CHAPTER IV.

INDUSTRY, TRADE, AND LIFE IN FLORENCE. THE large sums which were continually expended by the Government as well as the citizens of Florence, from the middle of the thirteenth century, for public objects—such as the enlargement, fortification, and embellishment of the city, for palaces and the residences of officers of the State, bridges and streets, churches and convents, hospitals and charitable institutions—would lead us to infer pecuniary means apparently out of proportion with the extent and resources of the te…