The persons here mentioned gain a kind of immortality from Dante’s verse. The Stricca, or Baldastricca, was a lawyer of Siena; and Niccolò dei Salimbeni, or Bonsignori, introduced the fashion of stuffing pheasants with cloves, or, as Benvenuto says, of roasting them at a fire of cloves. Though Dante mentions them apart, they seem, like the two others named afterwards, to have been members of the Brigtita Spendereccia , or Prodigal Club, of Siena, whose extravagances are recorded by Benvenuto da Imola. This club consisted of “twelve very rich young gentlemen, who took it into their heads to do things that would make a great part of the world wonder.” Accordingly each contributed eighteen thousand golden florins to a common fund, amounting in all to two hundred and sixteen thousand florins. They built a palace, in which each member had a splendid chamber, and they gave sumptuous dinners and suppers; ending their banquets sometimes by throwing all the dishes, table-ornaments, and knives of gold and silver out of the window. “This silly institution,” continues Benvenuto, “lasted only ten months, the treasury being exhausted, and the wretched members became the fable and laughingstock of all the world.”