determine these bearings, but took them as he found them, and appointed them for standards;[1] he did the same for all the country parishes, and ordered them to come into the city at need. "And in this manner the old people of Florence ordered itself; and for more strength of the people, they ordered and began to build the palace which is behind the Badia,—that is to say, the one which is of dressed stone, with the tower; for before there was no palace of the commune in Florence, but the signory abode sometimes in one part of the town, sometimes in another.
107. "And as the people had now taken state and signory on themselves, they ordered, for greater strength of the people, that all the towers of Florence—and there were many 180 feet high[2]—should be cut down to 75 feet, and no more; and so it was done, and with the stones of them they walled the city on the other side Arno."
108. That last sentence is a significant one. Here is the central expression of the true burgess
