Past Arcola, that triumphal arch of the middle age, built on high like a
city on an aqueduct, I went into the plain; then far away in the
growing day I saw the ancient strongholds of the hills, the fortresses
of the Malaspina, the castles of the Lunigiana, the eyries of the eagles
of old time. There they lay before me on the hills like _le grandi
ombre_ of which Dante speaks, Castelnuovo di Magra, Fosdinovo of the
Malaspina, Niccola over the woods. Then at a turning of the way at the
foot of the hills I had traversed, under that long and lofty bridge that
has known so well the hasty footstep of the fugitive, flowed Magra.

... Macra, che, per cammin corto
Lo genovese parte dal Toscano.

Thus with Dante's verses in my mouth I came into Tuscany.

Now the way from Macra to Sarzana lies straight across that great delta
which hides behind the eastern horn of the Gulf of Spezia. At the Macra
bridge you meet the old road from Genoa to Pisa, and entering Tuscany
thus, Sarzana is the first Tuscan city you will see. Luna Nova the
Romans called the place, for it was built to replace the older city
close to the sea, the ruins of which you may still find beside the road
on the way southward, but of Roman days there is nothing left in the new
city.

It was a fortress of Castruccio Castracani, the birthplace of a great
Pope. Of Castruccio, that intolerant great man, I shall speak later, in
Lucca, for that was the rose in his shield. Here I wish only to remind
the reader who wanders among the ruins of his great castle, that
Castracani took Sarzana by force and held it against any; and perhaps to
recall the words of Machiavelli, where he tells us that the capture of
Sarzana was a feat of daring done to impress the Lucchesi with the
splendour of their liberated tyrant. For when the citizens had freed him
from the prison of Uguccione della Faggiuola, who had seized the
government of Lucca, Castruccio, finding himself accompanied by a great
number of his friends, which encouraged him, and by the whole body of
the people, which flattered his ambition, caused himself to be chosen
Captain-General of all their forces for a twelvemonth; and resolving to
perform some eminent action that might justify their choice, he
undertook the reduction of several places which had revolted following
the example of Uguccione. Having for this purpose entered into strict
alliance with the city of Pisa, she sent him supplies, and he marched
with