Full text: Bacciotti, Emilio: Bacciotti's Handbook of Florence and its environs, or the stranger conducted through its principal monuments, studios, churches, palaces, galleries, streets and shops

36 
A half-hourglass is turned to mark the interval 
between the summons and his arrival — Every Gior- 
nante is provided with his long black dress and the 
hood which covers his face, only leaving holes for 
the eyes, so that he may not be recognised when upon 
his labours of mercy — This society is composed of 
72 captains (Capi di Guardia); of 175 day workers 
(Giornanti) 25 of whom are expected to be in daily 
attendance, and of a certain number who give their 
services by night; besides these, there is a more nu- 
merous set of those, who are called — buone-voglie 
(volunteers) — Men of every class in Florence belong 
to the Misericordia, all willing to assist their fellow- 
creatures in distress, (1) — Part of the church della 
Misericordia looks into a street called 
« Via della Morte » (Death Street). So ominous a 
name is said to have arisen from the following fact 
beautifully told by Boccaccio — During the plague in 
1400, Ginevra degli Amieri, a famous beauty, who was 
newly married, died, and was buried, when in aswoon, in 
thefamily’s vault, close by the bell-tower ofthe Cathedral. 
- She awoke in the night, she revived however, raised 
the stone and escaped. She sought her home, and 
passed down this narrow way (whence its name) and 
presented herself at the house of her husband, who 
taking her for a ghost, refused her admittance, as did 
also several of her relations on the same plea ; so she 
went to her old lover Rondinelli and was received and 
taken care of by the mother of Rondinelli, who mar- 
ried her, it having been decreed that a woman, dead 
(1) Bacciotti, Fiorentino Istruito, tom. 4, p. 49.
	        
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