At the time that the said great Constantine became a Christian, and gave freedom and sovereignty to the Church, and S. Sylvester, the Pope, was openly established in the papacy in Rome, there spread through Tuscany, and throughout Italy, and afterwards through all the world, the true faith and belief of Jesus Christ. And in our city of Florence, the true faith began to be adopted, and paganism to be abolished, in the time of * * * * who was made bishop of Florence by Pope Sylvester; and from the noble and beautiful temple of the Florentines, of which mention has been made above, the Florentines removed their idol, which they called the god Mars, and placed it upon a high tower, by the river Arno, and would not break or destroy it, because in their ancient records they found that the said idol of Mars had been consecrated under the ascendant of such a planet, that if it were broken or set aside in a place of contempt, the city would suffer peril and injury, and undergo great changes. And although the Florentines had lately become Christians, they still observed many pagan customs, and long continued to observe them, and they still stood in awe of their ancient idol of Mars, so little were they perfected as yet in the holy faith; and this done, they consecrated their said temple in honour of God and of the blessed S. John the Baptist, and called it the Duomo of S. Giovanni; and they decreed that the feast on the day of his nativity should be celebrated with solemn sacrifices, and that a race should be run for a samite cloak, and this custom has been always observed by the Florentines on that day. And they had baptismal fonts erected in the middle of the temple, where people and children were and still are baptized; and on Holy Saturday, when in the said fonts the baptismal water and fire were blessed, they ordered that the said holy fire should be carried through the city after the custom of Jerusalem, so that some one should enter into every house with a lighted torch, for them to kindle their fires from. And from this solemnity came the privilege of the "great torch," which pertained to the house of the Pazzi, from some hundred and seventy years before 1300; because one of their ancestors, named Pazzo, strong and tall in person, bore a larger torch than any other, and was the first to take the sacred fire, and then the others received it from him. The said duomo, after that it had been consecrated to Christ, was enlarged by the space where to-day is the choir, and the altar of the blessed John; but at the time that the said duomo was the temple of Mars, this addition had not been made thereto, nor the turret and ball at the summit; and indeed it was open above after the fashion of Santa Maria Ritonda of Rome, to the intent their idol, the god Mars, which was in the midst of the temple, might be open to the sky. But after the second rebuilding of Florence, in the year of Christ 1150, the cupola was built upon columns, and the