[2] At the time Verona possessed newly rebuilt walls, studded with forty regular towers and eighth tall ones at the gates, referred to in lines 4–6.
The poet of the Versus, probably a monk, stresses not only the glory of Verona's Christian present, but departs from his model, the Versum, to praise its pagan past: fana, tempora, constructa a deorum nomina ("its shrines and temples were built and dedicated to the gods", line 13).
The return of the relics of Firmus and Rusticus, which had first been taken to Africa, then to Capodistria and finally to Trieste, before bishop Anno brought them back around 760 and re-buried them in their original sarcophagus, inspired reference to these saints.
He praises Verona in line 2 for its pre-eminence among the cities in partibus Venetiarum, ut docet Isidorus, "in the area of the Veneto, as Isidore teaches."
[5] This generally assumes that the poet was writing in an uneducated manner, but this is unsatisfactory in the case of the Veronese writer, who often deliberately moves away (grammatically) from his source.