As a coal quickens to flame at the blowing of the winds, so I saw that light become resplendent at my blandishments, and as it became more beautiful to my eyes, so with voice more dulcet and soft, but not with this modern speech, it said to me, “From that clay on which Ave was said, unto the birth in which my mother, who. now is sainted, was lightened of me with whom she was burdened, this fire had come to its Lion[1] five hundred, fifty, and thirty times to reinflame itself beneath his paw.[2] My ancestors and I were born in the place where the last ward is first found by him who runs in your annual game.[3] Let it suffice to hear this of my elders. Who they were, and whence they came thither, it is more becoming to leave untold than to recount. [1]—Mars As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's breast.—Maud, part III. The Lion is the sign Leo in the Zodiac, appropriate to Mars by supposed conformity of disposition. [2] Five hundred and eighty revolutions of Mars are accomplished in a little more than ten hundred and ninety years. [3] The place designated was the boundary of the division of the city called that of “the Gate of St. Peter,” where the Corso passes by the Mercato Vecchio or Old Market. The races were run along the Corso on the 24th June, the festival of St. John the Baptist. “All those able to bear arms who at that time were there, between Mars and the Baptist,[1] were the fifth of them who are living. But the citizenship, which is now mixed with Campi and with Certaldo and with Figghine,[2] was to be seen pure in the lowest artisan. Oh, how much better it would be that those folk of whom I speak were neighbors, and to have your confine at Galluzzo and at Trespiano,[3] than to have them within, and to endure the stench of the churl of Aguglione,[4] and of him of Signa, who already has his eye sharp for barratry! [1] Between the Ponte Vecchio, at the head of which stood the statue of Mars, and the Baptistery,—two points marking the circuit of the ancient walls. [2] Small towns not far from Florence, from which, as from many others, there had been emigration to the thriving city, to the harm of its own people. [3] It would have been better to keep these people at a distance, as neighbors, and to have narrow bounds for the territory of the city. [4] The churl of Aguglione was, according to Benvenuto da Imola, a lawyer named Baldo, “qui fuit magnus canis.” He became one of the priors of Florence in 1311. He of Signa is supposed to have been one Bonifazio, who, says Buti, “sold his favors and offices.”