A certain Rampino was arrested for the theft, and put to the torture; when Vanni Fucci, having escaped to Monte Carelli, beyond the Florentine jurisdiction, sent a messenger to Rampino’s father, confessing all the circumstances of the crime. Hereupon the notary was seized “on the first Monday in Lent, as he was going to a sermon in the church of the Minorite Friars,” and was hanged for the theft, and Rampino set at liberty. No one has a good word to say for Vanni Fucci, except the Canonico Crescimbeni, who, in the “ Comentarj ” to the Istoria della Volg. Poesia , II ii , p. 99, counts him among the Italian Poets, and speaks of him as a man of great courage and gallantry, and a leader of the Neri party of Pistoia, in 1300. He smooths over Dante’s invectives by remarking that Dante “makes not too honorable mention of him in the Comedy”; and quotes a sonnet of his, which is pathetic from its utter despair and self-reproach:⁠— “For I have lost the good I might have had Through little wit, and not of mine own will.” It is like the wail of a lost soul, and the same in tone as the words which Dante here puts into his mouth. Dante may have heard him utter similar selfaccusations while living, and seen on his face the blush of shame, which covers it here. ↩