This is the epoch of the short, flower-like life and flower-attended death of the virgin heroine of San Gimignano, Santa Fina. Fina de' Ciardi, born of a noble but poor family, at the age of ten contracted a horrible disease and, instead of a bed, chose to lie upon a plank of hard oak for five years, "offering herself up as a perfect holocaust to God." She lost her father and mother, had horrible visions of the fiend in the form of a serpent. Then according to the legend, eight days before her death, St Gregory appeared to her, and told her that the end of her miseries was come, for that on the day of his feast she would be with him in Paradise. She died on March 12th, 1253, being then fifteen years old. "Hardly had that blessed soul expired," writes the Annalist, "than the Demons in envy and rage filled the air with such fearful whirlwinds, that poor mortals were struck with horror. Against them the sound of the bells of San Gimignano, moved by the invisible hands of Angels, bore witness to the sanctity of Fina, and straightway caused those storms and infernal whirlwinds to cease. At these prodigies, the people flocked to the house of the saint, from which every one imagined that these effects proceeded. And when they arrived there, they smelt a fragrance of Paradise, and saw all the room where the sacred body was, miraculously full of flowers, as also the board upon which she lay. And when they wished to lift her from it, a part of the mortified flesh remained attached to it and straightway turned into flowers."[177] Such are the contrasts offered by mediaeval [Illustration: APPARITION OF ST GREGORY TO SANTA FINA (DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO)] life and legend. The towns where the streets are still running red with the blood of the citizens, while the remains of houses and palaces are still smoking in their ruin, are visited by beings of another world, and have mystical gates and windows that open out upon the unseen.