All laughed, and Messer Cosimo with them, still considering me.
But Messer Fifanti's wife had yet to make me known to three others who sat
there, beside the little sloe-eyed lady. This last was a cousin of her
own--Donna Leocadia degli Allogati, whom I saw now for the first and last
time.
The three remaining men of the company are of little interest save one,
whose name was to be well known--nay, was well known already, though not to
one who had lived in such seclusion as mine.
This was that fine poet Annibale Caro, whom I have heard judged to be all
but the equal of the great Petrarca himself. A man who had less the air of
a poet it would not be easy to conceive. He was of middle height and of a
habit of body inclining to portliness, and his age may have been forty.
His face was bearded, ruddy, and small-featured, and there was about him an
air of smug prosperity; he was dressed with care, but he had none of the
splendour of the Cardinal or my cousin. Let me add that he was secretary
to the Duke Pier Luigi Farnese, and that he was here in Piacenza on a
mission to the Governor in which his master's interests were concerned.
The other two who completed that company are of no account, and indeed
their names escape me, though I seem to remember that one was named Pacini
and that he was said to be a philosopher of considerable parts.
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