and there, cutting down a great pine tree, struck their florins on the stump of it, putting, for memory, under the feet of the St. John, a trefoil "in guise of a little tree." And note here the difference between artistic and mechanical coinage. The Florentines, using pure gold, and thin, can strike their coin anywhere, with only a wooden anvil, and their engraver is ready on the instant to make such change in the stamp as may record any new triumph. Consider the vigour, popularity, pleasantness of an art of coinage thus ductile to events, and easy in manipulation.
124. It is to be observed also that a thin gold coinage like that of the English angel, and these Italian zecchins, is both more convenient and prettier than the massive gold of the Greeks, often so small that it drops through the fingers, and, if of any size, inconveniently large in value.
125. It was in the following year, 1255, that the Florentines made the noblest use of their newly struck florins, so far as I know, ever recorded in any history; and a Florentine citizen made as noble refusal of them. You will find the two stories in Giovanni Villani, Book 6th,
