[84] “Io son colui che tenni ambo le chiavi
      Del cuor di Federigo e che le volsi
      Serrando e disserando si soavi
      Che dal segreto suo quasi ogni uom tolsi.”

IX.  EMPOLI, MONTELUPO, LASTRA, SIGNA

It is but four miles down the hillside and through the valley along Via Pisana to Empoli in the plain.  And in truth that way, difficult truly at midday—­for the dusty road is full of wagons and oxen—­is free enough at dawn, though every step thereon takes you farther from the hills of S. Miniato.  Empoli, which you come to not without preparation, is like a deserted market-place, a deserted market-place that has been found, and put once more to its old use.  Set as it is in the midst of the plain beside Arno on the way to Florence, on the way to Siena, amid the villages and the cornfields, it was the Granary of the Republic of Florence, its very name, may be, being derived from the word Emporium, which in fact it was.  Not less important perhaps to-day than of old, its new villas, its strangely busy streets, its cosy look of importance and comfort there in the waste of plain, serve to hide any historical importance it may have, so that those who come here are content for the most part to go no farther than the railway station, where on the way from Pisa or from Florence they must change carriages for Siena.  And indeed, for her history, it differs but little from that of other Tuscan towns within reach of a great city.  Yet for Empoli, as her Saint willed, there waited a destiny.  For after the rout of the Guelphs, and especially of Florence, the head and front of that cause at Montaperti, when in all Tuscany only Lucca remained free, and the Florentine refugees built the loggia in front of S. Friano, there the Ghibellines of Tuscany proposed to destroy utterly and for ever the City of the Lily, and for this cause Conte Giordano and the rest caused a council to be held at Empoli; and so it happened.  Now Conte Giordano, Villani tells us, was sent for by King Manfred to Apulia, and there was proclaimed as his vicar and captain, Conte Guido Novello of the Conti Guidi of Casentino, who had forsaken the rest of the family, which stood for the Guelph cause.  This man was eager to fling every Guelph out of Tuscany.  There were assembled at that council all the cities round about, and the Conti Guidi and the Conti Alberti, and those of Santafiora and the Ubaldini; and these were all agreed that for the sake of the Ghibelline cause Florence must be destroyed, “and reduced to open villages, so that there might remain to her no renown or fame or power.”  It was then that Farinata degli Uberti, though a Ghibelline and an exile, rose to oppose this design, saying that if there remained no other, whilst he lived he would defend the city, even with his sword.  Then, says Villani, “Conte Giordano, seeing what manner of man he was, and of how great authority, and how the Ghibelline party might be broken up and come to blows, abandoned the design and took new counsel, so that by one good man and citizen our city of Florence was saved from so great fury, destruction, and ruin.”  But Florence was ever forgetful of her greatest sons, and Farinata’s praise was not found in her mouth, but in that of her greatest exile, who, finding him in his fiery tomb, wishes him rest.