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Updated: June 4, 2025
He had understood Sir James to say that they must leave that night. Mr. Morris hurried out to see to the packing. In five minutes the gentlemen themselves appeared. Sir James came quickly across to the two monks. "We must go to-night, Chris," he said. "We had words with Portinari. You must not remain longer in the town." Chris looked at him. "Yes?" he said.
Him I knew to be Messer Tommaso Severo, that had served the Portinari as leech for longer years than many in Florence could count. He it was that had ushered Messer Folco himself into this troublesome world, that is, however, less troublesome at Florence than elsewhere.
And no long time after, Ser Michele di Fruosino, being Director of the Hospital of S. Maria Nuova in Florence which hospital was founded by Folco Portinari, citizen of Florence determined that, even as the wealth of the hospital had increased, so its church, which was then without Florence and very small, dedicated to S. Egidio, should be enlarged.
With the next morning there came one to my abode asking to have speech with me, and when I went to see who it was I found that my visitor was none other than Messer Tommaso Severo, that was so long physician to the Portinari family.
A word or two on S. Egidio, the church of the great hospital of S. Maria Nuova, might round off this chapter, since it was Folco Portinari, Beatrice's father, who founded it. The hospital stands in a rather forlorn square a few steps from the Duomo, down the Via dell' Orivolo and then the first to the left; and it extends right through to the Via degli Alfani in cloisters and ramifications.
Whereupon, having taken counsel thereon with Lorenzo di Bicci, who was very much his friend, on September 5, in the year 1418, he began the new church, which was finished in a year in the manner wherein it stands to-day, and was then solemnly consecrated by Pope Martin V at the request of the said Ser Michele, who was the eighth Director of the Hospital, and of the men of the family of Portinari.
And when he had done this he turned and went like one that walked in a dream and I spying on him from my hiding-place till he came to the front of the Palace of the Portinari, and there he paused and gazed wistfully at the gray walls.
Then I went and summoned Dante, and he came out and greeted Messer Tommaso and went away with him, going like one that moves in the grave joy of some fair dream. Now what chanced to Dante when he went his ways to the Portinari palace I shall set down presently as it has come to me, seeing that I was not present, but giving, as I believe, the substance and the truth.
Reading, he became absorbed in this fantastic, but not unhandsome piece; even Selvaggia pondered it with wide eyes and lips half parted. It was certainly very wonderful that a man could say such things, she thought. Were they true? Could they be true of any one in the world even of Beatrice Portinari, that wonderful dead lady?
It is recorded that the money that Cosimo spent in the restoration of this palace was paid by Pigello Portinari, a citizen of Florence, who then directed the bank and the accounts of Cosimo in Milan and lived in the said palace.
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