Cacciaguida was silent.  But his descendant praying to be told more of his family and of the old state of Florence, the beatified soldier resumed.  He would not, however, speak of his own predecessors.  He said it would be more becoming to say nothing as to who they were, or the place they came from.  All he disclosed was, that his father and mother lived near the gate San Piero.[17] With regard to Florence, he continued, the number of the inhabitants fit to carry arms was at that time not a fifth of its present amount; but then the blood of the whole city was pure.  It had not been mixed up with that of Campi, and Certaldo, and Figghine.  It ran clear in the veins of the humblest mechanic.

“Oh, how much better would it have been,” cried the soul of the old Florentine, “had my countrymen still kept it as it was, and not brought upon themselves the stench of the peasant knave out of Aguglione, and that other from Signa, with his eye to a bribe!  Had Rome done its duty to the emperor, and so prevented the factions that have ruined us, Simifonte would have kept its beggarly upstart to itself; the Conti would have stuck to their parish of Acone, and perhaps the Buondelmonti to Valdigrieve.  Crude mixtures do as much harm to the body politic as to the natural body; and size is not strength.  The blind bull falls with a speedier plunge than the blind lamb.  One sword often slashes round about it better than five.  Cities themselves perish.  See what has become of Luni and of Urbisaglia; and what will soon become of Sinigaglia too, and of Chiusi!  And if cities perish, what is to be expected of families?  In my time the Ughi, the Catellini, the Filippi, were great names.  So were the Alberichi, the Ormanni, and twenty others.  The golden sword of knighthood was then to be seen in the house of Galigaio.  The Column, Verrey, was then a great thing in the herald’s eye.  The Galli, the Sacchetti, were great; so was the old trunk of the Calfucci; so was that of the peculators who now blush to hear of a measure of wheat; and the Sizii and the Arrigucci were drawn in pomp to their civic chairs.  Oh, how mighty I saw them then, and how low has their pride brought them! Florence in those days deserved her name.  She flourished indeed; and the balls of gold were ever at the top of the flower.[18] And now the descendants of these men sit in priestly stalls and grow fat.  The over-weening Adimari, who are such dragons when their foes run, and such lambs when they turn, were then of note so little, that Albertino Donato was angry with Bellincion, his father-in-law, for making him brother to one of their females.  On the other hand, thy foes, the Amidei, the origin of all thy tears through the just anger which has slain the happiness of thy life, were honoured in those days; and the honour was par taken by their friends.  O Buondelmonte! why didst thou break thy troth to thy first love, and become wedded to another?  Many who are now miserable would have been happy, had God given thee to the river Ema, when it rose against thy first coming to Florence.  But the Arno had swept our Palladium from its bridge, and Florence was to be the victim on its altar."[19]