Romola Large Print

The Loggia de' Cerchi stood in the heart of old Florence, within a labyrinth ofnarrow streets behind the Badia, now rarely threaded by the stranger, unless in adubious search for a certain severely simple doorplace, bearing this inscription: Qui Nacque Il Divino Poeta.To the ear of Dante, the same streets rang with the shout and clash of fierce battlebetween rival families; but in the fifteenth century, they were only noisy with theunhistorical quarrels and broad jests of woolcarders in the cloth-producingquarters of San Martino and Garbo.Under this loggia, in the early morning of the 9th of April 1492, two men had theireyes fixed on each other: one was stooping slightly, and looking downward with thescrutiny of curiosity; the other, lying on the pavement, was looking upward with thestartled gaze of a suddenly-awakened dreamer