Giannotto, who dreaded the consequence of the Jew beholding the depraved conduct of the leaders of the church. His resolution, however, was not to be shaken, and, on arriving at Rome, he found the pope, cardinal, and prelates immersed in gluttony, drunkenness, and every detestable vice. On returning to Paris, he declared to Giannotto his determination to be baptized, being convinced that that religion must be true, and supported by the Holy Spirit, which had flourished and spread over the earth, in spite of the enormities of its ministers.

This story is related as having really happened, by Benvenuto da Imola, in his commentary on Dante, which was written in 1376, but none of which was ever printed, except a few passages quoted by Muratori in his Italian Antiquities of the middle ages.1

On account of the severe censures contained against the church in this and the preceding tale, they both received considerable corrections by order of the council of Trent.2

3. The sultan Saladin wishing to borrow a large sum from a rich but niggardly Jew of Alexandria, called him into his presence. Saladin was aware he would not lend the money willingly, and he was not disposed to force a compliance: he therefore resolved to ensnare him by asking whether he judged the Mahometan, Christian, or Jewish faith, to be the true one. In answer to this the Jew related the story of a man who had a ring, which in his family had always carried the inheritance along with it to whomsoever it was bequeathed. The possessor having three sons, and being importuned by each to bestow it on him, secretly ordered two rings to be made, precisely similar to the first, and privately gave one of the three to each of his children. At his death it was impossible to ascertain who was the heir. Neither,' says the Jew, can it be discovered which is the true religion of the three faiths given by the

It is to be found, however, says Liebrecht, in da Gubbio's "Avven-. turoso Ciciliano, also briefly in Luther's Table talk, Colloquia Mensalia, cap. 34; cf. also Schimpf und Ernst, p. 61, and Bebelii, Facetiæ, 1570, p. 21. Madame de Sevigné alludes to it in letter, July 26, 1691.

2 Bottari, i. pp. 35-49 defends Boccaccio from the charge of irreligion, and indeed the story may be interpreted as a defence of Christianity, though at the expense of its ministers.

Father to his three people. Each believes itself the heir of God, and obeys his commandments, but which is the pure law is hitherto uncertain.' The sultan was so pleased with the ingenuity of the Jew, that he frankly confessed the snare he had laid, received him into great favour, and was accommodated with the money he wanted.

Most of those stories, which seem to contain a sneer against the Christian religion, came from the Jews and Arabians who had settled in Spain. The novel of Boccaccio probably originated in some Rabbinical tradition. In the Schebet Judah, a Hebrew work, translated into Latin by Gentius, but originally written by the Jew Salomo Ben Virga, and containing the history of his nation from the destruction of the Temple to his own time, a conversation which passed between Peter the Elder, king of Spain, and the Jew Ephraim Sanchus, is recorded in that part of the work which treats of the persecutions which the Jews suffered in Spain. Peter the Elder, in order to entrap Ephraim, asked him whether the Jewish or Christian religion was the true one. The Jew requested three days to consider, and at the end of that period he told the king that one of his neighbours, who had lately gone abroad, left each of his sons a precious jewel, and that being called in to decide which was the most valuable, he had advised the decision to be deferred till the return of their father. In like manner," continued the Jew, "you ask whether the gem received by Jacob or Esau be most precious, but I recommend that the judgment should be referred to our father who is in Heaven." I believe the Schebet Judah was not written till near a century after the appearance of the Decameron, but the stories related in it had been long current among the Jewish Rabbins. The author of the Gesta Romanorum probably derived from them the story of the three rings, which forms the 89th chapter of that romantic compilation. From the Gesta Romanorum it

1 In the Gesta all the elements in the tale are Christian: a knight had three sons; to the first-born he leaves an estate, to the second a treasure, and to the youngest a precious ring worth more than all the rest; moreover, he gave the two elder sons two rings counterparts of the precious one. After their father's death the sons began to quarrel about the genuineness of their rings, and to ascertain this they begin to

passed to the Cento Novelle Antiche, of which the 72nd tale is probably the immediate original of the story in the Decameron.1

We are told in the Menagiana, that some persons believed that Boccaccio's story of the rings gave rise to the report concerning the existence of the book De Tribus Impostoribus,' about which there has been so much controversy. Mad. de Staël says, in her "Germany," that Boccaccio's novel formed the foundation of the plot of Nathan the Wise, which is the masterpiece of Lessing, the great founder of the German drama.3

4. A young monk, belonging to a monastery in the neighbourhood of Florence, prevails on a peasant girl, whom he meets on his walks, to accompany him to his cell. While there he is overheard by the abbot, who approaches the door to listen with more advantage. The monk, hearing the sound of feet, peeps through a crevice in the wall, and perceives his superior at the entrance. In order to save himself from chastisement, he resolves to lead the abbot into temptation. Pretending that he was going abroad, he leaves with him, as was customary, the keys of the cell. It is soon unlocked by the abbot, and the monk, who, instead of going out, had concealed himself in the dormitory, is supplied with ample materials for recrimination. I am surprised that this story has not been versified by Fontaine, as it is precisely in the style of those he delighted to imitate."

test their virtues, when it becomes manifest that the ring of the youngest heals all sicknesses, while those of the elder brothers have no marvellous power. The tale is thus moralized (see note, ii. p. 16). The knight is God; the estate of the eldest son is the Holy Land, which the Jews possessed; the second son's treasure typifies the temporal dominion of the Saracens, but the ring of the youngest is the Christian faith, which alone can heal ailments and remove mountains.

1 This, however, is doubtful, the tale there differs considerably. Besides the repertories mentioned, a similar story is also contained in the Fabliau Dis dou vrai aniel, in the Summa prædicantium of Bromyard, i. 4 § 1, and in the Avventuroso Ciciliano of da Gubbio. Compare also its employment by Swift in Tale of a Tub.

2 See Graesse, Lehrb. Th. 2, Abth. 2, p. 32, etc.

3 Lessing, in a letter to his brother, Aug. 11, 1778, and in another to Herder, Jan. 10, 1779, acknowledges Boccaccio's story as supplying the foundation of his play.

See Landau, Beitrage, p. 175; Cento Nov. 54; Bottari, i. p. 224.

Of this day the six remaining tales consist merely in sayings and reproofs, some of which are represented as having had the most wonderful effects. Nothing can be more ridiculous than feigning that a character should be totally changed, that the avaricious should become liberal, as in the eighth, or the indolent active, as in ninth novel, by means of a repartee, which would not be tolerated in the most ordinary jest-book.

The evening of the first day was passed in singing and dancing, and a new queen, or mistress of ceremonies, was appointed for the succeeding one.

DAY II. contains stories of those who, after experiencing a variety of troubles, at length meet with success, contrary to all hope and expectation."

The merit of the first story depends entirely on the mode of relating it; and however comical and lively in the original, would appear insipid in an abridged translation.

2. Rinaldo d'Asti, on his way from Ferrara to Verona, inadvertently joined some persons, whom he mistook for merchants, but who were in reality highwaymen. As the conversation happened to turn upon prayer, Rinaldo mentioned that when going on a journey he always repeated the paternoster of St. Julian, by which means he had invariably obtained good accommodation at night. The robbers said they had never repeated the paternoster, but that it would be seen which had the best lodging that evening. Having come to a retired place, they stripped their fellow traveller, took what money he had, and left him naked at the side of the road, with many banters concerning St. Julian. Rinaldo, having recovered, arrives late at night at the gates of Castel Guglielmo, a fortified town." This novel is in part the same as the blasphemous Fabliau " de l'Evêque qui béuit," etc. See Wright, Anecdota literari; Histoire litt. de la France, xxiii. 135; Montaiglon Rayn. iii. 178; Bartoli, Lettar. ital. 589; Landau, Die Quellen des Dekameron, Stuttgart, 1884, p. 174; J. Grimm, Gedichte des Mittelalters, p. 43, etc.

'Di chi da diversi cosi infestato sia oltre alla speranza riuscito a liete fine.

A village of about 2,000 inhabitants, in the district of Sendinara, Province of Rovigo; the remains of a castle exist there. There was living in 1306, a Marquis Azzo (ob. 1308), and Manni hence concludes the story commemorates a real event of about that date; but see table in note, p. 53.

A widow, who was now the mistress of Azzo, marquis of Ferrara, possessed a house near the ramparts. She had been sitting up expecting her lover, for whom she had prepared the bath, and provided an elegant repast: but as she had just received intelligence that he could not come, she calls in Rinaldo, whom she hears at the porch. He is hospitably entertained by her at supper, and, for that night, makes up to his hostess for the absence of the marquis. The robbers, on the other hand, are apprehended and thrown into prison that very evening, and executed on the following morning.

St. Julian was eminent for providing his votaries with good lodging: in the English title of his legend he is called the gode Herbejour; and Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, bestows on the Frankelein, on account of his luxurious hospitality, the title of Seint Julien.' When the child Anceaume, in the romance of Milles and Amys, is carried on shore by the swan, and hospitably received by the woodman, it is said, "qu'il avoit trouvé Sainct Julien a son commandement, sans dire patenostre." This saint was originally a knight, and, as was prophesied to him by a stag, he had the singular hap to kill both his father and mother by mistake. As an atonement for his carelessness, he afterwards founded a sumptuous hospital for the accommodation of travellers, who, in return for their entertainment, were re1 Seint Julian he was in his contree; His table dormant in his hall alway Stode redy covered all the longe day.

Canterbury Tales, prol. v. 358.

St. Julian was also the patron of many callings which necessitated wayfaring from place to place, possibly because he fled himself from his native place, on account of a charge of parricide, according to the legend, which moreover relates that having ferried a poor man almost frozen with cold across a river, and cared for him, it was revealed to him next day that his passenger had been the Saviour.

The legend of St. Julian Hospitator, says Prof. Vesselovsky, is a branch of the Indo-European myth which in Greece was represented by the story of Edipus, and in Christendom, in the West by the legend of Pope Gregory, in the East by a series of ecclesiastical legends of incest. In the account of St. Julian, the parricide and other circumstances except the incest are found. A. Vesselovsky, on the "Comparative Study of the Medieval Epos." Zhoornal Ministerstva Narodnavo Prosviestchenia. Chast cxl. p. 345. Cf. Kostomarof, Istoricheskia Monografii i iysledovania, tom i. pp. 329-358.