to the Via del Proconsolo and the old Por S. Piero, probably
the original east gate. Here the traces of 'insulae' are ill
preserved; the space in question would contain, and the mediaeval
streets would admit of, twelve blocks in addition to the twenty noted
above.

The southern limit of Roman Florence towards the Arno is altogether
doubtful. There are, or were, traces of Roman baths in the Via delle
Terme, and it has been thought that the town stretched riverwards as
far as the old gate Por S. Maria and the Piazza S. Trinita. The gate,
however, is ill-placed and the line of wall implied by this theory is
irregular. The mediaeval streets point rather to a south wall near the
Via Porta Rossa. The baths might perhaps be due to a later Roman
extension, such as we shall meet at Timgad (p. 113). The Por S. Maria
may even be due to one of the reconstructions of Florence in the
Middle Ages. At the end we must admit that without further evidence
the limits of Roman Florence cannot be fixed for certain. But the
limits indicated above give the not unsuitable dimensions of 46 acres
(380 x 590 yds.), while the history of the twenty indubitable insulae
of the Centro remains full of interest. We see here, as clearly as
anywhere in the Roman world, how the regular Roman plan has gradually
been distorted by encroachments and how, even in its irregularity, it
has had power to drive modern builders towards its ancient fashion.

Of the interior of the Roman town little is known. The streets now
called Strozzi and Speziali plainly preserve the Roman main street
from east to west, while the Via Calimara overlies that which ran from
north to south. Where these crossed was the mediaeval Mercato Vecchio,
now enlarged into a patriotic Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele; here we may
put the Roman forum, and here too, by the former church of S. Maria in
Campidoglio, was the temple of Capitoline Juppiter. There were also
theatres, a shrine of Isis, and, outside the Roman limit, an
amphitheatre still discernible in the curves of certain streets (plan
17 B). However small Florentia was, it possessed the true elements of
the Roman town.

_Lucca_ (fig. 18).

A good parallel to Florence may be found at Lucca, the ancient Luca,
where again the streets preserve a rectangular pattern without showing
clearly what was its full extent. Luca is said to have been founded as
a 'colonia' in 177 B.C., but the statement is of doubtful truth.
Certainly it was a 'muni