ear
before passed by again and said: "Peter, with what?" meaning: what is
good to eat with an egg. "With salt," answered Peter Fullone. He had
such a wise head that after a year he remembered a thing that a
passer-by had said.

* * * * *

The cemetery alluded to, Pitre says, is beyond the gate of St. Agatha,
near the ancient church of Sto. Spirito, where the Sicilian Vespers
began. An interesting article on Peter Fullone may be found in Pitre,
_Studi di Poesia popolare_, p. 109, "_Pietro Fullone e le Sfide popolari
siciliane_."

The sight-seer in Florence has noticed, on the east side of the square
in which the cathedral stands, a block of stone built into the wall of a
house, and bearing the inscription, "_Sasso di Dante_." The guide-books
inform the traveller that this is the stone on which the great poet was
wont to sit on summer evenings. Tradition says that an unknown person
once accosted Dante seated in his favorite place, and asked: "What is
the best mouthful?" Dante answered: "An egg." A year after, the same
man, whom Dante had not seen meanwhile, approached and asked: "With
what?" Dante immediately replied: "With salt."

A poet, Carlo Gabrielli, put this incident into rhyme, and drew from it
the following moral (_senso_):--

"L'acuto ingegno grande apporta gloria;
Maggior, se v'e congiunta alta memoria."

See Papanti, _op. cit._ pp. 183, 205.

[26] This story is told in almost the same words in Pitre, No. 297, "The
Peasant and the King." There are several Italian literary versions, the
best known being in the _Cento nov. ant._ ed. Borghini, Nov. VI.: see
D'Ancona's notes to this novel in the _Romania_, III. p. 185, "_Le Fonti
del Novellino_." It is also found in the _Gesta Romanorum_, cap. 57, see
notes in Oesterley's edition; and in Simrock's _Deutsche Maerchen_, No.
8, see Liebrecht's notes in _Orient und Occident_, III. p. 372. To the
above may, finally, be added Koehler's notes to Gonz., No. 50 (II. p.
234).

[27] Comparetti, No. 43, "_La Ragazza astuta_" (Barga). The first part
of the story, dividing the fowl, and sending the presents, which are
partly eaten on the way, is found in Gonz., No. 1, "_Die Kluge
Bauerntochter_" ("The Peasant's Clever Daughter"). See Koehler's notes to
Gonz., No. 1 (II. 205); and to Nasr-eddin's _Schwaenke_ in _Orient und
Occident_, I. p. 444. Grimm, No. 94, "The Peasant's Wise Daughter,"
contains all the episodes of the Italian