“About five years after St. Zenobius had been buried, there was a Bishop named Andrew, and this Holy Bishop summoned a great chapter of bishops and clerics, and said that they were to bear the body of St. Zenobius to the Cathedral Church of San Salvatore. On the 26th of January, he was un-buried and borne to the Church by four bishops; and these bishops bearing the body of St. Zenobius were so pressed upon by the people that they fell near an elm, which was close to the Church of St. John the Baptist. And when they fell, the body of St. Zenobius lay broken, so that the body touched the elm, and gradually, as the elm was touched, it brought forth flowers and leaves, and lasted all that year. The people, seeing the miracle, broke up all the elm, and with devotion carried the branches away as relics. And the Florentines, beholding what was done, made a column of marble with a cross where the elm had been, so that the miracle should ever be remembered by the people.”

- The Story of Florence by Edmund Garratt Gardner (10-11)