Campaldino is a battle fought in 1289 in Tuscany, eleven years before the events of the Florenzen chronicle, and still the measure of all things there. It is not played out; it is seen hanging on walls.
- Tapestries of old battles hang in the military hall where the gonfalonier lays out the commission.
- A six-meter tapestry in the corridors of the Hospitallers shows the Guelph cavalry defeating the Ghibellines, an uncomfortable wink for the German Alberich, who is the emperor’s man.
- The old men measure themselves against it. When Maneto Donati takes a mace blow in his own hall, the chronicle records that he had not received such a wound since Campaldino.