After studying philosophy and preaching with much acceptance, Zenobius was summoned to Rome by Pope Damasus.

On the Pope's death he became Bishop of Florence, and did much, says Butler, to "extirpate the kingdom of Satan".

The saint lived in the ancient tower which still stands--one of the few survivors of Florence's hundreds of towers--at the corner of the Via Por S.Maria (which leads from the Mercato Nuovo to the Ponte Vecchio) and the Via Lambertesca.

It is called the Torre de' Girolami, and on S.Zenobius' day--May 25th--is decorated with flowers; and since never are so many flowers in the city of flowers as at that time, it is a sight to see.

The remains of the saint were moved to the Duomo, although it had not then its dome, from S.Lorenzo, in 1330, and the simple column in the centre of the road opposite Ghiberti's first Baptistery doors was erected to mark the event, since on that very spot, it is said, stood a dead elm tree which, when the bier of the saint chanced to touch it, immediately sprang to life again and burst into leaf; even, the enthusiastic chronicler adds, into flower.