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Neri led the Florentine forces to recover the Casentino, and pitched his camp before Rassina, which he took, together with Bibbiena, Prato Vecchio, and Romena. From thence he proceeded to Poppi and invested it on two sides with his forces, in one direction toward the plain of Certomondo, in the other upon the hill extending to Fronzole.
Difficulties arising, the patriarch attacked the Casentino, took Prato Vecchio, and Romena, and offered them also to the Florentines, who refused them likewise, unless the pope would consent they should restore them to the count, to which, after much hesitation, he acceded, on condition that the Florentines should prevail with the Count di Poppi to restore the Borgo to him.
Well, not far away across Arno, where it is little, the ruins of Castel Castagnajo and of Campo Lombardo are huddled, though Vallucciole, that tiny village, is laughing with children. It is the same at Romena, where the church still lives, though the castle is ruined.
It is just this which I see round every ruin in the Casentino. Force, brute force, is the only futile thing in the world. Why has La Verna remained when Romena is swept away, that strong place, when Porciano is a ruin, when the castle of Poppi is brought low, but that life which is love has beaten hate, and that a kiss is more terrible than a thousand blows.
Niccolo followed his advice, and arriving in the Casentino, took Romena and Bibbiena, and then pitched his camp before Castel San Niccolo.
It was not any joyful thing that I saw, splendid though it was, but the ruined castles, blind and broken, of the Counts Guidi: Porciano itself, line a jagged menace, rises across Arno, which is heard but not seen; farther, on the crest of a blue hill, round which evening gathers out of the woods, rises the great ruin of Romena like a broken oath; while farther still, far away on its hill in a fold of the valley, Poppi thrusts its fierce tower into the sky, a cruel boast that came to nothing.
Once at Consuma, the way is easy and good. You climb into the pass, and in another three hours you may be in Romena, Pratovecchio, or Stia.
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