n. 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