earlier Florence that
has never been equalled.

"Florence was abiding in peace, sober and modest. She had not necklace
or coronal or women with ornamented shoes or girdle which was more to be
looked at than the person. Nor yet did the daughter at her birth give
fear to her father, for the time and dowry did not outrun measure on
this or that side. She had not houses empty of families. I saw
Bellencion Berti go girt with leather and bone and his lady come from
the mirror with unpainted face. I saw him of the Nerlo and him of the
Vecchio satisfied with unlined skin and their ladies with the spindle
and the distaff. O! fortunate women, each was sure of her burial place"
(Paradiso IV, 97).

But time changed all that. With her population vastly increased in
Dante's day and her commerce on all seas and on every road and her
banking system controlling the markets of Europe and the East, Florence
had become such a mighty city that Pope Boniface VIII could say to the
Florentine embassy who came to Rome to take part in the Jubilee of 1300:
"Florence is the greatest of cities. She feeds, clothes, governs us all.
Indeed she appears to rule the world. She and her people are, in truth,
the fifth element of the universe." (The Guilds of Florence, p. 562.)

Such greatness was attained according to Dante only at the loss of
pristine simplicity and virtue. So he apostrophizes his native city:
"Rejoice O Florence, since thou art so mighty that thou canst spread
thy wings over sea and land and thy name is known throughout Hell."
Notorious for crime Florence still kept a big place in her life for
religion. There "religion was abused but its beneficial effects
continued to be manifest--vice was flagrant but it never lost the sense
of shame--men were cruel but their cruelty was followed by sincere
regrets--misfortunes were frequent and signal but they were accepted
with resignation or with the hope of retrieval or men gloried in them
on account of the cause in which they suffered." (Brother Azarias.)

And, meanwhile, side by side with fierce and bloody struggles the
creative forces of art and architecture were making marvelous progress
before the very eyes of Dante. Niccolo Pisano had finished his Sienna
pulpit and with his son was engaged on his immortal works of sculpture.
Orcagna had made a wonderful tabernacle for the Florentine church of San
Michele, Cimabue had painted the Madonna which is now in the Rucellai
chapel. Giotto had com