We should visit the battle-field to-day, for the walk or drive is one of the pleasantest in the neighbourhood of Siena. About four miles beyond the Porta Pispini we cross the Bozzone, and then, to the left, ascend the long, low hill of Monteropoli. This was the Sienese position before the battle. Opposite is Monteselvoli, and at our feet the Arbia, and between the two long hills the valley. The contadini take an uncanny pleasure in showing us the way, in pointing out and naming the various sites that witnessed the struggle. Away to the left, above the Malena--nearly an hour's walk from the small railway station of Arbia--is the spot where the battle ended. A steep little hill, the lower part of which is a vineyard, is crowned with olive trees and cypresses, surrounding a pyramid of rough brown stone. The view that it commands is grand and sweeping; the black and barren hills to the south east; Santafiore hid in clouds to the south; and westwards the blood-stained valley of the battle-field, beyond which rises Siena itself with its towers, behind which the sun was already sinking when the Florentines made their last stand. From the tower of the Marescotti (now of the Palazzo Saracini), Cerreto Ceccolini had watched the whole fight, beating his drum in signal to the people in the streets below, telling them of the course of the struggle, bidding them cry to God and the Madonna while the event hung in doubt, to shout in exultation when the day was won. The victorious army rested that night on Monteropoli, with their prisoners and booty. They made their solemn entry into Siena the next day by the same gate through which they had passed out to the war, the German nobles and soldiers crowned with garlands of olive, singing songs in their own tongue as they made their way in triumphant procession to the Duomo. Three days of general supplication and thanksgiving followed; to the title _Sena vetus_ was added by solemn decree _Civitas Virginis_, to the litany an _Advocata Senensium_. According to Malavolti, not more than 600 Sienese had fallen on the field of battle, but among them were many young men of the noblest families in the city. It is needless to re-tell in this place the familiar story of the triumphant entry of the Count Giordano with the Ghibelline exiles and his German mercenaries into the desolate Florence, and how that short-lived despotism was set up which the people themselves--those strenuous burghers and artisans of the Florentine Guilds--overthrew six years later. Montalcino, the original cause of the war, had surrendered to Siena a few days after the battle, and had been cruelly humiliated. According to the Sienese chroniclers, the people of Montalcino came through the Porta Romana in penitential robes, with halters round their necks, crying _misericordia_, and were forced to go to the field of battle to bury all the abandoned dead. A similar fate befell Montepulciano, which Manfred