But if he used this expression figuratively, as I am willing to believe, those who cling to the shell of the word are greater blockheads still.⁠ ⁠… “This passage of Dante being read and explained by Luigi Alamanni, an Italian, before Francis the First of that name, he was indignant at the imposture, and commanded it to be stricken out. He was even excited to interdict the reading of the book in his kingdom. But for my part, in order to exculpate this author, I wish to say that under the name of Butcher he meant that Capet was son of a great and valiant warrior.⁠ ⁠… If Dante understood it thus, I forgive him; if otherwise, he was a very ignorant poet.” Benvenuto says that the name of Capet comes from the fact that Hugh, in playing with his companions in boyhood, “was in the habit of pulling off their caps and running away with them.” Ducange repeats this story from an old chronicle, and gives also another and more probable origin of the name, as coming from the hood or cowl which Hugh was in the habit of wearing. The belief that the family descended from a butcher was current in Italy in Dante’s time. Villani, IV 3, says:⁠— “Most people say that the father was a great and rich burgher of Paris, of a race of butchers or dealers in cattle.” ↩