Malespini says that it was ‘ quasi a similitudine di bastie .’ The wall was of burnt bricks, with solid round towers at intervals of twenty cubits, and it had four gates, and six posterns. The Campidoglio, where now is the Mercato Vecchio, was an imitation of that of the parent city, Rome, whose fortunes her daughter for many centuries shared.⁠ ⁠… “The cerchia antica of Cacciaguida was the first circle of the new city, which arose from the ruins of the Roman one destroyed by Totila; it included the Badia, which the former did not; Dante, therefore, in mentioning this circumstance, shows how accurately he had informed himself of the course of the previous wall. The walls of Dante’s time were begun in 1284, but not finished until nine years after his death; they are those of the present day.” ↩