Heliotrope

• Ahab's "heliotrope glance" (Melville, Moby Dick)

• In the Decameron (VIII, 3), Calandrino, Bruno and Buffalmacco go in quest of the heliotrope (bloodstone) beside the Mugnone. Thinking to have found it, Calandrino gets him home laden with stones. His wife chides him: whereat he waxes wroth, beats her, and tells his comrades what they know better than he. Elissa narrates this tale, the first in which Bruno and Buffalmacco appear. The two were early Renaissance Italian painters. However, both are known far better for their love of practical jokes than for their artistic work. Boccaccio probably invented this tale himself, though, and used well known jokers as characters.