“When he was a little way off, he turned round to Dante, and, thrusting out his tongue and making a fig at him with his hand, said, ‘Take that.’ ”

“When he was a little way off, he turned round to Dante, and, thrusting out his tongue and making a fig at him with his hand, said, ‘Take that.’ ”

Villani, VI 5, says:⁠—

“On the Rock of Carmignano there was a tower seventy yards high, and upon it two marble arms, the hands of which were making the figs at Florence.”