it in his hand, frowning. Perhaps already some foreboding of the nature of its contents was in his mind.
At last, Fifanti spoke, his little eyes narrowing. "It is too much for my poor deserts," he said curtly. "You are too humble," said the prelate. "Your loyalty to the House of Farnese, and the hospitality which I, its deputy, have received..." "Hospitality!" barked Fifanti, and looked very oddly at Giuliana; so oddly that a faint colour began to creep into her cheeks.
As it was his bones would be weary and his flesh tender from so much riding; but he would offer it up to Heaven for his sins. And when the too-amiable Fifanti had protested how little there could be the need in the case of one so saintly as Messer Arcolano, the priest made his farewells.
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