Here are a few remains of ancient buildings. One is the fine brick ruin, which stands near the site of Nero’s palace, the name of which it still retains,[82] and another the church of Saint Michael, formerly a temple of Mars.[83] Thursday was the Feast of Saint Peter, and report says it was formerly the custom for the bishop to go in procession on this day to the church of Saint Peter,[84] which stands four miles outside the city, and thence on to the sea, into which he would cast a ring as a token of espousal, this city being a great maritime power. Now they simply send one of the University teachers to perform this ceremony. The priests go in procession only as far as the church, where they hold a great sale of pardons. A papal bull, dating back some four hundred years (taking as its authority a book more than twelve hundred years old), declares that this church was built by Saint Peter himself, and that one day when Saint Clement was performing the office on a marble altar, three drops of blood from the Saint’s nose fell down upon this altar, where the stain made by them still remains as plain as if they had fallen three days ago. The Genoese mutilated this table and carried away one of the drops aforesaid, wherefore the Pisans removed what remained from the church into the city. But every year, on Saint Peter’s Day, it is carried back in procession to its original place, and all night long people are passing hither and thither in boats. On Friday, June 7th, I went early to see the dairy farm of Don Piero de’ Medici,[85] about two miles distant. This prince has vast estates, which he cultivates on his own account, engaging every five years a fresh set of labourers, who receive as wages half the produce of the soil, which is here very fertile in grain. In the pastures animals of all sorts are kept. I dismounted in order to inspect more minutely the farmstead, where a vast number of people were at work making curd and butter and cheese, and using divers implements made for the purpose.