who in place of iron seemed to be tormenting men with fire and with hammer, and he asked them what this might be:  and they answered and said that these were damned souls, and that to similar pains was condemned the soul of the Marquis Hugh by reason of his worldly life, unless he should repent.  With great fear he commended himself to the Virgin Mary, and when the vision was ended he remained so pricked in spirit, that after his return to Florence he sold all his patrimony in Germany and commanded that seven monasteries should be founded.  The first was the Badia of Florence, to the honour of St. Mary; the second, that of Bonsollazzo, where he beheld the vision; the third was founded at Arezzo, the fourth at Poggibonizzi, the fifth at the Verruca of Pisa, the sixth at the city of Castello, the last was the one at Settimo; and all these abbeys he richly endowed, and lived afterwards with his wife in holy life, and had no son, and died in the city of Florence on St. Thomas’s Day in the year of Christ 1006, and was buried with great honour in the Badia of Florence.  Tronci[52] says, that beside the Badia di S. Michele di Verruca outside Pisa, “this most pious Marquis” founded also the Church of S. Niccolo, for the use of the Monks of S. Michele Fuori.  The Church of S. Niccolo has been altogether restored.  The Campanile, however, the oldest tower left in the city, is strange and lovely.  It has been given to Niccolo Pisano, but is certainly older than his day, and, resembling as it does the tower of the Badia at Florence and of the Badia at Settimo, seems to be of the same date as the church.  There is a gallery joining the church with the palace of the Grand Dukes, to which it served as chapel.

Coming as one does out from this narrow deserted street of S. Maria into the space and breadth of the Piazza del Duomo, one is almost blinded by the sudden light and glory of the sun on those buildings, that seem to be made of old ivory intricately carved and infinitely noble.  Standing there as though left stranded upon some shore that life has long deserted, they are an everlasting witness to the Latin genius, symbols as it were of what has had to be given up so that we may follow life at the heels of the barbarian Teuton.

It was in 1063,[53] after the great victory at Palermo, that the ships of the Republic returning full of spoil, “after much discourse made in the Senate,"[54] it was decided at last to build “a most magnificent temple” to S. Maria Assunta, for it was about the time of her Festa, that is to say, the 15th August, that the victory had been won.  This having been decided on, the Republic sent ambassadors to Rome to the Pope and to King Henry of Germany, and the Pope sent the church many privileges, and the King a royal dowry.  So they began to build the temple where stood the old Church of S. Reparata, and more anciently the Baths of the Emperor Hadrian; and they brought marble from Africa, Egypt, Jerusalem, Sardinia, and