Petraja is first celebrated in Florentine history for a gallant defence made by its owners the Brunelleschi, against the Pisans and their English and German allies in 1364. It was the time of the fierce feud between Pisa and Florence, when the Pisans were smarting under the loss of the great iron chain used for closing the entrance of their port, which the Florentines had carried off in triumph and hung over the western door of San Giovanni. Piero de’ Farnese, commander of the Florentine army, had also taunted the Pisans by striking a commemorative coinage under their very walls; Piero, however, died of the plague, and the fortune of war changed. The Pisans not only coined money under the walls of Florence, but they ravaged the whole country. “The Germans,” writes Scipione Ammirato, “the Pisan despoilers and the English, encamped at Sesto and Colonnato on their way back from the Mugello, and spreading over the slopes of Monte Morello took San Stefano in Pane, where they remained some days devastating the villas, which they burned down over a radius of three miles. The sons of Boccaccio Brunelleschi, most valorous youths, then owned Petraja.... The villa being therefore well defended by the young Brunelleschi, who showed no sign of surrendering, the enemy determined to take it by force, with the intention of cutting the defenders to pieces and razing the building to the ground. The English[38] first undertook the work and advanced in fine order with the greatest ferocity, carrying ladders and catapults as though they had to storm the walls of Florence itself. But all was in vain. Some were killed, many others were bruised and wounded. The Germans then determined to try their luck and made a second assault as furious as any castle ever underwent. Neither more nor less happened to them than what had befallen the English. So they determined with combined forces to assault the villa a third time, and to their shame and the everlasting glory of the Brunelleschi they were once more repulsed.”[39] The Brunelleschi were on the winning side, and had the joy of witnessing the triumphal entry of Galeotto Malatesta and his army into Florence; when, by way of insulting a fallen foe, the Pisan prisoners were compelled to kiss the tail of the Marzocco, the stone lion beloved of all Florentines.