are near Santa Croce. The Capitol was where is now the Old Market. The
Rotonda is entire, which was made for the temple of Mars, and is now
dedicated to our Saint John. That thus is was, can very well be seen,
and cannot be denied, but the said buildings are much smaller than those
of Rome. He who caused them to built, they say, was Julius Caesar, in
concert with some noble Romans, who, when Fiesole had been stormed and
taken, raised a city in this place, and each of them took in hand to
erect one of these notable edifices.

Julius Caesar had among his captains a man of highest rank and valour,
who was called Fiorino of Cellino, which is a village about two miles
distant from Monte Fiascone. Now this Fiorino took up his quarters under
the hill of Fiesole, on the ground where Florence now stands, in order
to be near the river Arno, and for the convenience of the troops. All
those soldiers and others who had to do with the said captain, used then
to say: "Let us go to Fiorenze;" as well because the said captain was
called Fiorino, as also because the place he had chosen for his quarters
was by nature very rich in flowers. Upon the foundation of the city,
therefore, since this name struck Julius Caesar as being fair and apt,
and given by circumstance, and seeing furthermore that flowers
themselves bring good augury, he appointed the name of Florence for the
town. He wished besides to pay his valiant captain this compliment; and
he loved him all the more for having drawn him from a very humble place,
and for the reason that so excellent a man was a creature of his own.
The name that learned inventors and investigators of such etymologies
adduce, as that Florence is flowing at the Arno, cannot hold; seeing
that Rome is flowing at the Tiber, Ferrara is flowing at the Po, Lyons
is flowing at the Saone, Paris is flowing at the Seine, and yet the
names of all these towns are different, and have come to them by other
ways. [1]