oso, seeing
that it was inhabited by the baser sort. At the head of this was a
gate called the Roman Gate, where now are the houses of the Bardi near
S. Lucia de' Magnoli across the Ponte Vecchio, and this was the road
to Rome, by Fegghine and Arezzo. There were no other walls to the
suburb about the road save the backs of the houses against the hill.
The second road was that of Santa Felicita, called the Borgo di
Piazza, which had a gate where now is the piazza of San Felice, where
runs the road to Siena; and the third road was called after S. Jacopo,
and had a gate where now are the houses of the Frescobaldi, where ran
the road to Pisa. None of the three suburbs lying around these roads
of the sesto of Oltrarno had other walls save the said gates, and the
backs of the outside houses, which enclosed the suburbs with orchards
and gardens within. But after that the Emperor Henry III. marched upon
Florence, the Florentines enclosed Oltrarno within walls, beginning at
the said gate to Rome, ascending behind the Borgo alla Costa below San
Giorgio, and then coming out behind Santa Felicita, enclosing the
Borgo di Piazza and the Borgo di San Jacopo, and roughly following the
said Borghi. But afterwards the walls of Oltrarno on the hill were
made higher as they are now, in the time when the Ghibellines first
ruled the city of Florence, as we will make mention in due place and
time. We will now leave for a time the doings of Florence, and we will
treat of the emperors which were after Henry I., for it is necessary
that we should tell of them here in order to continue our history.

Sec. 9.--_How Conrad I. was made Emperor._

[Sidenote: 1015 A.D.]

After the death of the Emperor Henry I., Conrad I. was elected and
consecrated by Pope Benedict VIII., in the year of Christ 1015. He was
of Suabia, and reigned twenty years as emperor, and when he came into
Italy, not being able to obtain the lordship of Milan, he laid siege
to it, right in the suburbs of the city itself; but as he was assuming
the iron crown outside of Milan in a church, while Mass was being
sung, there came great thunder and lightning into the church, and some
died therefrom; and the Archbishop which was singing Mass at the
altar, rose and said to the Emperor Conrad, that he had visibly seen
S. Ambrose, which sternly menaced him except he abandoned the siege
of Milan; and he, thus admonished, withdrew his host, and made peace
with the Milanese. He was a just ma