• Tartars nor Turks, “who are most perfect masters therein,” says Boccaccio, “as we can clearly see in Tartarian cloths, which truly are so skilfully woven, that no painter with his brush could equal, much less surpass them. The Tartars are⁠ ⁠…” And with this unfinished sentence close the Lectures upon Dante, begun by Giovanni Boccaccio on Sunday, August 9, 1373, in the church of San Stefano, in Florence. That there were some critics among his audience is apparent from this sonnet, which he addressed “to one who had censured his public Exposition of Dante.” See D. G. Rosetti, Early Italian Poets , p. 447:⁠— “If Dante mourns, there wheresoe’er he be, That such high fancies of a soul so proud Should be laid open to the vulgar crowd, (As, touching my Discourse, I ’m told by thee,) This were my grievous pain; and certainly My proper blame should not be disavowed; Though hereof somewhat, I declare aloud, Were due to others, not alone to me. False hopes, true poverty, and therewithal The blinded judgment of a host of friends, And their enteaties, made that I did thus. But of all this there is no gain at all Unto the thankless souls with whose base ends Nothing agrees that’s great or generous.” ↩