The great Porta Romana, or Porta San Piero Gattolino, was originally erected in 1328; it is still of imposing dimensions, though its immediate surroundings are somewhat prosaic. Many a Pope and Emperor has passed through here, to or from the eternal city; the marble tablets on either side record the entrance of Leo X. in 1515, on his way from Rome to Bologna to meet Francis I. of France, and of Charles V. in 1536 to confirm the infamous Duke Alessandro on the throne--a confirmation which the dagger of Lorenzino happily annulled in the following year. It was here that Pope Leo's brother, Piero dei Medici, had made his unsuccessful attempt to surprise the city on April 28th 1497, with some thousand men or more, horse and foot. A countryman at daybreak had seen them resting and breakfasting on the way, some few miles from the city; by taking short cuts over the country, he evaded their scouts who were intercepting all persons passing northwards, and reached Florence with the news just at the morning opening of the gate. The result was that the Magnifico Piero and his braves found it closed in their faces and the forces of the Signoria guarding the walls, so, after ignominiously skulking for a few hours out of range of the artillery, they fled back towards Siena. Near the Porta Romana the Viale dei Colli commences to the left, as the Viale Machiavelli; and, straight on, the beautifully shady Stradone del Poggio Imperiale runs up to the villa of that name, built for Maria Maddalena of Austria in 1622. The statues at the beginning of the road were once saints on the second façade of the Duomo. It was on the rising ground that divides the Strada Romana from the present Stradone that the famous convent of Monticelli stood, recorded in Dante's _Paradiso_ and Petrarca's _Trionfo della Pudicizia_, in which Piccarda Donati took the habit of St. Clare, and from which she was dragged by her brother Corso to marry Rossellino della Tosa:-- "Perfetta vita ed alto merto inciela donna più su, mi disse, alla cui norma nel vostro mondo giù si veste e vela, perchè in fino al morir si vegghi e dorma con quello sposo ch'ogni voto accetta, che caritate a suo piacer conforma. Dal mondo, per seguirla, giovinetta fuggi'mi, e nel suo abito mi chiusi, e promisi la via della sua setta. Uomini poi, a mal più ch'al bene usi, fuor mi rapiron della dolce chiostra; e Dio si sa qual poi mia vita fusi."[56] [56] "Perfected life and high desert enheaveneth a lady more aloft," she said, "by whose rule down in your world there are who clothe and veil themselves, That they, even till death, may wake and sleep with that Spouse who accepteth every vow that love hath made conform with his good pleasure. From the world, to follow her, I fled while yet a girl, and in her habit I enclosed myself, and promised the way of her company.