A   FLORENTINE   DIARY



                FROM 1450 TO 1516



  I record that on  the 15th October," 1450,  I, Luca,  son

of Antonio, son of Luca Landucci, a Florentine citizen, of

about fourteen years of age,  went to learn book-keeping

from a master called Calandra; and, praise God! I succeeded.

  And on the 1st January, 1452, I entered the shop of the

apothecary Francesco,  at  the sign of  the  Scala,  in the

Mercato Vecchio}

  And on the 1st February, 1453, my father's mother died,

and was buried in San Piero Maggiore.2

  And  on the 3rd November, 1454, my father Antonio

received his mother's inheritance, of which we possess a

document giving the details; he inherited all her property

both  in Florence  and in the country; amongst the rest a

house which was left as a legacy to her and Antonio for

their  lives. Messer Otto Niccolini arranged a compromise,

by which the monks  of Castello,3 who had  the reversion,

were  to pay Antonio  twenty-three lire a year for the rest

of his life, taking back the said house, and they  paid this

sum as long as Antonio lived.

  1 The  Old Market,  now demolished, and  replaced by  Piazza

Vittorio-Emanuele. [Trans.]

  ! In the  Piazza of the same name. This was a parochial church

dating from the fifth  century. In very ancient times the mystic

function here took place of the nuptials between the new archbishop

of the  city  and the abbess of the Convent of San Piero. In 1783 the

church was partly demolished,  and  partly  turned  into private

dwellings. A street goes under the  central arch of the facade, whilst

there are shops in the other arches. [Trans.]

  3 The old name of the monastery in Borgo Pinti, which belonged

to the Cistercian monks till 1628, when they were transferred to

San Frediano, the Carmelite nuns from there coming here in their

stead,  and remaining till the Government of United Italy took it

over for schools, and the few nuns remaining were  sent elsewhere.

They  had  called it after their abbess, Santa M.  Maddalena de'

Pazzi,  who had died at S.  Frediano in 1607,  and whose body was

brought here in  1628, and buried under the high altar.  [Trans.]

    B                       I