Note on Style
I have in my notes reproduced Latin and medieval Italian texts from the
printed editions and manuscripts, with all their peculiarities of spelling and
grammar. For manuscripts, I have modernized the punctuation and the cap-
italization, but have not attempted to introduce accents and apostrophes
lacking in the original, since these are transcriptions, not editions. As a result,
the texts look very peculiar and sometimes downright ungrammatical. This
is probably all to the good, since it gives the reader a more immediate con-
tact with the written words of the people under consideration. All transla-
tions into English are mine, unless otherwise noted.
I normally give proper names, whether from Latin or Italian sources, in
their likely vernacular dress. The presence of the wordfubetween a given
name and a following patronymic, as in ‘‘Giovanni di fu Pietro,’’ means that
the father was dead at the time of writing. Sometimes a name is preceded
by ‘‘Don’’ or ‘‘Donna,’’ representingdominusanddominain the original Latin.
These courtesy titles were used by honorable laypersons and by the clergy,
especially priests. If the cleric was a monk, I have rendered the title as
‘‘Dom,’’ following the common English usage. ‘‘Fra,’’ meaningfrater(Latin),
indicates a member of a mendicant order or a lay penitent (the earlier use).
The female form of this title is ‘‘Sor’’ or ‘‘Sora.’’ More aristocratic laymen
are sometimes titled ‘‘Ser’’ (like the English ‘‘sir’’), which is a bit more exalted
than ‘‘Don.’’
I have made some exceptions. If the name indicated a place of origin, as
in Giovanni di Vicenza or Guido da Vicenza, I have converted the proposi-
tion to ‘‘of,’’ since that is its meaning. I give the names of Church Fathers,
famous saints, and popes in English. But I have given the names of commu-
nal lay saints in Italian dress because that is how their neighbors knew them.
I make an exception for the lay saint Francis of Assisi. It would have been
very distracting to do otherwise.