The past days witnessed a tussle with a friend who had borrowed a book of mine, and was quite convinced that she had given it back to me; I surely did not think so, was getting a bit irritated with her: “she does this sort of thing all the time”—accusatory thoughts running through my mind. And then I remembered a sonnet by the Florentine barber and poet, Burchiello (ca. 1404-1449) scribbled in a fifteenth-century hand on a flyleaf of one of our manuscripts; this is the situation, all right!

Sempre se dice ch’un fa danno a cento;
Ben ch’el mi para fuor del dovuto,
Per un inghanno ch’io ho ricevuto,
Seguire intendo tal ordinamento.
Prestai un simil libro ond’io mi pento
Che quando l’ebbi ben asai tenuto
El me provo che me l’avea renduto
E a mi convene rimaner contempto.
E questo nesun m’el chieza in prestanza
Ch’el non m’intravenga como far sole
Ch’io perda el libro e anche l’amistanza.
Ma pur s’alchun sforzar in cio mi vole
Presto m’arechi una tal recordanza
A mantener fazza in pie le su parole.

Plimpton MS 195, f. i verso; another poem in the manuscript is signed and dated by the owner/copyist, Giovanni Battista di S. Eufemia of Faenza on 7 July 1478. Same sonnet in an incunable held by this library, Goff B-1289, printed in Venice in 1483/84.

But unlike the sonnet, in the end, I did not loose both the book and the friend; she found my book, she gave it back, we’re cheerful again (and I’ll continue to lend out my books; I never learn).