mob, imploring them not stupidly to wait to see their would-be deliverers killed and themselves thrust back into still more grievous servitude. When not a soul moved, "finding out too late how dangerous it is to wish to set free a people that desires, happen what may, to be enslaved," as Machiavelli cynically puts it, they escaped into the Duomo, where, after a vain attempt at defending themselves, they were captured by the Captain, put to the question and executed. There were about ten of them in all, including three of the Cavicciuli and Antonio dei Medici. On November 9th, 1494, when the Florentines rose against Piero dei Medici and his brothers, the young Cardinal Giovanni rode down this street with retainers and a few citizens shouting, _Popolo e libertà_, pretending that he was going to join the insurgents. But when he got to San Michele in Orto, the people turned upon him from the piazza with their pikes and lances, with loud shouts of "Traitor!" upon which he fled back in great dread. Landucci saw him at the windows of his palace, on his knees with clasped hand, commending himself to God. "When I saw him," he says, "I grew very sorry for him (_m'inteneri assai_); and I judged that he was a good and sensible youth." To the east of the Via Calzaioli lies the Sesto di San Piero Maggiore, which, at the end of the thirteenth century, received the pleasant name of the Sesto di Scandali. It lies on either side of the Via del Corso, which with its continuations ran from east to west through the old city. In the Via della Condotta, at the corner of the Vicolo dei Cerchi, still stands the palace which belonged to a section of this family (the section known as the White Cerchi to distinguish them from Messer Vieri's branch, the Black Cerchi, who were even more "white" in politics, in spite of their name); in this palace the Priors sat before Arnolfo built the Palazzo Vecchio, which became the seat of government in 1299. It was there, not here, that Dante and his colleagues, on June 15th, 1300, entered upon office, and the same day confirmed the sentences which had been passed under their predecessors against the three traitors who had conspired to betray Florence to Pope Boniface; and then, a few days later, passed the decree by which Corso Donati and Guido Cavalcanti were sent into exile. Later the vicars of Robert of Anjou for a time resided here, and the administrators appointed to assess the confiscated goods of "rebels." At the corner of the Via dei Cerchi, where it joins the Via dei Cimatori, are traces of the loggia of the Cerchi; the same corner affords a picturesque glimpse of the belfrey of the Badia and the tower of the Podesta's palace.