The line on the wall

High above your head sits a marble plaque with a line and a date. That is where the water reached on 4 November 1966, well above the doorways and far above the shop windows you pass beneath today.

A little lower in the same corner is an older mark, from a flood centuries earlier, because the Arno came into the city more than once. Seeing the two so close together in a single wall makes it clear at a glance just how extraordinary 1966 really was.

Marks like these turn up all through the old centre, sometimes carved officially in marble and sometimes as a painted line with a year beside it. Once you start noticing them you spot them everywhere, and that is exactly what the city intended: a warning at eye level, for whoever comes after us.

At the eastern end of this street lies a large square, with a striped church along its short side.