The imposing old tower that rises opposite San Michele in the Calimala is the Torrione of the Arte della Lana, copiously adorned with their arms--the Lamb bearing the Baptist's cross. It was erected at the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, and in it the consuls of the Guild had their meetings. It was stormed and sacked by the Ciompi in 1378. The heavy arch that connects the tower with the upper storey of Or San Michele, and rather disfigures the building, is the work of Buontalenti in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The large vaulted hall into which it leads, intended originally for the storage of grain and the like, is now known as the Sala di Dante, and witnesses the brilliant gatherings of Florentines and foreigners to listen to the readings of the _Divina Commedia_ given under the auspices of the _Società Dantesca Italiana_. This is the part of the city where the Arts had their wealth and strength; the very names of the streets show it; Calimala and Pellicceria, for instance, which run from the Mercato Vecchio to the Via Porta Rossa. The Mercato Vecchio, the centre of the city both in Roman and mediæval times, around which the houses and towers of the oldest families clustered--Elisei, Caponsacchi, Nerli, Vecchietti, and the rest of whom Dante's _Paradiso_ tells--is now a painfully unsightly modern square, with what appears to be a triumphal arch bearing the inscription: _L'antico centro della città da secolare squallore a vita nuova restituita_(!). Passing down the Calimala to the Via Porta Rossa and the Mercato Nuovo, near where the former enters the Via Calzaioli, the site is still indicated of the Calimala Bottega where the government of the Arts was first organised, as told in chapter i. Near here and in the Mercato Nuovo, the Cavalcanti had their palaces. In the Via Porta Rossa the Arte della Seta had their warehouses; the gate from which they took their second name, and which is represented on their shield, is of course the Por Santa Maria, Our Lady's Gate of the old walls or Cerchia Antica, which was somewhere about the middle of the present Via Por Santa Maria. The Church of Santa Maria sopra la Porta, between the Mercato Nuovo and the Via delle Terme, is the present San Biagio (now used by the firemen); adjoining it is the fine old palace of the dreaded captains of the Parte Guelfa. The Via Porta Rossa contains some mediæval houses and the lower portions of a few grand old towers still standing; as already said, in the first circle of walls there was a postern gate, at the end of the present street, opposite Santa Trinità. In the Mercato Nuovo, where a copy of the ancient boar--which figures in Hans Andersen's familiar story--seems to watch the flower market, the arcades were built by Battista del Tasso for Cosimo I. Here, too, modernisation has destroyed much. Hardly can we conjure up now that day of the great fire in 1304, when the nobles of the "black" faction