The city of Borgo-alla-Collina on the Consuma road, to which we returned, bore a very different character. Situated on a breezy height, its wide streets were grass-grown, and its low, rambling houses looked desolate. Here Christofero Landini, the author of the _Conversations of Camaldoli_, spent the last years of his life. He had been the teacher of Lorenzo the Magnificent; he afterwards became Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, and a palace at Borgo was given him in acknowledgment of his services. Ampère, in his _Voyages dantesques_, tells an amusing incident which happened to him here. A priest offered to show him the uncorrupted body of a saint, and he showed Ampère a dried mummy in a sarcophagus. But when Ampère looked at the inscription on the sarcophagus he saw that the holy man here displayed was none other than Landini. We did not stay to see the wonderful relic. [Illustration: CASTEL SAN NICCOLO] The crispness of the air outside and the panorama of the hills had greater attractions. The road above Borgo commanded a wide field of view, and the eye was free to roam across the valley where the Arno flowed fed by many streams, and to the heights around. The valley was closed in by the Falterona, which is the highest mountain of this part of the Apennines; it rises to an elevation of 5434 ft. After an hour’s walk we deviated to Romena, where we spent some time in the ancient church which flanks the hill. We greatly admired the old column capitals, one of which bears the date 1152. Beni’s guide-book says that the church also possesses an ancient bell, with the date 1186, and the words “Mentem Sanctam Deo Placentem.” From Romena we left the road and descended by a path to Pratovecchio, a large rambling place, which seemed to have no special attraction. We then pushed on to Stia, which lies at the confluence of the Arno and the Staggia; above it rise the ruins of the castle of Porciano.