258 A HILL-TOP STRONGHOLD. 



hill- top refuge for the tillers and grazers of the fertile 

 Arno vale at its feet. 



But why did the people of the Arno Valley fix upon 

 the particular site of Fiesole ? Surely on the southern 

 side of the river, about the Viale dei Colli, the hills 

 approach much nearer to the plain. From San Miniato 

 and the Bello Sguardo one looks down far more directly 

 upon the domes and palaces and campaniles of Florence 

 spread right at one's feet. Why didn't the primitive 

 inhabitants of the valley fix rather on a spur of that 

 nearer range say the one where Galileo's tower stands 

 for the site of their village ? 



If you know Florence and have asked that question 

 within yourself in all seriousness as you read, I see you 

 haven't yet begun to throw yourself into the position of 

 affairs in prehistoric Tuscany. You can't shuffle off your 

 own century. For between the broad plain and the 

 range of hills where the Viale dei Colli now winds 

 serpentine on its beautiful way round the glens and 

 ravines, the Arno runs, a broad torrent flood in times of 

 freshet : the Arno, unbridged as yet (in the days I speak 

 of) by the Ponte Vecchio, an impassable frontier between 

 the wide territory of prehistoric Fiesole and the narrow 

 fields of some minor village, long since forgotten, on the 

 opposite bank. The great alluvial plain lies north of the 

 river ; the three streams whose silt contributes to form 

 it flow into the main channel from Pistoja and Prato. 

 To live across the river on the south bank would have 

 been absolutely impossible for the owners of the plain. 

 But Fiesole occupies a central spur of the northern 

 heights, overlooking the valley to east and west, and 





