THE CERTOSA OF FLORENCE 



chre, the last remains of his beloved child were 

 laid. 



" This funeral," says the chronicler, Matteo 

 Villani, from whom these details are borrowed, 

 " magnificent enough for any prince, were he even 

 of blood royal, we have recorded because it was a 

 new and strange thing in Florence, which excited 

 much attention, and cost upwards of five thousand 

 gold florins." 



At the close of the funeral solemnity, Niccolo, 

 turning to his friends, desired them henceforth to 

 speak no more of his son's sudden and bitter end, lest 

 any fresh reminder should revive the old pain. His 

 grief thus stifled, he returned to Naples to make new 

 conquests and subdue more enemies. But from this 

 time his letters breathe a saddened tone, and the Cer- 

 tosa becomes more than ever the object of his interest. 

 How constantly the thought of his convent, now 

 doubly precious to him, filled his mind, how yearn- 

 ingly, amid the stress of public business, his heart 

 turned to that " place of blessed repose," we see in 

 the letters addressed during 1355 and 1356 to his 

 kinsmen Jacopo Acciaiuoli and Andrea Buondelmonti, 

 whom he had entrusted with the superintendence of 

 the works still in progress there. 



" Jacopo, I say to you that all my consolations 

 centre in our monastery ; all trouble and vexations 

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