To get an idea of the wealth of the city of Pisa in the thirteenth century, just walk along the road axis that connects Piazza Guerrazzi to Corso Italia, via San Martino. Sumptuous buildings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries still show the structures of the medieval tower houses, with ferrules decorated with various geometric patterns and ceramic basins. This street, in Roman times, was the city stretch of the via æmilia Scauri, a road built by Marco Emilio Scauro in 103 BC that, from the Via Aurelia, reached the Gaul regions, and in the Middle Ages it was called 'carraia maiora', with artisan shops, warehouses and homes of merchants from all over the world.