[136] Cf. Dino Campagni, _Cronica Fiorentina_, Book 1, p. 62. When
appointed Podestà of Pistoja, Giano rather raised strife than pacified
the factions. Cf. also Villari, _History of Florence_, p. 445.
[137] Strictly speaking, she never conquered Siena; Charles V did that.
[138] In the Middle Age, Cortona and Arezzo were not on the road to
Rome, but so far as Florence was concerned, Siena, her holding that she
acquired these cities to keep Via Aretina open. Cf. Repetti, v. 715.
[139] That Pistoja was not on the great Via Francesca goes for nothing,
she threatened it.
[140] There is a most excellent little book, _Nuova Guida di Pistoja_,
by Cav. Prof. Giuseppe Tigri (Pistoja, 1896), which I strongly recommend
to the reader's notice. I wish to acknowledge my debt to it. Unlike so
many guides, it is full of life itself, and makes the city live for us
also.
[141] Bestia, probably a nickname of Vanni Fucci's; cf. _Inferno_, xxiv,
125.
[142] _Inferno_, xxiv. 125, 126; xxv. 13, 14.
[143] "Cino impugns the verdicts of Dante's _Commedia_," a sonnet
translated by D.G. Rossetti.
_Note_.--No English writers have written well of Pistoja, for first they
always write from a Florentine point of view, and then they quit too
soon. I plead guilty too. The key-note to Pistoja is given in that
saying of Macchiavelli's, that the Florentine people "per fuggire il
nome di crudele lascio distruggere Pistoia." Il Principe, cap. xvii. Cf.
also Discorsi iii. 27. It is, of course, all a matter of Panciatichi and
Cancellieri. Cf. Zdekauer Statuti Pistoiesi dei Secoli xii. e xiii.