"No other city presents such striking contrasts or combinations of antitheses, adding much to its picturesque life and appearance. Within arms length of each other you see the noble in his brilliant attire and the laborer in rags; the prelate gorgeously arrayed and the monk in sober gown; almost next door to a cathedral or monastery and which has taken a century to build, and beneath its very shadow, is the hovel of some poor beggar. It is a city of violence, where dominion is maintained by force; yet the pilgrim, with thoughts on God and atonement, may pass in peace. Some are given over to lives of the vilest licentiousness, while their neighbors lead lives of frugality and sanctity. "We came in by the gate north of the church of San Lorenzo and I found quarters at an inn on Via Por. S. Marcia, near the Ponte Vecchio. I spent several months at this inn, reporting each day to Sir John for orders. "Sir John was the guest of Silvestro de Medici, the head of one of the noblest of the popular families. In this way I became acquainted with Marcella, the sister of Silvestro, and after a courtship of several months we were married. "My savings amounted to more than eight thousand florins. The florin is a small gold coin with a lily on one side and the word 'Florentina' on the other. "For sixty-five hundred florins I purchased a small but substantial house on Via Calimara, near the Arte della Lana, the guildhouse of the wool weavers. The armorial design of the art, embossed above the portal, is a lamb bearing a cross. "Two of my friends, who lived on a side street in the neighborhood, were Michael di Lando, a wool-comber who had considerable influence with his guild, and Ser Nuto, a bailiff of the Signory. "I had been in Florence six months and married more than a month when Sir John disposed of our services to the eight commissioners of war; when, with great unwillingness, I was forced to leave wife and home and resume command of my three hundred horsemen. "After having been thus engaged for more than four months, I procured a furlough, expecting to have ten days of quiet at home. It was the month of May and the city at its loveliest. On the third night after my return, my wife and I were eating a late lunch, after a visit to her brother's palace, when the servant announced that a man was at the door with a message from Sir John, asking that I come at once to the inn of the Golden Hat on the Via de Bardi. "Buckling on armor and sword, and telling the good wife not to wait up for me, I accompanied the messenger.