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Updated: June 27, 2025
La Ferrignosa she was called of old, but it is the last title that fits her now, for the clank of her irons has long been silent, and nothing any longer disturbs the quiet of her days. S. Atto is her saint, and it is by his street that you enter the city, walled still, coming at last into the Piazza Cino, Cino da Pistoja, one of the sweetest and least fortunate of Tuscan poets.
Before me were brown fields and stretches of flickering heat, and far below, in the valley, I could see Pistoja, pale red and white in the full sun. It was near noon; the sun was directly overhead in a cloudless sky, and his rays burned me up. My head throbbed desperately, my body felt one free wound; I was sick with hunger, clogged with drouth.
Great men did as they chose which was to do evil; the most unnatural debauchery obtained; the Grand Prince Gastone ran spoiling about the country, a satyr heading a troop of satyrs. No honest person was safe from ruin. He told me that I had been remarked in Pistoja, and my name and origin guessed at.
Of this we could have no better instance than in the city of Pistoja. Fifteen years ago this city was divided between the Panciatichi and Cancellieri, as indeed it still continues, the only difference being that then they were in arms, whereas, now, they have laid them aside.
Austria is to do the work as far as Piacenza and Mantua; Tuscany is to finish its lines from Pistoja to Florence and Lucca; the Papal government is to connect Bologna with both the former; and the small states are to carry out their respective portions.
But I flung myself on to one of the mules of the litter, and showing them the stout Pistoja dagger that I carried, I presented with it a bold and truculent front, no whit intimidated by their numbers. Four to one though they were, they thought better of it.
The Lion of Florence, the Hare of Pisa, the Stork of Perugia, the Dragon of Pistoja, are all to be seen in these simple mosaics, if one chooses to consider them as such, hardly more than white silhouettes, and yet full of life and vigour. The effect is that of a vast piece of lace, the real cut work of the period. Absurd little trees, as space fillers, are set in the green and white marble.
Emboldened, I began upon the Aminta of Tasso, reciting the opening speech of Daphne in the fourth act. To my delight the part of Silvia, which Virginia in our old days at Pistoja had been wont to take, was caught up and continued by Belviso. We fired each other, capped each other, and ended the great scene.
She has fine broad brows and a patient face; when she smiles, out of mere kindness for my solitary goings, it is pleasant to note the gleam of light on her teeth and lips. I take off my hat, as Luca or Lippo would have done, to "ma cousine la Reine des cieux." Thus goes life In Pistoja and the rest of the world.
Thus in those days as to-day, war was not a game which one might play or not as one pleased, but the inexorable result of the circumstances of life. When Bologna closed the passes, Florence was compelled to fight or to die; when Pisa taxed Florentine merchandise she signed her own death. On the other hand, the passionate desire of Pistoja was to be free.
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