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 135b 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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