44 Lionel's Journey to Italy 



162. For other sights in Pavia, see pp. 80, 92. A plan of the 

 city in 1590 is in Magenta, opp. p. i. 



4. PAVIA TO MILAN 



By the time Lionel left Pavia for Milan, his retinue would 

 doubtless be composed, in addition to the 457 men with whom 



Gioffredo to have meant depends upon the interpretation we assign to 

 the words 'ab antiquo.' If he wrote in 1437 (say), might he have 

 regarded a period two generations earlier, in 1366, as ancient, or must 

 we assume that he would have reserved this designation for a date 

 (say 1316) 50 years earlier? That the story of Griselda did not gain its 

 earliest currency from the classic form into which it was cast by Boccaccio 

 and Petrarch is suggested by Gioffredo's statement that he himself was 

 acquainted with it in three languages — Latin, Italian, and French (op. 

 cit., p. 861 : 'La quale se trova in historia, et in Latino et in Franzoso e 

 Italiano, che noi medemy habiamo veduta in questy tre idioma'). It is 

 of course possible that he is here referring to Boccaccio's narrative, 

 Petrarch's version, and a French translation (perhaps that of 1414). 

 Against this hypothesis it may be urged that, since he is arguing for the 

 Germanic origin of such names as Walter and Griselda, and therefore 

 stressing the notion of antiquity {ib.: 'Et credemo che ly marchexi di 

 Salucio che erano in anty fusseno ancora discesi da quely Saxony et 

 Longobardy. Et molte cosse presumere me lo f ano : prima, questy nomy 

 come Manfredo, Adalayda, Valterio, Griseldis, e simily nomy che tirano 

 sopra quely nomy di coloro, e sono inusitati'), he is not likely to have 

 appealed to a version as modern as Petrarch's in support of such a theory. 

 That there were earlier accounts than Boccaccio's is clear from the fact 

 that Petrarch testifies {Sen. 17. 3) that he had often heard the story 

 long before 1373, and that one of his reasons for translating Boccaccio's 

 account was to render it accessible to people who knew no Italian 

 ('Cogitatio supervenit, fieri posse ut nostri etiam sermonis ignaros tam 

 dulcis historia delectaret, cum et mihi semper ante multos annos audita 

 placuisset, et tibi usque adeo placuisse perpenderem, ut vulgari eam 

 stilo tuo censeris non indignam'), the context making it perfectly evident 

 that he is referring, not to Boccaccio's literary reproduction, but to a 

 popular tale, such as might be related by minstrels. 



There always remains the possibility that Galeazzo, after Petrarch had 

 written his. Latin version by June 8, 137^, and before his own death in 

 1378, had these frescoes executed, out of regard for Petrarch's memory. 

 There is nothing in the relations between the ruling house of Saluzzo 

 and the Visconti to discredit such a supposition, seeing that in April, 

 1365, Federigo II, Marquis of Saluzzo (d. 1396), acknowledged that he 

 held his marquisate of Bernabo {M. H. P., pp. loio-ii), and that ten 

 years later he looked to Galeazzo and Bernabo for defense against his 



