ly on the money
of foreigners. Their senators at this time were Richard Anibaldi of
the Colosseum, from which the Anibaldi had already expelled the
Frangipani, and Gentile Orsini, whose name may still be read on an
inscription in the Capitol. These gentlemen did not permit the pious
enthusiasm of the pilgrimage to prevent them from making war in the
neighborhood. They allowed the pilgrims to pray at the altars, but
they themselves advanced with the Roman banners against Toscanella,
which they subjugated to the Capitol.

We may imagine on how vast a scale Rome sold relics, amulets, and
images of saints, and at the same time how many remains of antiquity,
coins, gems, rings, statues, marble remains, and also manuscripts were
carried back by the pilgrims to their homes. When they had
sufficiently satisfied their religious instincts, these pilgrims
turned with astonished gaze to the monuments of the past.

Ancient Rome, through which they wandered, the book of the _Mirabilia_
in their hand, exercised its profound spell upon them. Besides the
recollections of antiquity other memories of the deeds of popes and
emperors, from the time of Charles the Great, animated this classic
theatre of the world in the year 1300. Every mind, alive to the
language of history, must have felt deeply the influence of the city
at this time, when troops of pilgrims from every country, wandering in
this world of majestic ruins, bore living testimony to the eternal
ties which bound Rome to mankind. It can scarcely be doubted that
Dante beheld the city in these days, and that a ray from them fell on
his immortal poem which begins with Easter week of the year 1300.

The sight of the capital of the world inspired the soul of another
Florentine. "I also found myself," writes Giovanni Villani, "in that
blessed pilgrimage to the holy city of Rome, and as I beheld the great
and ancient things within her, and read the histories and the great
deeds of the Romans--which Vergil, Sallust, Lucan, Titus Livius,
Valerius, Paul Orosius, and other great masters of history have
described--I took style and form from them, although as a pupil I was
not worthy to do so great a work. And thus in 1300, returned from
Rome, I began to write this book to the honor of God and St. John and
to the commendation of our city of Florence." The fruit of Villani's
creative enthusiasm was his history of Florence, the greatest and most
naive chronicle that has been produced in the