Northwestwards of the Badia of Fiesole runs the road from Florence to Bologna, past the village of Trespiano, some three or four miles from the Porta San Gallo. In the twelfth century Trespiano was the northern boundary of Florentine territory, as Galluzzo--on the way towards the Certosa and about two miles from the Porta Romana--was its southern limit. Cacciaguida, in _Paradiso_ xvi., refers to this as an ideal golden time when the citizenship "saw itself pure even in the lowest artizan." A little way north of Trespiano, on the old Bolognese road, is the Uccellatoio--referred to in canto xv.--the first point from which Florence is visible. Below Trespiano, at La Lastra, rather more than two miles from the city, the exiled Bianchi and Ghibellines, with auxiliaries from Bologna and Arezzo, assembled in that fatal July of 1304. The leaders of the Neri were absent at Perugia, and, at the first sight of the white standards waving from the hill, terror and consternation filled their partisans throughout the city. Had their enterprise been better organised, the exiles would undoubtedly have captured Florence. Seeing that they were discovered, and urged on by their friends within the city, without waiting for the Uberti, whose cavalry was advancing from Pistoia to their support and whose appointed day of coming they had anticipated, Baschiera della Tosa, in spite of the terrible heat, ordered an immediate advance upon the Porta San Gallo. The walls of the third circle were only in part built at that epoch, and those of the second circle still stood with their gates. The exiles, for the most part mounted, drew up round San Marco and the Annunziata, "with white standards spread, with garlands of olive and drawn swords, crying _peace_," writes Dino Compagni, who was in Florence at the time, "without doing violence or plundering anyone. A right goodly sight was it to see them, with the sign of peace thus arrayed. The heat was so great, that it seemed that the very air burned." But their friends within did not stir. They forced the Porta degli Spadai which stood at the head of the present Via dei Martelli, but were repulsed at the Piazza San Giovanni and the Duomo, and the sudden blazing up of a palace in the rear completed their rout. Many fell on the way, simply from the heat, while the Neri, becoming fierce-hearted like lions, as Compagni says, hotly pursued them, hunting out those who had hidden themselves among the vineyards and houses, hanging all they caught. In their flight, a little way from Florence, the exiles met Tolosato degli Uberti hastening up with his Ghibellines to meet them on the appointed day. Tolosato, a fierce captain and experienced in civil war, tried in vain to rally them, and, when all his efforts proved unavailing, returned to Pistoia declaring that the youthful rashness of Baschiera had lost him the city. Dante had taken no part in the affair; he had broken with his