![]() ![]() At most we have some displaced pride in a local set of Roman ruins, but here was a statue that had become a rabbit’s foot for all of Firenze. Beachcombing can think of no other cases of medievalies (let alone medieval commoners) venerating a classical object in this manner prior to the high Renaissance. It is remarkable that a Christian city should pay such attention to an object from pagan antiquity. So, in 1300, the statue was moved as the bridge was being rennovated (8,39) ‘and whereas at the first it looked towards the east, it was turned towards the north, wherefore, because of the augury of old, folk said: ‘May it please God that there come not great changes from this to our city’. It was also a statue that was held in great esteem by the population. It was at the foot of this statue, according to Villani (5, 39), that Bondelmonte, a rich Florentine, was dragged from his horse and had ‘his veins opened’ by his enemies. Villani tells us that in his own lifetime (1280-1348) there had stood at the Ponte Vecchio (the Old Bridge) a statue to Mars. We hear of this particular statue in the work of Florence’s first medieval chronicler, the great Giovanni Villani. ![]() Beachcombing has a special place in his heart for Florence and today, in celebration of the Arno’s flower, on the day of St John no less, he sets out a Florentine mystery: the fate and idenity of Mars on Horseback.
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