CHAPTER V. THE FREE CITIES AND THE EMPIRE

[Sidenote: [1300-1350 A.D.]]

From the middle of the twelfth century we have seen nearly all the towns of northern Italy shake off the imperial yoke. Towards the end of the thirteenth the emperor Rudolf, instead of disputing their independence, offered to sell it to them for money. In the franchised communes there could no longer be any pretension to enslave fellow-citizens, but one could be made of governing them. Riches became a title for taking part in authority, by reason of the greater interest which the rich had in the preservation and order of society. It may be seen that a right derived from wealth is less extended than one derived from landed property. But in towns there could hardly be landed property properly so called. One could occupy a house, but not have those lands which, by their extent, position, and the number of men cultivating them, give power to their possessor.

Moreover, the privileged classes in towns distinguished themselves from those in the country by the moderation of their pretensions. The latter were always seen on horseback, clothed in armour, helmets on their heads, and bearing arms whose use they reserved to themselves. They always recalled the fact that their right was founded on their force and valiance. In towns this apparel could have no use; riches would bring clients, and seduction gain friends. Little by little the exercise of authority, in so far as it was prolonged, happy, and met with favour, became a right to new marks of confidence, these being the supposed debt of those governed to those governing, and also supposed in the latter an increase of experience, a transmission of knowledge, of good rules, and a just ambition to make a name illustrious.

[Sidenote: [1300-1350 A.D.]]

The success of some lords had excited the ambition of all. But in the large towns the mass of the population opposed a strong resistance to them. Milan obliged its patricians to be content with a part of the magistrature. After having excited general indignation by taking every office, the Milanese nobles saw themselves reduced to signing a treaty with the plebeians by which the latter were admitted to an equal share in all public functions, from an ambassador’s charge to that of public trumpeter. The prouder ones retired to their castles and revenged themselves for their nullity by devastating the country. But even these devastations augmented the strength of the towns--that is, their population. The inhabitants, dispersed in a country open to ravages from the lords, ran to seek shelter for their families or goods in a walled city. Lordly feudal tyranny peopled the towns where so much resentment fermented against it and where increased industry and riches finally furnished the people the means of crushing these small tyrants.

When the translation of the holy see to Avignon left Rome to herself, the tocsin of the Capitol obliged the barons to leave their fortified retreats to come and humiliate themselves before the popular tribune, and history shows us the Savelli, Frangipani, Colonna, and Orsini, standing with bare heads, in a submissive attitude, subscribing tremblingly to an oath of fidelity to the “law of good estate” in the hands of an innkeeper. Their palaces were no longer their refuges, their excess had no more the privilege of impunity. An attempt to revolt forced them to hear their condemnation as though they were the lowest criminals and to receive the pardon more humiliating still. In the greater part of the republics where war demanded a leader, but where abuse of power had made all the native nobles hateful, the rival factions called on a foreign magistrate to govern Rome, demanded a head from Bologna and Venice furnished one to Padua, Pisa, and Milan.

[Illustration: SAN MARCO, VENICE]

In those states where an unfertile soil tempted but a small part of the population to agriculture, and offered no great means of power to territorial lords, these latter saw their influence decrease in proportion as other fortunes rose by means of commerce. They had, however, to maintain themselves, the resources of the military service and, above all, the faction. This was the condition of the nobles of Genoa, Pisa, and Florence. When they tried violently to reseize the power, they were suppressed and punished. Their fortresses were razed, and hatred against them was carried to an injustice by depriving them of rights which were common to all.

[Illustration: A DOGE OF VENICE]

It was in these commercial towns that the citizens, rapidly enriched by fortunate enterprise, began to compare themselves with those ancient possessors of privileges and to claim a share. A nobility sprang up of quite different origin from the first, which disputed its authority, but was disposed, like the other, to retain and abuse it. It is seen that the influence of the privileged classes was modified according to circumstances. Lords established in Italy by right of conquest ceased at the time of the invasion of the Goths and other foreigners to be rulers, and were no more than powerful vassals when regular monarchies arose.

When the commons were freed from the domination of the emperors, the feudal lords retained their power where they had sufficient land to preserve their pre-eminence. They shared or lost it from that or other causes, particularly from commerce, which brought other means of power to life which rivalled theirs. When these two kinds of nobles ceased to be rivals, they agreed in order to rule. The hatred of the people against the nobles hurried towns under the yoke of some of these powerful men, who had made it believed that they sincerely took the popular side. That is what cost the republic of Milan her proud liberty. In Genoa some ambitious nobles took the same means to preserve influence. The Dorias and Spinolas contracted an alliance with the people, and aided with feigned zeal in the introduction of democratic forms into the government. Other republics fell into an excess of distrust. Injustice nourished hatreds and deprived the state of its most illustrious citizens.[b]

AN EMPEROR ONCE MORE IN ITALY

On the 25th of November, 1308, the diet of Germany named Henry VII of Luxemburg as successor to Albert of Austria; and this election suddenly brought Italy back to the same struggle for her independence which she had so heroically supported against the two Fredericks. From the death of the second Frederick, fifty-eight years had passed since she had seen an emperor. Rudolf of Habsburg, Adolphus of Nassau, and Albert of Austria had too much to do in Germany to occupy themselves with this constantly agitated country, where they could demand obedience only with arms in their hands. Henry VII was a brave, wise, and just prince; but he was neither rich nor powerful. He secured to his son, by marriage, the crown of Bohemia, which had excited some jealousy among the Germans; and he believed it would be expedient, in order to avoid all quarrel in the empire, to quit it for some time. To flatter the national vanity, he determined on an expedition to Italy.

Henry, himself a Belgian, had no power but in Belgium and the provinces adjoining France. From Luxemburg he went through the county of Burgundy to Lausanne. Here he received, in the summer of 1310, the ambassadors of the Italian states, who came to do him homage. He entered Piedmont, by Mont Cenis, towards the end of September, accompanied by only two thousand cavalry, the greater part of whom were Belgians, Franc-Comtois, or Savoyards. This force would have been wholly insufficient to subdue Italy; but Henry VII presented himself there as the supporter of just rights, of order, and, to a certain degree, of liberty.

[Illustration: CORNER OF CHURCH OF SAN GIOVANNI, VENICE]

[Sidenote: [1295-1311 A.D.]]

The lords of all Lombardy and Piedmont came to present themselves to Henry; some at Turin, others at Asti. He received them with kindness, but declared his determination to establish legal order, such as had been settled by the Peace of Constance, in all the cities of the empire; and to name in each an imperial vicar, who should govern in concert with the municipal magistrates. Philippone di Langusco, at Pavia; Simon da Colobiano, at Vercelli; William Brusato, at Novara; Antonio Fisiraga, at Lodi, in obedience to this intimation, laid down the sovereign power. At the same time, Henry everywhere recalled the exiles, without distinction of party; at Como and Mantua, the Ghibellines; at Brescia and Piacenza, the Guelfs; leaving out, however, the exiles of Verona, a powerful city, which he did not visit, and which was governed by Can’ Grande della Scala, the most able Ghibelline captain in Italy, the best soldier, the best politician, and the person whose services and attachment the emperor most valued. The rich and populous city of Milan required also to be treated with address and consideration. The archbishop Otto Visconti had retained the principal authority in his hands to a very advanced age. But long previously to his death, which took place in 1295, he had transferred to his nephew, Matteo Visconti, the title of captain of the people, and had accustomed the Milanese to consider him as his lieutenant and successor. Matteo did, in fact, govern after him, and with almost despotic power, from 1295 to 1302. He was also named lord of several other cities of Lombardy; at the same time he strengthened his family by many rich alliances. But Visconti had not the art to conciliate either the remains of national pride, or the love of liberty which still subsisted among his subjects, or the jealousy of the other princes of Lombardy. A league to give the preponderance to the Guelf party in this province was formed by Alberto Scotto, lord of Piacenza, and by Ghiberto da Correggio, lord of Parma; they forced the Visconti to quit Milan, in 1302, and installed in their place Guido della Torre and his family, who had been exiles twenty-five years. When Henry VII presented himself before Milan, he found it governed by Guido della Torre and the Guelfs. Matteo Visconti and the Ghibellines were exiled. Henry exacted their recall; he was crowned in the church of St. Ambrose, on the 6th of January, 1311, and afterwards asked of the city a gratuity for his army of one hundred thousand florins. Till then the Italians had seen in the monarch only a just and impartial pacificator; but when he demanded money, the different parties united against him.

MILAN SEDITIONS; GENOA AND VENICE AT WAR

[Sidenote: [1311-1312 A.D.]]

A violent sedition broke forth at Milan. The Della Torres and the Guelfs were forced to leave that city. Matteo Visconti and the Ghibellines were recalled, and the former restored to absolute power. The Guelfs, too, in the rest of Lombardy, rose and took arms against the emperor. Crema, Cremona, Lodi, Brescia, and Como revolted at the same time. Henry consumed the greater part of the summer in besieging Brescia, which at last, towards the end of September, 1311, he forced to capitulate. He granted to that town equitable conditions, impatient as he was to enter Tuscany; but, although Lombardy seemed subdued to his power, he left more germs of discontent and discord in it than he had found about a year before.

Henry VII arrived with his little army at Genoa, on the 21st of October, 1311. That powerful republic now maintained at St. Jean d’Acre, at Pera opposite to Constantinople, and at Kaffa in the Black Sea, military and mercantile colonies, which made themselves respected for their valour, at the same time that they carried on the richest commerce of the Mediterranean. Several islands in the Archipelago, amongst others that of Chios, had passed in sovereignty to Genoese families. The palaces of Genoa, already called the “superb,” were the admiration of travellers. Its sanguinary rivalry with Pisa had terminated by securing to the former the empire of the Tyrrhene Sea. From that time Genoa had no other rival than Venice.

An accidental rencounter of the fleets of these two cities in the sea of Cyprus lighted up between them, in 1293, a terrible war, which for seven years stained the Mediterranean with blood, and consumed immense wealth. In 1298, the Genoese admiral Lamba Doria, meeting the Venetian commander Andrea Dandolo at Corzuola or Corcyra the Black, at the extremity of the Adriatic Gulf, burned sixty-six of his galleys, and took eighteen, which he brought into the port of Genoa, with seven thousand prisoners, suffering only twelve vessels to escape. The humbled Venetians, in the next year, asked and obtained peace. The Genoese, vanquishers in turn of the Pisans and Venetians, passed for the bravest, the most enterprising, and the most fortunate mariners of all Italy. The government of their city was entirely democratic; but the two chains of mountains which extend from Genoa, the one towards Provence, and the other towards Tuscany (called by the Italians Le Riviere di Genoa, because the foot of these mountains forms the shore of the sea), were covered with the castles of the Ligurian nobles; the peasantry were all dependent on them, and were always ready to make war for their liege lords. Four families were pre-eminent for their power and wealth--the Doria and the Spinola, Ghibellines; the Grimaldi and the Fieschi, Guelfs. These nobles, incensed against each other by hereditary enmity, had disturbed the state by so many outrages that the people adopted, with respect to them, the same policy as that of the Tuscan republics, and had entirely excluded them from the magistracy. On the other hand, they had rendered such eminent and frequent services to the republic; above all, they had produced such great naval commanders, that the people, whenever the state was in danger, had always recourse to them for the choice of an admiral.

Seduced by the glory of these chiefs, the people often afterwards shed their blood in their private quarrels; but often, also, wearied by the continual disturbances which the nobles excited, they had recourse to foreigners to subdue them to the common law. The people were in a state of irritation against the Ligurian nobles, when Henry VII arrived at Genoa, in 1311; and to oblige them to maintain a peace which they were continually breaking, the Genoese conferred on that monarch absolute authority over the republic for twenty years. But when the emperor suppressed the podesta, and then the abbate or defender of the people, and afterwards demanded of the city a gift of sixty thousand florins, the Genoese perceived that they needed a government, not only to suppress civil discord, but also to protect rights not less precious than peace; an internal fermentation of increasing danger manifested itself; and Henry was happy to quit Genoa in safety, on the 16th of February, 1312, on board a Pisan fleet, which transported him with about fifteen hundred cavalry to Tuscany.[12]

[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. TOMMASO, GENOA]

HENRY’S CORONATION AND SUDDEN DEATH

[Sidenote: [1312-1313 A.D.]]

Henry VII when he entered Italy, was impartial between the Guelfs and Ghibellines. He owed his election to the influence of the popes, and he was accompanied by cardinal legates, who were to crown him at Rome. He had no distrust either of Robert, then king of Naples, the son of Charles II, or of the Guelf cities. He had no hereditary affection for the Ghibellines, the zealous partisans of a family long extinct. He endeavoured, accordingly, to hold the balance fairly between the two parties, and to reconcile them wherever he was allowed; but experience had already taught him that the very name of elected emperor had a magic influence on the Italians, either to excite the devoted affection of the Ghibellines, or the terror and hatred of the Guelfs. It was with the latter that resistance to him had begun in the preceding year in Lombardy; and that revolt had burst forth on all sides since his departure. Robert, king of Naples, who assumed the part of champion of the Guelf party, already testified an open distrust of him; and Florence, which by its prudence, ability, wealth, and courage was the real director of that party, took arms to resist him, refused audience to his ambassadors, raised all the Guelfs of Italy against him, and finally constrained him to place that city under the ban of the empire. The republic of Pisa, on the other hand, whose affection for the Ghibelline party was connected with its hopes as well as its recollections, served him with a devotion, zeal, and prodigality which he had not met elsewhere. The Pisans had sent him, when at Lausanne, a present of sixty thousand florins, to aid him on his passage to Italy. They paid his debts at Genoa, and they gave him another present when he entered their city; finally, they placed at his disposal thirty galleys and six hundred crossbowmen, who accompanied him to Rome, where he received the golden crown of the empire from the hands of the pope’s legate, in the church of St. John Lateran, on the 29th of June, 1312. The Romans, who had taken arms against him, and had received within their walls a Neapolitan garrison, kept their gates shut during the ceremony, and would not suffer one of his soldiers to enter the city.

The coronation of the emperor at Rome was the term of service of the Germans; they took no interest afterwards in what was passing, or might be done in that country. They were anxious to depart; and Henry found himself at Tivoli, where he passed the summer, almost entirely abandoned by his transalpine soldiers. Had the Neapolitan king Robert been bolder, Henry would have been in great danger. In the autumn, however, the Ghibellines and Bianchi of central Italy rallied round him, and formed a formidable army, with which he marched to attack Florence, on the 19th of September, 1312. The Florentines, accustomed to leave their defence to mercenaries, whose valour was always ready for pay, made small account of a military courage which they saw so common among men whom they despised; but no people carried civil courage and firmness in misfortune further. Their army was soon infinitely superior in numbers to that of Henry; they carried on with perfect calmness their commerce and negotiations, as if their enemies had already departed for Germany, but they would not drive them out of their territory by giving battle; they preferred bearing patiently their depredations, and waiting till they had worn out their enthusiasm, exhausted their finances, and should depart of themselves, which they did on the 6th of January, 1313, finding they could obtain no advantage.

Henry, after giving some months of repose to his army, took the command of the militia of Pisa, and made war at their head against Lucca; at the same time, he solicited from his brother, the archbishop of Trèves, a German reinforcement, which he obtained in the following month of July. On the 5th of August, 1313, Henry VII departed from Pisa, commanding twenty-five hundred ultramontane and fifteen hundred Italian cavalry, with a proportionate number of infantry. He began his march towards Rome, having been informed that Robert, called by the Florentines to their aid, advanced with all the forces of the Guelf party to oppose him. The declining military reputation of the Neapolitans inspired the Germans with little fear, and Robert had but a small number of French cavalry to give courage to his army; but the priests and monks, animated with zeal in defence of the ancient Guelf party and the independence of the church, seconded him with their prayers, and the report soon spread that they had seconded him in another manner and in their own way. The emperor took the road of San Miniato to Castel Fiorentino, arrived at Buon Convento, twelve miles beyond Siena, and stopped there to celebrate the festival of St. Bartholomew. On the 24th of August, 1313, he received the communion from the hands of a Dominican monk, and expired a few hours afterwards. It was said the monk had mixed the juice of Napel in the consecrated cup. It was said, also, that Henry was already attacked by a malady which he concealed. A carbuncle had manifested itself below the knee; and a cold bath, which he took to calm the burning irritation, perhaps occasioned his sudden and unexpected death.

RIVAL EMPERORS; ECCLESIASTICAL DISSENSIONS

[Sidenote: [1313-1322 A.D.]]

The electors of the empire were not convoked at Frankfort to name a successor to Henry VII till ten months after his death. Ten, instead of seven princes presented themselves; two pretenders disputed the electoral rights in each of the houses of Saxony, Bohemia, and Brandenburg. The electors, divided into two colleges, named simultaneously, on the 19th of October, 1314, two emperors; the one, Ludwig IV of Bavaria; the other, Frederick III of Austria. Their rights appeared equal; their adherents in Germany were also of nearly equal strength; the sword only could decide; and war was accordingly declared and carried on till the 28th of September, 1322, when Frederick was vanquished and made prisoner at Mühldorf.

The church abstained, while the civil war lasted, from pronouncing between the two pretenders to the empire. Clement V did not witness their double election; he died on the 20th of April, 1314. It was necessary, two years afterwards, to use fraud and violence, to confine the cardinals in conclave at Lyons, for the purpose of naming his successor. They at last elected the bishop of Avignon. He was a native of Cahors, the devoted creature of King Robert of Naples, and took the name of John XXII. He was the first who made Avignon, which was his episcopal town, the residence of the Roman court, exiled from Italy. He was an intriguer, notoriously profligate, scandalously avaricious; he fancied himself, however, a philosopher, and took a part in the quarrel between the realists and nominalists; he made himself violent enemies in the schools, on the members of which he sometimes inflicted the punishment of death. While he used such violence towards his adversaries as heretics, he shook the credit of the court of Rome, by being himself accused of heresy. His great object was to raise to high temporal power the cardinal Bertrand de Poiet, whom he called his nephew, and who was believed to be his son. For that purpose he availed himself of the war between the two pretenders to the empire, regarded by him as a prolongation of the interregnum, during which he asserted all the rights of the emperors devolved on the holy see. He charged Cardinal Bertrand to exercise those rights as legate in Lombardy, crush the Ghibellines, support the Guelfs, but above all, subdue both to the authority of the church and its legate.

The cardinal Bertrand de Poiet launched his excommunications and employed the soldiers whom his father had raised for him in Provence, particularly against Matteo Visconti, lord of Milan, one of the most able and powerful of the Ghibelline chiefs. Visconti made himself beloved by the Milanese, whom he had always treated with consideration. Without being virtuous, he had preserved his reputation unstained by crime. His mind was enlightened. To a perfect knowledge of mankind, he added quick-sightedness, prompt decision, and a certain military glory, heightened by that of four sons, his faithful lieutenants, who were all distinguished among the brave. The Italians gave him the surname of Great, at a period when, it is true, they were prodigal of that epithet. Matteo Visconti, in his war with the Lombard Guelfs, took possession of Pavia, Tortona, and Alessandria. He besieged, in concert with the Genoese Ghibellines, Robert king of Naples, who had shut himself up in Genoa, desirous of making that city the fortress of the Guelfs of Lombardy. Visconti compelled the retreat of Philip of Valois, who, before he was king, had entered Italy at the solicitation of the pope, in 1320.

The following year he vanquished Raymond de Cardona, a Catalonian, and one of the pope’s generals; he persuaded Frederick of Austria, who had sent his brother to aid the pope, to recall his Germans, making him sensible it could suit neither of the pretenders to the empire to weaken the Ghibellines, who defended in Italy the interests of whoever of the two remained conqueror. But, after having made war against the church party twenty years, without ever suspecting that he betrayed his faith, for he was religious without bigotry, age awakened in him the terrors of superstition; he began to fear that the excommunications of the legate would deprive him of salvation; he abdicated in favour of his eldest son Galeazzo, and died a few weeks afterwards, on the 22nd of June, 1322. The remorse and scruples of Matteo Visconti had carried trouble and disorder into his own party, and gave boldness to that of his adversaries. A violent fermentation at Milan at length burst forth; Galeazzo was obliged to fly, and the republic was proclaimed anew; but virtue and patriotism, without which it could not subsist, were extinguished; and after a few weeks Galeazzo was recalled, and reinvested with the lordship of Milan.

The two parties of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, since the death of Henry VII, no longer nearly balanced each other in virtue, talents, and patriotism. In the beginning of their struggle, there were almost as many republics on one side as the other; and sentiments as pure and a devotion as generous equally animated the partisans of the empire and of the church. But, in the fourteenth century, the faction of the Ghibellines had become that of tyranny--of the Guelfs that of liberty. The former displayed those great military and political talents which personal ambition usually develops. In the second were to be found, almost exclusively, patriotism, and the heroism which sacrifices to it every personal interest. The republic of Pisa alone, in Italy, united the love of liberty with the sentiments of the Ghibelline party. This republic had been thunderstruck by the death of Henry VII at a moment when a career of glory and prosperity seemed to open on him. Pisa, exhausted by the prodigious efforts which she had made to serve him, was true to herself, when all the Guelfs of Tuscany rose at once, on the death of Henry, to avenge on her the terror which that monarch had inspired. She gave the command of her militia to Uguccione dà Faggiuola, a noble of the mountainous part of Romagna, which, with the March, produced the best soldiers in Italy. The Pisans, under the command of Faggiuola, obtained two signal advantages over the Guelfs. They took Lucca, on the 14th of June, 1314, while the Lucchese Guelfs and Ghibellines were engaged in battle in the streets of that city; and, on the 29th of August of the same year, they defeated, at Montecatini, the Florentines, commanded by two princes of the house of Naples, and seconded by all the Guelfs of Tuscany and Romagna. But the Pisans soon perceived that they were fighting, not for themselves, but for the captain whom they had chosen. Almost immediately after his victory, he began to exercise an insupportable tyranny over Pisa and Lucca. Fearing much more the citizens of these republics than the enemies of the states, he, on the slightest suspicion, employed the utmost severity against all the most illustrious families. At Lucca, he threw into a dungeon Castruccio Castracani, the most distinguished of the Ghibelline nobles, who had recently returned to that city with a brilliant reputation, acquired in the wars of France and Lombardy. A simultaneous insurrection at Lucca and Pisa, on the 10th of April, 1316, delivered these cities from Uguccione dà Faggiuola and his son.[d]

The Pisans put Uguccione’s partisans to death, and gave the government to Count Gaddo della Gherardesca. This news arrived at Lucca when the Lucchese were tumultuously demanding the liberty of Castruccio. Uguccione not daring to oppose the general wish, Castruccio was taken from prison and presented to the public loaded with chains. At this spectacle the people grew still more furious; Uguccione was obliged to fly; and the chains being taken off Castruccio, the latter, by a rare good fortune, was declared lord of Lucca on the very day which had been destined for his death.[e]

CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI

Castruccio was the scion of a Ghibelline stock, and was devoted to the Ghibelline cause; for four years successively he was freely elected to command the Lucchese with almost sovereign power. He knew men and how to govern them; knew what enmities to despise or punish, and what friendships to win and retain. As a daring soldier and skilful general he was beloved by the troops, for he was not blind to merit and knew how to reward it, but cared little about the morality of his followers if they only did their duty and quietly submitted to the rigid discipline that he established and enforced. No man was more beloved by the people or more generally popular with every class of citizen; they admired his talents and were proud of his fame. In 1320 he felt so confident of his position in the public mind that he ventured to expel the Avocati, who with about 180 great Guelfic families now bid adieu to their country, and then boldly demanded the supreme authority; out of 210 senators there was but one voice against him, and the people unanimously confirmed this election. He was therefore a legitimate ruler. His economical management of the public revenue was exemplary and productive; he had amassed great treasure, and his system of military honours and rewards heightened and improved the warlike spirit of the people until it had acquired a more professional character. All the neighbouring predaceous chiefs were allured to his standard by the hope of future conquests, and rough and unscrupulous as they were he made them all bend to his discipline.

Thus prepared on every hand to begin that career of ambition to which he felt himself more than equal, Matteo Visconti’s proposal was warmly received, and Philip of Valois’ expedition with the ready assistance of the Guelfic league were together considered an infringement of the general peace, or at least a sufficient excuse for retaliation on the part of the Ghibellines. Uguccione Faggiuola was dead, a circumstance that heightened the anxiety of both Castruccio and the Florentines, particularly the latter, whose dread of this veteran chief, blinding them as it did to the dangerous ambition of his successor, had never ceased since the disaster of Montecatini.

[Sidenote: [1320-1321 A.D.]]

Such was the state of affairs in April, 1320, when Castruccio Castracani with some Pisan auxiliaries suddenly occupying Cappiano, Montefalcone, and the bridges of the Gusciano, broke into the Florentine territory carrying death and devastation as far as Cerreto Guidi, Vinci, and Empoli; then, getting possession of Santa Maria a Monte by treachery, returned in triumph to Lucca. Afterwards, invading Lunigiana and Garfagnana, he dispossessed Spinetto Malespina of several places necessary for his own military operations and then marched with all his force to aid the siege of Genoa. This city still maintained a fierce and bloody struggle with its own exiles and the Lombard Ghibellines; war raged not only round the walls but throughout the whole Riviera, or coast district; it extended to Sicily and Naples and involved even more distant countries in its action, so that the siege of Troy itself, as Villani[d] asserts, was hardly equal to it for heroic deeds, marvellous exploits, and hard-fought battles by land and water, without any cessation either in summer or winter.

The Florentines determined to prevent a junction that would probably have settled the fate of Genoa, therefore made a powerful diversion in the Lucchese states which compelled Castruccio to return ere he had joined the besiegers; avoiding an action they retreated to the frontier at Fucecchio while the enemy halted in front of Cappiano, both armies remaining nearly inactive until the advancing season drove them into winter quarters. To make amends for this inglorious campaign, more vigorous measures were pursued and an alliance was concluded with the marquis Spinetto Malespina, who, although a Ghibelline, had been too much injured by Castruccio on account of his friendship for Uguccione not to seize the first opportunity of revenge. Florentine troops were despatched to his aid, yet Castruccio was not apprehensive of anything in that quarter, but prepared with the help of a powerful body of Lombard Ghibellines for a more serious struggle on the side of Florence and soon marched to raise the siege of Monte Vettolini at the head of sixteen hundred men-at-arms. The Florentines, having only half that number, immediately retired and allowed him to devastate their territory with impunity for the last twenty days of June, after which he retired to chastise the Malespini in Lunigiana.

Discontent ran high in Florence and the retiring seigniory were much censured for their feeble conduct; the Agubbio faction was still powerful, and probably the inconvenience of a fluctuating administration was beginning to be felt, as the foreign affairs with a more complex character embraced a wider circle; to remedy this, twelve counsellors, two for each sesto under the denomination of “Buonuomini” were added to the new seigniory, but to continue six months in office instead of two, and without whose sanction nothing important could be undertaken. To check also the increasing intimacy, and consequent favouritism between citizens and foreign officers of state, which led to great abuse, it was decreed that no stranger who brought a kinsman in his suite could have a place in the commonwealth, and that until ten years from his resignation of office he could not be re-elected. Some taxes were then reduced, the gold and silver currency reformed, and preparations made for a fresh campaign. Azzo of Brescia was appointed captain-general; one hundred and sixteen knights and one hundred and sixty mounted crossbowmen were enlisted and under the command of Jacopo da Fontana soon checked Castruccio’s incursions so as to protect the line of the Gusciana. But Philip of Valois’ expedition had in the meanwhile failed, and in Lombardy the Tuscans were defeated at Bardo in the Val-di-Taro, their captain the marquis of Cavalcabò was killed, Cremona recaptured, and Visconti everywhere victorious.

[Sidenote: [1321-1323 A.D.]]

In Florence one of the first public measures in 1321 was to complete the whole circuit of public walls and strengthen it by flanking towers fifty-five feet high at regular intervals of more than one hundred and eighty feet apart; a work that was doubtless accelerated by their apprehension of Castruccio, which had now taken a more alarming character from some recent proceedings at Pistoia.

This ever-vexed city, harassed by external war and inward troubles, finally elected the abbate da Pacciana de’ Tedici, a tool of Castruccio, as their ruler; he was a weak intriguing man who, catching at a popular opinion, was suddenly floated into power by the stormy multitude without ballast enough to steady him. Castruccio made good use of him, and a truce was suddenly concluded with that leader against all the influence of Florence, by which, according to Villani[d] (though unnoticed by the anonymous author of the _Istorie Pistolese_),[f] an annual tribute of three thousand florins was to be paid by Pistoia. The dread of Castruccio was rapidly and generally spreading.

FLORENCE MENACED

He fortified Lucca, and prepared to invade Florentine territory. The Florentines sent a strong detachment of troops into Lombardy on condition that in the following summer the Genoese and other Guelfic powers were to attack Lucca on every side and annihilate the rising power of Castruccio. Scarcely had an army been assembled for this purpose, when intelligence arrived that their principal condottiere, Jacopo di Fontanabuona, had passed over with all his following to the enemy; he had been commissioned to make himself master of Buggiano and other places by treachery, but failed, and soon after joined Castruccio with two hundred men-at-arms.

Castruccio with this reinforcement and the possession of his enemy’s secrets crossed the Gusciano on the 13th of June, 1323, attacked Fucecchio and other places, ravaged the surrounding country, then passed the Arno, devastated the territory of San Miniato and Montepopoli with all the vale of Elsa, and marched quietly back to Lucca. On July 1st he suddenly reappeared in front of Prato, only ten miles from the capital, with six hundred men-at-arms and four thousand infantry; the citizens sent in terror to Florence for help, but paralysed by Fontanabuona’s treachery she was nearly destitute of regular troops. The citizens however had not quite forgotten the use of arms, and their spirit was still high; the shops were immediately closed, a candle was placed at the Prato gate, and every individual liable to serve summoned to the ranks ere it burned out, under the penalty of losing a limb; a proclamation being issued to announce that all exiles who instantly joined the army would be pardoned and restored to their country. By these prompt measures, twenty-five hundred men-at-arms and twenty thousand infantry were in the field round Prato on the 2nd of July, only one day after Castruccio’s appearance, four thousand of whom were exiles!

[Sidenote: [1323-1324 A.D.]]

Castruccio’s rash advance with so small a force might have ended disastrously if the Florentines had been well commanded; but he retired in the night and made an unmolested retreat to Serravalle, the discord in the Florentine camp, an offset from civil dissension, having saved him. Thus ended this singular campaign in which the army scarcely saw an enemy, but which brought back danger and revolution to the state. The Florentines now added three subalterns (_pennoniere_) to each urban company, so that the whole force became infinitely more flexible and divisible and better adapted to real service.

He soon recommenced his successful incursions, but was generally too weak to oppose the united strength of Florence; the moral effect of his character was however very imposing in both states and nothing was too daring either for his arms or conscience. His Ghibelline allies the Pisans were deeply engaged in war with the king of Aragon for the defence of Sardinia, which offered him a favourable occasion as he thought of becoming their master; the conspiracy was however discovered; the conspirator Betto or Benedetto Malepra de’ Lanfranchi with many others lost his head; all friendship or alliance with Lucca was renounced by Pisa, and 10,000 golden florins were offered for the head of Castruccio. About two months afterwards he suddenly left his capital at the head of a small detachment on the 19th of December, and by the treachery of an inhabitant of Fucecchio was admitted at night into the town during a deluge of rain, which at first concealed his aggression; the subsequent struggle was fierce and bloody; a great part of the place was taken, but alarm fires on the towers brought strong reinforcements from the neighbouring garrisons; Castruccio held on with desperate resolution against an overwhelming force of soldiers and citizens until, wounded, fatigued, and hopeless of success, he sullenly retired with the loss of banners and horses, but still unmolested; for the glory of repulsing him was deemed sufficient, and the habitual dread of his prowess left no appetite for a second encounter.

[Illustration: SAN MINIATO, FLORENCE]

Nothing of importance occurred between Castruccio and the Florentines in the following year, for the former was busy with his intrigues against Pisa and Pistoia, and the latter employed reducing some petty chieftains in the Mugello, but still more seriously on the side of Arezzo where the bishop was rapidly gaining ground against the Guelfs. Five hundred men-at-arms were engaged in France, and other preparations making for the day of battle which the Florentines foresaw must come before Castruccio could be arrested in the rapid course of his ambition; a new confederacy was therefore formed in March between Florence, Bologna, Siena, Perugia, Orvieto, and Agubbio; with other communities and Guelfic lords, for the recovery of Città di Castello, which was to be effected by a combined army of three thousand men-at-arms levied for three years, a great part of which was maintained by the Florentines.

[Sidenote: [1324-1325 A.D.]]

Castruccio meanwhile had moved towards the Pistoian Mountains, and repairing the castle of Brandelli, whence there was a view of both Pistoia and Florence, called it Bellosguardo and gazed with a longing eye on either city. One was only his own in perspective, the other was almost in his grasp; and Filippo Tedici, who had driven his uncle from the government of Pistoia, and was in treaty with Castruccio and Florence, pretending the greatest alarm, demanded assistance of the latter, with whose aid he hoped to better his bargain. A body of troops was directly sent under command of the podesta, but discovering his object, this officer returned in disgust; upon which he made his terms with Castruccio, and Pistoia was suffered for a while to exist as an independent state. Florence had attempted to gain it by treachery but failed, and Castruccio, tired of Filippo’s intrigues, offered him 10,000 florins and his daughter Dialta in marriage for immediate possession of the city. This secured Filippo, who before daylight on the 5th of May, 1325, opened a gate to the Lucchese general; but the latter distrusting his ally would not enter until he had actually unhinged it, and then took possession of the place in the manner of the time by scouring the streets at the head of his cavalry and trampling upon all that came in his way.

The fall of Pistoia was an event of great importance; equally distant from Florence and Lucca and on the confines of both, it formed a rallying-point for the armies of either, and its friendship or enmity had considerable influence on every operation of the war; hence the eagerness of Florence at all times to preserve her authority there, and hence the general consternation when intelligence of its capture arrived at the capital.

THE FLORENTINE ARMY UNDER RAYMOND OF CARDONA

She might have bought it for the same price or even less than Castruccio, because Filippo felt himself too insecure not to make both friends and money by the sacrifice of his country; but failing, either from want of skill or perhaps dishonesty in her agents, she repeated her attempts to surprise the place, thus forcing him into the arms of Castruccio, and he poisoned his own wife to complete the union. Rumours of this event reached Florence while the magistrates were engaged in public festivities on the occasion of two foreign officers of state being dubbed knights by the republic, and the banquet was going on in the church of San Piero Scheraggio when the news was confirmed. In a moment the whole assembly fell into confusion, the tables were overturned, and every man was immediately armed and in his saddle; believing that a part of the town might still hold out, a rapid march was made as far as Prato, where hearing the whole truth they returned dejected and mortified to Florence. The following day brought some consolation in the arrival of Raymond of Cardona, who had been sent in the preceding November from Milan on a mission to Rome; he had promised to return, but was absolved by the pope and sent instantly to Florence as commander-in-chief of the republican forces. His presence gave new spirit to the people, which was increased by the capture of Artimino on the 22nd of May.

One of the finest armies ever assembled by the republic soon took the field at the enormous expense of 3000 florins a day; the city bells tolled as a declaration of war; the public standard waved over San Piero a Monticelli; the _soldati_ or mercenary troops first moved to Prato, and the _cavallate_ with all the mass of civic infantry joined them on the following morning. One of the city bells which had been captured at Montale broke while in the act of sounding; three weeks before there had been a violent earthquake in Florence, and the following evening a broad stream of fiery vapour flared over the city. All these circumstances were dwelt upon with anxious and gloomy foreboding by numbers of citizens over whose mind the talents and success of Castruccio had gained a superstitious ascendency. The cavalry consisted of 500 gentlemen of the highest rank in Florence under the name _cavallate_ or men-at-arms on horseback, all magnificently equipped and a hundred of them mounted on _destrieri_, the largest and finest war-horses of the time and which few could afford to purchase; none cost less than 150 golden florins [nearly £200 or $1000], yet there were 300 of these, natives and strangers, in the Florentine army. Besides the cavallate there were 1500 foreign cavalry in the pay of Florence, of whom 800 were French and German gentlemen of the highest rank and distinction; the general-in-chief, Raymond of Cardona, a Spanish condottiere, and his lieutenant, Borneo of Burgundy, were followed by a troop of 230 Catalan and Burgundian cavalry, and lastly there were 450 Gascons, French, Flemings, Italians, and men of Provence picked with great care from the veteran companies of Masnadieri, and all experienced soldiers. Fifteen thousand well-appointed infantry, between citizens and rural troops, completed the personal force of this fine army, and 800 canvas pavilions and other great tents, with 6000 _ronzini_ and baggage horses attended its movements.

[Illustration: THE PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE]

With the exception of 200 Sienese cavalry no allies had yet joined, but hostilities commenced on the 17th of June by devastating the Pistoian territory up to the gates of the capital, capturing many small places, insulting Castruccio, who was in that city, by running for the Palio under its walls, and sending him repeated challenges to battle. Castruccio dryly answered that it was not the right time, and the Florentines marched directly to besiege Tizzano, a strong town about seven miles from Pistoia on the road to Florence; there every preparation was apparently made for a regular siege, while Cardona on the 9th of July sent his lieutenant Borneo with 500 picked men towards Fucecchio; and to engage Castruccio’s attention a strong detachment was at the same time directed to alarm Pistoia and the surrounding country. Borneo was joined at Fucecchio by 150 Lucchese exiles and a numerous infantry, besides some reinforcements from the garrisons in Val d’Arno. Carrying with him a pontoon bridge, apparently the first noticed by the early historians of these campaigns, he threw it silently over the Gusciana at Rosaiuolo during the night, and the whole division crossed that river without being perceived by the garrisons at the bridge of Cappiano or Montefalcone, scarcely a mile above and below the point of passage.

RAYMOND TEMPORISES

On hearing this, Raymond suddenly quitted Tizzano, passed the lofty range of Monte Albano, and by night-fall had joined his detachment and invested the fortified bridge and fortress of Cappiano. This was an unexpected stroke for the Lucchese general, who believed himself safe in that quarter, and would appear to have doubted the possibility of so sudden a passage of the Gusciana by any soldiers; so that this operation increased the fame of Cardona, the confidence of the league, and the spirit of the Florentines. His frontier line being thus broken, Castruccio immediately quitted Pistoia, and entering the Val di Nievole threw his army in position amongst the hills above Vivinaia, which he endeavoured to strengthen while he pressed for the co-operation of all his friends; Pisa disregarded this summons in consequence of his recent treachery; but from Lucca, Arezzo, La Marca, Romagna, and the Maremma he assembled thirteen hundred men-at-arms and a numerous infantry, with which he reinforced all his positions from Vivinaia to Porcari, strengthening the latter with additional works and troops to secure his communications with Lucca; and finally cut a trench from the hills to the marsh of Bientina which was guarded with the utmost solicitude.

The bridge of Cappiano was taken by Cardona on the 13th of July; the town itself next fell; two days after, Montefalcone was summoned and reduced in eight days, and thus the whole line of the Gusciana was cleared of the enemy. This rapid success brought numerous reinforcements from Siena, Perugia, Bologna, Agubbio, Grosseto, Montepulciano, Chiusi, Colle, San Gimignano, Volterra, San Miniato, Faenza, Imola, Count Battifolle, and the exiles from Lucca and Pistoia; all eager to assist in overwhelming this formidable chieftain; so that the army had already swelled to 3454 men-at-arms and a proportionate number of infantry. With this immense force Cardona advanced, and on the 3rd of August invested the strong fortress of Altopascio, which crowns a hill rising from the marshes north of the Bientina Lake; the place, although impregnable to an assault, was so damaged by the battering engines and so poisoned by heat, sickness, and the horrid stench of filthy matter which it was then usual to cast into besieged towns, that on hearing of the discomfiture of a Lucchese detachment sent from Pistoia to make a diversion towards Florence it immediately surrendered.

The capture of this place was succeeded by doubts, discussion, and delay; the troops had become sickly from heats and malaria, and the army proportionably reduced; discontent and intrigues were plentiful, and Castruccio, quick in the use of corruption, seized the favourable moment to bribe two