In this episode you will learn about a Roman fort that turned into a retirement community for veterans of the legions. They moved out of the mountains and into the valley, establishing a key trading hub that became the gateway to northern Italy. For this reason, the city was quarreled over by the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines. Eventually, their fighting reduced the city to rubble. Fortunately, visionary and faithful leaders like Charlemagne, Hugh the Great, and Contessa Matilda would see to it that Florence rise again. It would become the capital of Tuscany, and it would become the Pope's choice city to oversee his banks. Florence would then become the mint for the world's monetary standard: the gold florin. In this time of prosperity, Florence decided to give power to its people and guilds. They established a unique democracy with incredibly short terms of service for government officers. Immediately, the nobles and external powers such as the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire sought to take advantage of the little democracy. Yet, the people of Florence continually succeeded in fighting to preserve the fledgling institution. The one thing their democracy could not survive, however, was internal division. In this episode we will discuss the sorry state of their democracy when they exiled Dante Alighieri, one of their greatest citizens. In spite of the wickedness of this act, it actually galvanized Dante to process how this could happen to him, inspiring him to write one of the greatest poems ever created: the Divine Comedy. The success of this poem gave rise to the Florentine dialect, resulting in all of Italy speaking in the Florentine way. Even today, modern Italian is derived from Florentine.