It bears no date whatever, save that of place; but the subject of it dates it with considerable accuracy.
* * * * * "DEAR MR.

TROLLOPE,--I am very grateful to you for your notes.
Concerning _netto di specchio_, I have found a passage in Varchi which decides the point according to _your_ impression." [Passages equally decisive might be found _passim_ in the old Florentine historians.
And I ought to have referred her to them.

But as she had altogether mistaken the meaning of the phrase, I had insinuated my correction as little presumptuously as I could.] "My inference had been gathered from the vague use of the term to express disqualification [_i.e._ NON _netto di specchio_ expressed disqualification].

But I find from Varchi, b.viii.that the _specchio_ in question was a public book, in which the names of all debtors to the _Commune_ were entered.

Thus your doubt [no doubt at all!] has been a very useful caveat to me.
"Concerning the Bardi, my authority for making them originally _popolani_ is G.Villani.He says, c.xxxix., '_e gia cominciavano a venire possenti i Frescobaldi e Bardi e Mozzi_ ma di piccolo cominciamento.' And c.lxxxi.