The duke of Calabria was detained for some months, but on the 30th of July he entered Florence followed by eleven hundred men-at-arms, one hundred of whom were knights of the Golden Spur. He was lodged in the podesta’s palace from whence the seat of justice was purposely, perhaps derisively removed, and formally acknowledged as lord of the Florentine Republic. It was the mark of misfortune, the stigma of disgrace; yet it excited the admiration of Italy; for Italy beheld the Florentine people, masters only of a small and not a very fruitful territory, after their repeated misfortunes, after so many defeats, such reverses and so much treasure lost--nay, at the very moment when they seemed to totter on the very brink of ruin, suddenly rise in their strength and like a giant refreshed with wine, by the power of their own resources as it were, command the service of so great a prince, and an army such as had never before been seen in Florence! There were no less than two thousand men-at-arms assembled, most of them belonging to the highest ranks of society, independent of the cardinal legate’s court and followers which were far from trifling; and without reckoning the Florentine chivalry or a single knight of the Guelfic confederacy. So vast a development of national resources was the more remarkable because at this very time the ancient bank of the Scali and Amieri, which had already endured for 120 years with undiminished reputation, failed for the enormous sum of 400,000 florins, which being for the most part due in the city of Florence shook the republic to its centre and, excepting bloodshed, was considered equally ruinous with the battle of Altopascio itself.