The Eleventh and Twelfth Books of Giovanni Villani’s “New Chronicle” 9781501514265, 9781501518423

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The Eleventh and Twelfth Books of Giovanni Villani’s New Chronicle

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture XXXI Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture LXXIX

The Eleventh and Twelfth Books of Giovanni Villani’s New Chronicle Translated from the Italian by Rala I. Diakité and Matthew T. Sneider

The book has been published with the support of the Fitchburg State University‘s Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Endowment.

ISBN 978-1-5015-1842-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-5015-1426-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-1408-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2021942797 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Alessandro Streghi, Storie di Lucca in ottava rima, f.193r, sec. XV, Biblioteca Statale di Lucca, ms. 2629. Su concessione del Ministero della Cultura – Biblioteca Statale di Lucca. Esplicito divieto di ulteriori riproduzioni o duplicazioni con qualsiasi mezzo. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Rala expresses her most profound gratitude to Nick, Tanty, and Sali, who have encouraged and supported her work on this project. Matthew expresses all his love and gratitude to Cristina and Emilia.

Table of Contents Matthew T. Sneider Introduction I – Historical Introduction

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Rala I. Diakité Introduction II – The Transmission of Villani’s Nuova Cronica: Manuscripts, Rewritings, and Print 17 Notes on the Translation

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The Eleventh and Twelfth Books of Giovanni Villani’s New Chronicle Bibliography Index

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Introduction I – Historical Introduction Introduction The world of the New Chronicle is vast, centered in Florence but stretching to the horizons of the world known to the citizens of that cosmopolitan city. The interests of its author are many, but one constant is his concern with tracing the impact of events in this broader world on Florence. The present two books reveal this story in all its complexity, with particular emphasis on the challenges posed to the city by dangerous foreign enemies.¹

Uguccione and Montecatini In the background of many events described in Books Eleven and Twelve lies the 1310 descent of Henry VII into Italy. Although Dante Alighieri famously saw him as a figure destined to restore harmony to the war-torn peninsula, the consequences of his discesa were far from peaceful: his coming touched off bitter conflict as Ghibelline forces crystallized around Henry and Guelph forces crystallized around Robert of Naples. Florence was a main protagonist in this conflict and its clash with the emperor culminated in a failed siege of the city in 1312.² The death of the emperor in 1313 did nothing to free Florence from danger, for the city immediately faced a new challenge from Pisa, now under the power of Uguccione della Faggiuola.³ Uguccione, a member of an aristocratic family who had served the emperor during his recent campaigns, was emblematic of the turn to signoria, one-man rule, which was undermining the more broadly based power structure of communes throughout Northern Italy.⁴ By 1314 Uguccione had seized control of Lucca and was threatening Pistoia, presenting a di For detailed treatments of the following history , treatments which helped structure the present introduction, see Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze and Schevill, History, 194– 225.  See Bowsky, Henry VII in Italy, and especially 49 – 50 (Dante’s praise of Henry) and 171– 77 (war with Florence).  For Uguccione della Faggiuola’s origins and rise to power, see Meek, “Uguccione della Faggiuola.” See also Vigo, Uguccione, 4– 15 and Schevill, History, 197– 198.  For the turn to signoria in the years following the death of Henry VII, see Schevill, History, 194– 196 and Green, Castruccio, 8 – 10. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514265-001

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rect challenge to Florentine primacy in Tuscany. Whatever may have been the stakes of this challenge—plunder, territory, trade—our chronicler saw it through the lens of party conflict. Uguccione’s power rose to its zenith during a period when hatred between Guelphs and Ghibellines had been intensified by Henry’s descent into Italy, and when Villani first mentions him in the ninth book of the chronicle he describes him as a “Ghibelline and enemy of the Florentines.”⁵ Uguccione’s successes therefore menaced more than the position of Florence as the dominant city in Tuscany—they also threatened the party of the Church and gave hope to the city’s exiles, who fought alongside him.⁶ Uguccione’s greatest triumph was his victory over Florence and her allies at the Battle of Montecatini on 29 August 1315.⁷ Uguccione’s Pisan and Lucchese forces, supplemented by German knights, may have been outnumbered but his generalship and the skill of his soldiers won the day as they attacked and scattered the poorly organized forces of Florence. Villani describes the outcome of the battle as a “painful defeat” and notes the great losses, especially among the houses of the grandi and of the grandi popolari, but emphasizes his city’s resolve in the face of defeat: The Florentines were not dismayed by this defeat. Rather, with vigor they set about restoring their city of Florence, laying new plans, and acquiring men-at-arms and money; they built palisades at their moats to defend themselves; and they sent to King Robert for a war captain.

Indeed, he suggests, the defeat was in some sense a victory, in that it did not pave the way to the seizure of the city by its exiles or lead to a collapse in the Florentine way of life, or in Florentine prosperity: [T]he Florentines maintained their defences against Uguccione, without losing power or lordship or castello or [any] other possession. And so, the Ghibellines and the Florentine exiles were disappointed, for they had believed that they would capture the city after the defeat. Indeed, the opposite occurred, for the harm it caused was not so great, and in Florence itself it was as though no defeat had occurred, for the artisans never left off doing their work.⁸

 Villani, Nuova Cronica, IX: 96.  Villani notes that Uguccione’s forces at Montecatini included “all the Ghibellines of Tuscany and exiles of Florence.” Villani, Nuova Cronica, X: 71.  On Montecatini and its consequences, see Meek “Uguccione della Faggiuola”, Vigo, Uguccione, 74– 79, and Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, 800 – 810.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, X: 72 and 74.

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Castruccio and Altopascio Among the combatants at the Battle of Montecatini was Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli, condottiere and military supporter of Uguccione. Castruccio was born into the influential Castracani family of Lucca—a family with roots among the city’s merchants and bankers, but a family that also boasted a connection with the noble Antelminelli. As a young man, Castruccio followed his father into exile and spent the early fourteenth century as a wandering soldier-offortune, fighting under the banner of King Philip the Fair and a series of masters in Italy. When Henry VII launched his invasion of Italy, Castruccio was one of the many Luccan exiles who gave him their support.⁹ It was in the wake of Henry’s expedition that Castruccio developed his connection to Uguccione, who recognized his abilities and chose him as a “close collaborator.” Castruccio was in Lucca when that city was violently seized and plundered by the Pisan signore—indeed he was directly involved in this terrible event.¹⁰ Afterwards the ambitious Castruccio began to acquire a base of power as viscount of the Bishop of Luni and vicar of the Communes of Sarzana and Sarzanello (titles later supplemented by an imperial vicariate granted by Frederick the Fair). It was with these titles that Castruccio led a contingent of troops from the Lunigiana at the Battle of Montecatini.¹¹ In early April 1316, a series of dramatic events saw Castruccio emerge as the most threatening of Florence’s enemies. Uguccione, fearing the ambition of the Lucchese condottiere, and reacting to acts of violence he had committed, had him arrested and imprisoned in Lucca. According to Villani, Uguccione’s son Ranieri, his vicar in Lucca, was unwilling to carry out the death sentence as he had been ordered given Castruccio’s support in the city. He therefore summoned his father, who departed Pisa to ride to Lucca, only to learn that Pisa had risen in rebellion against him. Having lost Pisa, he then faced a second rebellion in Lucca. Castruccio was released from prison and quickly took control of the city, while Uguccione and his son departed to take refuge with Cangrande della Scala, fortune having turned rapidly and decisively against them.¹²

 For this see Luzzati, “Castruccio Castracani.” See also Green, Castruccio, 38 – 48.  For this see Luzzati, “Castruccio Castracani.” See also Green, Castruccio, 48 – 60.  For this see Luzzati, “Castruccio Castracani.” See also Green, Castruccio, 60 – 61.  For these events, see Meek “Uguccione della Faggiuola”, Luzzati, “Castruccio Castracani”, Vigo, Uguccione, 86 – 88, and Green, Castruccio, 72– 74. Villani’s account is in Nuova Cronica, X: 78.

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The triumphant Castruccio worked to secure his power in Lucca and the Lunigiana and in 1322 began to build a strong bastion for his lordship—the castello dell’Augusta.¹³ At the same time, as the “reference point for all the Ghibellines of Tuscany”, he campaigned for the imperial party and came into conflict with Florence.¹⁴ His 1325 assumption of power over Pistoia, whose government he consigned to Filippo Tedici, profoundly shocked the Florentines and touched off a new, more serious, conflict with the city on the Arno. The Florentines, under the command of Raimondo de Cardona, pushed toward Luccan territory and occupied the key fortress of Altopascio, midway between Pistoia and Lucca. According to Villani, however, the Florentine forces tarried too long at the castello and began to lose men to flight and sickness. Castruccio, meanwhile, kept his forces in secure defensive points and waited for reinforcements from Ghibellines north of the Apennines. Castruccio’s men, supported by soldiers led by Azzone Visconti of Milan (paid in coin and encouraged by the fair women of Lucca, according to our chronicler), faced the Florentines on 23 September 1325. Fortune was not with the Florentine troops that day and in “a short time” the city’s forces were “routed and defeated” and began a desperate flight from the battlefield, pursued by the forces of Castruccio. Raimondo de Cardona, the Florentine commander, was wounded in the fighting and captured, then imprisoned in Lucca. By the end of the day thousands of Florentine soldiers had been killed or captured and the train of the army—including, most grievously, the Florentine carroccio— had been taken by the Ghibellines. Castruccio’s victory was followed by a rapid crumbling of Florentine defenses that allowed him to penetrate all the way to Florence.¹⁵ Villani’s description of the battle is extensive, and explains the loss in terms of generalship, morale, and betrayal (he claims the commander of the second line abandoned his post out of loyalty to the Visconti). As always, however, our chronicler sees even mightier forces at work—he declares: And so, in a short time, false fortune turned against the Florentines, [she] who, turning [her] false face of felicity on them, had flattered the city with such pomp and victory. But it was most certainly the judgment of God against enormous sins to cast down such prideful power, and such a noble cavalry and valiant popolo, as were at first the Florentines in the said host, because of the more base among them, and the excommunicates among

 For this see Luzzati, “Castruccio Castracani.” See also Green, Castruccio, 79 – 122.  For this see Luzzati, “Castruccio Castracani.” See also Green, Castruccio, 123 – 161.  For the Battle of Altopascio, see Luzzati, “Castruccio Castracani”, Green, Castruccio, 167– 82, Schevill, History, 201– 203, and Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, 1015 – 20. Villani’s description is in Nuova Cronica, X: 306.

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them; and so one should not trust in the power of men, but only in the pleasure and the will of God, and in His disposition.¹⁶

Book Eleven Castruccio and the Bavarian Villani begins Book Eleven by describing the coming of Charles of Calabria to Florence in 1326, sent by his father Robert the Wise to serve as the city’s signore in the wake of Altopascio. The chronicler details the grand company accompanying the lord and asks the reader to note this great undertaking of the Florentines, for, having suffered so many afflictions and such losses of men and possessions, and so many ruptures all together, in less than one year, through their efforts and money, they had brought to Florence such a lord and such barons and such chivalry, and also the papal legate—and this was thought a great thing by all Italians, and by everyone, wherever it was known.¹⁷

As glorious as the scene may have been, in the chronicler’s view the duke’s arrival had a very dangerous consequence: it spurred the Ghibelline powers of Northern Italy to invite Louis IV, King of the Romans, to march into Italy. Part of Book Eleven records the alarming events connected with this enterprise, as the “Bavarian”—our chronicler never dignifies him with an unqualified imperial title—is crowned with the iron crown and then descends through the peninsula toward Rome. Villani dwells with particular interest on the Bavarian’s time in that city—seat of popes, capital of emperors, mother of Florence. He pays special attention to the various ceremonies whereby Louis sought to establish and display his power as emperor. He gives us a sense of their majesty, their participants lifted above the audience on a stage set up against Saint Peter’s Basilica, but he clearly sees them as counterfeit, as masks for heresy and stubborn disobedience. Indeed, he asks the reader to observe that many clerics, prelates and friars of all orders came with the Bavarian to Rome who were rebels and schismatics against Holy Church, the bilge water of the heretics of Christianity in defiance of Pope John¹⁸

 Villani, Nuova Cronica, X: 306.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 1.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 55.

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and to note the arrogance of the damned Bavarian, since you will not find in any ancient or new chronicle that any Christian emperor ever had himself crowned except by the pope or by his legate, either before or after, even those who were very opposed to the Church—only this Bavarian.¹⁹

Present at Louis’s first coronation ceremony in Rome, during which he was acclaimed as emperor by the people of the city, was Florence’s mortal enemy, the victor of Altopascio, Castruccio Castracani.²⁰ The relationship between the Bavarian and the Luccan signore was deeply threatening to Florence. During the descent toward Rome, Castruccio assisted Louis in his capture of the city of Pisa, and in return Louis recognized Castruccio’s control of Lucca and Pistoia and granted him the title of “duke.” During this period of triumph, Villani informs us that the two journeyed to Pistoia and that Castruccio showed the Bavarian “how Pistoia was on the border and close enough for launching attacks on Florence”—a clear statement of their future intentions.²¹ In the wake of the imperial coronation, Villani gives us a Castruccio at the height of his glory, dubbed as a knight with great honors, confirmed as duke, and made Count of the Palace and senator of Rome. More importantly than all of this, he was lord and master of the court of the said emperor and was even more feared and obeyed than the Bavarian.

Indeed, according to Villani, he dressed his very body with emblems of triumph: he had a garment of crimson samite made with letters of gold on the front spelling out the words “What God Wills” and on the back “What God Wills Will Be Done.” For our chronicler, of course, this garment is a perfect symbol of Castruccio’s folly: “And so, he himself prophesied the future judgments of God.”²² As Louis Green notes, the first of these “judgments” arrived immediately after Louis IV’s coronation, when, through a combination of good fortune and the generalship of Filippo Sangineto, Duke Charles’s deputy, soldiers fighting on Florence’s behalf managed to capture the city of Pistoia. Villani describes Castruccio as sorrowing for the loss of the city, fearing for the stability of his other possessions and regretting his decision to accompany Louis IV to Rome. His response was to depart immediately, and Villani represents this departure as a  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 56.  For Castruccio’s relationship to Louis of Bavaria and the events described below, see Green, Castruccio, 210 – 59 and Schevill, History, 204– 207.  Green, Castruccio, 218 – 22 and Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 38.  Green, Castruccio, 225 – 26 and Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 60.

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turning point in the story: without the fortunate Castruccio at his side, Louis could not hope to carry out his plans for invading the Regno. Indeed, after some campaigning in Campagna, he was forced to abandon his plans for an invasion, owing to his lack of money, a scarcity of provisions, and the defense provided by Charles of Calabria. Louis retreated to Rome, where his power had lost its luster for the Romans. He eventually left the city, followed by a coda romana of jeering citizens, and made his way north to Viterbo and then to Todi.²³ In Villani’s view it was during Louis’s time at Todi that Castruccio and the Bavarian posed their greatest threat to Florence. Present in Todi were Florentine exiles and Ghibellines from all over Tuscany, who urged the emperor to move his troops to Arezzo and then on to besiege Florence. Their plan was for Louis to arrive from the south and Castruccio from Prato; meanwhile the Ubaldini and the Ghibellines of Romagna would close the roads to the north. The exiles represented to the emperor that once he had defeated the city of Florence (which was very much within his power) he would be Lord of Tuscany and of Lombardy and then he could quite easily conquer the Kingdom of Puglia, taking it from King Robert.

Villani tells us that the Florentines were terribly afraid, particularly because it was near harvest time, and so they would be hard put to supply the city in the event of a siege, but despite their fear of being surrounded by “such powerful tyrants and enemies,” our chronicler records the resolve with which they prepared their city for the worst: they reinforced their castelli, they gathered up provisions from the countryside, they sent for their allies, and they kept careful guard over their city “by day and night.” In sum, like “bold men they were ready to endure every suffering and every deprivation in order to keep their city, with the aid of God.”²⁴ Indeed, according to Villani, they owed their suvival to God, who turned His favor toward Florence by foiling the designs of the Bavarian and liberating it from its terrible enemy Castruccio. The signore’s bold return to Tuscany from Rome had borne quick fruit, as he re-asserted his power over his possessions, assumed control of the city of Pisa, and besieged the Florentine soldiers in Pistoia, eventually forcing the city to surrender. His efforts at the siege, however, rushing from fortification to fortification under the “sun of Leo,” pushed him to his physical limits and despite his great strength and energy he died of an illness on 3 September, 1328. In his account of Castruccio’s death Villani describes  Green, Castruccio, 227– 30 and Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 59, 60, 78, 95.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 97.

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the lord with a mix of admiration and disapproval, as “wise” and “accomplished” but also as “cruel” and “vainglorious”—a man who fully believed that he would be Lord of Florence and King of Tuscany. As Louis Green suggests, for Villani, the lesson of Louis IV’s discesa and Castruccio’s various enterprises seems to be that good fortune cannot endure in the face of divine disapproval: punishment always falls in the end. Death took Castruccio suddenly, treating the great man in the same way it treats the small, and, although he confessed at the end, our chronicler insists that he died still burdened by his sin of disobedience to the Church.²⁵

Book Twelve Messer Mastino and Lucca At his death, Villani tells us, Castruccio told his gathered friends that they would “see upheaval.” This prediction proved very accurate, as a variety of powers competed in the suddenly transformed political and military context of Central Italy. Florence certainly reaped rewards from the death of the Lucchese signore, as the city presently overwhelmed a hungry and terrified garrison to capture the castello di Carmignano. But while this capture made many hope that “good fortune had turned its favor toward the Florentines,” the city still faced many challenges.²⁶ The conflict in these years sometimes made allies of former enemies and enemies of former allies. Villani, for example, spends much time recording the affairs of the papal legate Bertrand du Pouget in the Po River Valley. Pope John XXII had sent Du Pouget to Italy in 1320, with the task of reining in the power of the Ghibelline signori and reaffirming the power of the church. Although the crusade against the Visconti had mixed results (the forces of the church failed to capture the city of Milan and were defeated at Vaprio d’Adda in 1324), over the course of the decade he won control of a number of cities including Alessandria, Piacenza, Parma, and Reggio and in 1327 he assumed lordship of Bologna. At the beginning of the 1330s, however, the legate allied himself with King John of Bohemia, the son of Emperor Henry VII, who had begun his own discesa, during which he came to control many cities—including Lucca, which

 Green, Castruccio, 253 – 54, 258 – 59 and Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 87.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 103.

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drew him into conflict with Florence.²⁷ This alliance, which Villani suggests was part of a plot hatched by the Pope and the King of France to deprive the Italians of their “freedom”, provoked general opposition by the forces in Italy; indeed, the second half of Book Eleven records the strange spectacle of traditionally Guelph Florence allied with traditionally Ghibelline signori in an alliance embraced by King Robert to bring King John and the papal legate to heel.²⁸ The decline of the two political and military leaders, starting with the king’s loss of Brescia and Bergamo in 1332, continuing with the defeat of their combined forces by an army of the league at Ferrara in 1333, and ending with King John’s departure from Italy in 1333 and the legate’s expulsion from Bologna in 1334, left Florence with another problem: their league ally, the signore of Verona, Mastino II della Scala. Messer Mastino was the successor of Cangrande della Scala, who had expanded the Della Scala state through the acquisition of neighboring towns and castelli and their territories. The chronicle contains a fascinating chapter in which Villani describes the origins of the Della Scala, tracing the rise to power of Cangrande’s uncle Mastino I, whom he describes as a “large and strong person, and a brawler and a gambler” but “bold, worthy, and wise in his affairs” lifted to fortune through service to the tyrant Ezzelino da Romano. After his murder by “noble men” who resented the tyranny of one of such low birth, his brother Alberto I carried out a vendetta, having the assassins summoned to a meeting, reassuring them with carefully chosen words, and having them killed once military support arrived.²⁹ As Villani presents him, Mastino II is a worthy successor to such men: bold and audacious, driven by a desire for power, but also shrewd to the point of dishonesty.³⁰ Of foremost concern to Florence’s rulers was control of the city of Lucca, which was to have been its “prize of war” as a member of the Guelph-Ghibelline league.³¹ In the years following the death of Castruccio, Lucca had gone through a series of revolutions and had fallen under the power of a variety of signori. Castruccio intended that his sons succeed to his power, but the Bavarian acted quickly to depose them and took control of the city through an imperial vicar. The emperor’s power over the city, however, was short lived. A contingent of poorly paid German troops rebelled against him and took up residence in the nearby castello del Cerruglio. Eventually they raided the city, claimed it as

 For this, see Jugie, “Bertrando del Poggetto.” See also Ciaccio, Il Cardinale Legato. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 167, 170, 171, and 177.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 180 and XI: 202.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 95.  For Mastino, see Varanini, “Mastino della Scala.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 5.

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their own, and sought to sell it to the highest bidder, including the Florentines, who, to our chronicler’s disappointment, on several occasions failed to take advantage of the opportunity. Lucca, thereafter, experienced frequent uprisings, attempted coups d’etat, and changes of lord—it was successively controlled by Gherardino Spinola of Genoa, King John of Bohemia, the Rossi of Parma, and finally Mastino della Scala of Verona.³² Mastino acquired Lucca from the Rossi in November 1335, ostensibly on behalf of the Florentines but in Villani’s view, because “because he imagined, in his excessive and mad greed and due to evil counsel, that by means of the city of Lucca and its strength, he could gain the lordship of all of Tuscany.”³³ Villani supplies proof of the danger he posed when he describes a failed conspiracy that same month to overthrow the government of Fazio da Donoratico in Pisa and to give lordship of the city to Messer Mastino.³⁴ After a period of false negotiations, in 1336 Mastino’s intention to keep the city became clear and the Florentines, mindful of his threat to “pay a visit to the gates of Florence with four thousand armored knights on horseback, to beat down the pride of the Florentines” made ready for war—raising money, gathering troops, and calling for assistance from their allies.³⁵ As Villani sees it, the most important decision they made was to create an alliance with the city of Venice, an alliance which the chronicler presents as a great marvel and which he describes as “the greatest thing ever undertaken by the Commune of Florence.”³⁶ The progress of this war forms one of the main strands of the middle portion of Book Twelve. It began with a set of chevauchées by Messer Mastino’s troops into Florentine territory, but as the war unfolded the power of the alliance began to tell against the signore of Verona. Our chronicler sees the beginning of the end with the 1336 occupation of Bovolenta, which allied troops used to sow destruction around Padua and other possessions of Messer Mastino. The taking of Padua and the rebellion of Brescia in 1337 were two further successes, enormously increasing a confidence dramatically expressed by the allies’ decision to run a palio outside the walls of Verona in 1338—to humiliate Messer Mastino by demonstrating his impotence.

 For these shifting lordships and the events described below, see Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 17– 201 and Schevill, History, 215 – 217.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 40.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 42.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 44 and 45.  The alliance also included other powers opposed to the Della Scala, including the Visconti of Milan. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 49 and 50.

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And yet, it was precisely in this triumphant period that fortune began to turn her favor away from Florence. The alliance with Venice, so crucial for the fortunes of the league, ended when that city reached a separate arrangement with Messer Mastino, much to the dismay and anger of our chronicler—his city was forced to join this peace, which left Lucca under the control of Mastino.³⁷ Sometime later Florence narrowly avoided an outbreak of civil violence, as a conspiracy by certain grandi, supported by powers outside the city, was discovered and thwarted.³⁸ When Mastino lost the city of Parma to a rebellion by Azzo da Correggio in 1341, making it impossible for him to hold Lucca, it must have seemed as though the achievement of Florence’s great ambition was at hand. The city’s “rejoicing”, however, proved to be premature. Villani tells us that in a “wise” and “clever” move, Messer Mastino now offered to sell the city of Lucca to the highest bidder, ably pitting Florence against its rival Pisa; when Florence agreed to make this purchase for a rate, Villani tells us, far in excess of what it could have paid years earlier, Pisa reacted by placing the city under siege.³⁹ The war between Florence and Pisa included raids into the respective territories of the two cities but focused on Lucca. At the decisive moment, the city of Lucca was occupied by a handful of Florentine officials and their troops, but besieged by the Pisans. In 1341, an initial attempt to break the siege seemed headed for success, but the fortunes of war turned in the midst of the battle and Florence suffered a humiliating defeat. Villani describes how the city, full of resolve, set about gathering a “great and noble” host to lift the siege of Lucca, calling on its resources and drawing on the assistance of its allies (including the “avaricious” King Robert, who required that he be granted possession and lordship of the city in return for his assistance – although in our chronicler’s view his offer was quite inadequate). A combination of poor generalship, strong fortifications, bad weather, and low provisions, however, led to a shameful retreat and then in short order, disaster of disasters, the surrender of Lucca and the occupation of that city by Pisa in 1342. Villani describes the political consequences and the cosmic meaning of this great disaster: And so, because of what had happened the standing of the Florentines was greatly lowered, since they had more than four thousand good knights and an enormous popolo, and yet they lost such a contest and venture through poor counsel and poor leadership and gener-

 Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 90.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 118.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 127, 130 and 131.

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alship. Or rather, through the judgment of God, to lower the pride and greedy ingratitude of the Florentines and their leaders.⁴⁰

History and the Hand of God Our chronicler was directly involved in these dramatic events: he served as one of the Florentine hostages in Ferrara, guaranteeing Florentine payment of the price for Lucca. When the hostages learned, to their despair, of the failure of the first Florentine relief force to break the Pisan siege, one of their number approached our chronicler with a question: O you who have made and who are making a record of our past deeds, and of the other great events in the world—what could be the reason that God has permitted this hardship to befall us, since the Pisans are greater sinners than we, as they are traitors and as they have always been enemies and persecutors of Holy Church, while we have been its obedient supporters?⁴¹

Villani answered this question “as God inspired us, beyond our small wisdom,” responding that one of Florence’s sins was greater than those of the Pisans—a lack of faith and a lack of charity. When the hostage protests, pointing out the charitable generosity of the city, Villani responds that yes, as far as almsgiving is concerned Florence is generous, but this generosity only protects it from greater dangers. The problem is the Florentines’ deeper lack of charity, which is manifested in their ingratitude toward God, their lust for power and estate, their lack of loyalty toward one another and toward the commune. This is a very significant moment in the chronicle. First, the knight’s question reveals that our chronicler was clearly recognized as a repository of historical knowledge about his city, a public resource to be consulted in a moment of great need. Second, his answer reveals a view of history in which God intervenes, granting protection and visiting punishments as merited by the moral character of his peoples. The mestiere of the chronicler combines these two things, since to make the correct decisions, to merit divine protection, means having examples of past virtue and past vice.⁴²

 Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 140.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 135.  On this episode as evidence for community knowledge of the chronicler’s work, see Ragone, “Le scritture”, 804. On the role of the chronicler as an historian of the divine will, see Clarke, “The Villani Chronicles,” 121– 123, Green, “Historical Interpretation” and more extensively Green, Chronicle into History. For the “didactic” role of the chronicle as well as its “providential design”, see Rala Diakité’s introduction to Villani, The Final Book, 1-10 and especially 5-7.

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On one occasion in Book Eleven, for example, Villani provides examples of Florentine virtue, highlighting the piety and charitable generosity of two holy laypeople of Florence, regarded by the people as saints, and notes that “God performed clear miracles through each of these two men, healing the sick and the crippled and doing many other things.”⁴³ He also profiles a modest citizen “di piccolo affare” who, having no offspring, left a bequest to all the poor people of Florence—six denari per person were given to more than seventeen thousand people.⁴⁴ In Villani’s view, when the citizens of Florence imitate the lives of such men, they win the love and the assistance of God: in a famous chapter from Book Eleven he recounts the terrible grain shortage that took place in 1328-1330, so terrible that officials in the grain market had to be protected from rioters by summary amputation of limbs. After detailing the efforts of the commune to feed the popolo and to prevent any social disorder, he writes: And I tell the truth when I say that in no city were so many alms given to the poor by the wealthy and pious citizens as were given during that terrible famine by the good Florentines. Hence, without question, I reckon and believe that because of these alms and this provision for the poor popolo, God protected and will continue to protect our city from great adversities.

He goes on to write that he has spent so much time describing this matter to set an example for future citizens of our city, that they might take measures and provisions when our city falls into so perilous a famine, so that the popolo might be safe in the favor of and reverence for God, and so that the city might not fall into the dangers of an uprising or rebellion…⁴⁵

Charity and policy as a bulwark against starvation and social disorder, charity and policy as a means of maintaining the popolo in its proper relationship with God—this is the lesson Villani wishes to impart. Villani is equally concerned with pointing out the consequences of stubbornly clinging to vice, describing the divine punishments which are the wages of sin. The most extended meditation on this theme in this volume comes at the beginning of Book Twelve, where Villani describes a truly biblical disaster: the great Arno Flood of 1333. He notes that the flood hit the city when it was in “very powerful and in a good and prosperous state,” giving force to Christ’s warning: “Be vigilant, for you know neither the day nor the hour of God’s judgment.” Once the

 Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 176.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 163.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 119.

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rain began, nothing availed the terrified inhabitants of the city, not the ringing of church bells nor their cries of “Have pity! Have pity!” The devastation visited on the city, described in great detail, was greater than any since its destruction at the hands of “Totila flagellum Dei.”⁴⁶ This event, unparalleled in devastation and loss of life, offers Florence, and the chronicler, an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between the heavens and the world, between natural events and divine providence. The lengthy second chapter records the debates that took place in Florence about the causes and the meaning of the flood: “whether it had come about by natural causes or by the judgment of God.” The astrologers pointed to a complex series of movements and conjunctions that brought about the flood and focused its destruction on Florence (as opposed to Pisa). The theologians, by contrast, pointed out that even if the stars did have their part, the movements of the stars were piloted by God “since God is superior to every heavenly movement, and it is He who moves, sustains, and governs these [movements].” Although God’s reasons are utterly inscrutable to nostra fragile natura, the chronicler urges his readers to be conscious of God’s power to send His judgments down on the world “either out of His gracious mercy or for the execution of His justice.” The fate of Florentines was to suffer the latter, as punishment for their sins, which he recounts in great detail: pride, greed, envy, extravagance, gluttony, lust, ingratitude. Nevertheless, the flood also reveals the mercy of God, in that the city was not entirely destroyed, owing to the “prayers of the saintly and religious people living in our city and its territory, and because of the great alms that are given in Florence.” Villani urges his readers—carissimi fratelli e cittadini—to take heed of their danger and notes that reading and understanding his chronicle should motivate them to “correct themselves and leave off their vices and sins, due to the fear and the threats of God’s justice, for the present and in times to come; so that the anger of God spreads no further over us, and so that we can patiently and with strong spirit sustain adversities, recognizing God as omnipotent.”⁴⁷

 On this disaster and Florentine reactions, including those of Giovanni Villani, see the sources listed in this book, XII, 1– 2.  On this debate and Villani’s sense of the flood as divine punishment for a list of sins, see Salvestrini, “L’Arno e l’alluvione fiorentine del 1333”, 240 – 252 and especially 248 – 249 and Green, Chronicle, 33 – 34. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII:2.

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Towards the End of the World But it was precisely this kind of punishment that fell upon Florence at Lucca, first the defeat of the Florentine relief force, then the surrender of the city to the Pisans. The punishment was double because it damaged Florence in its material power and in its public image. One imagines that for Villani, the city deserved what it got, since he frequently inveighs against a lust for power and lordship that reveals dissatisfaction with the gifts of God. The twelfth book therefore ends on a “down note,” contrasting dramatically with such expressions of confidence in the future as the celebration of the birth of two new lion cubs, which were said to be “good and prosperous fortune for the Commune of Florence.”⁴⁸ But worse was to come for the city, as the chronicler notes in his conclusion to the book, when he points forward to one of the chief matters of the thirteenth book—the coming of the Duke of Athens to Florence. The “great” and “perilous” “changes” set in motion by the duke included a period of tyranny in Florence, enormously increased social tensions, and violence. These political disasters are painted into a larger canvas that includes such events as the beginning of the Hundred Years War between France and England, the failure of Florence’s greatest banks, the first manifestations of the Black Death, and a series of widespread and devastating earthquakes. The descriptions of the latter two events include miraculous occurrences that highlight the supernatural lessons they were intended to teach humanity: vermin rained from the heavens; men, women, and animals turned into marble-like statues; cross-shaped cracks appeared in a piazza, oozing blood and water. The call to repentance was clear, and some responded to it, as did the money lenders of one city who, in the wake of the earthquakes, forswore their sinful avarice and began to repay their ill-gotten gains. More telling, however, is the chronicler’s description of reactions to the first wave of the Black Death in the East. There, the many marvels caused non-Christian rulers to consider conversion to the true faith, until, that is, they saw that their Christian neighbors were suffering just as badly as they,

 On lion cubs, Villani’s shift from confidence to uncertainty, and the “decade of crisis” from 1338 to 1348, see Brucker, Florentine, 3 – 9. See also Rala Diakité’s introduction to Villani, The Final Book, 8 – 9. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 184 and XII: 67.

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whereupon they persisted in their “wickedness”—God’s wrath was universal, it afflicted everyone.⁴⁹ The relentlessness and universality of these afflictions, the blindness of many to their lessons, lend, as Louis Green has noted, a distinctly apocalyptic cast to Book Thirteen.⁵⁰ The very last words of the chronicle declare that the danger and the destruction caused by the earthquakes “are great signs and judgments of God, and [do not occur] without reason and divine permission, and [are] among those miracles and signs that Jesus Christ, preaching, foretold to his disciples as appearing at the end of the world.”⁵¹ Although he would not survive this age, dying of the plague in 1348, Villani undoubtedly took comfort that his voice would survive him, issuing its—perhaps final—call to his great city to redeem itself before God.

 Villani does tell us that at least some people, the inhabitants of a city whose waters were filled with crawling worms, did convert to Christianity. Villani, The Final Book, XIII: 84 (plague) and XIII: 122 and 123 (earthquakes).  On apocalypticism in the Nuova Cronica, and Villani’s description of these two disasters, see Green, Chronicle into History, 35 – 38 and especially 37.  On these words see Green, Chronicle into History, 38. Villani, The Final Book, XIII: 123.

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Introduction II – The Transmission of Villani’s Nuova Cronica: Manuscripts, Rewritings, and Print Introduction Giovanni Villani’s fourteenth-century Nuova Cronica represents an ambitious gathering of historical sources, ancient and contemporary, into a universal chronicle in the vernacular, with Florence at its center. Villani’s choice of the vernacular responded to the needs of a new and broader audience of Florentines, assuring the chronicle’s popularity, as well as its participation in the development of the written vernacular in a period noted for the works of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. The transmission of Villani’s text, from the early manuscript tradition through the modern print editions, is characterized by complexity, rewriting, and innovation. The manuscript tradition consists of a large number of codices, with a high degree of variation among them, revealing the interventions on the part of both author and audience. Within a half century of its appearance, the Nuova Cronica also inspired a series of abbreviations and reworkings within and across genres. The early print tradition of the Nuova Cronica, spurred by sixteenth-century debates around the codification of the Italian language, promoted Villani’s text as a model of vernacular prose, and editors turned their developing methods of philology and textual criticism to the task of presenting an authoritative version of the work. Giuseppe Porta, editor of the most recent critical edition of the text, took on the challenge of the complex manuscript tradition, producing an edition which, though not definitive on all counts, provides some answers and opens new avenues of inquiry. Our translation of Villani’s Nuova Cronica Books Eleven and Twelve, mirroring the author’s goal of accessibility, adds itself to the long journey of this text.

Villani’s Nuova Cronica and Its Early Readers Judging by the number of extant manuscripts, Villani’s Nuova Cronica enjoyed immense success, a sort of bestseller status, in its day and beyond. With his

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514265-002

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111 manuscripts,⁵² Villani, if he were included, would come in tenth in Bernard Guenée’s ranking of great European historians of the Middle Ages, just below Bede, Cassiodorus, and Higdon. His chronicle also surpasses the near one hundred copies of Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum Historiale and far exceeds the forty-nine copies of Froissart’s chronicle. In Italy, it outshines contemporary chronicles both in vernacular and Latin, such as Dino Compagni’s Cronica, which has twenty extant copies, or the Gesta Imperatorum et Pontificum with its two copies.⁵³ As compared to works of literature, there are more copies of Villani’s chronicle than of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, with its less than seventy manuscripts,⁵⁴ though its numbers hardly approach the more than seven hundred extant manuscripts of Dante’s Commedia. While the Nuova Cronica recounts events both near and far,⁵⁵ its intended readers were most certainly Florentine. In the prologue, Villani identifies his ideal audience as “our citizens, now and to come”; his text will inspire the Florentines “in virtue and in great actions” for “the well-being and stability of our Republic” (my italics). Indeed, a majority of the manuscripts seem to have been produced in Florence and environs. This is evident from the inscriptions

 Giuseppe Porta, editor of the recent critical edition of the Nuova Cronica, compiled a census of manuscripts of Giovanni, Matteo, and Filippo in three parts. Porta, “Cens. I” (1976), “Cens. II” (1979), and “Aggiunta al Cens.” (1986). The census lists a total of 111 items, but two of these are print editions, included for their valuable annotations. To these should be added two manuscripts at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 930 and MS 931. These were both unknown to Porta, since they were held in private collections until after his census was published. These two manuscripts are available in complete high-resolution digital versions at https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digital-collections/digital-collections-beinecke-library. MS 930 is a fourteenth-century manuscript on paper, written by two hands in cursive chancery. It includes Book I, Chapter 1 to Book XII, Chapter 69. The auction house description proposes an extremely early dating, perhaps within the lifetime of the author: see Christie’s, Lot 230: Villani, Giovanni. On the other hand, MS 931 is a mid-fifteenth-century manuscript on parchment, “a single hand, in gothico-humanistica libraria, on the basis of Italian Hybrida.” This is a condensed version of the chronicle, taking up only fols. 1r–66r, including Book II, Chapter 1 to Book 10, Chapter 217. See Yale University Beinecke … MS 931 Giovanni Villani Croniche (Summary).  Guenée, Histoire, 250. Both Alessandro Barbero and Jérémie Rabiot provide useful comparative figures showing the relative popularity of the Villani text. Barbero, “Storia e politica fiorentina,” 13–22, and Rabiot, Écrire, comprendre et expliquer, 30-31.  Branca, Tradizione delle opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, vol. 1 and vol. 2. Cursi, Il “Decameron”: Scritture, scriventi, lettori.  Villani wished to emulate the broad scope of classical Roman writers, “who treated the great and small deeds of the Romans, as well as what foreigners were doing in the world,” and thus he decides to “cover the deeds of the Florentines, extensively, as well as notable things of the world, briefly.” Villani, Nuova Cronica, IX: 36.

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or annotations that tell us who commissioned, copied, owned, lent, and read the manuscripts and the inflections in the spelling of words. Of course, Florence in Villani’s day was a large and prosperous urban center, whose rapid economic growth, based on commerce and banking, had fostered literacy. Villani himself tells us that in the year 1336, the population of Florence was ninety thousand, and in the city We find that at any time, anywhere from eight thousand to ten thousand boys and girls were learning to read. There were anywhere from one thousand to twelve hundred apprentices who were learning arithmetic and calculation in six schools. And there were anywhere from five hundred fifty to six hundred [students] who were learning grammar and logic in four large schools.⁵⁶

This newly literate demographic of merchants, artisans, and civil servants were eager consumers, as well as creators, of vernacular texts. As Alison Cornish points out, “Italians’ sudden and wide access to reading and writing in this period had the effect of turning readers into writers.” This period saw a meteoric rise in the number of translations of classical and medieval works into the vernacular.⁵⁷ Original vernacular works began to flourish as well—not only the wellknown works by Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, but a wide array of religious and didactic works, poetry and prose. In his preface to the chronicle, Villani expresses the desire that his use of the vernacular will make his work accessible to a wider group of readers, saying: “I will furnish a faithful narrative in this book in plain vernacular, in order that the laypeople [without the Latin training of clerics] as much as the literate may draw therefrom profit and delight.”⁵⁸ Villani addresses his text to readers of both low and high levels of literacy. Responding to the curiosity of this varied audience, he included material from a considerable number of literary sources—Virgil,

 “Trovamo che’ fanciulli e fanciulle che stavano a leggere del continuo da VIIIm in Xm. I garzoni che stavano ad aprendere l’abbaco e algorisimo in VI scuole da M in MCC. E quelli che stavano ad aprendere gramatica e loica in IIII grandi scuole da DL in DC.” Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 94. For clarity, abbaco was a kind of business math and algorismo was a calculation with arabic numbers, both training for commerce, whereas gramatica (grammar) and loica (logic) were advanced studies which included Latin. For a treatment of schooling in Florence and vicinity during medieval and Renaissance periods, see Black, Education and Society in Florentine Tuscany, as well as Davis, Education in Dante’s Florence.  Cornish, Vernacular Translation, 1– 15.  Villani writes “E però io fedelmente narrerò per questo libro in piano volgare, a ciò che li laici siccome gli aletterati ne possano ritrarre frutto e diletto.” Villani, Nuova Cronica, I: 1.

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Livy, Statius, William of Tyre, Marco Polo, and Dante, to name only a few⁵⁹—as well as documentary sources, and his own narrative of events during his day. The chronicle became a resource for Florentines, bringing them together around a common understanding of their origins and history. Responding to the popularity of the Nuova Cronica and the historical practice modelled by its author, Giovanni’s brother Matteo continued the chronicle to the year of his death in 1363, and Matteo’s son Filippo added material through the year 1364.

The Manuscript Tradition There is no clear indicator of when Villani’s Nuova Cronica began to circulate, as we have neither an original copy in the author’s hand, nor any manuscript with firm dating much before the 1370s, which is more than twenty years after the author’s death in 1348. That said, we are able to conjecture that the circulation of manuscripts had probably commenced by 1341, since in Book XII: 135, recounting an event from 1341, Villani portrays himself as already famous among his peers for his chronicle. But it could have been earlier, since many manuscripts contain only Books I–X, covering events up to October 1333, or Books I–XI: 51, covering events up until July 1336, and it is thought that these circulated as integral units before the last books were complete, perhaps not as early as 1333 (since a completed text, given the time required to write and revise, could not be contemporary to the events themselves), but a few years after 1333 and before 1341.⁶⁰ The manuscript tradition demonstrates an active production and circulation of the chronicle over a period spanning more than a century. The earliest surviv-

 Franca Ragone treats Villani’s methods in the use of source materials in Giovanni Villani, 13 – 53 and provides a listing of known sources in Giovanni Villani, 16 – 21. As to his sources in Latin, it is unclear how much Villani translated himself and how much he relied on translations done by others; Ronald Witt has questioned Villani’s level of proficiency in Latin, suggesting that he may have accessed many of his sources in translation. Witt, In the Footsteps of the Ancients, 191.  Louis Green proposes that Villani begins preparatory work for the chronicle shortly after 1300. The scholar admits the difficulty of determining the timeframe for Villani’s composition of material covering the years 1280 to 1339, but from textual evidence conjectures that “it was about 1322 that Villani began making a more or less continuous record of events.” At “some date between 1333 and 1341,” Villani would have begun to “cast the work…in its final form,” while also adding more material, which he did until the year of his death in 1348. Green, Chronicle, 167.

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ing manuscripts have been dated to 1370, or just before. Thirty-eight of the extant manuscripts—about one-third—can be dated to the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Fourteen—or one-eighth—are datable to the period around the turn of the century. Forty-eight copies of the Nuova Cronica—or 43 percent—were produced in the fifteenth century. Only six manuscripts, or 5 percent of the total number, were produced after 1500, a period which saw the development of printing (and the print edition of the chronicle in 1537), four of these being short excerpts. The manuscripts that circulated did not all contain the entire text as we know it.⁶¹ Of manuscripts that survive today, for example, some include Books I–X, and others only the last two books, XI–XII. Another group of manuscripts includes Books I–XI: 51. Just over ten contain the complete text, that is from I to XII. It is likely that these varied configurations reflect the way that the author released the text as he progressed in his work. This will be discussed further, in the section on the critical edition. The manuscripts, in their physical characteristics, display great variety in format and materials, a wide range in quality, and evidence of diverse modes of production. That said, the majority are of modest nature, meant more to be handled and consulted than kept as precious treasures.⁶² Villani’s intention was to facilitate selective reading; indeed, he states that “we will begin … to mark the years at the top of every page, each time following the next in an orderly manner, so that one might more easily find the things of the past.”⁶³ Certain manuscripts (eighteen) also have a listing of chapter headings preceding the text, which assisted the reader wishing to find a specific part of the text.⁶⁴

 In the manuscript and print tradition, the Nuova Cronica has typically been divided into twelve books. In a limited number of manuscripts, there is the beginning of a new book midway through Book I (Book I, Chapter 38) which causes all the subsequent books to move up by one, so the last book is actually the thirteenth; such is the case in Palatino 1081 (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, hereafter BNCF). Giuseppe Porta has followed this numbering of books in his edition. While speaking of the manuscript and print tradition, I prefer to retain the twelve-book numbering so as to avoid confusion. When citing a locus in the text, I will use Porta’s numbering.  Ragone, “Le scritture parlate,” 805.  “E cominceremo omai al di sopra d’ogni carta a segnare gli anni Domini seguendo di tempo in tempo ordinatamente, acciò che più apertamente si possano ritrovare le cose passate.” Villani, Nuova Cronica, V: 18.  Ragone suggests that the “apparatus of consultation” not only facilitated the reader’s nonlinear encounter with the text, but the author’s as well, as he made additions to different areas of the text. Ragone, Giovanni Villani, 133 – 36.

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The majority are on baser material, paper; only a small number (nineteen) of the manuscripts are on more costly parchment. The great majority are in gothic cursive while a few of the the older manuscripts are written in the more formal gothic letter libraria script, with some of the later manuscripts in a humanistic cursive. While most of the Nuova Cronica manuscripts are done in the hand of a single copyist, eighteen are in two or more hands. The majority of manuscripts have rubrics and chapter initials in colored ink, often with larger and more elaborate initials at the beginning of a book; this ornamentation varies widely in quality, some quite refined, with use of gold and colored inks (fifteen of these), and others with lesser artistry and materials, or applied to only part of the text. The inscriptions and annotations of the manuscripts offer a glimpse into the variety of copyists, owners, readers, and scholars of the Nuova Cronica. An early manuscript, the Riccardiano 1532, is prized for its inscription in the hand of Villani’s son: “which book I, Matteo of Giovanni Villani, had copied in the year 1377, and it is exact.”⁶⁵ Inscriptions furnish evidence of readers of diverse social strata: names from wealthy families such as Altoviti, Benci, Strozzi are to be found, as well as those of lower status such as Antonio di Benedetto di Francesco “pettinagnolo” (a comb maker), who copied the text for himself, alongside other historical and religious texts.⁶⁶ Another manuscript was owned by a potter, who signs “Clemente di Giovanni di Clemente Ricci, potter.”⁶⁷ Inscriptions and reading notes also reveal scholars who gravitated to Villani’s chronicle, such as Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459), Gino di Neri Capponi (1423 – 1487), Giovanni Mazzuoli, “lo Stradino” (1480 – 1549), Vincenzo Borghini (1515 – 1580), Ludovico Castelvetro (1505 – 1571), Sperone Speroni (1500 – 1588), Giovanni Angelo Duke of Altemps (1586 – 1620), and senator and historian Carlo di Tommaso Strozzi (1587–1671).⁶⁸ Some manuscripts of particular interest are: 1) the previously mentioned Ricc. 1532, presumably copied in 1377 by Villani’s son Matteo from an original exemplar, known as the “Davanzati,” for one of its owners; this manuscript is

 Ricc. 1532, in Porta, “Cens. I,” 108.  Pal. lat. 584, in Porta, “Cens. I,” 101. Marco Cursi describes the maker of this manuscript as a person having the lowest level of writing skills, incapable, but extraordinarily tenacious. This miscellany in vernacular is chaotic, lacking any organizational features to assist the reader. Cursi, “Il libro del mercante: Tipicità ed eccezioni,” 167– 70.  Porta, “Cens. I,” 112. “Questo libro sie di chimenti digiovanj di chimenti ricj vasaio.”  Porta, “Cens. I,” 68 (Manetti); “Cens. I,” 88 – 89 (Capponi); “Cens. I,” 96 and “Cens. II,” 103 – 104 (Mazzuoli); “Cens. I,” 71– 72 and “Cens. II,” 98 (Borghini); “Cens. II,” 96 – 97 (Castelvetro); “Cens. II,” 110 – 11 (Speroni); “Cens. I,” 67– 68 (Altemps); “Cens. I,” 90 – 91, 93, 99 (Strozzi).

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one of the most trusted versions; 2) The Ricc. 1533, a manuscript of high quality thought by Porta to represent the “primitive” version of the text; 3) Manuscript II.I.289 of the National Library of Florence, thought by scholar Arrigo Castellani to be the oldest of all the manuscripts; 4) The Pal. 1081, the base of some early print editions; 5) The Marciana Italiano Z.34, one of the earliest manuscripts (around 1370) which ends at Book VII: 31, studied by sixteenth-century scholars associated with the Accademia della Crusca; 6) The Marciana Italiano VI.270, another very early manuscript (1368 – 1370) containing Books I–V; and 7) Chigi L.VIII.296, a luxury manuscript on parchment, with finely decorated initials and over two hundred color illustrations of historical scenes, held at the Vatican Library in Rome.⁶⁹

Rewritings of the Nuova Cronica Material As rich as it is, the manuscript tradition represents only a partial picture of the transmission of the Nuova Cronica in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The huge success of Villani’s text, the weak sense of authorship in the medieval period, the increased literacy in the flourishing mercantile city, and the lack of an established historical genre, provided fertile ground for a wide and multiform array of rewritings of the chronicle. Indeed, Porta notes that “In the fourteenth century, and in the following centuries … a secondary literature develops, consisting of anthologies and compendia, passed down independently by single codices, or as extracts … or late continuations in prose … or extended versifications.”⁷⁰ Some early readers of Villani’s text adapted it to their needs by creating condensed versions. Abbreviating was viewed as a worthy and essential task in the Middle Ages. From a practical standpoint, the Nuova Cronica was a voluminous text, not only hard to read cover to cover, but physically large and unwieldy in the two-volume format that included all its books. As previously mentioned, the textual apparatus of the chronicle (rubric list, dates at head of pages) was meant to facilitate consultation of the text and implied a selective reading which might address the needs of the reader in that moment. A condensed ver-

 Frugoni and Barbero, Il Villani illustrato; Magnani, La cronaca figurata; Cursi, “Un nuovo codice.”  “Nel Trecento e nei secoli successivi, in dipendenza del ruolo villaniano si sviluppa una letteratura secondaria formata da fioretti e compendi, tramandati indipendentemente da singoli codici, o estratti … o tarde continuazioni in prosa … o estese versificazioni.” Porta, “La cronaca a Firenze,” 160.

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sion of the New Chronicle could concretize this selective reading, including only what was of interest to its intended audience. A work known as the Cronaca di Partenope (1348 – 1350) represents a repurposing of Villani for a Southern Italian audience.⁷¹ Composed shortly after the death of our chronicler, it consists of five separate but interconnected segments compiled by an unidentified author somehow connected to the Angevin court, writing for that audience. The third section contains two extended excerpts from Villani’s chronicle which include only those chapters relevant to the city and the Kingdom of Naples.⁷² As Samantha Kelly notes, the Cronaca di Partenope was the first vernacular chronicle of Naples, and “became the foundation for the historiography of both the city and the kingdom of Naples into the seventeenth century,” inspiring in turn a number of works.⁷³ Given the strong commercial and political ties between Florence and Naples, the transfer of the New Chronicle to this different environment is not surprising, but the fact that this rewriting happens so early and is so fecund, speaks to the appeal and adaptability of Villani’s text. The Storia fiorentina of Ricordano Malispini (last quarter of the fourteenth century) which follows Villani’s text up to the year 1286 was long thought to be a thirteenth-century work that Villani himself had used as a source, but is now considered the work of a falsifier who composed it in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, perhaps from a compilation.⁷⁴ The author, Malispini, states in the prologue, “And because I know that everyone likes brevity, I will speak as briefly as I can, covering the material I have planned to tell.”⁷⁵ Malispini has removed material, usually non-Florentine topics, and has inserted information on old Florentine families and urban archeology.

 Caracciolo, The Cronaca di Partenope. The first print edition was Giovanni Villani, Cronaca di Partenope, edited by F. del Tuppo (Naples: Francesco del Tuppo, 1486), printed more than fifty years earlier than the Nuova Cronica, and mistakenly under Villani’s name. The second edition was Chroniche de la inclyta cità de Napole emendatissime, con li bagni de Puzolo et Ischia. Nuouamente ristampate, con la tauola (Stampate in la inclita cita de Neapole: per m. Euangelista di Presenzani de Pauia, adi XXVII de Aprile 1526).  “IIIa, the longer of the two excerpts (168 chapters), begins with the Saracen sieges of the eighth century and continues to 1325, while IIIb (59 chapters) begins with Villani’s opening chapters of universal history and proceeds to 1296.” Caracciolo, Cronaca, 11.  Caracciolo, Cronaca, 4– 5.  Malispini, Storia fiorentina. For details and bibliography on the now concluded scholarly discussion regarding the dating of Malispini’s chronicle with respect to Villani’s see Mastroddi, “Ricordano Malispini.”  “… perch’io soe che a ciascuno piace brevità, si dirò brievemente il più ch’io potrò, sodisfacendo alla materia, a quale hoe ordinata di dire.” Malispini, Storia fiorentina, 1.

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Marchionne di Coppo Stefani dei Buonaiuti (after 1385), in the preface of his Cronaca fiorentina, tells of his “toil and time and care spent in finding books and writings, so that … [he] … could bring to those who desired it, the memory of the founding of Florence and its exaltation and the ways of life of its citizens and the governments of the city.”⁷⁶ Despite his pretensions to tedious research, the chronicler follows Villani’s text from biblical origins up to 1348, using other sources for events to 1385.⁷⁷ He employs a method of selection which privileges material concerning Florence, leaving out Villani’s wider horizons of Italy, Europe, and beyond. His adaptation of Villani’s material greatly reduces the supernatural and astrological interpretations of events, and focuses narrowly on the internal politics of Florence, with some concern for powerful families.⁷⁸ Domenico di Leonardo Buoninsegni’s Istoria Fiorentina (after 1460)⁷⁹ openly declares its dependence on the chronicle of Giovanni (with the continuations of Matteo and Filippo). Buoninsegni was a wealthy Florentine patrician and merchant, who held important offices in the Florentine government, and involved himself in humanist study and pursuits during the early years of the Medici regime. In the prologue to the Istoria, he explains the motivation for his abbreviation of Villani’s text: Whosoever toils to condense writings, and most of all lengthy histories by others, should be commended rather than blamed … And the reason it is good to do so, is because the disposition of the majority of men or the bad habit is such that, out of tedium, people abandon reading long stories, and the short ones they read.⁸⁰

 “… mi puosi in cuore di durare fatica e mettere tempo e sollecitudine in ritrovare libri e scritture, acciò ch’io potessi chi di ciò avesse vaghezza riducere loro a memoria la edificazione della città di Firenze e la esaltazione di quella e i modi della vita de’ cittadini e i reggimenti della città.” Buonaiuti, Cronica fiorentina, 1.  Ragone, Giovanni Villani, 81.  Buonaiuti, Cronaca fiorentina. Ragone, Giovanni Villani, 80 – 102, 165 – 76. De Vincentiis, “Scrittura storica e politica cittadina,” and Sestan, “Buonaiuti, Baldassarre, detto Marchionne.”  Buoninsegni, Historia Fiorentina.  “Qualunque s’affaticha in abbreviare scripture et massimamente storie distesamente tractate da altri, più tosto de’ essere commendato che in alcuno modo biasimato … . Di quinci nasce etiandio la ragione che bene sia a così fare, perché se la complessione di grande parte degli huomini o il cattivo uso è tale che per tedio abandonano il legere le lunghe storie, et le brievi leggerebono.” This prologue, absent from the print edition of Buoninsegni’s chronicle (Historia Fiorentina (Florence: Giorgio Marescotti, 1581)), was rediscovered, edited, and presented by Anthony Molho in “Domenico di Leonardo Buoninsegni’s Istoria Fiorentina,” 256 – 66. See also Molho, “Domenico Buoninsegni.”

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Like Malispini and Marchionne, Buoninsegni selects “only those things that seem to belong to our city of Florence,” and eliminates “things regarding foreign and far-flung countries.”⁸¹ After thus condensing Villani’s chronicle, Buoninsegni adds material to cover events through the year 1460. Anthony Molho observes that Buoninsegni’s Istoria Fiorentina demonstrates the survival of a “very tenacious tradition of condensing and copying” within the civic environment of the humanist era.⁸² The following three abbreviated versions of the Nuova Cronica are found in one copy only, produced apparently for individual use. The “Lami compilation” (second half of fourteenth century) , named after scholar Vittorio Lami who discovered it, was composed in the fourteenth century by an anonymous author who eliminated the first twenty-eight chapters of Villani’s text, and others throughout the work.⁸³ Lami provided strong evidence that this compilation was the source for the above-mentioned chronicle of Malispini, thus helping to establish the precedence of Villani’s text.⁸⁴ Another abbreviated version was penned by a shoemaker, Domenico di Giovanni del Terosi (late fourteenth or early fifteenth century). In a subscription, he states that his source was “a book about all the feats that were in all the lands of Italy and in many parts of the world” and that he “drew from it only the feats that belonged to and happened in the city and commune of Florence, and they are beautiful and marvelous things, and they do not go beyond 15 July 1336 because in that book there was nothing further.”⁸⁵ The Manuscript 931 at the Beinecke Library (late fourteenth or early fifteenth century), demonstrates a similar focus on Florence; its author manages to condense the vast New Chronicle material from the origins to 1332 into only 130 handwritten pages. A different sort of abridgement is represented by a small set of chapters from Book XIII (1– 5, 6, 16, and 17) recounting the short-lived rule of Walter of Brienne (also known as the Duke of Athens) over Florence. In a moment of economic cri-

 “… pigliando solamente quelle cose che mi paranno apartenenti alla nostra città di Firenze, et lasciando quelle de’ paesi strani et longiunqui.” Molho, “Domenico di Leonardo Buoninsegni’s Istoria Fiorentina,” 265.  Molho, “Domenico di Leonardo Buoninsegni’s Istoria Fiorentina,” 264.  Lami, “Di un compendio inedito,” 379.  Lami, “Di un compendio inedito,”415 – 16.  “… dun | libro chetrataua di tutti ifatti chefurono | intutte letterre d itali edimolte parte del m| ondo esolamente uetrassi i fatti che si aparten | chono e auenono alla citta echomune difiren|ze edi loro operazione emis-fatti che auenono alla | nostra citta che sono belle emarauigliose chose | enontratano piu auanti che nel mille trec|iento trentasei adi . xv. di luglio perche in | quello libro non trattaua piu avanti.” Tenneroni, “Di un compendio inedito,” 4. See also Ragone, Giovanni Villani, 201– 2.

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sis, the Florentine grandi invited this French noble to lead the city, and shortly thereafter the popolo proclaimed him signore for life, but he was expelled less than a year later because of his tyrannical rule. This set of chapters, with slight variations, is present in nine compendia-type manuscripts, functioning as a sort of mini-text.⁸⁶ As in the above example, the Nuova Cronica text may appear in partial form, alongside other texts; indeed, about one-quarter of the Villani manuscripts are found in compilations.⁸⁷ The compilation is often produced by a person of middling culture, able to write, who wished to gather together texts that interested them, in a sort of portable library. One example, documented by Porta in his census, is a fifteenth-century manuscript, Magliabechiano XXV.345 in the National Library of Florence, which includes, in addition to Villani’s Duke of Athens extract, orations by several fifteenth-century humanist figures, a letter by Leonardo Bruni, a small compendium of various chronicles found in two other manuscripts, Goro Dati’s History of Florence, various historical notes, a letter by Giovanni Boccaccio to Pino de’ Rossi (1362), a partial poem, some astrological notes, and sayings from people involved in the Duke of Athens events.⁸⁸ These types of texts offer us rich insights into the cultural horizons of readers. In the Magl. XXV.345, the fact that Villani is found in the context of humanist works, suggests that his work still held value for the generation succeeding his own.

Rewritings Across Genre Some of the rewritings of Villani’s New Chronicle have involved the transfer of the material across genre or language in an effort to reach a new audience in a new cultural context. This section will present three adaptations of Villani, by authors Antonio Pucci, Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, and Domenico di Giovanni da Corella. The Centiloquio by Antonio Pucci (1373) transforms Villani’s chronicle—up to the year 1336—into Dantean tercets intended for public spoken or sung performance.⁸⁹ Pucci, a bell ringer and town crier for the Commune of Florence, wrote

 Nine manuscripts have an excerpt which includes Nuova Cronica, XIII: 1– 5, 6, 16, and 17. From Porta, “Cens. I” and “Cens. II,” manuscripts #29, #53, #56, #60, #61, #65, #66, #70, #76.  There are twenty-six manuscripts in which the Villani text appears in a compilation. Using Porta’s numbering of manuscripts from “Cens. I” and “Cens. II,” these are: 16, 20, 28, 29, 36, 42, 45, 46, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 82, 86, 95, 106, 107.  Porta, “Cens. I,” 98 – 99.  There is no critical edition, but the text is available in Antonio Pucci, Delle poesie di Antonio Pucci.

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comic poetry, civic poetry, and stories on legendary subjects, many of which were intended for oral performance before a popular audience, in the tradition of the cantari. ⁹⁰ The opening of the Centiloquio highlights the low register, orality and brevity: In praise and honor of the true Deity I wish to speak of ancient deeds, For the pleasure of coarse men like me. And because lengthy preaching is tedious, And it seems, that those who read or listen sometimes complain, I was seized one day by a strong desire To condense the Chronicle into rhyme, If death does not first strip me of life.⁹¹

We know that the Centiloquio was complete by around 1373, judging by the closing chapter which describes the state of Florence in that year and makes an eventually unfulfilled request to one of Villani’s sons to furnish the remainder of the text, so that he could continue his work. In her analysis of Pucci’s rewriting of the chronicle, Maria Cristina Cabani discerns a desire for brevity with respect to his source, a more evident presence of the narrating voice, a greater focus on Florence for a Florentine audience of middle to low culture, and an emphasis on concrete events that the public would have taken part in, such as funerals, processions, and floods.⁹² The Pecorone (1378 – 1385) re-proposes the text of the Nuova Cronica in the form of short stories, in the wake of the huge success of Boccaccio’s Decameron

 Recent valuable contributions to the study of Pucci’s relation to Villani are: Cella, “Il ‘Centiloquio’ di Antonio Pucci e la ‘Nuova Cronica’ di Giovanni Villani,” and Cabani, “Sul Centiloquio di Antonio Pucci.” Regarding Pucci’s other historical poems, see Cabani, “I cantari della Guerra di Pisa,” and Ute Limacher-Riebold, “I componimenti di argomento storico di Antonio Pucci.” On town criers, see Milner, “Fanno bandire, notificare, et expressamente comandare.” Wilson Blake’s engaging and insightful study on the canterino tradition in Renaissance Italy, with sections on both Antonio Pucci and Malizia Barattone (who can be connected to the Pecorone, another rewriting of the New Chronicle), came out just as this volume was going to print; see Blake, Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy.  Pucci, Centiloquio, I: 1, “A laude, ed onor del vero Iddio / Di fatti antichi intendo ragionare, / A diletto d’ogni uom grosso, com’io. / E perchè attedia il lungo sermonare, / E par, ch’alcuna volta se ne doglia / Colui, che legge, e chi lo sta a ascoltare; / Venne un giorno a me talento, e voglia / Di breviar la Cronica per rima / Se morte in prima vita non mi spoglia.”  Cabani, “Sul Centiloquio di Antonio Pucci,” 21– 81. See also Roberta Cella, “Il Centiloquio.”

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and the parallel flourishing of vernacular prose.⁹³ The unidentified author, who became known as Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, set material from Villani’s chronicle into a narrative frame that mimics Boccaccio’s: two interlocutors, a monk and a nun, tell each other one story per day for twenty-five days. Of the Pecorone’s fifty stories, thirty-two are drawn from Villani’s text, and each story may include several chapters from the chronicle (Day 25, Story 1, for example, combines sixtythree chapters!).⁹⁴ The other stories are drawn from contemporary traditions. Scholars have noted an almost exact correspondence between the above-mentioned Day 25 Story 1 and the Part IIIA of Cronaca di Partenope, hypothesizing that Giovanni Fiorentino may have accessed the Villani material via a Neapolitan version of the chronicle and not directly.⁹⁵ Ser Giovanni made some revisions to the text borrowed from Villani, even in ways that could diverge from the perspective of his source. He made additions of fantastical material to events narrated by the chronicle—the magical qualities of the porphyry columns given to Florence by Pisa, for example. In the latter section of the Pecorone, however, after Day 18, the source text from Villani is hardly edited at all. The Pecorone, once thought to be of limited interest because of its dependence on the Nuova Cronica, has more recently been appreciated for the light it sheds on issues of intertextuality and the relationship between developing forms of historical and fictional narrative.⁹⁶ Almost one century later, we find a humanist-era version of the Nuova Cronica, this time a Latin poem in heroic hexameters, known as De Origine Urbis Florentiae (1475 – 1483) (On the origins of the city of Florence), by the Dominican friar Domenico di Giovanni da Corella.⁹⁷ Da Corella spent most of his life

 Giovanni Fiorentino, Pecorone, ed. Esposito. The title and author name are drawn from a sonnet at the end of the work (568, vv. 3–7), whose authenticity, however, is not certain.  The correlation of chapters between Ser Giovanni’s stories and Villani’s chapters can be found in Giovanni Fiorentino, Pecorone, xviii–xxii.  Messina, “Dalla cronaca alla novella,” 95, citing Stoppelli, “I sonetti,” 191. In fact, in his article, Stoppelli presents persuasive evidence that the Ser Giovanni author of the Pecorone was a Florentine court performer, active at the Angevin court of Naples, whose stage name was Malizia Barattone.  The 2018 doctoral dissertation of Felice Messina, “Dalla cronaca alla novella, tra historia e fabula: Paradigmi interpretativi e forme di riscrittura della Nuova cronica di Giovanni Villani” examines both the Cronaca di Partenope (39 – 90) and the Pecorone (91– 149) as reinterpretations and rewritings of Villani’s Nuova Cronica. For further information on Ser Giovanni, see Pignatti, “Ser Giovanni.”  For recent bibliography of Da Corella’s De Origine Urbis Florentiae, See Amato, “Il manoscritto di dedica,” 491. For Da Corella’s biography and public readings of Dante in 1469, see Ricci, “Domenico da Corella.”

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at the convent of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, serving the Dominican order in various offices, and finally as vicar general from 1415 to 1453. At the end of his term as vicar general, he devoted himself to poetry, writing the more famous Theotocon (1464– 1465) and then the De Origine. The poem, articulated into six long books, follows the first six books of the Nuova Cronica, from the origins of Florence through the arrival of Guelph champion Charles of Anjou in 1267. Along with Villani, Leonardo Bruni is also a source. The poem celebrates the happy state of Florence under the rule of the Medici, beginning with a rather triumphal tone: Florence, the noble colony founded long ago by the Romans, Built under the favorable star of Mars, Which, full of the wind of benign fortune, Now surpasses the Tuscan cities in wealth and strength O citizens, inspiring me, an old man, to renew poetry …⁹⁸

The poem includes an excursus regarding the festive tournaments in Florence of 1475, in which Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici participated. It did not circulate widely, and soon fell into obscurity—there are only two extant manuscripts.⁹⁹ Da Corella’s De Origine demonstrates the desire to adapt Villani’s text to a new era of humanist classicism and authoritarian Medici rule, as well as the difficulty of that endeavor.

The Print Tradition The print tradition of the Nuova Cronica unfolds in parallel with the growth of the printing industry in Italy, as well as the development of editing methods, and the consequent standardization of vernacular Italian.¹⁰⁰ The print editions of Villani’s chronicle also reflect the nascent fields of manuscript study (paleography) and textual criticism (philology) that were a part of humanistic study in the Renaissance. Most important, for the fortune of Villani in the sixteenth century, was a renewal of interest in the vernacular, which became manifest in the “Questione della Lingua,” a lively debate among scholars and writers concerning

 “Urbs a Romanis olim praeclara Colonis / Edita sub dextro Florentia sidere Martis / Quae suit, & flatu fortunae plena benignae / Nunc opibus superat Thuscas, & viribus urbes, / Me vetus, o cives, renovare poema coegit … .” This text can be accessed in the partial transcription provided by Bandini in his edition of Corella’s De Origine, vol. 3, col. 864.  Amato, “Il manoscritto di dedica,” 493, n. 8.  Richardson, Print Culture, 182– 83.

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the type of vernacular that should form the basis for the standard written Italian. In that context, Villani was prized as an example of the purity of fourteenth-century vernacular. This interest in the linguistic aspect of the Nuova Cronica endures, even as historical methods and styles change over the centuries. The important print editions of the Nuova Cronica are four from the sixteenth century, one from the eighteenth century, and one nineteenth-century edition. The first print edition of Villani’s chronicle appeared in 1537, published by Bartolomeo Zanetti in Venice, with the title Croniche di Messer Giovanni Villani… . It was edited by Giacomo Fasolo and included only the first ten books.¹⁰¹ The timing of the edition follows upon the publication of the influential 1525 treatise Prose della volgar lingua (Prose in the vernacular) by the Venetian cardinal, scholar, and literary theorist Pietro Bembo. Bembo’s treatise promoted the Florentine vernacular of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as a model for written Italian.¹⁰² He included Villani among a select few great writers of prose, describing him as one “who was of Dante’s time and wrote the Florentine history, and is not to be slighted.”¹⁰³Another stimulus to the study of the vernacular was the rediscovery of Dante’s De Vulgari Eloquentia (On the eloquence of the vernacular), an unfinished treatise on the Italian vernacular, written in the early fourteenth century.¹⁰⁴ In 1529, it had been rescued from oblivion and published in an Italian translation by the Vicentine playwright Gian Giorgio Trissino.¹⁰⁵ The preface of the Zanetti edition highlights the linguistic qualities of Villani’s text, with a sense of admiration, and unfamiliarity. The editor states that he decided to “enrich the vernacular with such a book” which he describes as “so sublime a work.”¹⁰⁶ Fasolo’s editorial method involved the use of one excellent manuscript (one that was “extremely antique,” reflecting “the perfection and method of the writer that composed it”) which he attempted to reproduce faithfully. The reader was “not to marvel if some words to be found there are not common in our times, and those that are in use, [are] written differently than at pre Fasolo most likely had a manuscript containing only ten books, but it has not been identified by scholars.  Bembo, Prose della volgar lingua.  In Bembo, Prose della volgar lingua, Bk 2, pt. II: “Giovan Villani, che al tempo di Dante fu e la istoria fiorentina scrisse, non è da sprezzare … .”  Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia.  Trissino, De la volgare eloquenzia. Printer for that edition was Tolomeo Gianicolo, a pseudonym for Bartolomeo Zanetti, who was publisher for the 1537 print edition of the Nuova Cronica. For a modern edition of Trissino’s work, see Trissino, De vulgari eloquentia, ed. Fenzi.  “… all’ultimo … [ho] … deliberato d’arricchire la vulgare lingua nostra lingua d’uno tanto libro.” Villani, Le Croniche, ed. Fasolo, 1v.

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sent, [as] one knows, that this is an ancient writer, [who] spoke according to the language of his times, and used its spelling and ways of writing, as much in verbs as in nouns, which things, although they may vary from current usage, we have not wished to touch them.”¹⁰⁷ The Venetian printing of the 1537 Zanetti edition may have been influenced by unstable economic and political conditions in Florence. During this period, the printing industry of Florence was at a low point, whereas that of Venice was thriving. Florence had seen the expulsion of the Medici in 1527, the republic re-established, the siege of Florence by Charles V in 1530, and the return to power of the Medici, with the installation of Alessandro de’ Medici as hereditary duke.¹⁰⁸ Just six months before the publication of the Zanetti edition, in January of 1537, Alessandro de’ Medici, Duke of Florence, had been assassinated. Seventeen-year-old Cosimo de’ Medici, of a cadet line of the family, was made duke, and in July, repelled an attack led by Florentine rebels at Montemurlo, outside Florence. Almost twenty years later, in 1554, the remaining books of Villani’s chronicle were released under the title La seconda parte della Cronica universale … ¹⁰⁹ by the official ducal printer Lorenzo Torrentino of Florence.¹¹⁰ In the same year, Torrentino published the first edition of the chronicle of Matteo Villani, who had continued his brother Giovanni’s chronicle until 1363.¹¹¹ Lodovico Domenichi, the editor of Matteo Villani’s text, and probably also editor of the unsigned Second Part, attempted more sophisticated methods. In the preface to Matteo’s chronicle, Domenichi stated that, on account of illiterate copyists, the manuscripts were mostly incorrect, so he had amended the text with other manuscripts, with the advice of men of judgment. He had brought the text to the best possible state, while not at all changing the meaning.¹¹² Villani scholar Francesco Paolo Luiso discovered the exemplar for this edition of the Nuova

 In Villani Le croniche, ed. Fasolo, 2r, “antichissimo” … “quella perfectione & modo che esso Scrittore le ha composta” … “ne ti maraviglierai se alcuno vocabulo in essa truovassi non solito a nostri tempi, e quegli che sono in uso, altrimenti scritti di quello che al presente, si sa, per esser questo scrittore antichissimo, & secondo la lingua de sui tempi hauere parlato, & usata la sua orthographia, & modo di scrivere, tanto i verbi quanto i nomi, le quali cose, ben che siano varie da quello che si usa, non habbiamo uoluto pero’ toccare.”  For the effects of political events on printing in Florence during this period, see Pettas, Giunti, 40–41; Richardson, Print Culture, 127.  Villani, La Seconda Parte della Cronica Universale de Suoi Tempi (1554).  He was a Fleming, né Lorenz van den Bleek. On Torrentino as the ducal printer of Florence, and his first commissions, see Kemp, “Florentine Pandects,” and Pettas, Giunti, 48, 66 – 69.  Only Books I–IV were included. M. Villani, La prima parte della Cronica Universale.  M. Villani, La prima parte, 3v.

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Cronica; it was in fact a fourteenth-century manuscript, Vecchio Pal. 1023 (now called Pal. 1081), which showed drops of ink, printer’s catchwords and numeration, and a series of detailed corrections made by the editor.¹¹³ Luiso was able to identify a few reasonable corrections, but many others that are arbitrary or even ideologically driven, along with some egregious errors.¹¹⁴ The next edition of 1559 incorporates this one. The Giunti edition of 1559 is the first printing of the entire text of the Nuova Cronica. Retitled now, in line with humanist tastes, as “Historie” (or histories) in the place of “Cronaca” (chronicle), it basically reproduced the Zanetti and Torrentino editions, combining them into a “complete set” as it were, edited by Remigio Nannini. Significantly, though the Giunti press was based in Florence, the Giunti had the edition printed for them in Venice, by Niccolò Bevilaqua—for the first time. Pettas, in his masterful history of the Giunti press of Florence, considers this an “important departure, that should have shamed Duke Cosimo.” They did this to avoid running afoul of the ten-year copyright of the Torrentino 1554 edition, but possibly also because of Florence’s “tariffs … both many and high,” costly materials, and greater distribution expenses.¹¹⁵ The editor Nannini compares Villani’s text to “antique medallions” in need of “settings or frames,” which can protect and beautify them. In an extended metaphor, the editor likens his annotations to these settings. He also calls the chronicle “a most beautiful museum piece.” Nannini states that he did not want to change anything in the spellings or the expressions, except for a few commas, so that the reader can see the great difference between modern and ancient writers, and since restoration of an antique can make it seem less genuine.¹¹⁶ Incidentally, Porta’s census includes a copy of the 1559 Giunti edition, marked up with textual variants and a note identifying the original manuscript upon which the edition was based: the Pal. 1081. It bears an owner’s inscription “Vincenti’ Borghinj liber.”¹¹⁷ Vincenzio Borghini (1515–1580), an influential fig Luiso, “Le edizioni,” 297. Porta, “Cens. I,” 102.  Luiso, “Le edizioni,” 296 – 309, and see also Richardson, Print Culture, 138 – 39.  The Giunti, in a 1563 petition to gain the ducal printing contract after the death of Torrentino, compared the difficulty of printing in Florence with the better circumstances in “Venice, France and Germany … [where] … printing is flourishing and there are able artisans and everything is cheaper.” Distribution was easier in Venice as well, as “Venice … [is] … where people come to buy.” Pettas, Giunti, 84– 85.  “medaglie antiche,” “ornamenti o cerchi,” “bellissima anticaglia.” Villani, La prima parte, ed. Nannini, 3r, 3v.  Porta, “Cens. I,” 82. He also owned another manuscript, now held at the Florentine Biblioteca Laurenziana, LXII.5. Porta, “Cens. I,” 70–71.

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ure in the cultural and intellectual sphere of Florence under Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, made important advances in methods of philology and textual criticism of vernacular literature.¹¹⁸ He dedicated himself to the study of the language of Villani, and having harshly criticized the 1559 Giunti edition, unfortunately died before he could apply his research to an improved edition.¹¹⁹ The next edition was published in 1587 by the Giunti of Florence, under the title Storia di Giovanni Villani Cittadino Fiorentino. ¹²⁰ This edition, overseen by Baccio Valori, a respected member of the Accademia Fiorentina, is supposedly based on the 1559 Giunti edition, supplemented by the Contarini and Tornaquinci manuscripts (Italiano Z.34 and II.i.289).¹²¹ In his prologue, Valori praises the language of the chronicle—“if one desires a Tuscan writer, pure and purged, it is Giovanni Villani”—but then makes wordplays on Villani’s last name: that author has been “rudely [villanamente] lacerated by the print editions,” something Valori has noticed in his “rustic [villanesco] leisure.” Valori’s literary friends have asked him to bring forward a text that he has nearby, since there has been “such growth in the prestige of our language, such that by now it is studied like Latin and Greek.”¹²² This 1587 edition of the chronicle was used as one of the sources for the first dictionary of the Italian language, the Vocabolario della Crusca, published in 1612.¹²³ After a pause of almost 150 years, in the pre-Enlightenment era, Villani’s chronicle was published with the Latin title Johannis Villani Florentini Historia universalis a condita Florentiae usque ad annum MCCCXLVIII by the eminent scholar and historian, Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1728). The impetus for Muratori’s initial interest in medieval historical texts was a juridical conflict, the Church’s claim on lands of the Este family, his Modenese patrons. His research later evolved into the monumental twenty-eight-volume series of historical works called the Rerum Italicarum Scriptores ab anno æræ christianæ 500 ad annum 1500 of which Villani’s Nuova Cronica is a part. Between 1723 and 1751, Muratori collected, oversaw the editing of, and published 2,116 works—over 2,000 of them

 For a reassessment of his role in the development of lexicography and his role in the Accademia della Crusca, see Woodhouse, “Borghini.”  Borghini’s research notes and his unfinished annotations on the Nuova Cronica have been published in a critical edition by Riccardo Drusi. See Borghini, Annotazioni sopra Giovanni Villani.  Villani, Storia, ed. Valori.  Richardson, Print Culture, 175.  Villani, Storia, ed. Valori, 2.  See Accademia della Crusca, Lessicografia della Crusca in rete.

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previously unedited.¹²⁴ For Villani’s text, he relied upon the 1559 Giunti edition, amended with the “Recanati” codex (Italiano Z.34) which had been the base for the Zanetti edition, plus another from the Ambrosiana Library, in Milan. Muratori’s edition was harshly criticized by scholars for neglecting Florentine exemplars and specifically Ricc. 1532, in favor of two manuscripts he seemed to have at hand.¹²⁵ While the edition itself did not represent a marked improvement over earlier editions, the context of the Rerum Italicarum Scriptores and its elevation of primary sources for use in a more scientific study of history infused new value into the Nuova Cronica as a historical document. The Florentine Magheri edition was published in 1823 with the title La Cronica di Giovanni Villani a miglior lezione ridotta coll’aiuto de’ testi a penna. ¹²⁶ The editor Ignazio Moutier used six manuscripts, with the Ricc. 1532 as base for the first part and Ricc. 1533 for the last two books.¹²⁷ The editor praises the Nuova Cronica most enthusiastically for its “historical truth, simplicity of narration, elegance of style, appropriateness of words, and … that native purity and frankness of expression,” as one of “the best works of the fourteenth century.”¹²⁸ The edition includes a lengthy introduction, listing of chapters index, glossaries, and additional documents useful for the study of the chronicle. It became known as “the vulgata” and was used as the basis for a number of printings in the nineteenth century, demonstrating a consistent interest in Villani’s chronicle during the era of the Italian Unification. The edition, however, had evident defects. Giuseppe Porta, while preparing his own edition of the Nuova Cronica, characterized the Magheri text as a “monstrous mixture,” born of “a principle of contamination,”¹²⁹ since its editor had used, as a base, two manuscripts from different redactional phases (Ricc. 1532, “definitive,” and Ricc. 1533, “archaic”), which he then amended with the other manuscripts dated as late as the sixteenth century. In sum, the print versions of the Nuova Cronica from the sixteenth to the ninteenth centuries, though re-

 Villani, Historia, ed. Muratori. For biographical information, see Imbruglia, “Ludovico Antonio Muratori.”  Villani, Cronica, ed. Moutier, 9 – 12. Muratori’s edition was attacked through a public letter: Anonymous, Lettera di *** a un amico. And the response, not from Muratori, but on his behalf: Argelati, Risposta dell’Amico alla lettera di ***.  Villani, Cronica, ed. Moutier.  Villani, Cronica, ed. Moutier, I: xxi.  “… la storica verità, semplicità di narrazione, eleganza di stile, proprietà di parole, e … quella natia purità e schiettezza di espressione, per cui tanto piacciono le migliori opere del Trecento.” Villani, Cronica, ed. Moutier, I: vii.  Porta, “L’ultima parte,” 25, 27; Porta, “Cens. I,” 61.

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vealing the editors’ intention to produce an authentic form of the text, were unable to attain this goal.

The Critical Edition As we have seen in the previous section, the abundance of manuscripts of Villani’s chronicle provides exciting opportunities to explore its diverse audience, and yet, this same embarrassment of riches has proved an obstacle to those desirous of establishing an authentic version of the text. The absence of an autograph, and the “intricate tangle” of the manuscript tradition¹³⁰—that is, the myriad variants in words, phrases, and even brief passages—greatly complicate efforts to identify the form of the original text set forth by Villani. The process of arriving at a definitive text must necessarily address the author’s compositional method, in what form/s and when the text was “officially” released, and the means and rhythm of its distribution. From the late nineteenth century on, a series of respected scholars—Vittorio Lami, Demetrio Marzi, Francesco Paolo Luiso, Arrigo Castellani—worked diligently to classify all the manuscripts and establish their relationships to one another, in order to produce a critical edition, but without success. It would take more than 150 years from the last edition until a new one would be published. In the case of the Nuova Cronica, a critical edition was urgently desired in order to address numerous linguistic, literary, historical, and political issues. As scholars admired Villani’s text as a model of fourteenth-century vernacular, they keenly understood the importance of differentiating the original text from non-authorial variants that had accumulated during the long manuscript tradition. Given that this chronicle is an example of early vernacular prose, literary scholars would benefit from a reliable version of the text, capable of contributing to a study of developing genres, styles, and intertextuality during this period. From the historian’s perspective, a critical edition would facilitate inquiry into the place of the Nuova Cronica within the historical forms of this period—from annals and chronicles, to vernacular family chronicles, to humanist histories. Finally, in political terms, insofar as Villani’s chronicle represents a Guelph and merchant perspective during the late communal government of Florence, a reliable text would allow us to differentiate the original text from later variants reflecting altered political circumstances. Giuseppe Porta did succeed in publishing a critical edition of the Nuova Cronica in 1991.¹³¹ This is the text upon which our translation is based. Porta’s

 Cursi, “Un nuovo codice,” 142.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, ed. Porta.

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edition was preceded by a thorough census, examination, and classification of the extant manuscripts (which included the continuations by Giovanni’s brother Matteo and nephew Filippo).¹³² Porta also published a series of preparatory articles which presented some issues in the manuscript tradition, and hypotheses he was developing.¹³³ His study of the manuscript tradition led him to group the manuscripts into two families, the first reflecting an “archaic” version, and the second reflecting a “definitive” version which, in his view, incorporated additions and improvements by the author.¹³⁴ Porta explains that the “archaic” version is best represented by the exemplar Riccardiano 1533, and the “definitive” version by Riccardiano 1532. The “archaic” version is missing what Porta believes to be later authorial additions by Villani, although it also includes some important passages that are inexplicably missing in the definitive version. As he developed his critical edition, for Books I–X Porta used the “definitive” Ricc. 1532 (and three other manuscripts that share similar characteristics). For Books XI and XII he used the “archaic” Ricc. 1533 manuscript (for the early chapters of XI), and BNCF, Pal. 1081 for the rest of Book XI, amending these with a group of five other codices.¹³⁵ Porta developed a hypothesis regarding Villani’s compositional method which took into consideration his study of the variants, as well as the ways in which the twelve (or thirteen) books of Nuova Cronica were articulated into physical volumes. According to Porta, Villani released editions to the public in original (“archaic”), then revised (“definitive”) versions, in this way:

1) 2)

Villani released an “archaic” version of Books I–X. (α) He then released (α) with the addition of new material – Book XI, Chapters 1– 51 3) Next, he released Books XI and XII. (a)

 See note 1.  See Porta, “Testimonianze,” “L’ultima parte,” “Sul testo e la lingua,” “La storiografia Fiorentina,” “Giovanni Villani storico e scrittore,” and “La costruzione della storia.”  Porta, “Nota al testo,” in Nuova Cronica, vol. 1, xxv.  The numbering of books in this section is based on the traditional twelve book format of the Nuova Cronica, as described in note 10. Definitive version of Books I–X: Biblioteca Riccardiana, Ricc. 1532; BNCF, II.1.253; BNCF, II.1.260; and Biblioteca Corsiniana, 44.G.4. Definitive version of Books XI:52–XII: BNCF, Pal. 1081; Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 939; Biblioteca Corsiniana, Cors. 44.G.4 (Book XII); Biblioteca Laurenziana, LXII.4; Biblioteca Laurenziana, Ashb. 511: BNCF II.1.251. See Porta, “Nota al testo,” in Nuova Cronica, vol. 1, xxviii, and “L’ultima parte.”

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4) Next, he put forth a re-elaboration and then a further revision of Books I–X. (β) 5) Then he revised XI: 52 to the end of Book XII, and released the “definitive” version of Books XI–XII. (b) 6) He put the “definitive” first part together with the “definitive” second part—he released the complete “definitive” text. (β + b) 7) Villani divided Book I at Chapter 38, renumbering subsequent books, releasing versions with thirteen books. Porta’s theory of the manuscript transmission posits an author constantly active in a process of continual and detailed revisions to the text, with a professional production of manuscripts by an atelier of scribes to release the updated versions of the text.¹³⁶ This bold hypothesis concerning authorial composition and physical production has been met with diffidence on the part of scholars, who would wish for further external or internal evidence to support it.¹³⁷ Overall, the recent edition, while representing an essential step forward and a useful instrument, leaves some critical questions unresolved. Some have questioned Porta’s interpretation of the variants and their groupings, and note that his partial listing of variants does not facilitate further inquiry.¹³⁸ And yet, through Porta’s research and the edition, modern readers have gained access to a greatly expanded set of manuscripts, and an engaging set of hypotheses that can be further explored through the use of ever more powerful and sophisticated technologies. The transmission of Giovanni Villani’s New Chronicle began with a rich and complex manuscript tradition indicative of a Florentine audience of diverse socioeconomic status. Creativity and innovation brought forth many selective versions and rewritings of the chronicle. In the era of print, editions reflected the concerns and the philological methods of their day, but inevitably, have met with huge challenges in their attempts to establish an authoritative text, given the active nature of the early tradition. A study of this transmission reveals that Giovanni Villani was not the only maker of his text, and can offer precious insight into how the chronicle is used and understood by its readers. These many readers were connected to each other through a shared knowledge of their past, in the common language of the vernacular, that the New Chronicle provided.

 Porta, “Sul testo e la lingua,” 40, or similarly Porta, Nuova Cronica, vol. 1, xxv–xxv.  Pezzarossa, “Le geste e’ fatti de’ fiorentini,” 95. Ragone expresses similar concerns; “Le scritture parlate,” 788 – 89.  See Castellani, “Sulla tradizione” and “Problemi di lingua.” Also, Pezzarossa, “Le geste e’ fatti de’ fiorentini”; Ragone, “Le scritture parlate”; and Bianchi, “Un esercizio filologico,” 131.

Notes on the Translation Our Translation In 1990 – 1991, a few years shy of the 650th anniversary of the author’s death, the long-awaited modern edition of the Nuova Cronica was published.¹³⁹ For the English-speaking audience, the fullest, most accessible version of the chronicle remained the excellent but only partial translation of the chronicle by Rose Selfe, completed in 1896.¹⁴⁰ When combined with our previous translation of Book Thirteen, the present volume offers a complete English translation of the final three books of Villani’s chronicle.

Florence Physical Space In the first half of the fourteenth century, before the plague carried off so many “valorosi uomini,” “belle donne,” Florence was one of the most populous cities in Europe. Giovanni Villani’s famous description of the city—its architectural marvels, its prosperous industry, its material wealth—gives a population figure of 90,000. These men, women, and children lived in a city which had undergone, in the tweflth and thirteenth centuries, a tremendous physical expansion. New walls were constructed in 1078 (Matildine Walls), between 1173 and 1175 (First Note: While working we made constant use of dictionaries published online by the Accademia della Crusca and by Treccani. We also benefited from the excellent “year-by-year” collection of chronicle entries put together by Carlo Ciucciovino, which helped us to put Villani’s entries in context, and also to resolve difficult to identify events, names, and places. Ciucciovino, Cronaca del Trecento. Further assistance in translating locations was provided by Vittore Bellio’s exhaustive dictionary of Villani’s place names with their modern correspondances in Le Cognizioni Geografiche di Giovanni Villani. Bellio, Le cognizioni. These “Notes on the Translation” are drawn from our Villani, The Final Book, 21 – 24.  Giuseppe Porta, ed., Nuova Cronica, 3 vols. (Parma: Ugo Guanda Editore, 1990 – 1991). A small flurry of articles and scholarly works accompanied the new edition. See bibliography for Pezzarossa, Ragone, and Castellani.  Selfe’s translation offers only selections, and goes no further than IX: 136 (X: 136 according to Porta’s edition). Translated chapters from the chronicle also appear in such recent collections as Jansen, Medieval Italy and Dale, Chronicling History. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514265-003

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Communal Walls), and between 1284 and 1333 (Second Communal Walls). These walls enclosed the “old city” and the rapidly growing new borghi on both sides of the Arno River. While the oldest administrative divisions were the quartieri (quarters) of Porta Domus, Porta S. Petri, Porta S. Mariae, and Porta S. Pancratii, population growth made necessary a new division of the city into the sestieri (sixths) of Porta del Duomo, San Piero Maggiore, San Piero Scheraggio, Oltrarno, Santa Trinita, and San Brancazio. Each of these sestieri was divided into gonfaloni (literally “banners,” figuratively “neighborhoods”). After the expulsion of the Duke of Athens in 1343 the city was divided into four new quartieri: San Giovanni, Santa Croce, Santo Spirito, and Santa Maria Novella, each of which was divided into four gonfaloni. ¹⁴¹

Time and Measures Giovanni Villani frequently orients his readers in time—most often with mere dates but sometimes, when the importance of the matter warrants, with much more extensive descriptions. Readers, however, should be aware that Villani’s dating system was different from our own, and that we have preserved Villani’s dates throughout our translation. In the fourteenth century Florence began its New Year ab incarnatione—on the Feast of the Annunciation on 25 March. Thus, our chronicler’s 8 February 1347 is in fact our 8 February 1348. Villani sometimes refers to the “indiction.” The indiction was an element of the medieval dating system, unrelated to the movements of the heavens, based on notarial requirements for legal and fiscal documents. Each year was assigned an indiction, up to fifteen, at which point the cycle would begin all over again.¹⁴² Our chronicler was an enthusiastic statistician. His chronicle is full of numbers— from bushels of grain to barrels of wine to bolts of wool. Villani’s measures, of course, differ from our own. Linear measurements include the miglio (mile) which grew from the old Roman 8-stade mile and which in Florence measured 1.03 miles and the braccio (arm) which was originally supposed to equal the length of two outstretched arms but which in Florence measured 1.92 feet. Weight measurements include the libbra (pound) which was based on the Roman pound, composed of 12 ounces. In Florence it was equivalent to 0.75 pounds. Grain was customarily measured in moggi and staii. The moggio was the larger measure which in Florence was equivalent to 154 gallons. A staio was a cylindri-

 Most topographical information comes from Fanelli, Le città nella storia d’Italia, 7– 68.  Cappelli, Cronologia, 5 – 6.

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cal measure made of wood which in Florence measured 6.45 gallons. According to Charles de la Roncière the staio colmo (a staio which had not been leveled) and the staio raso (a staio which had been leveled) measured roughly 50 to 52 pounds. Wine was measured with the cogno, whose value is somewhat ambiguous—Zupko reports 120.4 gallons while Charles de la Roncière notes variations between 108 gallons (A. Martini and E. Conti) and 120 gallons (E. Fiumi and C. de la Roncière).¹⁴³

Money A Florentine businessman, and a former official of the mint, Giovanni Villani was very conscious of prices and of wages, and records them frequently in his chronicle. In the fourteenth century Florence had a bimetallic monetary system: gold for large transactions and silver for modest transactions. Florence’s international reputation as a center of trade and of banking was built in large part on the reputation of its famous fiorino d’oro (gold florin). Silver coins included grossi (groats) while billon coins included quattrini (fourpence) and piccioli (pence). Villani also refers to moneys-of-account, which included lire (pounds), soldi (shillings), and denari (pence); one lira was equivalent to 20 soldi and one soldo was equivalent to 12 denari. Initially, in the thirteenth century, one gold fiorino was equivalent to one lira, one silver grosso was equivalent to one soldo, and one silver picciolo was equivalent to one denaro but this simple relationship changed over time; this because the relationship between real coins and moneys-of-account varied according to government policy (debasement) and market fluctuations (gold-silver ratio).¹⁴⁴

 Zupko, “Weights and Measures,” 1162– 64 and De la Roncière, Prix et Salaires, 23 – 32.  Goldthwaite, Economy, 609 – 14 and De la Roncière, Prix et Salaires, 469 – 520.

The Eleventh and Twelfth Books of Giovanni Villani’s New Chronicle Book Eleven I Here begins the eleventh book, which recounts the arrival in Florence of Charles, Duke of Calabria and son of King Robert, whose coming was the reason the elected king of the Romans came from Germany to Italy. Charles, Duke of Calabria¹⁴⁵ and firstborn of King Robert of Jerusalem and of Sicily¹⁴⁶ entered the city of Florence on Wednesday at midday on the 30th of July 1326, with his wife the duchess, daughter of Messer Charles Valois of France, and with the following lords and barons: Messer John, brother of King Robert and Prince of the Morea¹⁴⁷ with his lady; Messer Philip, Despot of Romania, son of the Prince of Taranto, who was nephew of the king;¹⁴⁸ the Count of Squillace, Messer Tommaso di Marzano; the Count of Sanseverino; the Count of Chier-

 Charles, Duke of Calabria (1298 – 1328) was son of King Robert of Naples and Yolanda of Aragon. Charles was an experienced leader, having served his father often during his youth. The decision to offer Charles power over Florence came in the wake of the grievous defeat suffered by the city at Altopascio. He came with his wife, Marie of Valois. Coniglio, “Carlo d’Angiò, detto L’Illustre.”  Robert, King of Naples (1278 – 1343) was son of Charles II of Naples and Maria of Hungary. Robert was a preeminent figure whose power and influence extended far beyond his territories in the southern Regno. His interests extended into Tuscany, Liguria, and Piedmont and he was constantly engaged in warfare to recover his family’s territories in Sicily. He was a touchstone of Guelphism, and resisted the discese of both Henry VII and Louis IV. He had been named signore of Florence in 1313, setting a precedent for this grant of power to his son. Boyer, “Roberto d’Angiò”; Kelly, The New Solomon; and Caggese, Roberto d’Angiò. On Robert’s decision to send his son to Florence, see Kelly, The New Solomon, 229 – 32 and Caggese, Roberto d’Angiò, vol. 2, 81– 82.  John, Count of Gravina and Prince of Achaea (d. 1335) was son of Charles II and Maria of Hungary. He would later receive the Duchy of Durazzo as a part of a compromise over disputed lands in Greece. Coniglio, “Giovanni d’Angiò.”  Philip, Despot of Romania (d. 1331) was son of Philip of Taranto and Thamar Komnene. He received his title as a consequence of his father’s marriage to the daughter of Nikephorus I, Despot of Epirus. His elder brother had died fighting at Montecatini. Kiesewetter, “Filippo I d’Angiò.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514265-004

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monte; the Counts of Catanzaro and Sangineto in Calabria; the Count of Ariano; the Count Romano di Nola; the Count of Fondi nephew of Pope Boniface; the Count of Minervino; Messer Guglielmo lo Stendardo; Messer Amelio de Baux; the Lord of Berra and the Lord of Merlo; Messer Geoffroy de Joinville; Messer Giacomo di Cantelmo; Carlo Artus of Provence; the Lord of Sanguino; Messer Bernardo di Siri Grori d’Aquino; Messer Guglielmo Lord of Eboli; and many other lords and knights, Frenchmen, Provençals, Catalans, and men Naples and the Regno. When combined with the Provençals who came by sea, they numbered around fifteen hundred knights, not counting the four hundred who served the Duke of Athens. Among these men there were as many as two hundred knights with golden spurs, very handsome and noble men, well-horsed and well-furnished with weapons and equipment—indeed they had as many as fifteen hundred mules decorated with little bells to carry their baggage.¹⁴⁹ He was received by the Florentines with great honor and a procession, after which he lodged in the Palace of the Commune, next to the Badia, where the podestà used to reside and try cases; the podestà and the law courts were moved to Orsanmichele, to the houses that once belonged to the Macci. And one should take note of this great undertaking of the Florentines, for, having suffered so many afflictions and such losses of men and possessions, and having been so broken down, in less than one year, through their efforts and money, they had brought to Florence such a lord and such barons and such chivalry, and also the papal legate—and this was thought a great thing by all Italians, and by everyone, wherever it was known. After the duke had been in Florence for a few days, he sent for the allies: the Sienese sent four hundred fifty knights, the Perugians three hundred knights, the Bolognese two hundred knights, the Orvietans one hundred knights, and the Manfredi Lords of Faenza one hundred knights; Count Ruggero sent three hundred soldiers and Count Ugo came in person with another three hundred soldiers and the levy of foot soldiers from our contado. Everyone believed that the duke was making ready his army, since the preparations were great and since he imposed a levy of sixty thousand gold florins on the wealthy citizens. But then, for whatever reason, the army did not set forth. Some said that this was because his father the king was opposed, hearing that all the tyrants of Lombardy and of Tuscany were preparing to come to the aid of Castruccio to fight against the duke. And some said that because of the way the duke had prepared his forces and laid his plots, and  Villani’s description was taken up by Antonio Pucci in his Centiloquio, which includes further details. This ingresso was splendid to an unprecedented degree, and stirred our chronicler to these patriotic remarks, which may, however, be intended to set off his more critical comments on the duke’s signoria later in the book.

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also because the Florentines were exhausted by the expenses, there was little chance of success. Still others said that Castruccio had been in peace negotiations with the legate and with the duke, and that during these negotiations he was receiving aid from the Ghibelline League of Lombardy and had been gathering supplies (and in this way Castruccio fooled the duke, whose undertaking came to nothing). We, who were present, give most credence to this last opinion.¹⁵⁰ Nonetheless, many people said that if the duke, who had so many barons and knights under his command, had been a bold lord and without halting his advance at Siena or Florence had ridden towards Lucca in the months of July and August when Castruccio was very sick, then he would certainly have won the war.¹⁵¹

II How the duke began a dispute with the Florentines in order to extend his lordship. Then on the 29th of the following August, the duke insisted on declaring his lordship to the Florentines, and extending the powers granted to him by the pacts. Specifically he wished to be able to freely appoint priors at his will, and appoint judges and officials and those in charge of guarding castelli both in the city and in the contado, and to be able to make war and peace at his own discretion, and to accept exiles and rebels back into Florence, regardless of the terms granted in the earlier pacts. And he had himself reconfirmed in lordship for ten years, starting on the first day of September 1326. And this change caused great fear in Florence, because the grandi and the powerful people were conspiring to break the Ordinances of Justice of the popolo and wanted to give unlimited rule to the duke for an indefinite term, that he should answer to no one; and they did this neither out of love for or faith in the duke, nor because they wished him to rule in this manner, but solely in order to undo the popolo and the Ordinances of Justice. The

 The new papal legate, Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, nephew of Pope Nicholas III, was sent to Italy by Pope John XXII. Orsini arrived in Pisa in late June and was welcomed to Florence in July. Castruccio was “conciliatory” during this period, buying time as he recovered from an illness. On the legation of Orsini in general and this delay in particular see Beattie, Angelus Pacis, 89 – 92.  Scholars often focus on the Guelph perspective of the New Chronicle, but it is important to note that the later books express a good deal of frustration, cynicism, and dissatisfaction with the Angevins, and their role in the affairs of Florence.

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duke received wise counsel in this matter and took the side of the popolo, which had given him lordship, and thus the city was calmed, and the grandi were very disappointed.

III How the cardinal publicly passed sentence against Castruccio and the Bishop of Arezzo. Now, the cardinal legate realized that Castruccio and the Bishop of Arezzo had kept him occupied in negotiations about an accord and about following his commands. And so, on the 30th of August, in the Piazza Santa Croce, in the presence of the duke and all his men, and the Florentines, and foreigners, as mentioned on the previous page, the cardinal legate publicly passed harsh sentence of excommunication against him on several counts—as a schismatic, and supporter of heretics, and persecutor of the Church—stripping him of every dignity, pronouncing that any man could harm him or his followers in their goods and in their persons without sin, and excommunicating whoever might give him help or favor; the cardinal legate excommunicated the Bishop of Arezzo of the Tarlati family in a similar way, and deprived him of his bishopric, both spiritually and temporally.¹⁵²

IV On the failure of the Scali company of Florence. In those days, on the 4th of August, the company of the Scali and the Amieri and the Petri sons of Florence, a company that had lasted more than one hundred twenty years, failed, and its partners found themselves in debt to Florentine citizens and to foreigners for more than four hundred thousand gold florins. This was a greater defeat for the Florentines than that of Altopascio—though without

 Guido Tarlati (d. 1327) was the son of Angelo Tarlati. Tarlati was a member of a powerful family with its roots in the rural nobility. His ecclesiastical career culminated with his election as Bishop of Arezzo in 1312. This position enabled him to exercise great sway in the commune, a “signoria ‘occulta’” which was formalized in 1321. The excommunication described by our chronicler had its roots in Tarlati’s interference in the politics of Umbria and the Marche. Scharf, “Guido Tarlati.”

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the casualties—since whoever had money in Florence lost it when the company failed. And so, the Florentines that year suffered great persecution from all sides, by defeats, by sickness, by loss of possessions burned and ruined, and by loss of money. Many other good companies of Florence, because of the failure of this one, were no longer trusted, which caused them great harm.¹⁵³

V How walls were built for the castello di Signa by the Florentines. In the said year 1326, on the 14th day of September, the Florentines, seeing that the duke their lord was not prepared to lead an army or conduct raids against Castruccio, the Lord of Lucca, nor attack with his knights that year, ordered that Signa and Gangalandi be rebuilt and strengthened, so that the plain and the contado on that side could be cultivated—and this was done. Signa was walled with beautiful tall walls, and with beautiful and strong towers, using money from the Commune of Florence, and any inhabitant of Signa who rebuilt his house was given a certain immunity and reprieve from taxes. And Gangalandi decided to rebuild the parish church on the hill that descends towards the Arno River, above the head of the bridge; they dug the ditches, but the work was not completed at that time.

VI This chapter recounts the Duke of Calabria’s first campaign against Castruccio. In the said year, at the beginning of October, the Duke of Calabria, Lord of Florence, arranged with Spinetta, the Marquess Malaspina,¹⁵⁴ that the marquess would enter his lands in Lunigiana so as to make war against Castruccio from that side. The duke hired three hundred knights in Lombardy for him while

 For the Scali and their bankruptcy see Borsari, Una compagnia di Calimala: Gli Scali and Fryde, “The Bankrupcty of the Scali”.  Spinetta Malaspina (1282– 1352), Lord of Fosdinovo, was son of Gabriele di Isnardo Malaspina. Although Spinetta had served with Henry VII, his long rivalry with Castruccio Castracani, born of competition over lands in the lunigiana, sometimes induced him to make common cause with Guelphs. Indeed, he had allied himself with Florence against the Luccan signore in 1321. Ragone, “Spinetta Malaspina.”

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the legate of Lombardy¹⁵⁵ gave him two hundred knights from the Church and he brought one hundred from Verona from his lord Messer Cane.¹⁵⁶ And he crossed the mountains from Parma and came into his lands, and laid siege to the castello di Verrucola Bosi—a castello that Castruccio had captured from him. At the very same time, from the other side, some exiles from Pistoia, acting at the behest of the duke but without the knowledge or the advice of anyone in Florence, caused two castelli in the peaks and mountains of Pistoia—Cavignano and Mammiano— to rebel against Castruccio. Seeing himself assailed in such a manner, even though the month before, in August, he had nearly died from an injury to his leg, Castruccio prepared to defend himself as a valiant lord, with vigor and energy, and found a way to protect his position by immediately placing an encampment and very strong fortifications—or forts—near these two castelli. And he and most of his cavalry rode to Pistoia to supply his host and to block the duke and the Florentines, so they would not be able to come to the aid of the castelli. It now seemed to the Duke of Calabria and his council that their plan had not been wise, but since he had promised his aid to those castelli he sent them the German company of two hundred knights in the hire of the Florentines, and another one hundred soldiers with five hundred foot soldiers, captained by Messer Biagio de’ Tornaquinci of Florence. The troops made their way into the mountains, but because of the difficult passes and the great snowfall in those days, they did not dare march down to relieve the castelli. The duke, hearing of the siege by a strong force of Castruccio’s men, had almost all his men and allies ride to Prato—there were around two thousand knights and many foot sol Bertrand du Pouget (1280 – 1352) was a protégé and close collaborator of Jacques d’Euse, later John XXII. He was named Cardinal of Saint Marcellus by that pope and served at his court in Avignon. He was named as papal legate in Italy in 1319 and took up his position in 1320. Some measure of success in Lombardy, and widening control of Romagna, were interrupted by the descent of Louis of Bavaria into Italy, and the pope’s accord with King John of Bohemia, which catalyzed the creation of a Guelph-Ghibelline league, a rebellion against the legate in Bologna, and the eventual failure of his mission. The chronicler captures the beginning of Du Pouget’s legation in Nuova Cronica, X: 109. Among other civic missions during this time (Nuova Cronica XI: 152 and 170), Villani took part in a Florentine embassy to the legate (Nuova Cronica XI, 146). Jugie, “Bertrando del Poggetto.” For events in Italy during his long legation, see Ciaccio, Il Cardinale Legato.  Cangrande della Scala (1291– 1329) was the son of Alberto I della Scala Lord of Verona. He was a follower of Emperor Henry VII during his discesa into Italy. Cangrande became Lord of Verona following the death of his brother Alboino and over a lifetime of energetic campaigning greatly expanded the range of power of his family and his city. Our chronicler will describe his final victory over his great rival Padua and his death at the end of his campaign against Treviso. Varanini, “Cangrande della Scala”. “For Cangrande see Spangenberg, Cangrande I della Scala and for the Della Scala see Varanini, ed., Gli Scaligeri.

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diers. Messer Tommaso, Count of Squillace, split off from this army, departing from Prato with three hundred chosen knights; with him were Messer Amerigo Donati and Messer Giannozzo Cavalcanti with one thousand foot soldiers; they went up into the mountains to attack and to resupply the two castelli by force. The other knights and the popolo which was in Prato rode all the way to the gates of Pistoia, made camp at the castellare del Montale, and stayed encamped there for three days. And during this time, there was a most fierce storm of wind and water, and in the mountains, snow—worse than anything people could recall for the longest time—and so the men who were at Montale, unable to keep their tents up, were forced to break camp and return to Prato. And once they had broken camp, they withdrew in such an undisciplined fashion that if Castruccio had been in Pistoia, they would have had much to do to defend themselves. In the meantime, our men in the mountains were barely surviving, because of the great cold and snow, and their provisions were running out, and so because they were suffering from want, and because Castruccio and all his men had ridden from Pistoia and reinforced the host and captured the passes that led to the said castelli, it was impossible for the duke’s men to in any way resupply the said castelli—indeed they were at risk of being ambushed. If they had waited a little for Castruccio’s men to gather in larger numbers and to spread across the mountain passes, not one of them would have escaped, and even as it was, they had much trouble and left many horses and exhausted pack animals in the mountains, and were forced to return through the contado of Bologna. When the duke’s men had left, the people inside the said two castelli fled by night, but most were killed and captured. And our men returned to Florence on the 20th of October with dishonor and shame. After Castruccio took the said castelli, he did not return to Pistoia or go back to Lucca, but, like an attentive and worthy lord, crossed through the mountains of Garfagnana and Lunigiana with his host in order to block the passage of Spinetta and his host and to deny them provisions. When Spinetta heard that Castruccio was coming, and that he had captured the said castelli, and when, moreover, false spies reported that the duke’s men had been defeated in the mountains, he retreated with his men and abandoned the campaign, crossing back over the peaks, and returned to Parma. And in truth, if he had remained there for just a short while longer, he would have been captured along with all his men. And so, due to foolish counsel, the duke’s first campaign came to nothing, and brought shame. Once he had done these things, Castruccio had most of the fortresses in Lunigiana destroyed so that they might not rebel against him and then returned to Lucca in great triumph. And he had his castello di Montefalcone upon the Guisciana and his castello di Montale di Pistoia burnt and demolished, so as to have less to guard and so that the duke’s men might not take them. We have recounted this matter at

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such length because so many new and unusual events in the war took place in just a few days. We will leave off for a while recounting the progress of our war and we will speak of important and new things happening at the same time in England.

VII How the Queen of England took the field against her husband the king and captured him. It happened, as we mentioned at some earlier point, that Queen Isabella of England, sister of the King of France, crossed with her eldest son to France to conclude the peace between her husband and the King of France for the war in Gascony, and through her efforts the peace was concluded.¹⁵⁷ Once this was done, she complained to her brother the king and to her other relations about the immoral and wicked behavior of her husband King Edward II of England: how he had no wish to be with her but rather lived in adultery and lust which took many wicked forms. And this was through the seduction of one Messer Hugh Despenser, his baron and royal chamberlain, who allowed the king to use his wife, who was the king’s niece, and other women, so that he did not deign to go to the queen—and the queen was one of the most beautiful women in the world. This Messer Hugh Despenser nourished the king in this miserable manner of life and the king had given him control over himself and over the whole realm so that he turned his back on those of his lineage and all the other great barons and reduced the queen and her son to nothing. This Messer Hugh was of inferior lineage in England and he had the name Despenser because his ancestor was the chamberlain of King Henry of England, and then Messer Hugh his father was chamberlain of King Edward I, father of this king. But owing to the great offices and the wickedness of the king, this Messer Hugh had climbed to great power: he had an income of more than thirty thousand marks sterling per year, he had the whole government of the realm in his hands, and he had as wife a niece of the king born to the king’s sister. And in his boundless arrogance he had become so proud that he believed he was king and he did not want the queen and the sons  Queen Isabella had been in France since March 1325, attempting to negotiate a peace between her husband Edward II and her brother Charles IV regarding possession of territories in Gascony and Ponthieu—the terms of this agreement were defined at the end of May and accepted by the English king in mid-June. Isabella’s son Edward joined her in France in September. He, rather than Edward II, did homage to Charles IV. For these events see Phillips, Edward II, 471– 79.

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of the king to have any power or any estate. For this reason the lady would not return to England, unless the king himself put an end to the government of the said Messer Hugh Despenser and his followers and unless he informed the King of France that he had done so in letters sent by ambassadors.¹⁵⁸ But this had no effect, and the king ceased to care about his wife and son, so bewitched was he by the counsel of the said Messer Hugh.¹⁵⁹ For this reason, once the Count of Hainaut’s daughter had been given as wife to her son, this worthy queen, assisted with money from her brother the King of France and from other friends, prepared in Holland in the lands of the said Count of Hainaut a fleet of eighty ships —warships and cogships both small and large—and hired eight thousand knights in Hainaut, Brabant, and Flanders.¹⁶⁰ She, her son, and these soldiers boarded the fleet—whose captain was Messer John, brother of the Count of Hainaut—and departed from Holland in the month of September in the year of our Lord 1326, challenging her husband and his followers. And she let it be known and spread the word in England that she was allied with the Scots and with the enemies of the king and that she would land her fleet there on the borders of England and Scotland to join with the Scots.

VIII Of the same matter. When King Edward heard of the preparation of the fleet and the knights that were coming against him with his wife and his son, he took the advice of the said Messer Hugh and retreated with his men-at-arms towards the marches and the borders of Scotland, so as to prevent the said fleet from landing. But the captain of the said fleet, with the utmost skill, did not sail to the agreedupon place, but landed at Ipswich, which was seventy miles from London,  Isabella’s refusal to return is the subject of much scholarly debate, but her decision clearly centered on her hatred of Hugh the Younger. By early 1326, Isabella had already associated herself with Edward II’s greatest enemy, Roger Mortimer. Villani appears to be describing a dramatic confrontation between Queen Isabella and Walter Bishop Stapeldon of Exeter—Edward II sent him to recall her to England—which according to the Vita Edwardi Secundi took place in the presence of Charles IV. Childs, Vita, 242– 43.  In fact, the king tried quite strenuously to convince Isabella to return to England. Phillips, Edward II, 486 – 88.  Philippa of Hainaut (1314– 1369) was the daughter of William I of Hainaut and Joan of Valois. Isabella’s betrothal of her son to a house closely tied to France flew in the face of Edward II’s plans for his son. Phillips, Edward II, 500 – 501.

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and this on the 15th of October 1326.¹⁶¹ The moment they landed, the popolo of London rose up and seized the city, crying: “Long live the queen and the young king, and death to the Despensers and their followers!” They captured the Bishop of Exeter, who was the tool of the said Messer Hugh, and cut off his head; and they killed all the servants and followers of the Despensers that they found; and they burned and looted the houses of the Company of the Bardi, who were the merchants of the Despensers. And the city was under arms and in confusion for many days—until the coming of the queen. And in the same manner almost all the barons of England went over to the queen, and abandoned the king. And when the queen arrived in London she was received with great honor and once order had been re-established in the city she wished to do nothing but pursue the Despensers and the king. And in this month Messer Hugh the Elder was captured; he was the father of Messer Hugh the Younger, the Despenser who guided the king. Wearing his arms, he was dragged to the gallows and then hung. And when this had been done, the queen and her son with their host followed the king and Messer Hugh all the way to Wales, where they had taken refuge in the castello called Carfagli [Caerphilly]. They besieged them for a long time since the castello was very strong and surrounded by woods and bogs. In the end the king came to an agreement with the said Messer Hugh, and they said that they would never abandon one another; and so they prepared a skiff and left the castello by night to go to Ireland with one of their followers whose name was Baldock—a priest and ruffian—and with many other servants. But it pleased God that they had not sailed more than twenty miles when the wind, a sudden storm, and the current pushed them back to land; and this occurred many times. And seeing that they could not make the crossing, they went ashore in a deep and savage part of Wales, intending to travel with a small company and in disguise to the castello di Carsigli [Caerphilly]. where the son of the said Messer Hugh was. Meanwhile, the Earl of Lancaster, the king’s cousin and brother of he whose head the king had cut off, along with the other barons, as we mentioned in another part of this chronicle, so pressed his men to pursue the king and Messer Hugh that they found them near Neath in Wales: they surprised them. And when the king asked whether they were friends, they responded that they were and that they regarded him as their lord—and indeed they knelt before him—but that they wanted Messer Hugh. And the king then said “You are not with me, if you are against this man.” And the king kept Messer Hugh by his side, with his arm around his neck to protect him, and no one

 Isabella landed in the port of the River Orwell. For the landing place of Queen Isabella see Phillips, Edward II, 503 and Round, “The Landing of Queen Isabella,” 104– 5.

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dared to lay a hand on him to capture him. But the captain of these men wisely asked the king to speak with him in secret, for his own good. When the king stepped away from Messer Hugh’s side to speak with this man, another member of the company …¹⁶² said to the said Messer Hugh that if he wanted to escape he should follow him, and so he did. Immediately, they led him away from Wales as many as thirty miles through the woods. And when the king saw that he had been deceived he complained greatly, but it helped him little, because he was led away under a guard of courtesy, along with Baldock and the others who had been captured with them. As soon as the count heard that the king and his company had been captured, he rode to that place, and finding that Messer Hugh had been taken away, he went towards the house of the man who had taken him. When he found this man he led him off, separating him from his companions, and captured his wife and sons, threatening to kill him unless he told them who was holding Messer Hugh. The Welshman negotiated then and there, and demanded one thousand pounds sterling for the information. The count immediately had him paid, in order to recover Messer Hugh. And once this was done, Messer Hugh, and Baldock his priest, and Simon of Reading were led as captives amid great cries and many sounding trumpets before the queen, who was at Hereford.¹⁶³ And shortly thereafter Messer Hugh, with his coat of arms upside-down, was dragged to the gallows and hung; his head was cut off and his body was quartered and each quarter was sent to a different part of the kingdom and hung up there; his guts were burned. And this was in the month of November 1326 on the 24th.¹⁶⁴ And in this manner, the worthy queen revenged herself on her enemy, who had spoiled the king, her husband and the entire realm. The king was sent by the Earl of Lancaster to Woodstock and he was kept in that castello in courtly prison. Then the barons, gathered in council, asked the king to pardon the queen and their son and whoever had pursued him, and to swear and promise to guide the realm according to the advice of his barons. And if he did not wish to do this, they said they would make his son Edward their  Unless surrounded by brackets, all ellipses in the translation are Villani’s.  Villani is mistaken in some of his details. Edward left London on 2 October and fled westward towards expected military support in Wales, summoning new troops as he journeyed. On 20 October he sailed from Chepstow intending to travel to the Island of Lundy and then possibly to Ireland. When contrary winds foiled this journey, he landed at Cardiff and took refuge in the Castle of Caerphilly until 2 or 3 November, when he fled to the Abbey of Neath. The king and his party stayed there until 11 November when they attempted to return to Caerphilly. On 16 November they were intercepted at Llantrisant and betrayed to the Earl of Lancaster. Phillips, Edward II, 508 – 15.  For the charges against the Younger Despenser, his trial, during which he was not allowed to defend himself, and his gruesome execution, see Phillips, Edward II, 516 – 18.

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king. The king, shamed by the dishonor done him, in no way wished to see his wife or his son, nor did he wish to abdicate, nor pardon; he would rather be deposed as king and made a prisoner.¹⁶⁵ Because of this refusal the barons had his son Edward III crowned as king, and this was the Feast of Candlemas, 1326. And the queen, seeing that the king did not wish to pardon her, nor return to being king, was never again joyful but lived her widowhood in sorrow. She would willingly have taken back what she had done. And the said King Edward sickened of sorrow while in prison and died in the month of September, the year of our Lord 1327, and it was said by many that he was murdered—and they swear to it. And so those who pursue obscene sins contrary to the will of God have bad beginnings, bad middles, and sorrowful ends. Let us leave these matters of England, since we have said much of them, and return for a time to our affairs in Florence and in Italy.

IX How the people of Parma and then the people of Bologna gave lordship to the papal legate. In the said year 1326, on the first of October, the Commune of Parma gave lordship to the cardinal legate Messer Ramondo Pouget [Bertrand du Pouget], who was in Lombardy for the Church of Rome, and he resided in Parma for a while with his court, and had under his command the army of the knights of the Church, who numbered as many as three thousand knights, mostly foreigners from beyond the Alps, good men-at-arms. However, he brought little honor or power to Holy Church or to its supporters, neither increasing its territory nor weakening the enemies and rebels of the Church. Everyone blamed the legate for this, since the pope was sending him an infinite supply of money, and yet the troops were paid badly, so they could not do any good. Then, because the people of Bologna were in discord among themselves, they, in a similar way, gave the governance of their city to the Church and to the said legate, who came to Bologna on ….

 The king was first imprisoned at Monmouth Castle, where, in response to an embassy from the queen, he delivered the Great Seal to Isabella and Edward III. Phillips, Edward II, 508 – 15.

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X How King Robert and the duke changed the agreement they had earlier made with the Florentines. In the said year, in the month of December, King Robert sent word to the Commune of Florence that in addition to the first agreement that the Florentines had made with the duke, of which mention was made earlier, he wanted the Florentines to pay their share for the eight hundred knights from beyond the Alps whom he had summoned from Provence and Valentinois and France so that the duke might have a better following in war. And the other allied cities of Tuscany, like the Perugians and Sienese and other nearby cities, were also expected to pay. King Robert sent word to the duke that he should leave Florence and return to Naples, if the Florentines did not pay. The Florentines were greatly troubled by this request, because it seemed to them that they were already heavily burdened by expenses and it also seemed to them—and this was true—that the king was breaking his word. Letting the duke leave Florence would have turned out badly, and since the nearby cities had little desire to contribute to the expenses, in the end, most of the burden fell upon the Commune of Florence. And so, choosing the lesser of two evils, the Florentines made an agreement with the duke to give him thirty thousand gold florins for the said knights; the Sienese also gave their part as did the other small cities nearby (although the Perugians did not wish to contribute to the expense). As this spending mounted, however, within one year of the duke’s arrival in Florence, between his salary and the other necessary expenses that he made the Florentines bear, it was found that the Commune of Florence had spent more than four hundred fifty thousand gold florins—paid for with gabelle and imposte and libbre and other revenues of the commune. This was considered a very remarkable and astonishing thing, and the Florentines complained greatly about it. Moreover, following the advice of his lackey counsellors from the Kingdom of Puglia, the duke took complete lordship, from the smallest to the greatest matters in Florence, and so demeaned the office of the priors that they did not dare to do anything at all, no matter how small—even summoning a page—and one of the duke’s counsellors was always with them. This seemed like a very bad thing to the citizens, who were accustomed to ruling the city. But this was a great judgment from God, that their past factional conflict had enabled men who were coarser and less wise than themselves to demean their authority and lordship.

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XI How the women of Florence were granted the right to use certain ornaments. In the said year 1326, in the said month of December, the duke, in response to a petition the women of Florence had made to the duchess his wife, granted to the said women the right to wear a distasteful and immodest ornament of thick braids made of yellow and white silk, which they wore in the place of natural braids of hair in front of their faces. This ornament had been forbidden to the said women, because it was disliked by the Florentines, because it was indecent and unnatural, and there had been laws made against it and other excessive ornaments, as has been mentioned previously: and thus does the excessive appetite of women defeat the reason and the wisdom of men.¹⁶⁶

XII How the pope appointed a new Bishop of Arezzo. In the said year and month of December, Pope John appointed as Bishop of Arezzo one of the Ubertini family—powerful and noble men of the contado of Arezzo —in order that he and his family might oppose Guido Tarlati, whom the pope had deposed from the bishopric of Arezzo. This had little effect, however, because the newly elected bishop, even with all the help he received from the pope and the cardinal legate in Florence, did not have one penny of income, for everything temporal and spiritual in Arezzo was under the control of the said Guido Tarlati, and he was a tyrant and lord of the city.

XIII How Castruccio sought to take the castello di Vico from the Pisans. In the said year 1326, on the 5th of January, Castruccio Lord of Lucca, who was an enemy of those ruling Pisa, ordered that the castello di Vicopisano be taken from  This chapter highlights the moral consequences of allowing “coarser” and “less wise” men to usurp the authority of citizens. Luxuries, and in particular rich clothing, are a sign of sin and a provocation of God, and in a later chapter the chronicler will describe with great pride his city’s legislation against them. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 151.

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the Pisans, and to this end he sent Messer Benedetto Maccaioni de’ Lanfranchi, rebel of Pisa, with one hundred fifty knights of his army, and Castruccio came to Altopascio with a great number of his men to give aid, if necessary. This Messer Benedetto gained entry to Vico early in the morning when it was betrayed to him, and he raided the town, but the townspeople arose, took up arms, and began to defend themselves, and by force chased out the said Messer Benedetto and Castruccio’s men, and more than fifty of them ended up captured and dead, whence the Pisans’ hatred of Castruccio grew even stronger.

XIV How many cities in Tuscany gave themselves to the duke. In the said year 1326, in the months of January and February, the people of Prato and San Miniato, and those of San Gimignano and Colle, gave lordship of their cities to the Duke of Calabria, son of King Robert, for a fixed amount of time and according to certain agreed-upon terms, except for the people of Prato, who, because of their discord, gave themselves in perpetuity to the duke and his heir.

XV Of a raid on Pistoia. In the said year, on the 21st of January, the Conte Novello, leading the duke’s men—eight hundred of the best knights—rode as far as the gates of Pistoia and broke down the outer gate, and then devastated and burned all the Valle di Bura, damaging the mills and causing great harm in their plundering of the Pistoians.¹⁶⁷

 Bertrand de Baux, the Conte Novello (d. 1347), was the son of Bertrand II, who had come to Italy with Charles I of Anjou. He served the Angevin kings of the Regno, holding fiefs from them and fighting for them. He had been involved in Florentine affairs in the past, but not always with the anticipated good results. He joined Charles of Calabria in 1326, and was named Captain General by him in June 1327. Goebbels, “Bertrando del Balzo.”

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XVI On the deeds of the exiles of Genoa. In the said year, at the beginning of February, the exiles of Genoa, with the men of Castruccio, took the castello di Sestri. Then on the 3rd of August that followed, in the year 1327, the said exiles captured the strong castello di Monaco by means of trickery, and took it from the Commune of Genoa.

XVII On the tax assessment done in Florence. In the year 1327, in the month of April, a new tax assessment was done in Florence upon orders of the duke, and it was carried out according to regulations by one foreign judge for each sesto, who would use the testimony of seven secret witnesses from the neighborhood to assess what each person owned in real estate, goods, and earnings. Each person would pay a certain percentage on goods, a certain percentage on real estate, and the same on profits and earnings. The system started off well, but the said judges became corrupt, so they assessed some people fairly, and others unfairly, and so there was much complaining in Florence; and with this faulty method, eighty thousand gold florins were collected.

XVIII How the Ghibelline faction had Louis Duke of Bavaria, who was elected king of the Romans, come to Italy. In the month of January in the year of our Lord 1326, as a result of the Duke of Calabria’s coming to Florence, the Ghibellines and the tyrants of Tuscany and Lombardy who were of the imperial party sent their ambassadors to Germany to persuade Louis Duke of Bavaria, elected king of the Romans, to assist them in resisting and opposing the power of the said Duke of Calabria and the supporters of the Church in Lombardy.¹⁶⁸ And with great promises, they led the

 Louis IV of Bavaria (1282– 1347), son of Duke Louis II of Bavaria and Matilda of Hapsburg,

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said Louis and a small company, together with the Duke of Carinthia, to a council at Trent, on the borders of Germany, beyond Verona. Messer Cane, Lord of Verona, attended this council with eight hundred knights (he came so strongly supported by men-at-arms because he feared the said Duke of Carinthia, with whom he had had trouble over the lordship of Padua). Also present were Messer Passerino,¹⁶⁹ Lord of Mantua, and one of the Marquesses of Este,¹⁷⁰ and Messer Marco¹⁷¹ and Messer Azzone Visconti¹⁷² of Milan and also Guido de’ Tarlati, who called himself Bishop of Arezzo, and ambassadors from Castruccio, from the Pisans, from the Genoese exiles, from Don Frederick of Sicily,¹⁷³ and from every

King of the Romans (1314), King of Italy (1327), and Holy Roman Emperor (1328). Henry VII’s death had given rise to a contested election and civil war which was finally concluded by Louis’s victory over his rival Frederick the Fair at the Battle of Mühldorf in 1322. He had been excommunicated by Pope John XXII in 1324 and for this reason our chronicler usually refers to him simply and contemptuously as the “Bavarian”. On Louis see Clauss, Ludwig IV der Bayer and Seibert, ed., Ludwig der Bayer. On his expedition and his clash with the church see Offler, “Empire and Papacy: The Last Struggle,” 35 – 39 and Gregorovius, History of Rome, vol. 6, 131– 173.  Rainaldo Bonacolsi, called Passerino (d. 1328) was the son of Giovannino Bonacolsi. He became Lord of Mantua in 1309, after the death of his brother Guido Bonacolsi. A supporter of Henry VII, he received investiture as imperial vicar of Mantua in 1311 in return for 20,000 florins (although his relations with the emperor would deteriorate over time). Passerino’s power grew substantially, assisted by his allies—indeed he came to control the city of Modena and decisively beat back a Bolognese army outside that city at the Battle of Zappolino on the 15th of November 1325. By this time, however, his power had begun to wane, and he soon lost Modena. Walter, “Rainaldo Bonacolsi.”  Obizzo d’Este (1294– 1352) was son of Aldobrandino II d’Este and Alda di Tobia Rangoni. He came to power in 1317, along with his brothers Rinaldo and Niccolò, after a revolt against the Angevin garrison which held Ferrara for the church. In 1327 the “guelfi per tradizione” marchesi, to use Villani’s collective expression, were allied with the Ghibellines, having formed an alliance with Louis and the other Ghibelline lords in 1324. Bertolini, “Obizzo d’Este.”  Marco Visconti (d. 1329) was the son of Matteo I Visconti and Bonacossa Borri, and therefore brother of Galeazzo I. An energetic warrior, constantly in the field on behalf of his “città”, the “signoria viscontea”, and the “‘partito’ ghibellino”, he fought in the Battle of Montecatini in the forces of Uguccione della Faggiuola. Villani will soon record the consequences of the accusation of disloyalty that Marco made against his brother, resulting in the arrest of the latter, along with other members of the family. Bozzi, “Marco Visconti, detto Balatrone.”  Azzone Visconti (1302– 1339) was the son of Galeazzo I Visconti and Beatrice d’Este. Azzone was a fortunate soldier and distinguished himself at the Battles of Altopascio and Zappolino. Villani will soon describe his arrest and will later describe his ascent to power on the death of Galeazzo. Grillo, “Azzone Visconti.”  Frederick III of Sicily (1272– 1337) was son of Peter III of Aragon and Constance of Sicily. His brothers, Alfonso III and James II, were successive Kings of Aragon. Frederick became Regent of Sicily in 1291 and was crowned King of Sicily in 1296 by the Sicilian Parliament (which refused to allow the island to be returned to the Church, according to the provisions of the 1295 Aragonese-

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commander of the imperial and Ghibelline party in Italy. At the beginning of this council, a truce was offered by the said Duke of Carinthia to Messer Cane of Verona. Soon thereafter, on the 16th day of February, the said elected king of the Romans, who was in the common speech called the Bavarian by those who did not wish to be excommunicated, promised and swore that he would not return to his country but would cross into Italy and journey to Rome. And the said tyrants and ambassadors of the Ghibelline communes promised to give him one hundred fifty thousand gold florins when he reached Milan (although the Pisans did not bind themselves to this league but, on the side, tried to give him a good deal of money, so that he would promise not to enter Pisa). And in the said council he unjustifiably proclaimed that Pope John XXII was a heretic and not fit to be pope, issuing sixteen articles of accusation against him. He did this with the advice of many bishops and other prelates and Franciscans and Dominicans and Augustinians, all of whom were for many different reasons schismatics and rebels against Holy Church, and the Master of the Teutonic Order was with them, along with all the bilge water of apostates and schismatics of Christendom. And among the articles of accusation that he directed against the said pope the strongest and most serious was the one that raised the dispute that had been raised at court, declaring that Christ owned no property and that the pope and the clergy loved their property and that they were enemies of the holy poverty of Christ; alongside this article there were many articles scandalous to the faith. He and his prelates, all excommunicated men, continually celebrated the holy offices and they excommunicated Pope John, whom they derisively called Pope Priest John, and this gave rise to grave error in Christendom. Once they had done these things, on the 13th day of March the Bavarian departed from Trent with a small number of his men, and he was poor and in need of money—in all, he had no more than six hundred knights. And he traveled through the mountains and came to the city of Como, and then from there he came to and entered Milan, on the … day of April 1327.

XIX How the elected one of Bavaria, called the Bavarian, had himself crowned in Milan. Angevin Treaty of Anagni). In 1302 Frederick was a party to the Treaty of Caltabelotta, which sought peace with the Angevins, promising their recovery of Sicily after his death—a stipulation which was never carried out, since Frederick was succeeded by his son Peter. On this period in the history of Sicily, see Backman, The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily.

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And then on the 31st day of May in the year of our Lord 1327, on the Feast of Pentecost, near the hour of nones, the said Bavarian had himself crowned with the iron crown in the Church of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan by the hand of Guido de’ Tarlati, the deposed Bishop of Arezzo, and by the hand of … of the house of Maggio, deposed Bishop of Brescia—both excommunicates. And the Archbishop of Milan, whose office it was to perform the coronation, refused to be present there in Milan. Present at the said coronation were Messer Cane, Lord of Verona, with seven hundred knights, and the Marquesses of Este, rebels against the Church, with three hundred knights, and the son of Messer Passerino, Lord of Mantua, with three hundred knights, and also many other commanders of the imperial party and Ghibellines of Italy. But there was little celebration. And he stayed in Milan until the 12th day of August, gathering money and men. Let us leave him for a time, cutting short our account of his arrival, to speak of the consequences, the new things that were set in motion in Italy because of his coming.

XX What the popolo of Rome did because of the coming of the Bavarian who called himself their king. Because of the coming of the said Bavarian, elected as king of the Romans, almost all of Italy was immediately and at the same time moved into action. The Romans rose up and formed a popular government, since they had neither the papal court, nor that of the emperor to restrain them, and removed lordship —and their fortresses—from all the nobles and grandi of Rome. And certain nobles were sent into exile, such as Napoleone Orsini and Messer Stefano Colonna, who had just recently been made knights by King Robert in Naples, since it was feared that they would give the lordship of Rome to King Robert of Puglia.¹⁷⁴ And they appointed, as captain of the popolo of Rome, Sciarra della Colonna¹⁷⁵ who was to rule the city along with a council of fifty-two popolani, four per rione. And they sent their ambassadors to Avignon in Provence to Pope John, begging him to return to Rome with his court, as this was his rightful place, and declaring  On these events see Cassell, The Monarchia Controversy, 35 and Gregorovius, History of Rome, vol. 6, 134– 35.  Sciarra Colonna (1270 – 1328) was among the men who captured Pope Boniface VIII at Anagni in 1303. He supported both Henry VII and Louis IV during their descents into Italy. Waley, “Giacomo Colonna, detto Sciarra.”

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that if he did not do this, they would receive as their lord the King of Romans, the said Louis of Bavaria (and they also sent their ambassadors to stir up the said Louis called the Bavarian). They were pretending to be moved by a desire to have the papal court in Rome again because of the wealth that this would bring to the city, as had been the case long ago, but this had bigger consequences than they expected, as will be mentioned further ahead.¹⁷⁶ The pope responded to the Romans through his ambassadors, admonishing them and encouraging them not to receive the Bavarian as their king, since he was a heretic and excommunicated, and a persecutor of Holy Church, and that he the pope would come to Rome when the time was right, and soon. However, the Romans did not depart from their error, negotiating with the pope and the Bavarian and King Robert, giving each the impression that they, the Romans, were holding the city for them, while the city was ruled by the popolo, and pretending to lean somewhat towards the Ghibelline and imperial faction.

XXI How King Robert sent his brother the Prince of the Morea with one thousand knights to the towns of Rome. King Robert, hearing of the coming of the said Bavarian into Lombardy, sent his brother Messer John Prince of the Morea with one thousand knights to L’Aquila to take control of the towns that were on the passes and at the entrances to the Regno. It was his job to guard Norcia in the Ducato and then the city of Rieti, where he left the Duke of Athens with men-at-arms. Then he provided all the cities of Campagna with a papal governor, to guard it for him and for the Church. And then he thought he would be able to enter Rome with the forces of the nobles, but the Romans refused to receive him. For this reason, he brought his troops to Viterbo and he devastated the surrounding territory and took control of a great deal of their contado, because they refused to give him the city. And while the Prince of the Morea was attacking the towns around Rome, King Robert sent seventy galleys with five hundred knights to Sicily against Don Frederick and this fleet left Naples on the 8th of July, in the year 1327; they did considerable  For “wealth” Villani employs the term grascia: derived from Latin crassus, or grease, the medieval term referred to the provisions of a city, or to its grain, or to the customs duties for any kind of foodstuffs brought into a city, and figuratively, wealth, abundance, or gain. The wordplay between grascia and the similar sounding word grazia (grace) would not have been lost on Villani’s readers.

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harm to many areas of Sicily, and captured many enemy ships. In the meantime, five Genoese galleys from the said fleet, sent on the orders of King Robert, came to guard the mouth of the Tiber River, so that provisions and food would not be able to enter the city of Rome via the sea; these galleys captured the citadel of Ostia on the 5th of August of the said year, and plundered it completely. As a result, some of the popolo of Rome, in a great fury and in a disorganized manner, raced to Ostia; and when they then stormed the city, many were wounded and killed by bolts from the crossbows of the Genoese, and so they withdrew back to Rome; afterwards the Genoese set fire to the city and left, returning to their galleys. The popolo of Rome was very upset with King Robert on account of this, and they broke certain agreements that they had made with him. Whence, the cardinal legate, who was in Florence, headed towards Rome on the 30th of August of that year, in order to reconcile the Romans with King Robert, and so as to enter Rome with Messer John Prince of the Morea and with the nobles of Rome (who were in exile outside the city). But the popolo of Rome would hear nothing of it. And so, seeing that they would not be able to enter Rome by accord, they arranged to enter by deceit and force; thus, on Monday night, the 28th of September of that year, the said prince […] ¹⁷⁷

XXII How the Prince of the Morea, brother of King Robert, and the cardinal legate entered Rome, and were chased out with shame and harm. […] the cardinal legate, who was of the Orsini family, and Messer Napoleone Orsini had their men break through the wall of the garden of San Pietro, in what is called the Leonine City, and entered Rome with five hundred knights and as many foot soldiers, although Messer Stefano della Colonna refused to enter. The said men captured the Church of San Pietro, and the piazza, and the borgo where used goods are sold¹⁷⁸ and they killed all the Romans who were there guarding it by night and made barricades on the side of the said borgo facing Castel Sant’Angelo. But when day broke, that group of Romans who had promised, at the behest of the Orsini, to start the fighting in the town, did noth The text flows across the rubric in an unusual way, continuing the narration of the same event. The sentence, however, does not connect properly, leaving off with “the prince” and then picking up with “the cardinal legate.”  This was the rione called Borgo and Leonine City. This area was demolished during the fascist era to make way for the present-day Via della Conciliazione.

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ing, nor did the men of the prince and of the legate find any followers among the Romans. Rather, the opposite occurred. The popolo of Rome had taken up arms during the night, and, ringing the bell of the Campidoglio rapidly and continuously, came to attack the prince and the legate and their men; there was a great battle at the barricades they had made, and one of the Anibaldeschi was killed, as well as many other Romans. In the end, the popolo gained the upper hand, as their forces were increasing from all sides, and the prince’s troops—around one hundred knights and many foot soldiers there to defend the barricades—were defeated and routed, and Messer Geoffroy de Joinville died there, along with about twenty other knights and quite a few foot soldiers. Seeing this, the prince and the legate, who were in formation with the other knights in the Piazza San Pietro, had their men set fire to the said borgo, so that the popolo might not press upon them, since otherwise they would all have been killed and captured. And so, they withdrew safely, and departed from Rome, though with losses and dishonor, and returned to Orte; this was on the 28th of September. We will now leave the doings of King Robert and the Prince and the Romans, and return to tell of events in Florence, Tuscany, and Lombardy which occurred upon the arrival of the said Bavarian.

XXIII How a son was born to the Duke of Calabria in Florence. In the said year 1327, on the 13th of April, a son was born in Florence to the Duke of Calabria by his wife, who was daughter of Messer Charles de Valois of France, and he was baptized by Messer Simone della Tosa and by Salvestro Manetti de’ Baroncelli, syndics appointed by the commune and popolo of Florence. He was given the name Martino and great celebrations and displays of arms were made in his honor by the Florentines, but on the eighth day after his birth he died and was buried at Santa Croce, whence there was great mourning in Florence.

XXIV How the city of Modena rebelled against the lordship of Messer Passerino of Mantua. In the said year, on the 4th of June, the popolo of the city of Modena, in a plot arranged by the legate of Lombardy, rose up in rebellion, calling out for peace.

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They chased out the officials and the soldiers who were there for Messer Passerino, Lord of Mantua, and settled things with the legate, so that the city would remain under the control of their faction, the Ghibellines, yet under rule of the legate. The property of the Guelphs who had been exiled would be returned to them, although certain of the Guelph leaders would remain in exile, and the people of Modena would treat the Church’s friends as their friends, and its enemies as their enemies. And it was said that the Church spent fifteen thousand gold florins on certain citizens to bring about this accord, so that with wisdom and money, the people of Modena were brought to a peaceful state, after having suffered much from siege and war and tyrannical lordship.

XXV Some things that occurred in Pisa, because of the coronation of the Bavarian. In this same period, at the beginning of June, when the news of the Bavarian’s coronation in Milan arrived in Pisa, along with an olive branch, certain exiles of Florence and other cities celebrated and lit bonfires, and a few popolani minuti of Pisa called out: “Death to the pope and King Robert and the Florentines, and long live the Emperor!” Those who were then ruling Pisa, the best and the most powerful and richest popolani of the city, whose faction made them enemies of Castruccio, did not want the Bavarian to come, and were in continual negotiations with the pope and with King Robert. And so, they chased from Pisa almost all those foreigners who had been exiled from their own cities, and they exiled some prominent citizens whose loyalty to their regime was in doubt, and who loved the coming of the Bavarian and the lordship of Castruccio; and out of fear, they sent away all the German soldiers and confiscated their horses. Indeed, their government was almost more on the side of the Church than the Ghibellines, and this led to great change in Pisa upon the arrival of the Bavarian, as we will mention further ahead.

XXVI About a plot that the duke made to take the city of Lucca from Castruccio, which was discovered. In the said year 1327, the Duke of Calabria, Lord of Florence, secretly laid a plot with certain people from the house of the Quartigiani of Lucca, that they, with

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their followers, would cause the city to rebel against Castruccio. They agreed to this because of the offenses they had received from Castruccio’s tyrannical lordship, and because of the large amount of money paid to them by the duke and the Commune of Florence. The plan was as follows: the soldiers of the duke would carry out a raid on the lands of Pistoia and lay siege to the city; when Castruccio left Lucca with his horsemen to aid Pistoia, the conspirators in various parts of the city would bring out banners and pennants with the arms of the Church and of the duke—these ensigns had already been secretly sent from Florence. Once the uprising had begun in Lucca and some gates had been captured, the men of the duke and the Florentines, who stood ready in great numbers in Fucecchio and in the towns of the Valdarno, immediately upon receiving a signal were supposed to ride to Lucca and capture the city. And this plot would have been carried out, had the raid by the duke’s men not been delayed, for in the interim someone from the house of the Quartigiani itself, out of cowardice and fear, revealed the plot to Castruccio. Whereupon Castruccio immediately had the gates of Lucca closed, and he took control of the city with his men; he arrested twenty-two people of the house of Quartigiani, along with many others; and he had said the standards found. He had Messer Guerruccio Quartigiani with three of his young sons hanged with the said standards displayed upside down, while others of that family he had buried alive with their heads facing downwards, and all the rest of the house of Quartigiani, numbering more than one hundred, he chased out from the city of Lucca and from its contado. This happened on the 12th of June of the aforementioned year. And this was a great judgment and punishment from God, since these people of the house of Quartigiani—which had been Guelph in the old days—had been leaders in the plot to give the city and lordship of Lucca to Castruccio, betraying the Guelphs, and now they were killed and their family was destroyed by him for the same sin of treason. Castruccio, having discovered this plot, which involved many conspirators, good citizens of Lucca and its contado, was not eager to uncover it further, but rather lived in much fear and apprehension and did not dare leave the city. And it is certain that he would have soon lost the city, due to the animosity of his citizens, and the forces of the duke and the Florentines, if it were not for the swift help and the arrival of the Bavarian, as we will mention further ahead.

XXVII How the cardinal legate publicly announced in Florence the measures the pope had taken against the Bavarian.

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In the said year 1327, the day of the feast of Saint John the Baptist in June, Messer Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, cardinal legate in Tuscany, during the celebration of the aforesaid feast in the Piazza of San Giovanni, announced the new measures the pope had taken against Louis Duke of Bavaria, elected king of the Romans, against him as a heretic and a persecutor of Holy Church. And he lodged only a short time in Florence, since he was heading towards Rome to correct the errors of the Romans, as we recounted previously.

XXVIII About the revolt of Faenza in Romagna, son against father. In the said year, on the 8th of July, Alberghettino, son of Francesco de’ Manfredi, Lord of Faenza, rebelled and usurped lordship of the city of Faenza from his father and brothers, chasing them out, and making himself lord.¹⁷⁹ This shows that he did not wish to depart from his lineage either in name or in deed, instead following in the footsteps of his uncle, Friar Alberigo, who passed the bad fruit to his kinsmen;¹⁸⁰ that is, he had them killed and cut apart at his dinner. And so, Francesco Manfredi, who had taken part in the deed, received, in part, a guerdon for that sin from his son.¹⁸¹

 Alberghettino II Manfredi was the son of Francesco Manfredi and brother of Ricciardo Manfredi. He had already been involved in one conspiracy against his father the year before. His seizure of power took place while his father was in Bologna, meeting with Bertrand du Pouget. Francesco and Ricciardo, assisted by the cardinal legate, spent the next year at war against Alberghettino to retake Faenza. Lazzarini, “Alberghettino Manfredi.” On the Manfredi, see Zama, I Manfredi.  Villani’s epithet describes Alberigo “che diede le male frutta a’ suoi consorti.” It is a reference to Dante’s Inferno, XXXIII: 118 – 20 in which Alberigo says “I’ son frate Alberigo; i’ son quel da le frutta del mal orto.” Fra Alberigo of Faenza is to be found in Cocytus, the ninth circle and the lowest realm of Hell, where traitors of family and guests are punished, because he had invited two of his relatives to a banquet and had them murdered as the fruit course arrived. Villani suggests that Francesco Manfredi also received a punishment for having participated in that betrayal—he was unseated by his son. Dante commentator Francesco da Buti, writing after 1385, remarked that this passage had entered into common parlance: “però s’usa di dire: Elli ebbe delle frutta di frate Alberigo.” Buti, Commento, 839.  A “guerdon” is a reward or recompense. Villani’s term, guidardone, is a courtly one, and is used with a hint of sarcasm, since the recompense is actually a punishment. This very brief tale is reminiscent of the medieval narrative form of the exemplum.

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XXIX Of events in Florence. In the said year, on the 11th of July, as night fell, a fire started in Florence in the Borgo Santi Apostoli in the alley between the houses of the Bonciani and the Acciaiuoli, and six houses burned down, as well as the palace of the Giotti, but no one was injured.

XXX How the duke and the Florentines led their army against Castruccio, and captured the castello di Santa Maria a Monte. In the said year, on the 25th of July, the Florentine army raised by the duke and by the commune made ready to depart; it gathered for review and made a display of its cavalry in Piazza Santa Croce: the duke had thirteen hundred men on horse, and the Florentines had one hundred captains with two or three companions each, very noble men, skillful in arms and on horse. The foot soldiers presented themselves on the island behind Santa Croce¹⁸² numbering more than eight thousand men. And having received the blessing from the cardinal legate and the standards from the duke, they moved off and departed in the evening, and set up camp at the foot of Signa on the Ombrone. They stayed there for three days, for no one knew where the army was supposed to go, which amazed the Florentines, but this was done out of caution, so that Castruccio would have no advance warning of where the army was planning to attack, whether Pistoia, or the contado of Lucca, so that Castruccio would have to divide his army into two parts. After setting up camp, they moved suddenly at night, and left all the tents up until the morning at tierce, so that the enemies would not notice that the army had moved. All night they rode along the path of Montelupo, and the next day before the hour of nones they passed over the Guisciana River by a bridge that was placed during the night at the crossing of Rosaiuolo. Once the four hundred knights from the Valdarno had crossed over, they immediately began to lay siege to the castello di Santa Maria a Monte. And then Messer  There was at that time a real island formed by two branches of the Arno that divided near what is now Piazza Beccaria and joined again near the city walls, at Via dei Verdi and Via de’ Benci. When the Franciscans first chose that location for their church in 1226 – 1228, it was quiet and isolated, outside the city walls.

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Vergi di Landa joined the army with three hundred and fifty knights sent by the Commune of Bologna, and the legate and other allies, so that the next day there were around two thousand five hundred knights and more than twelve thousand foot soldiers. The Count Novello of Montescheggioso and of Andri was captain of the army, since the duke had remained in Florence with five hundred knights, because it was not a full campaign and it was not honorable for the duke to lead his armies against a castello. The said castello was very strong, with three circles of walls and a citadel, and very well provisioned with food and as for troops it had around five hundred men, but not more, since Castruccio, fearing that the army might go towards Carmignano, had sent two hundred of his best soldiers there, taking them from Santa Maria a Monte. A deadline was given for those inside the castello to surrender themselves, and when they did not obey, on Sunday, August 2nd, the said army began to attack several points of the outer wall, from the borghi. ¹⁸³ The most important barons and knights of the army dismounted from their horses, and with shields on their arms, and helmets on their heads, positioned themselves beneath the walls, and in the moats, and set up ladders against the walls; when the popolo on foot saw the knights do this, they were inspired to marvelous feats of arms. And the attack was so harsh on every side of the castello, because of the rain of arrows fired by the Genoese crossbowmen who were at the siege, and by the Florentines, as well as all the other types of attack, that those inside the castello could not hold out. A Provençal squire named … was the first to scale the walls with the standards, followed by many others (for this, the duke made him a knight, and gave him an income in his country). Seeing this, the townspeople, terrified, abandoned the borghi, and entered within the second ring of walls. But the Florentines and the soldiers of the duke who had entered within the first ring of walls, right away, without resting or delay, began to attack the next ring of walls, and similarly, by force, and using ladders and fire, with great toil they overcame it the very same day. All those who were within, young and old, were put to the sword, except for several who had taken refuge in the citadel. The castello was burning in several places, from the fire that was set by our men during the battle, and then as our men were gathering their loot, the foreign soldiers took it from them to prevent them from keeping it—and from then on our men set fire to the houses and the loot. And thus there was not one house big or small that did not burn down and the townspeople—men, women, and children—who had escaped the battle and hidden themselves, could not escape the fire, and for this reason many were found

 Normally, borghi are the inhabited areas just outside the walls of a town, and they may still retain that name after a later set of walls comes to encompass them.

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dead and burned. This was a great punishment from God, but it was not without cause, since the people of Santa Maria a Monte had always been Guelph but had betrayed their town and given it to Castruccio. Because of this betrayal, the exiles from Lucca and many of their faction, and the prominent people who were at that time in the castello, were given as prisoners into the hands of Castruccio. And furthermore, from the time that the city surrendered itself to Castruccio, during the war, it had become a lair for all the thievery, murders, abductions, and vile sins done in the Valdarno. And once our men had taken the castello, the citadel held out for eight days awaiting assistance from Castruccio, who did not dare leave Vivinaia where he was encamped with his men, and on the 10th of August that year, those who were in the citadel came out, and their lives were spared. And having captured the citadel, our army stayed outside in the field for eight days in order to strengthen the town and rebuild the brattices and towers and houses, and they left it garrisoned with one hundred knights and five hundred foot soldiers. We have spoken at such great length about the capture of the said castello, since it was the strongest castello of Tuscany, and the best provisioned, and it was taken through force of battle, through the ability and vigor of the good men that were in our army, a kind of vigor one cannot recall seeing in Tuscany in our day. Castruccio and his men were dismayed by their loss, and nowhere did they dare to engage with or confront in battle our men and those of the duke.

XXXI How the army of Florence and of the duke captured the castello d’Artimino by force. On the 18th of August, after capturing the castello di Santa Maria a Monte, the Florentine army departed, passed over the Guisciana, and set up camp at the foot of Fucecchio, remaining there for two days, so that Castruccio would not be able to predict where the army might strike next, whether in the contado of Lucca, or in that of Pistoia. After these two days had passed, they immediately re-crossed the Guisciana, going to camp at the foot of Cerruglio, near Vivinaia, and they stayed there and at Galleno for three days, gathering into formation, sounding trumpets, and challenging Castruccio, who was at Cerruglio and Montechiari with eight hundred knights and more than ten thousand foot soldiers. And the Florentine armies would have begun to cross over and head towards Lucca, if not for the fact that keeping this army in the field required great expense and provisions, and they had news that the Bavarian, the so-called king

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of the Romans, was expected to cross into Tuscany within a short time, so that they thought it best to return to this side of the Guisciana. And so, without pausing, the army passed Monte Albano and began a siege of the castello d’Artiminio, which had been given new walls and greatly strengthened by Castruccio, and was well provisioned with food and soldiers. They continued the siege for three days. On the third day, they surrounded it and launched the harshest attack ever made against a castello, and by the best knights of the army, which lasted from midday until the first sleep of the night,¹⁸⁴ burning the palisades and the gate of the castello; whereupon those inside, very frightened, and most wounded by arrows, asked for mercy, saying that they were willing to surrender if their lives would be spared. This was agreed to, and on the morning of the 27th of August, the inhabitants left, and surrendered the castello, but despite the pacts, once the knights escorting them had left, many were killed. Following upon that victory, the army intended to continue on and attack Carmignano and Tizzano, and without a doubt they would have captured those places, which were still reeling from the battles of Santa Maria a Monte and the loss of Artimino, but the duke received reliable reports that the Bavarian was at Pontremoli with his troops, and so, not wanting the Bavarian to encounter the Florentine troops in the field, the duke ordered that the army return to Florence. And thus it returned victoriously on the 28th of August in the said year. And note that from the time that the duke came to Florence, one day before the beginning of August 1326, until the return of the said army to Florence, was just a few days more than a year, and during this time it was calculated that the Commune of Florence had spent—including the money for the salary of the duke—more than five hundred thousand gold florins, which would be a great feat even for a wealthy kingdom. And all this money came from the purses of the Florentines, whence each citizen complained bitterly.¹⁸⁵ We will leave for a while our matters of Florence, turning back to speak of what the Bavarian, who had been crowned in Milan, did in Lombardy and then in Tuscany.

 The historian A. Roger Ekirch has gathered evidence for the practice of segmented sleep in pre-industrial societies in his At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past. He explains that the “first sleep” and “second sleep” would be two phases of the night’s rest, with an interval of wakefulness between.  Villani would have knowledge of these figures because in 1327 he was charged with calculating the expenses incurred by Duke Charles of Calabria—a fact which he mentions in Nuova Cronica, XI: 50. Furthermore, in October of 1327 he was appointed to the city tax commission (estimo).

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XXXII How the Bavarian deposed the Visconti from the lordship of Milan and put them into prison. Having been crowned in Milan, Louis, known as the Bavarian, who had been elected king of the Romans, as we set forth previously, being in Milan, was seeking the money that had been promised to him at the council at Trent. When he was asked for this money, Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan,¹⁸⁶ who, in his arrogance and power, considered himself more important than the said Bavarian in Milan, and had in his pay as many as twelve hundred German soldiers, responded arrogantly to the lord, saying that he would impose a levy to collect these funds, when and where he pleased. And he had his reasons for saying this, since all the nobles of Milan, and even Messer Marco, his brother, and his other relatives, and almost all the popolo of Milan hated his tyrannical rule, because of the excessive taxes and duties he imposed—he wanted all and not part —and therefore he was not eager to require further money from the popolo, for if he had, they would not have obeyed him. Indeed, many of the leaders of his government had already complained to the Bavarian, for which reason the Bavarian sent for his marshal and his men, who had gone to assist Voghera, and had all the German captains who served Messer Galeazzo contacted, and made them secretly swear loyalty to him. Once his marshal had arrived, the Bavarian assembled a great council which included Galeazzo, his family, and all the great men of Milan. He complained in that council about the said Galeazzo and his family and then made Galeazzo renounce his lordship, after which he had his marshal seize Galeazzo and his son Azzone, as well as his brothers Marco and Luchino; this took place on the 6th of July, the year of our Lord 1327. As a result, the nobles and the popolo of Milan were very happy and content. And once this was done, the Bavarian reformed the government of the city so that it was ruled by one of his barons, as his vicar, with a council of twenty-four of the best men of Milan, who immediately instituted a tax and collected fifty thousand gold florins, and gave them to the said Bavarian. And in this way, the Church of God had its revenge for the arrogance of its enemies the Visconti through its enemy and tor-

 Galeazzo I Visconti (1277– 1328) was the son of Matteo Visconti and Bonacossa Borri. Upon his father’s death in 1322 he assumed power over Milan and in 1323 and 1324, with the assistance of the Bavarian, successfully prevented the city from being captured by a papal army fighting under a banner of Crusade. His arrest was a product of internal divisions among the Visconti, and particularly the ambitions of his brother Marco Visconti who may have accused him of disloyalty to the Bavarian. Pagnoni, “Galeazzo Visconti.”

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mentor Louis of Bavaria, so that the word of Christ from His Holy Gospel was truly fulfilled, where He says “I will use my enemy to kill my enemy.”¹⁸⁷

XXXIII How the Bavarian, having held his council in Lombardy, crossed into Tuscany. This capture of Galeazzo and his family astonished and terrified all the Ghibelline tyrants of Lombardy and Tuscany, since it was precisely because of Galeazzo’s efforts, power, and money, and upon his advice, that the said Bavarian had left Germany and come to Lombardy; and yet the first thing he did was to oust him from power and put him in prison. And so the Bavarian ordered that a general council be held, at a castello near Brescia called Orzinuovi, and he summoned and called up all the leaders of the imperial faction of Lombardy and Tuscany to attend the said council. He sent Galeazzo in chains to prison in the castello di Monza but he released Marco, since he did not find him guilty of anything. He imposed a ransom of twenty-five thousand gold florins for the release of Luchino and Azzone (of which they paid sixteen thousand) and brought them along under courteous guard, to the council. And then he departed Milan on the 12th of August in the said year. Also at this council were Messer Cane Lord of Verona, Messer Passerino Lord of Mantua, and Rinaldo of the Marquesses of Este, and Guido Tarlati, the deposed Bishop of Arezzo, and the ambassadors of Castruccio and of all the towns supporting the imperial faction. At this council, the Bavarian revealed letters that Galeazzo was sending to the papal legate plotting against him, in order to justify his arrest. Some said that these letters were real, and others that they were false. And at the said council, in defiance of Church authority, he appointed three bishops, one for Cremona, the other for Como, and the last from the Tarlati family, for Città di Castello. When that was done, he prepared to cross into Tuscany. And it was calculated that by that time he had gathered from the Milanese and the tyrants and the Ghibelline cities of Italy two hundred thousand gold florins—and he had great need of them, since he and his men were quite lacking in funds. Once the said council had ended, Marco and Luchino and Azzone Visconti fled and entered the castello  The biblical locus is not clearly identifiable. Jeremiah 44:29 – 30 expresses this idea, but not in the same words. “This is what the Lord says: ‘I am going to deliver Pharaoh Hophra King of Egypt into the hands of his enemies who want to kill him, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the enemy who wanted to kill him.” Villani uses similar expressions elsewhere in the Nuova Cronica, III: 6; XI: 98; XII: 7; and XII: 135.

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di Iseo, and they later made war on Milan. The Bavarian went to Cremona, and from there crossed the bridge over the River Po on the 23rd of August, in the year of our Lord 1327, and arrived at Borgo San Donnino with fifteen hundred of his knights, plus those that he had gotten in Milan, and two hundred and fifty from Messer Cane, and one hundred and fifty from Messer Passerino, and one hundred from the Marquesses Este; and without meeting any resistance, he passed over the Apennine mountains in the contado of Parma, and ended up in Pontremoli on the first of September of the said year. And although the legate who was in Lombardy for the Church had more than three thousand knights hired in his service, he did not move to block the Bavarian, which would have been easy enough given the defensible passes. For this reason, the said legate was cursed as a traitor by the faithful of Holy Church in Tuscany, although he made excuses, saying that he had not received money from the pope to pay the soldiers, and thus could not make his men ride upon the Bavarian.

XXXIV How the Bavarian laid siege to the city of Pisa. As soon as the Bavarian and his wife, who was the daughter of the Count of Hainaut,¹⁸⁸ had passed into Tuscany, Castruccio came all the way to Pontremoli to meet them, leading a great company and bearing great gifts and presents and fresh provisions. He accompanied them for several days, going as far as Pietrasanta in the contado of Lucca, and there the Bavarian stopped, and refused to enter Lucca, unless he first took the city of Pisa. Certain of the people who were ruling there, who were the richest and most powerful people of Pisa and adversaries of Castruccio, in no way wanted to obey the said Bavarian for fear of Castruccio and of the taxes and expenses that would follow, giving as their reason their reluctance to defy the Church, since the Bavarian was excommunicated, and since he was not emperor by the authority of the Holy Church; and furthermore, that the Pisans did not want to break the truce with King Robert and the Florentines. The Bavarian sent his ambassadors, but the Pisans did not allow them to enter the city; rather, they gathered troops and provisions, fortified the city, and chased out the German soldiers who were there under their pay, taking away their horses. And so the said Bavarian felt very offended in

 Margaret II of Avesnes (1311– 1356) was the daughter of Count William I of Hainaut and Joan of Valois.

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his honor, and decided that he would go no further until he had Pisa under his control. And in this interval of time, Guido Tarlati, the deposed Bishop of Arezzo, took on the role of go-between, going to Ripafratta and sending word to the Pisans that they should send him their ambassadors; the Pisans sent three of the greatest men of Pisa, and these were Messer Lemmo Guinizzelli Sismondi, Messer Albizzo da Vico, and Ser Iacopo da Calci. After several days of negotiations, the Pisans agreed to give the Bavarian sixty thousand gold florins if he would continue on his way without entering Pisa, but the Bavarian in no way wished to accept this accord. When the said ambassadors departed, on the failure of these negotiations, Castruccio crossed the River Serchio with his men-at-arms, and seized them; and then the Bavarian with his men crossed over in the same way, and his marshal came from Lucca with more troops, and they laid siege to the city of Pisa on the 6th of September, in the year of our Lord 1327, and the Bavarian in person took part in the siege at San Michele degli Scalzi.

XXXV How the Bavarian captured the city of Pisa. When the Pisans saw that they had been betrayed and their ambassadors captured, and when they saw how quickly the Bavarian and Castruccio had arrived to besiege their city, they were quite dismayed. If they had thought this possible, they certainly would have sent for assistance earlier, for knights and soldiers from the duke in Florence (although they were at that time feigning negotiations with him and they had received a good quantity of arms and arrows from the Florentines). But seeing themselves so boldly attacked, they recovered their energy and returned to the well-ordered guard of their city, reinforcing all the city gates, and guarding the walls. The second day, the Bavarian crossed over the Arno, and positioned himself in Borgo San Marco while Castruccio and his army remained of the city facing Lucca; then the army extended itself to the Porta San Donnino and the Porta Legatia without facing any opposition at all; and in a few days they made a wooden bridge from the Borgo San Marco to San Michele de’ Prati, and they had another bridge made upon boats beneath the Porta Legatia; and so, within a few days, they had laid full siege to the city and had surrounded it completely. The Bavarian’s army had, between his men and those of Castruccio and the other Ghibellines of Tuscany and Lombardy, three thousand knights or more, badly horsed, and a great popolo from the contado of Lucca and Pisa itself, and from the contado of Luni and the Riviera of Genoa. Right away they captured Porto Pisano, and then after a few days of

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raiding throughout the contado by the leaders of the Pisan exiles, the Bavarian had all the castelli and territory of Pisa under his control. When the Pisans who were holding the city learned of this, they were greatly dismayed. And yet they still did not send for aid from the duke, but only for money to pay their soldiers who were guarding the city (they did not dare levy a tax on the citizens, for fear that the popolo minuto might rise against them). The duke sent money via letters of credit from Florentine companies inside Pisa, and he would have sent more, but he heard that the Pisans were in negotiations with the Bavarian, even though they were still united and fierce in their defense against his forces. In the meantime, the Bavarian launched many assaults and attacks on the gates, and had his men mine under the walls, and had several siege towers built to make attacks on the city, but all this came to nothing, since Pisa was so strong and well-equipped. And so, the Bavarian continued the siege with great exertion and with much want for more than a month. But, as pleased God, to punish the sins of the Pisans, dissension arose among those who were governing the city, and among the most important of these were Count Fazio son of Count Gaddo, a young man, and Vanni di Banduccio Bonconti, who, induced by letters and promises from Castruccio, said they wanted peace, and the others who were governing the city with them, out of fear, said similar things and they negotiated an accord: they would give him the city, and sixty thousand gold florins, but Pisa would remain under their government and power, and Castruccio and the exiles were not to enter Pisa without their permission, but were to stay in exile. And when this false accord had been completed and sworn to by the Bavarian, the Pisans gave him the city on the 8th of October, year of the incarnation of Christ 1327 according to our calendar;¹⁸⁹ and on the following Sunday, the 11th of October, the Bavarian and his lady entered with all his men, peacefully, without incident, and Castruccio and his men and the exiles of Pisa remained outside the city. But on the third day, the Pisans themselves, to please the lord and out of fear, unable to do anything else because of pressure from the popolo minuto, burned the written articles of their treaty, and freely, without a single condition, once again gave the lordship of the city to the Bavarian and recalled Castruccio and all their exiles, who shortly thereafter returned to Pisa. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, except for the case of one Ser Guglielmo da Colonnata, who had been bargello in Pisa and who was brought before the Bavarian by one of his captains, with the popolo minuto coming along behind shouting at him. The said captain killed him in the piazza in the presence of the lord, think-

 Pisa followed the Florentine style of calendar, but depending on who had drafted the accord, dates on documents Villani had before him might have varied.

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ing to please him, whereupon the said Bavarian, to show justice, had the said captain—he was a German named Messer Currado de la Scala—seized, had his head cut off, and had an official announcement sent out saying that any kind of person could come and go, safe and sound, in Pisa and in its contado, if they agreed to pay a gabella of eight danari per libbra for any merchandise. He did this so the merchants would not leave Pisa, and in order to have greater income, and give the Pisans more profit in money. And having done this, he then collected from the Pisans sixty thousand gold florins to pay his knights, and as soon as the city had begun to pay this, he put another duty on top of the first for one hundred thousand gold florins to provide for his travel to Rome. And so the Pisans felt that they had died and been consumed, since due to the war and the loss of Sardinia, their funds were wearing thin, and whoever had anything in Pisa strongly repented of the accord since, for certain, if they had held out for another month, as they could have done, they—and all of Italy—would have been delivered from the Bavarian; looking back on it, they recognized their error, which had caused so much harm and destruction. The said accord between the Pisans and the Bavarian caused great suffering for the Florentines and for all those who supported the Church, since it had seemed that the Bavarian was exhausting himself during the siege, but then because of the successful campaign at Pisa he was once more exalted and feared by all.

XXXVI How the former Bishop of Arezzo departed in poor accord with the Bavarian and died in the Maremma while returning to Arezzo. In the said year, Guido Tarlati, Lord of Arezzo and deposed bishop, left Pisa and the Bavarian very ill-contented, because of the crude words and reproaches he had received from Castruccio in the presence of the said lord. Among these reproaches, Castruccio had called him a traitor, saying that when he, Castruccio, had defeated the Florentines at Altopascio, and had come with Azzone Visconti to Peretola, the Bishop of Arezzo had failed to come with his forces towards Florence by the road of Valdarno, and if he had done so the city of Florence would not have been able to hold out; and in fact this came somewhat close to the truth. The bishop responded that the traitor was Castruccio, who had chased from Pisa and Lucca Uguccione della Faggiuola, and had done the same to all the great Ghibellines of Lucca who had put him in power as a tyrant, and that Castruccio should not have broken the truce with the Florentines in the way he did, unless they first broke it with him. The bishop rebuked him, saying

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that if it were not for the knights and money that he, Guido, had sent, the army could not have held out against the Florentines, and they owed their victory to him. Having heard these reproaches, the Bavarian neither honored him, Guido, nor reproached Castruccio, and so Guido took great offense and left Pisa. When he was in the Maremma, he fell sick at the castello di Montenero, where he passed from this life on the 21st of the month of October. And before he died, in the presence of a good number of people, friars and clerics and laypeople, either out of resentment, or out of good conscience, he admitted to having erred against the pope and Holy Church, and he confessed that Pope John was just and holy, and the Bavarian, who had himself called emperor, was a heretic and supporter of heretics, and supporter of tyrants, and neither a just nor a worthy lord; and he promised and swore oaths that if God would grant him health he would be forever obedient to the Holy Church and to the pope, and an enemy of those who rebelled against them (and he had several notaries draw up official documents concerning these things); and with many tears, he asked for penitence and mercy, he took the sacraments of Holy Church and died in this state of contrition—this was considered a remarkable occurrence throughout Tuscany. And once he had died, his body was carried by his family to Arezzo, and was buried there with great honor, as one who had much improved the city of Arezzo and its bishopric.¹⁹⁰ Because of his death, the armies of Arezzo and Castello, which were in their fortifications at the siege of the castello di Monte Santa Maria, departed as if defeated and returned to Arezzo, and the Aretines appointed Dolfo and Piero Saccone da Pietramala as lords of the city for one year.¹⁹¹

XXXVII How the pope pronounced sentence against the Bavarian.

 The story of the death and confession of Guido d’Arezzo, in which a heretical bishop makes a (perhaps insincere) confession and thereby restores his reputation, and is then “buried with great honor” having “improved the city of Arezzo,” seems to vaguely foreshadow Boccaccio’s tale of Ser Ciappelletto in the Decameron, 1: 1. There, an immoral notary falls ill, makes a false confession, and becomes a saint. Villani’s is a work of some artistry, with the angry debate in indirect dialogue before the Bavarian, followed by the death of Guido and its aftermath.  Piero Saccone dei Tarlati (ca. 1275 – 1356) was the son of Angelo Tarlati, Lord of Arezzo. He served his family’s interests as a military commander, especially after his brother Guido assumed power over Arezzo. Piero Saccone was present in Milan when his brother crowned Louis IV with the iron crown and succeeded him as signore of Arezzo. He will reappear on many occasions in this chronicle, perhaps most notably when he yields lordship of Arezzo to Florence in 1337. Scharf, “Pier Saccone Tarlati.”

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In the said year 1327, on the 20th of October, Pope John, from Avignon, pronounced his final sentence of excommunication against the Bavarian, as a persecutor of Holy Church and a supporter of heretics, depriving him of every dignity, temporal and spiritual.

XXXVIII How the Bavarian made Castruccio Duke of Lucca and of other towns. In the said year, on the 4th of November, the Bavarian, to reward Castruccio for the service he had rendered him—that is, having captured the city of Pisa through his wisdom and valor—went to the city of Lucca together with Castruccio, and was celebrated and honored greatly by the people of Lucca; and then Castruccio brought him to Pistoia to show him the city and the contado of Florence, telling him how Pistoia was on the border and close enough for launching attacks on Florence. And then they returned to Lucca for the Feast of San Martino, at which, with great triumph and honor the said Bavarian made Castruccio duke of the city and distretto of Lucca, and of the bishopric of Luni, and of the city and bishopric of Pistoia and of Volterra. And the Bavarian also changed Castruccio’s coat of arms. Castruccio kept his own arms of the house of the Antelminelli, with the dog on top, and the Bavarian charged this with a barded horse and banners in the manner of a duke, upon a gold field, crossed by diagonal band of blue and silver fusils, which was like the Bavarian’s arms in every way, using the same pattern of fusils as the duchy of Bavaria. And once the said celebration was over, they returned to Pisa on the 18th of November. And in the short time since the Bavarian took them, he extracted from the city of Pisa and its contado, both in libbre and imposte, one hundred and fifty thousand gold florins, and from the clerics of that diocese twenty thousand gold florins, with great pain to and exactions from the Pisans, not to mention what he got from Castruccio when he made him duke, which people said were fifty thousand gold florins. We will leave for awhile the activities of the Bavarian, who is resting in Pisa and Lucca, and is gathering money to provide for his trip to Rome;¹⁹² and we will take note of other things that happened in Florence and in other parts of the world in

 The use of present tense suggests that this account was either written contemporaneously, or else drawn from a contemporary letter or document, but not changed when embedded into the chronicle. This is consistent among the print editions.

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these times, returning afterwards to our subject to follow the path and movements of the said Bavarian.

XXXIX How the King of Scotland carried out a raid in England. In the said year 1327, in the month of August, the King of Scotland passed through England with more than forty thousand Scotsmen to pillage that country for several days. The young King Edward III of England went to meet him with all his knights and his force of foot soldiers and surrounded all the said Scots in a park belonging to the Bishop of Durham. And he would have killed or captured them all, if not for the cowardice and betrayal of his Englishmen, who were not standing guard as they should have, whence the said Scots left during the night, and they all got away safe and sound without any battle or pursuit.¹⁹³

XL How the popolo of the city of Imola was defeated by the army of the Church. In the said year, on the 8th of September, Messer Ricciardo de’ Manfredi of Faenza came to the city of Imola with horsemen provided by the cardinal legate who was in Bologna, since the people of Imola had made a plot with his brother Alberghettino, who had usurped rule in Faenza, and who was riding with his men to capture the city. The popolo of Imola rose up to chase out the said Ricciardo and the men of the Church, whereupon a battle began on the piazza of Imola. And by force of arms the said Ricciardo, with the Alidosi and their vassals, and with the said knights of the Church, who numbered around five hundred, defeated and routed the popolo of Imola, killing more than four hundred, so that there was not a single good family that did not lose a man. And then Ricciardo and his men took over the city by force and pillaged it completely, whence the small city of Imola was almost bereft of good people and despoiled of plunder.  This retreat took place after the Battle of Stanhope Park, an engagement which occurred during the final stages of the Scottish incursion into England. The battle consisted of a Scottish night assault on the English camp, and close fighting around the tent of Edward III. Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots, 26 – 36.

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XLI How in Florence maestro Cecco d’Ascoli the astrologer was burned at the stake for heresy. In the said year, on the 16th of September, a certain maestro Cecco d’Ascoli was burned at the stake by the Inquisitor of Patarines.¹⁹⁴ He had been the duke’s astrologer, and had declared and revealed, through the science of astronomy, or in truth necromancy, many future things, which were later found to be true, about the movements of the Bavarian, and the actions of Castruccio, and those of the duke himself. The reason he was burned was because, while in Bologna, he wrote a treatise on the spheres, proposing that in the spheres above, there were hierarchies of malevolent spirits who could be forced, through the use of spells, under certain constellations, to do many marvelous things; and in that treatise, he also attributes necessity to the movements of the heavenly bodies, and says that Christ’s coming to earth represented the harmony of God’s will with the necessity of astrological movements, and that He was required, because of His natal chart, to be born and live with His disciples as a beggar, and die the death that He died; and he also wrote of how the Antichrist was supposed to come, according to the movements of the planets, richly dressed and powerful; as well as many other vain things against the faith. This book of his was censured in Bologna, and he was forbidden by the inquisitor to teach it, but he was accused of teaching it in Florence. People say that he never admitted to this, but rather contested his sentence, saying that, since he had been sentenced in Bologna, he had never taught this book again. However, the duke’s chancellor, who was a Franciscan, the Bishop of Aversa, finding it abominable that the duke should keep Cecco at his court, had him seized. Although he was a great astrologer, he was a vain man of worldly ways, and the audacity of his wisdom had led him to reach into prohibited and untrue things, since the influence of the stars does not determine things by necessity, nor can they be in opposition to the free will of man, let alone of the foresight of God, that guides, governs, and disposes everything to His will.

 Francesco Stabili (1269 – 1327), known as Cecco d’Ascoli, was the author of a number of works on astrology and, after his expulsion from Bologna under accusation as a heretic, was in Florence as an advisor to Duke Charles. Ferilli, “Francesco Stabili.” See also Del Puppo, “Cecco D’Ascoli” and Fabian, “Cecco vs. Dante: Correcting the Comedy with Applied Astrology.”

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XLII Of the death of the great doctor of medicine maestro Dino of Florence. In this period, on the 30th of September, maestro Dino del Garbo¹⁹⁵ died in Florence. He was a most excellent doctor in physics and in several natural and philosophical sciences, and was in his time the best and foremost doctor of medicine in all of Italy. During his life, he wrote a number of noble books at the request of and dedicated to King Robert. And this maestro Dino was largely responsible for the death of the aforementioned maestro Cecco, reproaching as false his little book which he had read in Bologna, and many said he did this out of envy.

XLIII How Messer Cane della Scala recommenced war against the Paduans. In this period, Messer Cane della Scala, Lord of Verona, along with the son of Messer Ricciardo da Camino of Treviso, recommenced war against the Paduans.¹⁹⁶ They captured the castello d’Este that the Paduans were holding, and they did great damage with their army in the vicinity of Padua, whereupon the Paduans sent for help from the Duke of Carinthia, into whose lordship they had given themselves. He sent one thousand German knights to assist them, and as a result Messer Cane withdrew his troops and returned to Verona.

XLIV How the Counts of Santafiore recaptured Magliano. In the said year 1327, the Pancechieschi family of the Maremma, who were guarding the castello di Magliano for the Duke of Calabria, were in fear of the Bavar-

 Aldobrandino del Garbo (1280 – 1327), from a prominent Florentine family, was a physician and a teacher of medicine in Bologna, Siena, Padua, and Florence. He was particularly well known for his commentary on Avicenna. He played a role in the condemnation of his rival Cecco d’Ascoli. De Ferrari, “Dino del Garbo.”  Ricciardo da Camino was the son of Gherardo da Camino, “the Good Gherardo,” Lord of Treviso, noted by Dante in Purgatorio, XVI: 124. Ricciardo was later assassinated and this is foreshadowed in Paradiso, IX: 50 – 51.

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ian’s marshal, who was riding with a huge Pisan force in the Maremma on their way to Rome. Fearing that the Counts of Santafiore might lay siege to them with those troops, they set fire to the said castello, and in a cowardly fashion went out from it and abandoned it, whereupon the counts recaptured and repaired it. And their guarantors were seized in Florence by the duke and imprisoned in the Stinche.

XLV How the troops of the Church attacked Faenza. In that period, the troops of the Church, which were with the legate in Bologna, rode against the city of Faenza with Messer Ricciardo Manfredi, to reconquer it, after his brother Alberghettino had caused it to rebel against him. They devastated the territory surrounding around the city, doing great harm, but were unable to capture the city.

XLVI The death of King James of Aragon. In the said year, in the month of October, King James of Aragon died of his sickness, and was buried in Barcelona.¹⁹⁷ And the Infante Alfonso, his son, who had conquered Sardinia, was made and crowned King of Aragon and King of Sardinia.¹⁹⁸ The said King James was a wise and brave lord, of great deeds and undertakings, as our chronicles have earlier described in many places.¹⁹⁹

 James II of Aragon (1267– 1327) was the son of Peter III of Aragon and Constance of Sicily. It was he who agreed to the surrendering of Sicily to the Church and the Angevins in the 1295 Treaty of Anagni.  Alfonso IV of Aragon (1299 – 1336) was the son of James II of Aragon and Blanche of Anjou. In the years leading up to his assumption of the crown, Alfonso led the Aragonese conquest of the Island of Sardinia.  References to James II occur at Villani, Nuova Cronica, VIII: 86 and 102– 3 and IX: 19. This use of the plural “le nostre croniche” may be textual evidence of Villani’s awareness of the physical division of the work into two parts during its early circulation. The apparatus supplied by Porta shows that of all the manuscripts consulted for the edition, only the R4 (the Ricc. 1532) has an individual variant “la nostra cronica.” Porta, Nuova Cronica, vol. 1, xxxiv. See Luiso, “Le edizioni,” and Porta, “L’ultimo libro.”

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XLVII How the Bavarian gave Castruccio several castelli that had belonged to the Pisans. In the said year, on the 3rd of December, on the orders of the Bavarian, the Pisans ceded to Castruccio—now called Duke of Lucca—the castelli di Serrazzano, Rotina in Versilia, Montecalvoli, and Pietracassia, as a reward for his service. The Pisans considered themselves greatly aggrieved by this.

XLVIII How the duke had a popolano chased from Florence, because he had spoken in public against him. In the said year, on the 7th of December, the duke had a Florentine popolano named Gianni Alfani²⁰⁰ imprisoned and fined and all his property confiscated. He did this because during a council meeting, on the subject of giving aid to King Robert at the request of his ambassadors, the said Gianni spoke against it. And even though for all his evil works the said Gianni might have deserved this punishment or worse, the popolani of Florence were quite unhappy about the precedent this set for them, because, after all, he had spoken for the good of the commune, and he had spoken reasonably, but he had spoken much too boldly and insolently towards the lord. We have mentioned this, not on account of the said Gianni, who was not worthy to include in this chronicle, but as an example.²⁰¹ And because the Florentines believed themselves to be overly faith-

 Gianni Alfani was a minor poet of the stilnovo, of whose work six ballate and one sonnet remain. The details of his life are quite uncertain. Salinari, “Gianni Alfani.”  It is not uncommon to find, as here, that Villani places a summarizing statement or a proverb at the end of a chapter. This feature might be considered within the medieval tradition of the exemplum, which is “a short tale, used as an example to illustrate a moral point, usually in a sermon or other didactic work.” Baldick, “Exemplum.” This tradition is a crucial element in the development of the short story in Italy, but was infused into other genres as well, including sermons and history. Latin author Valerius Maximus (AD 14– 37), cited by Villani, was the author of many historical anecdotes used as exempla by medieval writers. For the exemplum in literature, see Delcorno, Exemplum e letteratura and Battaglia, “Dall’esempio alla novella.” For the connection between the exemplary narrative in short story and chronicle, see Varvaro, “Tra cronaca e novella,” and in the same volume, Miglio, “La novella come fonte storica.”

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ful to their lord, the moral they drew from this incident was that he who offends one threatens many.

XLIX How the Bavarian left Pisa to go to Rome. In the said year 1327 the Bavarian, who had stayed in Pisa after having defeated it, as we mentioned before, did not undertake any war against the Florentines, nor against their lord the duke, but strove only to gather money to supply his trip towards Rome. And from the October in which he captured Pisa until his departure, he extracted from the Pisans, by means of libbre and imposte and their revenues and gabelle, and including the twenty thousand gold florins that he levied upon the clergy of Pisa, a total of two hundred thousand gold florins, which caused great difficulties for the Pisans, who had not been eager to raise even five thousand florins to defend themselves against the said Bavarian. After this, on the 15th of December of the said year, with his army numbering three thousand knights and more than ten thousand animals, the Bavarian exited the city of Pisa, and set up camp at the Abbey of Santo Remedio three miles from Pisa, and from there he sent his marshal ahead along the Via Maremma with the Counts of Santafiore and with Ugolinuccio da Baschio with seven hundred knights and two thousand foot soldiers, so that they could take the passes of the Maremma, and provide food along the route. The Bavarian stayed for six days in that place waiting for Castruccio, Duke of Lucca, who was reluctant to accompany him to Rome, since he was fearful of leaving the cities of Lucca and Pistoia undefended. In the end, since Castruccio failed to come, and since he was receiving letters and messages from the Romans, asking him to hasten his arrival in Rome if he wished to take the city, lest the party of the Orsini and the Church bring in the forces and the army of King Robert before he got there, the Bavarian departed on the 21st of December and celebrated Christmas at Castiglione della Pescaia. From there he crossed the River Ombrone at its mouth at Grosseto, which caused him great difficulty, because the river was very swollen due to the heavy rains, and a temporary bridge that his marshal had caused the people of the Maremma to build was overloaded by his men and gave way, and a number of his men and their horses drowned; and indeed it was necessary for the lord cross over where the mouth of the river met the sea with two galleys and a number of boats that he brought from Piombino. If the Duke of Calabria and his men and the Sienese had wanted to impede this passage, it would have been easy and safe for them to do so, but ever since the Ba-

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varian had arrived in Tuscany, the said duke had no desire to encounter him or his soldiers, either out of cowardice, or because of the wisdom and the orders of his father King Robert, so as to avoid skirmishing with the German mercenaries who were looking to fight him. And thus the Bavarian passed through the Maremma with great toil and bad weather and a serious shortage of provisions, with the majority of his men forced to stay in camp in the middle of the winter. And a few days later Castruccio, with three hundred of his best knights, and with one thousand crossbowmen from Genoa and Tuscany, followed the Bavarian and caught up with him at Viterbo, having left around one thousand knights under good captains to guard Lucca, Pistoia, and Pisa. The said Bavarian, taking the road of Santafiore and then passing through Corneto and Tuscania, reached the city of Viterbo on the 2nd of January of the said year. There he was received with great honor, as their lord, because Viterbo sided with the imperial party, and the lord and tyrant of that city was someone by the name of Silvestro de’ Gatti, a citizen of Viterbo.²⁰² Let us leave for a while the movements of the Bavarian, and return to what the Duke of Calabria did.

L How the Duke of Calabria left the city of Florence and went to the Regno to oppose the Bavarian. On the 24th of December of the said year, the Duke of Calabria, who was then in Florence, hearing of the Bavarian’s departure from Pisa and how he had already entered the Maremma, held a great parlamento in the Palace of the Commune where he resided. Present were the priors and the gonfalonieri, and the captains of the Guelph party, and all the colleges of the officials of Florence, and a large share of the good men of the city, grandi and popolani. And there, through his wise men, he solemnly and with beautiful speeches announced his departure, which he deemed necessary in order to guard his kingdom and to oppose the forces of the Bavarian. He encouraged the Florentines to remain constant and faithful with good intentions towards Holy Church and his father and himself, and declared that he was leaving as their captain his lieutenant Messer Filippo  Silvestro de’ Gatti (d. 1329) was the son of Raniero Gatti and Alessandrina di Pietro degli Alessandrini. He had controlled Viterbo since 1319, when he was given entry to the city and took it from the Ghibelline casa Di Vico. His sway over the city was favored by the “debole” “potere papale,” of which he took ample advantage in attempting territorial expansion. Lanconelli, “Silvestro Gatti.”

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di Sangineto, son of the Count of Catanzaro di Calabria, and as his advisors, Messer Giovanni di Giovannazzo and Messer Giovanni da Civita di Rieti, great men, wise in law and administration. And as for troops, he left around one thousand knights, who were to be paid two hundred thousand gold florins per year, as if he were there, promising that whenever necessary, he in person, or someone of his lineage would come with all his forces to the assistance and the defense of Florence.²⁰³ A response was given by the Florentines through certain of their wise men, who spoke with good judgment and beautiful rhetoric, enriched with many sayings from famous authors, to what had been proposed and declared by the wise counsellors of the duke. The Florentines showed sorrow and sadness regarding his departure: even though he had not been a daring or warlike lord, as many Florentines would have wanted, and as his armies would have permitted, nonetheless he was a gentle lord, and benevolent towards the citizens, and during his stay he did much to right the bad state of Florence and put an end to the factions between citizens. Even though his stay in Florence was extremely costly, because truly it was calculated that the commune spent, in the nineteen months that the said duke was in Florence, with the money he had for his wages, more than nine hundred thousand gold florins—and I can bear truthful witness to this, since I was working to keep the accounts for the commune—it can be said that the citizens and all the artisans earned quite a lot from him and his people. And after he dismissed the said parlamento, the day after Christmas, the duke held a great banquet, and fed many good citizens, and a great court of ladies, and held great festivities and dances and delights. And the next Monday after tierce, on the 28th of December, the said Duke of Florence left with his lady, and with all of his barons, and with a good fifteen hundred knights of the best men he had, passing time along his route in Siena, Perugia, and Rieti; and on the 16th of January of the said year, he reached L’Aquila, and there he stopped with his army. Let us leave the Bavarian and the duke for a bit, digressing to recount other news from the same period.

 The Sangineto had a long tradition of service to the Angevins in the south of Italy, where they held possessions and titles. Filippo was the third of three brothers and in the early fourteenth century he served in a variety of military and administrative offices in the Regno. When his services as the vicario of Charles of Calabria ended in 1329 he continued his service at the court in Naples and as a representative of Angevin power in Provence. Li Pira, “Sangineto.”

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LI How Borgo San Donnino surrendered itself to the Church. In the year 1327, in the month of December, once the Milanese cavalry had departed to attend to the wars caused by the arrival of the Bavarian in Tuscany, Borgo San Donnino in Lombardy, which had made much war upon the supporters of the Church and had caused them such losses, surrendered to the sons of Messer Giberto da Correggio of Parma for the papal legate in Lombardy—this because of a plot among the inhabitants.²⁰⁴ This cost the said legate quite a bit of money.

LII How an accord was reached between the Perugians and Città di Castello. In the said year and month, an accord was reached between the people of Perugia and Città di Castello. Città di Castello remained under the control of the Tarlati of Arezzo and the sons of Tano degli Ubaldini, who were its lords, and the Ghibelline faction. Some of the exiled Guelphs were readmitted into the city, and some stayed in their places of exile, and the income from their properties was restored to them. The townspeople would choose a podestà and captain from Perugia, of the Ghibelline faction, according to their wishes. And the Perugians did this because they were quite exhausted by the said war, and because the arrival of the Bavarian had made it hard to get any assistance from the Florentines and the other Tuscans.

LIII How the pope appointed ten cardinals.

 Giberto III da Correggio (d. 1321) was the son of Guido da Gente. He was acclaimed “signore” and “difensore” and “prottetore” of Parma in the midst of a period of civil strife in 1303. He held power, despite many challenges at home, and despite a series of bold attempts to expand his lordship to other cities, until 1316, when he was overthrown by a coalition of his enemies. He died as an exile, still attempting to recapture power. Montecchi, “Giberto da Correggio.”

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On the 18th of December of that year, during the Ember Days, Pope John appointed ten cardinals in Avignon in Provence; he did this to reform and strengthen his state and that of the Church, in view of the coming of the Bavarian, for the Church had become the enemy of the Bavarian. Their names were as follows: Messer the Archbishop of Toulouse; the Archbishop of Naples, who was Messer Anibaldo of the Ceccano family in Campagna; the Bishop of Siponto, that is, Fra Matteo degli Orsini of Campo di Fiore; the Bishop of Auxerre who is from France; the Bishop of Chartres who is also French; the Bishop of Cartagena, Spain; the Bishop of Mirepoix in the territory of Toulouse; the Bishop of Saint Paul also from Toulouse; Messer Giovanni son of Messer Stefano della Colonna of Rome; Messer Imbert du Puy of Cahors, a relative of the said pope.²⁰⁵

LIV On certain things that the papal legate did in Florence. The day after Epiphany that year, by mandate of the Cardinal Orsini, legate in Tuscany, who was at that time in the territory of Rome, there were three days of continuous processions in Florence by all the religious and secular men and women who wanted to join. They were praying that God might give aid to Holy Church and defend her against the Bavarian, bringing him back to obedience and peace with the Church; and he gave great indulgences and pardons to those who participated. And at this time, the pope gave the said legate the income from the Badia of Florence to support his household expenses, since its abbot had died, and the position was vacant. The legate took the income, after which there was no abbot. He left five hundred gold florins for the ten monks who were there, and for all the supplies needed by the chaplains and the church, and this was a good decision, because the Badia had an income of almost two thousand gold florins, and it was spent between just ten monks and one abbot.

LV How the Bavarian left Viterbo and went to Rome.

 For this consistory and the cardinals named there, see Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi, vol. 1, 16.

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In the said year 1327, the Bavarian having arrived in Viterbo, a great debate arose in Rome among the popolo, and especially among the Fifty-Two Buoni Uomini— four of whom were appointed per rione as guardians of the Roman popolo—because some of them wanted the Bavarian to come freely as their lord, and some felt it would be an error and an offense to Holy Church, while others wanted to negotiate an accord with him before receiving him in Rome. And outwardly they seized upon this third point of view, in order to satisfy the popolo, sending him official ambassadors to undertake these negotiations. Now, Sciarra della Colonna and Iacopo Savelli were captains of the popolo, and they were aided by Tibaldo, whose family was from Sant’Eustachio. These three great and powerful Romans had been the cause of the revolution in Rome, and had chased out from the city the Orsini family and Messer Stefano della Colonna and his sons, even though Stefano was a blood brother to the said Sciarra, since Stefano was a knight of King Robert and his partisan.²⁰⁶ For this reason, all the friends of King Robert left Rome out of fear, and Castel Sant’Angelo was taken from the Orsini, and all the armies of Rome were taken from them and their followers, and placed under the control and guard of the popolo. The aforesaid three captains of the popolo, secretly as always, hiding their intentions from the popolo, planned and negotiated the coming of the Bavarian, to make him king of the Romans, because of their Ghibelline spirit, and because of the great sum of money they had received from Castruccio, Duke of Lucca and from the Ghibelline party of Tuscany and Lombardy. They immediately sent secret messengers and letters to Viterbo to the Bavarian, telling him to avoid delay, and come to Rome, and to pay no attention to any mandate or statements of the ambassadors of the popolo of Rome. After these ambassadors arrived in Viterbo and solemnly made their embassy with the conditions and terms that the popolo of Rome had imposed upon them, the Bavarian entrusted the response to this embassy to Castruccio Lord of Lucca, who—as had been secretly planned—ordered the sounding of horns and trumpets, and had it announced that every man should ride towards Rome “and this,” he said to the ambassadors of Rome, “is the response of the lord emperor.” He placed the said ambassadors under house arrest, and ordered that the ad-

 Stefano Colonna, “Il Vecchio” (ca. 1265 – 1348) was son of Giovanni di Oddone. Early on, Stefano Colonna served in a number of important positions governing territories subject to the Church. He feuded with his family’s rivals, participating in a famous raid, during which he and his followers captured a shipment of money belonging to the Caetani, the family of Pope Boniface VIII, from Anagni to Rome. For a time, he assisted Emperor Henry VII. Although his family was traditionally Ghibelline, by the early 1320s he was in the service of King Robert, and in 1323 he was representing Angevin power in Rome; by 1325 he had been knighted by the people of Rome and later by the king in Naples. Waley,”Stefano Colonna, Il Vecchio.”

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vance guard be sent ahead, to take every pass, so that every messenger or person who was going in the direction of Rome could be arrested and detained.²⁰⁷ And thus the said Bavarian left the city of Viterbo with his army on Tuesday the 5th of January, and he arrived in Rome the following Thursday, on the 7th of January 1327, at the hour of nones, and with his company of more than four thousand knights, without any resistance, as it had been planned by the said captains. And he was graciously received by the Romans, and he dismounted in the palaces of San Pietro and he stayed there for four days; then he crossed the Tiber River to reside at Santa Maria Maggiore; and the following Monday he went up to the Campidoglio and held a great parlamento, attended by all the popolo of Rome who loved his lordship, and some others; and in that parlamento the Bishop of Aleria, of the Augustinian order, spoke on the Bavarian’s behalf, citing important authors, thanking the popolo of Rome for the honor that they had done him, saying and promising that he had every intention to support them and raise them up, and to improve the well-being of the popolo of Rome in every way, and this greatly pleased the Romans, who were shouting: “Long live, long live our lord and king of the Romans!” In the said parlamento his coronation was set for the following Sunday, and in the said parlamento the popolo of Rome made the Bavarian a senator and captain of the popolo for a year. And note that many clerics, prelates and friars of all orders came with the Bavarian to Rome who were rebels and schismatics against Holy Church, the bilge water of the heretics of Christianity in defiance of Pope John. For this reason, many of the Catholic clerics and friars left Rome, and the whole territory and the holy city were under interdict, and the holy offices were not sung, nor were church bells rung there, except for those officiated by his schismatic and excommunicated clerics. And the said Bavarian ordered Sciarra della Colonna to force the Catholic clerics to perform the divine offices; but despite everything, they refused completely. And the holy shroud of Christ was hidden by a canon of San Pietro whose job it was to guard it, because it did not seem right to him that the said schismatics might see it, and this caused great agitation in Rome.

LVI How Louis of Bavaria had himself crowned by the popolo of Rome as their king and emperor.

 This, with the intention of preventing word from reaching Rome of Louis’s imminent arrival.

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On Sunday the 17th day of January, in the said year 1327, Louis Duke of Bavaria, who had been elected king of the Romans, was crowned with very great honor and triumph at San Pietro in Rome, as we will now tell. That is to say that he and his wife, accompanied by all his men under arms, left that morning from Santa Maria Maggiore, where he was lodged, and went toward San Pietro. Four Romans per rione led the way brandishing their weapons, carrying their banners, riding caparisoned horses and accompanied by many people from outside the city. The streets were all swept and strewn with myrtle and laurel leaves and over every house were hung and displayed the most beautiful silk cloths and ornaments and decorations it possessed. The manner in which he was crowned, and who crowned him were as follows: Sciarra Colonna, who had been captain of the popolo, Buccio di Proresso, and Orsino … who had been senators, and Pietro di Montenero, knight of Rome, all of whom were dressed in cloth-of-gold. Accompanying these men to his coronation were some of the Fifty-Two of the popolo while the prefect of Rome led the way (given his position), flanked by the aforementioned four captains, the senators and the knight, and by Iacopo Savelli and Tibaldo di Sant’Eustachio and many other barons of Rome. A judge of the law was made to go before these men, carrying a copy of the imperial mandate—he was led by this mandate to his coronation. No defect was found, except for the fact that there was no blessing or confirmation by the absent pope and the fact that the Count of the Lateran Palace had quitted Rome. According to the imperial mandate this count is required to attend the emperor as he receives the chrism at the high altar of San Pietro, and hold the crown when it is brought out, and so before his coronation the Bavarian had the foresight to make Castruccio, so-called Duke of Lucca, a count with this title, and beforehand, with very great care, he knighted him, buckling on his sword with his own hands and giving him the colée. And he knighted many others, also touching them with the golden baton, while Castruccio knighted seven of his company. And when these things were done this Bavarian had himself consecrated as emperor by schismatics and excommunicates—by the former Bishop of Venice, nephew of the late Cardinal of Prato, and by the Bishop of Aleria—instead of by the pope and his cardinal legates. And in like manner his wife was crowned as empress. And as soon as the Bavarian was crowned, he had three imperial decrees read out, the first on the Catholic faith, the second on revering and honoring clerics, and the third on protecting the rights of widows and orphans—this hypocritical dissembling greatly pleased the Romans. And when this was done, he had mass celebrated, and once this solemnity was finished everyone left San Pietro and went to the Piazza of Santa Maria in Aracoeli where the feast had been prepared. And because of the many and long ceremonies it was evening before they ate and that night they lodged on the Campidoglio. And the next morning he

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made Duke Castruccio of Lucca a senator, named him as his lieutenant, and left him in the Campidoglio. And he and his wife went to San Giovanni Laterano. And this was the manner in which Louis, called the Bavarian, was crowned as emperor and king of the Romans by the popolo of Rome, with great contempt for and to the great shame of the pope and the Church of Rome, not showing even the slightest reverence for Holy Church. And note the arrogance of this damned Bavarian, since you will not find in any ancient or new chronicle that any Christian emperor ever had himself crowned except by the pope or by his legate, either before or after, even those who were very opposed to the Church —only this Bavarian. This coronation was greatly to be marveled at. Let us now leave off for a time speaking of the Bavarian, and digress somewhat, for he remained in Rome preparing and doing greater and more marvelous things. But if, as soon as he was crowned, he had without delay gone with his men toward the Kingdom of Puglia, there would have been no refuge and no defense from him, even though the Duke of Calabria was at the frontier at L’Aquila with fifteen hundred knights, and even though Rieti, Ceprano, and Pontecorvo, and San Germano were garrisoned with men-at-arms. For at the coronation of the said Bavarian, there were more than five thousand knights in Rome, Germans and Latins who were good men-at-arms longing for a fight. But God takes good counsel away from those to whom He wishes ill, and so it went with him, as we will recall later when describing his deeds.

LVII How the people of Fabriano were defeated by the armies of the Church. In the said year 1327, in January, the armies of the Church were attacking the castello di Fornoli in the Marca of Ancona. To lift the siege, the men of Fabriano, rebels against the Church, came with four hundred knights and two thousand foot soldiers and stationed themselves near another castello held by the forces of the Church. Tano da Iesi, captain of the army of the Church, attacked them with his troops and routed them, and seven companies of knights were lost there, along with around one hundred and seventy horses. As many as three hundred men were killed and four hundred were captured.

LVIII This chapter recounts events in Florence.

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On the 22nd of January that year, in Florence, the foundations were laid for the great gate, set into the city wall, which faces towards Siena and towards Rome, near the ladies’ monastery of Monticelli Oltrarno.²⁰⁸ And in those days, new city walls were built around the said gate towards the hill of Boboli. On the next Sunday, on the 24th of January, a fire broke out in Florence in the sesto of Borgo near the loggia of the Buondelmonti, and two houses burned there, without causing any other damage.

LIX How the city of Pistoia was captured by the duke’s captain, the captain of the Florentines. At the end of January in that year 1327, a certain Baldo Cecchi and Iacopo di Messer Braccio Bandini, Guelph exiles from Pistoia, secretly proposed to Messer Filippo di Sangineto, war captain for the duke, who had remained behind in Florence, that if he dared he might take the city of Pistoia by deception and by force. Messer Filippo set about this plot with care and secretly had wooden scaffolding and ladders and battering rams and other siege engines built in the castello dell’Imperatore in Prato. On the evening of Wednesday, the 27th of January, at the closing of the gates, Messer Filippo left Florence with six hundred of his horsemen, taking with him no Florentine except for Messer Simone di Messer Rosso della Tosa, who had arranged the plot with him.²⁰⁹ They arrived before midnight at Prato, where the said wooden siege engines stood ready, and, loading them on mules and porters sent from Florence, they set forth, taking with them two thousand foot soldiers—soldiers of both Prato and Florence who were drawn up at Prato. And they arrived at Pistoia before daybreak near the Porta San Marco on the side of the moat where there was less water and where the city was less frequented and poorly guarded. The said Baldo and Iacopo crossed the moat on the ice and, unheard by anyone, used a ladder to climb to the top of

 This is the Porta Romana, parts of which are still standing today, which led southward out of the Oltrarno.  Simone della Tosa was an important figure in the political life of fourteenth-century Florence. A member of a family of Black Guelphs, he fought at the Battle of Montecatini and afterwards was one of the leaders of the anti-Angevin faction in Florence, pitted against his relative Pino della Tosa. The fall of this faction did not eliminate his influence in the commune, which he continued to serve. After capturing Pistoia, he remained in the city as podestà, where he earned a reputation for laxity by the local population. Allegrezza, “Simone della Tosa.”

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the wall; there they set up the banners of the duke and the Commune of Florence and then around a hundred soldiers entered the city in the same way. An officer who was making his rounds checking on the guards found the captain’s men and raised the alarm, and, although he and his men were immediately killed, he roused the city to arms. At that, Messer Filippo’s men laid their bridge across the moat, and, placing numerous ladders against the walls, sent many men into the city. Using rams on the inside and the outside they battered at the wall from both sides, so that they could bring their horses in—many horses were then led by hand into Pistoia. Messer Filippo entered the city in person with some of his men, and immediately scattered the iron caltrops they had brought onto the streets from which their enemies might arrive to attack; this would block them and their horses. And when there were enough men inside, the horsemen and the soldiers, both outside and inside, attacked the tower of Porta San Marco and set fire to the drawbridge and to the outer door of the gatehouse. Castruccio’s men on guard inside the walls numbered around one hundred fifty knights and five hundred hired foot soldiers, not counting the citizens, and while some remained boldly under arms on the piazza, others came to fight against the men who had entered through the walls. They pushed the captain’s men back by force to the narrow breach in the walls and many of these would have thrown themselves out of the city, were it not for the courage and diligence of Messer Filippo and his company, who were already inside the walls with one hundred fifty knights who, mounting their horses, struck their enemies with great energy and twice put them to flight. In the meantime, the gatehouse had been burned and the gate had been broken open by those who had entered the city and the tower guards had been killed or had fled; and so all the cavalry and men on the outside entered the city with great ferocity to the sound of cries and terrifying trumpets and drums. When Castruccio’s men heard this, they retreated with his two young sons—Arrigo and Valeriano—towards the meadow outside Lucca, to the castello which had been constructed there for Castruccio, called Bellaspera.²¹⁰ Even though this castello was not finished it was strong and very much a marvel. The terrified citizens, the men and women of Pistoia, were not prepared for their city’s sudden capture, for it was not yet day. They did not concern themselves with the defense of the city but sought only to save themselves and their goods, running like lost people here and there through the city. The horsemen and the captain’s men, mostly Florentines and Pratesi,

 Arrigo Castracani degli Antelminelli (1304– 1357) was by this time the designated successor of his father Castruccio, who had proposed a marriage for him with the daughter of Sciarra Colonna. Luzzati Laganà, “Arrigo Castracani degli Antelminelli.”

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spread through the city, plundering and robbing, so that the captain and Messer Simone were left with but eighty horsemen bearing the banners of the duke and the Commune of Florence. As these men pursued their enemies towards the meadow, Castruccio’s Germans struck them—the captain and his men—with great force, and gave them much trouble, attacking them many times. And in the meantime, our men in the city were in danger of being defeated and chased out of the city, because of the poor discipline of the soldiers of Burgundy, who had left their banners and their captain and had spread through the city intent on robbery. But by daybreak the men began to go to the meadow to the aid of the captain and when our enemies saw our numbers increase, and saw their own men being killed and captured, they withdrew into the castello, and sought to escape without delay with Castruccio’s sons through the Porta Lucchese; they fled towards Serravalle, leaving behind many arms and horses, and a good number of them were captured and killed. But if the captain had been better prepared, if he had been better obeyed by his knights, if, that is, part of his men had ridden outside the Porta Lucchese, Castruccio’s sons and all his men would have been killed and captured. It was in this manner that the city of Pistoia was taken on the 28th day of January in the year 1327. The entire city was raided and plundered without restraint, and the plundering went on for more than ten days—plundering of Guelphs and Ghibellines. The captain was much blamed for this, for if he had prevented the plundering and had immediately set forth with his men and with the five hundred knights of the Church, who were then in Prato, he would have taken Serravalle, Carmignano, Montemurlo, and Tizzano—or at least some of these castelli. But the vice of avarice spoils all good plans. Once the plundering had quieted down, the captain brought the city back under the authority of King Robert and the Duke of Calabria and left the said Messer Simone della Tosa there as captain with two hundred fifty soldiers and one thousand foot soldiers paid for by the Commune of Florence. The said Messer Filippo returned to Florence, on Sunday the 7th day of February. The Florentines welcomed him with great honor and triumph, and armed men, brandishing their weapons, dressed in mantles of fine silk, and carrying banners, came to meet him accompanied by knights and popolani afoot, each company under its own banner. They had made a palio to be carried above his head, but he did not consent to this, ordering instead that the pennant with the arms of the Duke of Calabria, which he was accustomed to have borne above his head, be carried before him; this was regarded as a sign of great prudence and wisdom. He brought with him many Pistoian prisoners and others, and a son of the traitor Messer Filippo Tedici and a nephew of his—they were little boys—and many other beloved sons of the Ghibellines of Pistoia, along with much plunder, cloth, goods, and jewels. We have narrated the capture of the city of Pistoia at

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such length because a city so strong in walls and moats and so well supplied with men-at-arms had not been captured in the way we have described for a very long time in Tuscany, and also because of what followed from this capture, as we will later recount. And because of the capture of Pistoia, on the 6th day of February the small castello above Pontorme surrendered—it had made much war on the road that goes toward Pisa.

LX How Castruccio left Rome and the Bavarian as soon as he knew of the loss of Pistoia. During this time Castruccio was dwelling in Rome with the Bavarian in great glory and triumph, since, as we have related, he had been dubbed as a knight with great honors, confirmed as duke, and made Count of the Palace and senator of Rome. More importantly than all of this, he was lord and master of the court of the said emperor and was even more feared and obeyed than the Bavarian. And he made for himself, out of frivolousness and to magnify his power, a garment of crimson samite on whose breast were golden letters saying “What God Wills” and on whose shoulders were similar letters saying “What God Wills Will Be Done.” And so, he himself prophesied the future judgments of God.²¹¹ Indeed, even while he was enjoying such glory, it pleased God that he lose the city of Pistoia, as we have recounted. Upon losing the city, Castruccio’s men immediately sent, by land and by sea, messengers and warships, and so he received the news in Rome in three days by sea. Castruccio immediately went to the Bavarian—the king of the Romans called emperor—and lamented greatly the loss of Pistoia, complaining that if he had not taken him along to Rome, Pistoia would not have been lost, and showing great concern for the cities of Pisa and Lucca, fearing that they might rise up against him.²¹² Castruccio immediately took leave of the Bavarian, and on the first of February he left Rome with his men. Castruccio, however, left his men behind on the road and rode ahead with a handful of companions over the passes of the Maremma, taking great care but running great risks, and arrived at Pisa with twelve horsemen on the 9th day of  Castruccio clothes himself in predictions of greatness, while he is really predicting God’s judgment against him; the seeds of his destruction are bearing fruit even while he is enjoying his greatest glory.  Villani may be highlighting Castruccio’s reaction so as to provide context for the Luccan signore’s seizure of the city of Pisa.

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February, the year 1327. And his men, who numbered five hundred knights and one thousand foot soldiers with crossbows, arrived many days later. And note that because of the departure of Castruccio, the invasion and the campaign that the Bavarian had planned in the Regno fell short and failed, as we will later tell; this was because Castruccio offered wise counsel in war and was favored by fortune, and he alone was more feared by King Robert and by Duke Charles and by the men of the Regno than the Bavarian and all his men; but because of the taking of Pistoia, Castruccio departed from Rome, and as a consequence the Bavarian delayed going to the Regno, although if he had gone without delay and with the wise counsel of Castruccio and with his men, then certainly King Robert would have had a hard time defending himself, because he had as yet poorly prepared his defense. As soon as Castruccio arrived in Pisa he took total lordship over the city and claimed for himself all the revenues and the gabelle of the Pisans; moreover, he burdened them with many demands for money. A short while later, he came to believe that he could take Montopoli by means of a plot and trickery, and so he rode there one night with his men, some of whom, led by the traitor, entered as far as the outer gate. In the morning, the people of the town and the soldiers who were there for the Commune of Florence—horsemen and foot soldiers—learned of this treason and defended the gate with vigor, killing the traitor and the men he had already led into the town. And so, Castruccio returned to Pisa, but later, on the first of March, he carried out a great chevauchée in the plains of Pistoia, and he himself came to look at Pistoia, seeming like one who would stake all his soul to retake it. He had Montemurlo resupplied and returned to Lucca without any resistance at all from the Florentines or from the duke’s captain.²¹³ We will now leave for a time the deeds of Castruccio and speak of events that were occurring in foreign lands in those days.

LXI How and when King Charles of France died. In the said year 1327, on the first day of February, King Charles of France died of his illness, and was buried with great honor with the other kings in Saint

 Montopoli lies on the main route between Florence and Pisa and Montemurlo on that between Florence and Pistoia.

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Denis.²¹⁴ He left no son, but the queen his wife who, as we mentioned earlier, was his blood cousin, was left pregnant. And Messer Philip de Valois, his cousin and son of the late Messer Charles of Valois, was made regent of the kingdom. At the end of her pregnancy the said queen gave birth to a daughter, such that she was excluded from the lordship of the kingdom, and a dispute arose over this, and the said Messer Philip became king, as we will soon tell. This King Charles was a ruler of little worth, and during his days he did nothing of note; his death ended the line of kings from his father King Philip through his brothers, who, with him, numbered four kings. There were Louis and his young son John, who was born of Queen Clementia after his death and who only lived for twenty days but was still numbered among the kings; and once the child had died his uncle succeeded and became king, and this was King Philip; and there followed the said Charles, and no male heir was left to any of these rulers. Thus, they received the punishment that the Bishop of Sion had prophesied for them, as we related earlier in the chapter on the capture and death of Pope Boniface: that because of the sin committed by King Philip their father, he and his sons would experience great shame and abasement of their power and their rule of the kingdom would end.²¹⁵ And so it happened, for, as we mentioned earlier, during the life of the said King Philip the father, the wives of his said three sons were discovered in adultery, to the great shame of the royal house, and its control over the realm ended with them, for no male heir was left to any of them. Hence one must take care to offend neither he who is the Vicar of Christ nor Holy Church—rightly or wrongly—because even though her shepherds, for their sins, might not be worthy, an offense against them is an offense against omnipotent God.

 Charles IV of France (1294– 1328) was the son of Philip IV of France and Joan I of Navarre. Charles’s death was a portentous event: he died without a male heir, but with his wife pregnant; when she gave birth to a daughter, the kingdom’s regent succeeded to the throne as Philip VI. Edward III would eventually contest this succession, claiming the throne through his mother Isabella of France. This claim was the central English justification for war throughout the Hundred Years War.  Villani is referring to the famous raid by Guillaume de Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna on the papal residence at Anagni, aimed at capturing Pope Boniface VIII—then locked in a bitter conflict with Philip IV. Villani records this prophecy in Nuova Cronica, IX: 64. After recovering from his shock at hearing the news from a courier, the bishop declares “the King of France will rejoice at this news, but I know by divine inspiration that he will be condemned by God for this sin; and very soon there will occur to him many great dangers and adversities to his own shame and to that of his lineage; and he and his sons will be disinherited from the realm.”

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LXII How there occurred a sickness of fever in all of Italy. In the month of February that year, the cold weather gave rise to a sickness of fever throughout Italy, so that most people suffered from this sickness, although few people died of it. Astrologers said that the cause was the opposition of Mars and Saturn.

LXIII How Count Guglielmo Spadalunga took Romena and then left it. On the 26th day of February that year, Guglielmo Spadalunga of the Ghibelline Counts Guidi took the castello di Romena, everything but the citadel, with the assistance of three hundred German knights he had received from the Aretines; this castello belonged to his Guelph relations, the sons of Count Aghinolfo.²¹⁶ This gave rise to great suspicion and fear in Florence, because of the presence of the Bavarian. Our force of horsemen rode to the castello and the other Counts Guidi, the Guelphs, gathered with their forces to oppose the said Count Guglielmo. Seeing assistance arrive so quickly, and being poorly supplied with foodstuffs, he departed from it, his men suffering some harm.

LXIV How the Genoese recaptured the castello di Voltri. At the beginning of March that year 1327, the Genoese who held the city of Genoa recaptured the castello di Voltri by force and by cunning, doing great harm to their exiles who were inside, for many of them were killed and captured.

 Count Aghinolfo Guidi was born at some point in the 1250s and was the son of Guido, the Count of Romena. In Canto 30 of the Inferno he and his brothers are famously attacked by Maestro Adamo, a counterfeiter who coined false florins on their behalf and was executed. By 1328 Aghinolfo had been an ally of the city for ten years and had lent his military assistance against Castruccio Castracani. Bicchierai, “Aghinolfo Guidi.”

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LXV How war began between the Venetians and the exiles of Genoa and the men of Savona. In those days a war at sea began between people of Venice and Savona and the exiles from Genoa, because these exiles of Genoa, while privateering in Syria and in Romania, on numerous occasions during that year had captured many cogships and galleys loaded with goods belonging to the merchants of Venice, valued at more than seventy thousand gold florins; and more than three hundred Venetians, who clashed with them in battle on many occasions and in many ships, were killed. In the end, when the Venetians had decided to commit their city wholly to the war, having already prepared and readied for war sixty galleys, Lord Castruccio of Lucca, motivated by spirit of faction—because both sides were Ghibellines—took the dispute into his hands, and arranged an accord between them with amends to the Venetians of one thousand libbre of Venetian grossi and this meant a great loss and shame for the Venetians.²¹⁷ They agreed to these terms so as not to lose their sea trade and for fear of excessive expenses in war, but mostly they were won over by their spirit of faction and by their cowardice.

LXVI How the Bavarian had his men launch war on the city of Orvieto. That year the Bavarian, who had himself called emperor and who had remained in Rome after the departure of Castruccio, sent around fifteen hundred of his knights to Viterbo and had them launch war on the city of Orvieto, because the Orvietani belonged to the party of the Church—his men burned and devastated many ville and castelli in the contado of that city. And they would have done still greater harm, were it not for the fact that on the fourth day of March a great fight broke out in Rome between the Romans and the Germans because the Germans did not want to pay for the provisions they were taking; many Germans were killed and the Romans took up arms and barricaded themselves in many parts of Rome. These things caused the Bavarian to suspect treason, and so

 The sense appears to be that they were forced to accept a payment far below the value of the merchandise they had lost.

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he fortified his position in Castel Sant’Angelo, made all his men return to take up residence in the contrada called Portico di San Pietro, and called for the men who were at Orvieto, and had them return to Rome. In the end the fracas died down and many Romans were condemned for it, which increased their ill will toward the Bavarian and his men.

LXVII How the Bavarian had the lordship and treasure of Viterbo taken away from Silvestro de’ Gatti, who was its lord. In the month of March that year 1327, the Bavarian was told that the Lord of Viterbo had a great treasure of money. Since he had great need of this treasure, he sent his marshal and the chancellor with a thousand horsemen to the city of Viterbo. When they arrived in the city, they immediately had the Lord of Viterbo, Silvestro de’ Gatti, and his son arrested, he who had given the Bavarian entrance to the city and the lordship. They accused Silvestro of plotting with King Robert to cede Viterbo to the king’s men. They had him tortured to make him reveal where he kept his treasure, and when he confessed that it was in the sacristy of the Friars Minor, they sent men there and they found thirty thousand gold florins. When they had seized these, they left to take them to Rome, bringing Silvestro and his son along as captives. And thus the little tyrant was properly punished by the big tyrant for a sin of which he was not guilty, and both his lordship and his treasure were taken from him.

LXVIII How the Chancellor of Rome rebelled against the Bavarian. On the 20th of March that year, the Chancellor of Rome, who was born an Orsini, brought his town of Astura on the coast into rebellion against the Bavarian and admitted to it King Robert’s troops so that they might make war on Rome. Because of this, the Romans in their wrath rushed to destroy his houses and also the fair and noble tower atop the Mercatantia at the foot of the Campidoglio, the tower that was called the Torre del Cancelliere. And in those days the Bavarian levied a tax of thirty thousand gold florins in Rome, because of his great hunger for money: he made the Jews pay ten thousand, the clergy of Rome another ten thousand, and the laity of Rome the final ten thousand. The popolo was

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greatly upset by this, because they were not used to such burdens, and because they had expected the Bavarian’s stay in Rome to bring them profit and not expenses. And so ill will and indignation began to grow among the Romans against the said Bavarian.

LXIX Of certain laws that Louis of Bavaria made in Rome as though he were emperor. In the year of Christ 1328, on the 14th day of the month of April, Louis of Bavaria, he who had himself called emperor and king of the Romans, gathered a parlamento in the piazza in front of San Pietro in Rome. On the steps of this church great platforms had been built, upon which stood the said Louis, dressed as emperor, accompanied by many Roman clerics and prelates and religious, and others of his sect who had followed him, along with many judges and lawyers. And in the presence of the popolo of Rome, he had the following new laws, laws that he had just made, proclaimed and confirmed. This was their substance in brief: he confirmed that any Christian found guilty of heresy against God and against the imperial majesty, who, according to what has since ancient times been the law, was subject to death, should indeed be killed; and this person might be judged and sentenced by any judge with jurisdiction, whether this was requested or not; and also that as soon as this person should be found guilty of the sin of heretical depravity or of lèse majesté, they should be killed, notwithstanding any laws made by his predecessors, which, in other matters, should remain unchanged. And he wished this law to apply to things past and present, and to matters still pending, and to matters yet to occur. What is more, he had it commanded that every notary had to put on any document that he drew up, after the anno domini and the indiction and the date, “Written in the time of our excellent and magnificent lord Louis Emperor of the Romans, in the year of his reign etc.”— otherwise the document would not be valid. Also, that every man should take care not to give aid or counsel to any rebel or to any contumacious person against the holy emperor or against the popolo of Rome, on pain of losing his goods according to the pleasure of the court. These laws were deliberately written and imposed by the said Bavarian and by his corrupt council with the object of using them to set in motion his wicked and evil plot against Pope John and the true Church, as we will soon tell.

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LXX How the said Louis pronounced sentence, and how he then deposed Pope John XXII. And then later, on the following Monday, the 18th day of April of the said year, the said Louis held a parlamento as he had done the previous Thursday. He summoned the popolo of Rome, clergy and laity, to come to the Piazza San Pietro where, standing on the aforementioned platforms, vestments of purple were placed upon him, along with the crown on his head and the golden scepter in his right hand and the golden fruit or in truth the golden apple in his left hand—just like an emperor. And he seated himself on a rich throne that was raised up so that all the popolo could see him sitting there surrounded by prelates and barons and armed knights.²¹⁸ And once he was seated he called for silence, and a certain Fra Niccola da Fabriano of the Order of the Hermits stepped up onto the platform and cried out in a loud voice: “Is there any procurator here who wants to defend the priest Jacques de Cahors, the one who has himself called Pope John XXII?” And he cried this out three times, and no one responded. And once he had done this, a very learned abbot of Germany stepped up onto the platform and proposed the following words in Latin, “Hec est dies boni nuntii etc.,” and then in his sermon he commented on this passage with many fair words.²¹⁹ And then he read a very long speech, embellished with many words and much false reasoning, of the following tenor. First, the proem had it that the holy emperor, jealous of his honor and desiring to restore the power of the popolo of Rome, had left Germany, leaving behind his kingdom and his little sons in their youth, and had come without any delay to Rome, knowing that Rome was the chief city of the world and of the Christian faith, and that its spiritual and temporal seats were vacant. And while he was in Rome, it came before him that Jacques de Cahors, the one who unlawfully had himself called Pope John XXII, had wanted to move the cardinalates which are in Rome to the city of Avignon, and he only abandoned this plan because the cardinals did not assent to it. And then he heard that the same Jacques de Cahors had proclaimed a crusade against the Romans. And the emperor made these things known to the fifty-two rectors of the popolo of Rome and to other wise men as he deemed nec Louis, the excommunicate emperor, presents himself in majesty, displaying the traditional symbolic attributes of imperial power, surrounded by representatives of military and ecclesiastical authority, to a population that is becoming less and less welcoming of his presence.  This may be a reference to 2 Kings 7:9 in which it is discovered that the Arameans have fled from the siege of Samaria, filled with the fear of God.

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essary. For this reason, an appeal was read out before him by the syndic of the clergy of Rome and by the syndic of the popolo of Rome—each named by those who had this power—asking that he proceed against the said Jacques de Cahors as a heretic and that he provide the Church and the popolo of Rome with a holy shepherd and a faithful Christian, just as had been done on another occasion by Emperor Otto III.²²⁰ And so, wishing to consider this appeal by the Romans and by the Holy Church of Rome, which represents the whole world and the Christian faith, he proceeded against the said Jacques de Cahors, finding him guilty of heresy in the ways written below, namely, first, when the Kingdom of Armenia was being attacked by the Saracens and the King of France wished to send a force of war galleys to its aid, he had changed the destination of that force, sending it against Christians—that is, against the Sicilians. And further, that when he was asked by the friars of Santa Maria degli Alamanni to send an army against the Saracens, he responded “we have the Saracens right here at home.” He also said that Christ had possessed property in common with His disciples even though He always loved poverty. And then he was found guilty of other great sins of heresy, especially that he had wanted to claim for himself both spiritual and temporal power; in this he was acting on the counsel of Joab, that is of Count Robert of Provence, and was acting against the Holy Gospel, where it is said that Christ, wishing to distinguish between the spiritual and the temporal, said “Id quod est Cesaris Cesari, et quod est Dei Deo.” And in another part of the Gospel he said “Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo; et si de hoc mundo esset regnum meum, ministri mei etc.” and thereafter “Regnum meum non est hic.”²²¹ In sum, he committed these and many other great sins of heresy, and had also arrogantly defied the imperial majesty, deposing him and declaring null his election, which election, as soon as it was done, was ipso facto confirmed, and had no need of any confirmation, for the emperor is not subject to anyone, but indeed all men and the entire world are subjected to him. And so, since the said Jacques had committed the said sins, both of heresy and lèse majesté, and even though he had not been summoned to appear—which was not necessary according to the new law made by the said emperor and because of other laws, canon and civil—the emperor removed the said Jacques de Cahors, depriving him of and dismissing him from the office of the papacy, and from every office and benefice, temporal and spiritual, and handing him over to whoever  In 996 Emperor Otto III undertook an expedition to Italy to assist Pope John XV against his enemies in Rome. Arriving after the death of the pope, the emperor chose a new pontiff—his chaplain—who took the name Gregory V. Gregorovius, History of Rome, vol. 3, 407– 410.  Joab is a complex figure: a great champion of Israel who was nonetheless more than capable of treason against his masters. The gospel passages are Mark 12:17 and John 18:36.

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might have temporal jurisdiction that they might punish him for his animadversion, considering him to be a heretic and one guilty of lèse majesté; and no king, prince, or baron, or commune should give him aid, counsel, or favor, nor have him as pope nor recognize him as pope, under pain of privation of every dignity, whatever might be their status, clergy or laity, and under pain of being condemned as favoring a heretic and of committing the sin of lèse majesté; and half of the fine would go to the treasury of the emperor and the other half to the popolo of Rome. And those who had already given him aid, counsel or favor, were to fall under a similar sentence, and he set the term within which those who had acted against this sentence might ask for forgiveness at one month for those in Italy and two months for all the others in the entire world —that they might come to ask for forgiveness. And when the said sentence had been pronounced and confirmed, the said Louis the Bavarian declared that within a few days he would see to naming a good pope and a good pastor, such that the popolo of Rome and all Christians would be greatly consoled. And he said that he did these things with the counsel of very wise clerics and laypeople, faithful Christians, and of his barons and princes. The wise men of Rome were greatly troubled by the said sentence but the other, simpler popolo greatly rejoiced in it.

LXXI How the son of Messer Stefano Colonna entered Rome and pronounced the pope’s case against the Bavarian.²²² After this sentence had been pronounced by the Bavarian against Pope John XXII, on Friday the 22nd day of the said month of April and in the said indiction, Messer Giacomo son of Messer Stefano Colonna entered Rome and went to the contrada of San Marcello and in the piazza of the said church, in the presence of more than one thousand Romans gathered there, he brought forth the text of an accusation of Pope John against Louis of Bavaria, which no one had been bold enough to bring to Rome and to pronounce. He read it with care, saying that it had come to the ears of the clergy of Rome that a certain syndic had  Giacomo Colonna (1300/1301– 1341) was the son of Stefano Colonna and Gaucerande de l’Isle-Jourdain. Intended for a career in the Church, Giacomo possessed several sources of church income, which he used to fund legal studies at the University of Bologna (where he was acquainted with Petrarch). Pope John rewarded Giacomo for the “atto di coraggio” described here by naming him Bishop of Lombez. Paravicini Bagliani, “Giacomo Colonna.”

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appeared before Louis of Bavaria—who unlawfully has himself called emperor— and spoke against the holy pope John XXII, and also the syndic of the popolo of Rome had given speeches. But this syndic—that is, the syndic of the clergy of Rome—never gave a speech.²²³ For although this person had come in the guise of a true syndic, he was not one, since the clergy—namely the canons of San Pietro, and those of San Giovanni Laterano, and those of Santa Maria Maggiore, who are the greatest of the clergy of Rome, and the other great clerics following them, and the pious abbots and the Friars Minor and the preachers, and the other wise men of the orders, had already departed from Rome many months before because of the excommunicated people who had entered Rome. And those who had remained and who had celebrated mass were excommunicated, so that by law they could not name a syndic; and if someone had been named syndic beforehand, and had remained in Rome, he was still excommunicated. And thus he continued to speak against what had been done by the said Louis, saying that Pope John was Catholic and the rightful pope, lawfully elected by the cardinals of Holy Church, and that this person who called himself emperor was no emperor, but a heretic and an excommunicate, and that the senators of Rome and the Fifty-Two of the popolo, and everyone who submitted to him, and who gave or had given him aid or counsel or favor, were equally heretics and excommunicates. And he spoke many other words about this matter, offering to prove them through argument, or, if necessary, with a sword in his hand in a public place. And then, with his own hands he carefully fixed this written accusation onto the door of the said Church of San Marcello; no one stopped him. And when he had done these things, he mounted his horse along with four companions and departed from Rome, going to Palestrina. There was much whispering throughout Rome about these things; and when they were made known to the Bavarian, who was at San Pietro, he sent men-at-arms on horseback to capture him, but he was already far away. As soon as the pope knew of the goodness and the daring of the said Messer Giacomo, he made him Bishop of … and ordered him come to his court—and so he did.

 This is a response to the words of the learned German abbot, who had spoken in favor of deposing John XXII in the previous chapter. He had said: “For this reason, an appeal was read out before him [Louis IV] by the syndic of the clergy of Rome and by the syndic of the popolo of Rome—each named by those who had this power—asking that he proceed against the said Jacques de Cahors as a heretic.”

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LXXII How the Bavarian and the popolo of Rome made a law against any pope who might abandon Rome. The following day, which was Saturday, the 23rd day of the said month of April, the senators of Rome, the Fifty-Two of the popolo, the captains of the TwentyFive, the consuls, the Thirteen Buoni Uomini—one per rione—were summoned by public pronouncement to appear before the emperor. They appeared as ordered and gave him ample counsel about the deed that had been done by Giacomo Colonna, which we have described. And then a new law was brought forth and read aloud, of the following tenor: that the pope whom the emperor and the popolo of Rome intended to name, and any other who might be pope, should stay in the city of Rome, and not leave, if not for three months out of the year, and should not go further than two days’ journey from Rome—and this with the permission of the popolo of Rome. And if he should be absent from Rome and be recalled by the popolo of Rome, then he should return to Rome. And if after three summonses he should fail to return, he should be understood as removed from the papal office, in which case a new pope might be named. And when this was done the Bavarian pardoned all the Romans who were present at the fight or battle at the island bridge or who had gone there to kill his men. The Bavarian made these laws and issued this pardon to satisfy the popolo of Rome. And note how unjust and how foolish this law was, imposing on the shepherd of Holy Church regulations and rules, about staying or going, against the liberty of Holy Church, and against the supreme power that the most high pontiffs must have and have always had.

LXXIII How Louis of Bavaria, with the popolo of Rome, elected an antipope in opposition to the true pope. In the year of Christ 1328, on the 12th day of May, on the Feast of the Ascension, early in the morning, the popolo of Rome—those men and women who wished to be in attendance—gathered in front of San Pietro, where Louis of Bavaria, who had himself called emperor, was crowned and clothed with the imperial robes upon the platform which had been built on the stairs of San Pietro; he was accompanied by many clerics and religious and by the captains of the popolo of Rome and he was surrounded by many of his barons. And he bade come before

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him a certain Fra Pietro da Corvara, born on the border between the contado of Tivoli and Abruzzi, who was of the Order of the Friars Minor, who had previously been considered a good man of holy life.²²⁴ And when he had come, the said Bavarian stood up from his throne and had the said Fra Pietro sit under the baldaquin. And when this had been done, Fra Niccola da Fabriano of the Order of the Hermits stood up and proposed the following words in his sermon: “Reversus Petrus ad se dixit: ‘Venit angelus Domini, et liberavit nos de manu Erodis ed de omnibus factionibus Iudeorum.’” He likened the said Bavarian to the angel and Pope John to Herod and he spoke many words in making this comparison.²²⁵ And after this sermon, the former Bishop of Venice came forward, and called out three times to the popolo asking them if they wanted the said Fra Pietro to be pope; and even though the popolo was very disturbed by this, since they had believed they would have a Roman pope, out of fear they responded by shouting out “yes!” And then the Bavarian stood up straight, and after the said bishop had read from a document the customary decree regarding the confirmation of the pope, the said Bavarian called him Pope Nicholas V, and gave him the ring, and placed the mantle upon him, and had him sit next to him at his right side; and then they arose, and with great triumph entered San Pietro; and after mass was said, they went with great celebration to eat. The good people of Rome were very troubled by the election and confirmation of the said antipope, since it seemed to them that the said Bavarian was acting against the faith and Holy Church. And we later learned the truth from his own people, that wise men believed that he had not acted rightly, and for this reason many were never again as loyal to him as they had been before, and this was especially true of his followers who were with him from Lower Germany.

LXXIV How the city of Ostia was captured by the galleys of King Robert.

 Pietro Rinalducci was born around 1258 in Corvaro and became a Franciscan in 1285. He was a brother in the convent of Ara Coeli. De Vincentiis suggests that Rinalducci played a part in the contemporary debate over the poverty of Christ, given his “coerenza” and “dedizione” to Franciscan ideals. De Vincentiis, “Niccolò V, antipapa.”  In Acts 12:11, Peter, imprisoned by Herod, is miraculously released by an angel. As Villani points out, the angel (Louis IV) and Herod (John XXII) are contending over Peter—the first of the popes. Later in the same chapter we find the death of Herod, struck down for not praising the name of God. For these ceremonies and their interpretation, see De Vincentiis, “Niccolò V, antipapa.”

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The day after the creation of the antipope, fourteen of King Robert’s war galleys entered the Tiber River and captured the city of Ostia, to the great harm of the Romans. Some of the said galleys came up the Tiber River as far as San Paolo and landed men who burned houses and farms and took great plunder—men and animals. This caused the Romans great terror, and they cast many rebukes at their lord. For this reason, the Bavarian had eight hundred of his knights and many hired Roman foot soldiers ride to the city of Ostia. When they attacked the city many were killed and more were wounded by the large numbers of crossbowmen who were on the galleys in Ostia, and so they returned to Rome having suffered losses and shame.

LXXV How the antipope appointed seven cardinals. On the fifteenth day of the month of May of the said year, the antipope created by Louis of Bavaria appointed seven cardinals, whose names were the following: the bishop deposed from the bishopric of Venice by Pope John, who was nephew of the Cardinal da Prato;²²⁶ the Abbot of Sant’Ambrogio of Milan, who had also been deposed; an abbot from Germany, the one who had pronounced sentence against Pope John;²²⁷ Fra Niccola da Fabriano of the Hermits, who was named in this chronicle when he preached a sermon against Pope John;²²⁸ two others were Messer Piero Orrighi and Messer Giovanni Arlotti, popolani of Rome;²²⁹ another was the former Archbishop of Modena; and he chose certain other Romans who did not wish to accept, heeding their conscience, knowing that this was against God and against the faith. All the people named above were deposed from their benefices by Pope John because they were schismatics and rebels against Holy Church, and yet they were confirmed by the said Louis, as though he were an emperor. And he furnished the antipope and these people, his schismatic cardi-

 Giacomo Alberti (d. after 1335) had been Bishop of Castello. He was named Cardinal of Ostia and Velletri. Miranda, “Cardinals.”  Franz Hermann (d. 1328) had been Abbot of Fulda. He was named Cardinal Bishop of Albano. Miranda, “Cardinals.”  Niccolò da Fabriano (dates unknown) was named Cardinal Priest of San Eusebio. Miranda, “Cardinals.”  Pietro Orrighi and Giovanni Arlotti (dates unknown), both Romans, were named, respectively, Cardinal Priest of San Pietro in Vincoli and Cardinal Deacon of San Nicola in Carcere. Miranda, “Cardinals.”

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nals, with horses and supplies. And even though as a spiritual matter the aforementioned antipope criticized the riches and the honors of the rightful pope, his cardinals, and the other prelates of the Church, and even though he held the opinion that Christ was entirely poor and had no property and that the successors of Saint Peter ought to do the same, he nonetheless desired and allowed his cardinals to have horses and liveried servants, knights and squires, and to be furnished with supplies and to feast at dining tables as large as those of others. And he took away and handed out many ecclesiastical benefices as though he were pope, annulling those given by Pope John and giving generous privileges under false seal, for which he accepted money. For even though the Bavarian had supplied his pope with as much as he was able, he himself was so poor that his pope, his cardinals and their court were necessarily poor, and so his pope was forced to give privileges and offices and benefices for money. And when he had done the said things, the said Bavarian left his pope in the palaces of Saint Pietro in Rome and, accompanied by most of his men, left Rome and went to Tivoli, on the seventeenth day of the said month of May.

LXXVI How Louis of Bavaria had himself crowned again and confirmed as emperor by his antipope. On Saturday, the 21st day of the aforementioned month of May, the said Bavarian departed from Tivoli and came to San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura and took up residence there with all his men encamped around him. Then on Sunday morning, on the Feast of the Pentecost, he entered Rome and his antipope with his schismatic cardinals came to meet him at San Giovanni Laterano and they proceeded through Rome with the said Bavarian. After they dismounted at San Pietro, the Bavarian placed the berriuola of scarlet cloth on the antipope’s head and then the antipope crowned Louis of Bavaria, acting as though he were pope to confirm him as a worthy emperor.²³⁰ And when this was done, the said Bavarian confirmed the sentence pronounced by Emperor Henry against King Robert, the Florentines, and others. And in those days the said antipope appointed a Marquess of the Marca, and a Count of Romagna, and a Count of Campagna, and a Duke of Spoleto, and appointed many legates for the said places and in Lombardy. Then

 Louis IV’s temporary departure from the city permitted this imperial entry, followed by coronation at the hands of the pope—necessary ceremonies in establishing his legitimacy.

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the Bavarian departed from Rome and went to Velletri leaving Ranieri, the son of the late Uguccione da Faggiuola, as senator in Rome. This Ranieri tortured and burned two good men, one a Lombard and the other a Tuscan, because they said that the said Fra Pietro di Corvara was not nor could be a worthy pope, but that John XXII was the worthy and holy pope.²³¹

LXXVII How some of the Bavarian’s men were defeated near Narni. On the 4th of June that year 1328, four hundred of the Bavarian’s knights who had come from Rome with fifteen hundred foot soldiers, departed from Todi to seize the castello di Santo Gemini. When they heard of this, the Spoletans, with their forces and with two hundred Perugian knights who were in Spoleto on their way to Abruzzi to serve King Robert, lay in wait for them near Narni. And in that place the Germans fought a great and close battle, but because of the strength of the defenses the Bavarian’s men were defeated and killed, and a great many of them were captured.

LXXVIII How the Bavarian campaigned with his host in Campagna, in order to cross into the Regno, and how he returned to Rome. The popolo of Rome and the Bavarian’s army had been at the siege of the castello della Mulara, which was occupied by King Robert’s army, for a long time; on the 11th day of June of that year the castello surrendered to the popolo of Rome from lack of provisions and the king’s troops, three hundred horsemen and five hundred foot soldiers, departed safe and sound. After this, the Bavarian went with his host to Cisterna, which surrendered to him, and the Germans plundered it thoroughly and burned it. Because of the high cost of food in the Bavarian’s camp—bread cost eighteen danari provisini, although in fact none was to be found—the Romans all left and returned to Rome. When the Bavarian returned  Ranieri della Faggiuola was born around 1290 and was the second son of Uguccione della Faggiuola. He served his father as vicar in Lucca until a 1316 uprising cost the Della Faggiuola their power in that city—they were replaced by Castruccio Castracani. Allegrezza, “Ranieri della Faggiuola.”

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to Velletri, the people of that city did not allow him to enter for fear that his troops might plunder and burn their city, as they had done at Cisterna; for this reason he had to encamp outside in great discomfort. In the meantime, King Robert’s men, who were in Ostia, fearing that the Bavarian’s host might come there, plundered the whole city, burned it, and departed. At the same time, in the aforementioned encampment of the Bavarian there arose great dissension between the Germans from Upper Germany and those from Lower Germany, over the booty from Cisterna and because of the high price of provisions. Both sides took up arms in the camp and prepared to fight one another. And so the Bavarian, with great effort and many promises, separated them, sending the soldiers of Lower Germany to Rome and returning with the others to Tivoli on the 20th of June; and there he stayed for around one month looking for a way and a means by which he might cross into the Regno. But owing to his poverty of coin, and because of the great dearth which was afflicting the land, and the strength of the passes, guarded by the Duke of Calabria and his army, he did not dare set forth, and instead returned to Rome on the 20th day of July. We will leave for a time the movements of the Bavarian, and we will go back to tell of other events that occurred at this time in Tuscany and in the whole world, for there is much to tell.

LXXIX How Pope John anathematized the Bavarian and his followers with a sentence of excommunication. In the said year 1328, on the 30th day of March, Pope John in Avignon anathematized the Bavarian and his followers with a sentence of excommunication, and he deposed Castruccio from the Duchy of Lucca and Luni and Piero Saccone from the lordship of Arezzo and by his declaration he cancelled and annulled every privilege they had received from the Bavarian.

LXXX How peace was made between the King of England and that of Scotland. In the said year and month of March the accord and the peace treaty between the Kings of England and Scotland was concluded, for the war had lasted … years, to the great harm and diminishment of the English. And they created a family bond

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between them, for the young King of England gave his sister as wife to the son of the King of Scotland.²³²

LXXXI How Castruccio brought Montemassi into rebellion against the Sienese. In the said year, on the 10th day of April, Castruccio supplied with provisions Montemassi in the Maremma, which he had earlier brought into rebellion. Acting with the favor of Castruccio, certain noble men of the Maremma, who had a claim to that town, had brought it into rebellion to spite the Sienese, whose army then attacked it and built a fortification. And the Florentines sent to their aid two hundred fifty knights, but they arrived late, which made it impossible for them to resist the power of Castruccio’s cavalry. Because of this the Sienese sent ambassadors to Castruccio in Pisa and asked that he not interfere with the siege. Castruccio, in mockery of the Sienese, made no other response but a blank letter that said nothing more than the following words, written in Sienese: “levate via chelchello,” that is to say the fortification.²³³ This greatly enraged the Sienese and they reinforced their siege with the assistance of the Florentines, who sent three hundred fifty knights. They took Montemassi by negotiation on the … day of August 1328.

LXXXII How the castello del Pozzo above the Guisciana was taken and demolished. In the said year, on the 26th day of April, the Florentine troops in Santa Maria a Monte took the small castello del Pozzo above the Guisciana River—this castello had been greatly reinforced. Castruccio’s men were coming to supply it, and when the men of the castello went out to receive them, the Florentine troops

 This was the Treaty of Edinburgh—Northampton. The context of this treaty was one of battlefield triumph for Robert the Bruce (after the 1327 Battle of Stanhope Park) and dramatic change in England (after the 1327 deposition of Edward II). The treaty abandoned English claims to Scotland and recognized the crown of Robert the Bruce. The marriage bond was contracted between Robert’s son David and Edward’s sister Joan. Edward III later repudiated the treaty. Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots, 42– 56 and Brown, The Wars of Scotland, 1214 – 1371, 229.  Castruccio’s command translates to “remove that thing.”

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moved between them and the castello. The Florentines defeated them and then took Pozzo, which they immediately had demolished down to its foundations. Castruccio had greatly strengthened and walled castello del Pozzo and held it as his own possession.

LXXXIII How Castruccio seized the city of Pisa and had himself made lord. In those days, in the month of April, Castruccio was in Pisa, and since it seemed to him that the city was not governing itself properly according to his wishes, he was intent on seizing total lordship. However, certain grandi and popolani of Pisa, who had been of Castruccio’s party at the coming of the Bavarian, had by then turned against him since they did not want him as their lord. These men had made an agreement with the Bavarian in Rome that the Bavarian would give lordship to the empress, so that Castruccio would not have lordship. And the Bavarian did this in return for money he received from the Pisans (the lady sent the Count of Oettingen of Germany to Pisa as her vicar and he received a feigned welcome by Castruccio). But two days later Castruccio, with his cavalry and with many foot soldiers from the contado of Lucca, raided the city of Pisa twice, caring nothing for the obedience he owed to the Bavarian or his wife, nor for their lordship of the city. And he seized Messer Bavosone da Gubbio, whom the Bavarian had left as vicar, and Messer Filippo da Caprona and many other grandi and popolani of Pisa and then had himself elected by force as absolute Lord of Pisa for two years—this was on the 29th day of April 1328. For this reason, the aforementioned Count of Oettingen returned to Rome in dishonor and shame. In truth it was said that Castruccio placated him with money, so that he might not complain of him to the Bavarian or to his wife. But it is certain that from this event there arose a great and hidden anger on the part of the Bavarian toward Castruccio, which would have had many and diverse consequences, if Castruccio had lived long, as we will presently tell.

LXXXIV How the Florentines surrendered the castello di Mangona to Messer Benuccio Salimbeni of Siena.

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In the said year, on the 30th day of April, at the will and the command of the duke their lord, in order to pay certain penalties and for Florentine property held by the Sienese, the Florentines unwillingly surrendered the castello di Mangona to Messer Benuccio de’ Salimbeni of Siena, who had claims to it through his wife, who was daughter of Count Nerone da Vernia and niece of Count Alberto da Mangona.²³⁴ This, even though the Counts of Mangona had stipulated certain acts and testaments with conditions declaring that should any of them be left without a legitimate male heir, both Vernia and Mangona would fall to the Commune of Florence. And when Alberto died he left no heir, so the Commune of Florence had a right to it and was in possession of it and for this reason the popolo of Florence was greatly upset at having to surrender it. But because of the poor condition of our commune, and so as not to deliver the Sienese into the hands of our enemies, and since it was impossible to oppose the will of the duke, we chose the lesser of two evils and surrendered the castello, with pacts declaring that Messer Benuccio and one hundred soldiers had to join the Florentine host and take part in chevauchées with the Commune of Florence and send a palio of cloth-of-gold for the Feast of Saint John the Baptist.

LXXXV How Castruccio laid siege to the city of Pistoia. In those days there arose a great dispute between the Commune of Florence and Messer Filippo di Sangineto, whom the Duke of Calabria had left as lieutenant and war captain in Florence. The reason was that over and above the agreedupon two hundred thousand gold florins that the duke was receiving per year for his lordship and for maintaining one thousand knights (even though at that time he maintained only eight hundred), Messer Filippo wanted the Florentines, at their own expense, to supply the city of Pistoia and Santa Maria a Monte. It was not enough that they were paying the cost of the soldiers—for in

 The Salimbeni were one of the principal families of Siena, with a fortune built on a long history of international banking. Guelph since the 1260s, the family was deeply involved in all aspects of political and economic life in Siena. From the beginning of the fourteenth century the family was embroiled in a bitter, longstanding feud with their rivals, the Tolomei. Since 1326 this feud had been pacified with the assistance of Florence and Charles of Calabria but the murder of Benuccio Salimbeni in 1330 would reawaken it. See Mucciarelli, “Salimbeni.” On the Salimbeni in the 13th and 14th centuries, see Carniani, I Salimbeni, and Waley, Siena and the Sienese.

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addition to the cavalrymen paid with Florentine money, the Florentines were maintaining at their expense one thousand foot soldiers in Pistoia and five hundred foot soldiers in the castello di Santa Maria a Monte—but Messer Filippo also wanted these places to be supplied with provisions paid for by the commune. The duke wished this as well and he held lordship and full power over the city of Pistoia and Santa Maria a Monte. And so, great anger and conflict arose between the leaders of Florence and the said Messer Filippo and his advisors, and the Florentines were not without just cause, for when he had taken Pistoia the said Messer Filippo and his men had plundered it and emptied it of all means of sustenance and then did not wish to provision it using what remained of the two hundred thousand gold florins after paying his knights. He could have done so quite generously, but instead he sent the money to the duke in the Regno. Because the Florentines were enraged and because their anger had maddened them, harm was piled upon harm and danger was piled upon humiliation, as we will later recount; for someone could have been found to provision the city of Pistoia at the cost of four thousand gold florins whereas the city later cost the Florentines more than one hundred thousand gold florins along with harm and shame for the Commune of Florence and the duke who was its lord. Castruccio heard of this discord and of how Pistoia had not been provisioned for more than two months, and since he had a great desire to retake the city and take revenge on Messer Filippo and the Florentines for the shame he felt he had received in losing it, like the active and worthy lord he was he sent his men, who numbered one thousand knights and a large popolo, to besiege the city on the 13th day of May 1328—he himself remained in Pisa seeing to the supply of the said host. He sent the Pisans together with their carroccio (most went unwillingly) and then came in person with all the rest of his men to join the host on the 30th day of May. He had seventeen hundred knights and countless foot soldiers, and so he was able to entirely surround the city with his army and with many fortifications so that no one could go in or go out, since he had also blocked the roads and dug moats and constructed barriers and palisades of marvelous workmanship; and so no one could leave Pistoia, nor could the Florentines, from the other side, impede or attack his host.

LXXXVI How the Florentines assembled a great host to aid the city of Pistoia, and how Castruccio took that city on terms of surrender.

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Castruccio was besieging Pistoia in the manner we have described above, attacking the city often with cats and crickets and towers of armored wood and in certain places filling in the moats, but he could do little or nothing to it, because the city had very strong walls with many towers and brattices; moreover, it was palisaded and had double moats—Castruccio himself had strengthened it in this manner.²³⁵ And inside Pistoia there were three hundred knights and one thousand foot soldiers, good men-at-arms, guarding and defending the city for the Commune of Florence, not counting the Guelph citizens who often went out from the city and attacked the camp inflicting losses on the enemies. The Florentine soldiers who were in Prato also frequently attacked Castruccio’s host, although this accomplished little, so greatly had he strengthened his camp. At this point, the Florentines used picks to destroy and break apart the citadel and walls and all the houses and fortresses of the castello di Santa Maria a Monte, and they set fire to it and caused it to collapse on the 15th day of June of that year. They did this so that they would not have to supply so many castle guards and because of the conflict some members of the guard had had with the duke’s men, which we mentioned above; they also wanted to force Castruccio to leave the siege of Pistoia, or to reduce the size of his host there in order to come defend Santa Maria a Monte. But Castruccio, steadfast and worthy, moved not at all from Pistoia—rather, he reinforced the siege. When the Florentines saw that Pistoia was short on provisions, and that it could not be relieved without a powerful host or a battle with Castruccio, they gathered all their allies. They received five hundred knights from the legate in Lombardy, who was in Bologna, loaning them ten thousand gold florins for their pay; they received four hundred knights from the Commune of Bologna and two hundred knights from the Commune of Siena, along with some men from these places on foot with crossbows; they received around three hundred knights from Volterra, San Gimignano, Colle, Prato, and the Guelph Counts Guidi and other allies. Messer Filippo di Sangineto, the captain for the duke, had eight hundred knights, although he was supposed to have one thousand, and to make up for this deficit, the Commune of Florence hired a further four hundred sixty soldiers under the banner of the commune, whose captains were Messer Gian di Bovilla of France and Messer Vergi di Landa of Piacenza. On Tuesday the 13th of July, once these horsemen had been gathered—they were around twenty-six hundred knights, very fine and good men, mostly from beyond the Alps, accompanied by

 These were siege engines which could be drawn up against the walls of a besieged city in order to damage the walls; the number of towers and brattices would have increased the chances of the defenders repelling such approaches.

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a very large body of foot soldiers—and after they had taken the banner of the Church and the cross from the cardinal legate in Piazza Santa Croce, the captain moved out from Florence with part of the host, going to Prato, and on the following day, and the day after that, all the rest of the horsemen and the soldiers moved out from Florence.²³⁶ Then on Monday, the 19th day of July, the entire host of Florentines left Prato, in good order and in formation, and made camp on the other side of the Ponte Agliana, and the next day they made camp at Le Capannelle. In that place, which was very close to the host of Castruccio, by common agreement they cleared the land between the two hosts, since Castruccio had challenged them, promising battle. For a whole day, the Florentine host remained in the field drawn up for combat. Castruccio, however, seeing so many good men among the Florentines, men eager to fight, and believing he had far fewer horsemen, did not want to risk the fortune of battle. Rather, with very great care and attention he personally undertook to surround his host with a barricade of cut trees, moats, and palisades, especially on the side where he judged the Florentine host would need to place itself. And so the Florentines, cheated by Castruccio, who did not want to fight the battle, moved their formations straight northward and made camp at the Ponte alla Bura. If they had only stayed along the left-hand side of the Ombrone River, then either Castruccio would have been forced to give battle or the Florentines would surely have relieved Pistoia and moved between the city and Serravalle, whence provisions were coming for Castruccio’s host. But God takes wisdom away from those he wishes ill, for they took the worst position, drawing together against the hills of Ripalta where Castruccio’s host was stronger because of the lay of the land, where he had many fortifications and numberless foot soldiers on guard. They remained in this place for around eight days, and although the men of the two hosts frequently clashed, the Florentines were unable to advance very much, for when they took terrain by day, Castruccio’s men retook it by night and reinforced it with palisades. The campaign was also greatly impaired because Messer Filippo, captain for the duke of the Florentines, had become somewhat ill and was not in good accord with the marshal who was there with the knights of the Church and Bologna, because one wanted to take one path and the other, another. Moreover, certain soldiers of the Church, whose contingent included many Germans, were often passing under safe conduct to Castruccio’s host, giving rise to suspicion: it was rumored that Castruccio had corrupted many German captains among the men of the Church. And for the said reasons,

 The Florentines and their allies “take the cross” in what is a sort of crusade against Castruccio, ally of the excommunicated Bavarian. See Beattie, Angelus Pacis, 107– 8.

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and also because the legate in Bologna was trying to get his horsemen back to use in his campaigns in the Romagna, it was decided in Florence that the lesser evil was to have the host return and to raid the territory of Pisa, leaving a supply of men and provisions in Prato so that if Castruccio were to raise the siege of Pistoia, the city could be supplied. And so, on the 28th day of July, once the camp was broken and the Florentine host was drawn up in formation, and when Castruccio—who had been summoned by trumpet and challenged to battle—did not appear, the host departed and returned to Prato, and many of them rode along the Via di Signa in Valdarno di Sotto. And after making a show of crossing the Guisciana River to go towards Lucca (and part of the host did indeed pass that way), the marshal of the Church, with a large force of horsemen and foot soldiers, attacked the Pisans, and took and burned the Ponte ad Era, and then took the Fosso Arnonico by assault and killed and captured many men. And in the same way they took Cascina and raided as far as Sansavino and, in the end, reached as far as the Borgo San Marco in Pisa. They took many prisoners and a great deal of booty, because the Pisans were not on their guard but were found at the dinner table, eating, and because there were no knights or men at the defense, since everyone was with the host at Pistoia; and so they could ride unopposed all the way to the gates of Pisa. Despite the raids that the Florentines made against Lucca and Pisa, Castruccio did not move from the siege of Pistoia, hearing that the city was low on provisions. The men inside, whose captain was Messer Simone della Tosa, were terrified, seeing that the host of the Florentines had departed without being able to resupply them, and since their provisions had run out; and so they sought an agreement with Castruccio to surrender the city on the condition that they would be spared and could leave with what they could carry away and that those who were citizens of Pistoia could remain. And this was done, and Pistoia surrendered to Castruccio on Wednesday morning on the 3rd day of August, the Year of Our Lord 1328. And note that this campaign was to the great shame, harm, and expense of the Florentines and that it was almost unbelievable that Castruccio held the siege with sixteen hundred knights or thereabouts and the Florentines—who had, between their host and their men in Pistoia, three thousand knights or more, very good men, along with a very large popolo—could not force him to withdraw. But no human effort and no human wisdom can oppose that which is permitted by God.

LXXXVII How Duke Castruccio, Lord of Pisa and Lucca and Pistoia, and Messer Galeazzo de’ Visconti of Milan, died.

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After Castruccio had retaken Pistoia, through his great wisdom, effort, and spirit, in the manner we have described, he reformed the city and resupplied it with men and with foodstuffs and he brought back the Ghibellines; then he returned to the city of Lucca in great triumph and glory in the manner of a triumphant emperor. And he was at the height of his power, more feared and dreaded and more fortunate in his enterprises than any lord or tyrant of Italy for three hundred years—the truth of this can be found in the chronicles. And when he had completed this conquest, he was lord of the city of Pisa, and of Lucca, and of Pistoia, and of Lunigiana, and of a great part of the Riviera to the east of Genoa and lord of more than three hundred walled castelli. But, by the will of God, who, through nature’s due, makes alike the great with the small, and the rich man with the poor man, Castruccio was taken with a fever that did not break and fell gravely ill. The cause was the excessive and immoderate strain he put himself under while with his host at Pistoia: fully armed, he went about on horseback and sometimes on foot to urge on the guards and the defenders of his host, having them build fortifications and make clearings, and sometimes starting the work with his own hands to spur everyone to work in the heat of the sole Leone. And when the host departed from Pistoia many good men of Castruccio’s host also sickened and many died. Among the notable men who died was Messer Galeazzo de’ Visconti of Milan, who was in Castruccio’s service. He fell ill at the castello di Pescia, and there, after a short time, died excommunicated and like a beggar. He who had been so great a lord and tyrant, he who, before the Bavarian took away his state, was lord of Milan and of seven other cities which were closely allied to him like Pavia, Lodi, Cremona, Como, Bergamo, Novara, and Vercelli, died meanly as a soldier in the pay of Castruccio. And this shows that while the judgments of God may be delayed, they cannot be prevented.²³⁷ Before he fell sick, Castruccio heard that the Bavarian was returning from Rome, and it seemed to him that he had given offense by interfering with the king’s venture in the Regno by staying in Tuscany and by taking the city of Pisa under his lordship against the king’s will and command; Castruccio therefore feared him, and, to prevent him from taking away his lordship and his state as he had done to Galeazzo in Milan, he secretly sought to negotiate an accord with the Florentines. But, as pleased God, his sickness overcame him, so that he put aside this plan, and, when he worsened, he drew up his testa Villani certainly regards Galeazzo Visconti as an enemy of the Church, but he may also be thinking of the charge of heresy and sorcery leveled against his father Matteo Visconti—a sin whose punishment might righteously be visited on a son. See Beattie, Angelus Pacis, 26 – 27. Villani’s contempt for Galeazzo is clear from his choice of words: Galeazzo died “assai poveramente” and “vilmente soldato a la merce di Castruccio.”

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ment, leaving his first son Arrigo as Duke of Lucca and ordering him, as soon as he was dead, without waiting to mourn, to go with his cavalry to Pisa and to seize the city and submit it to his lordship. And when he had done this, he passed from this life—on Saturday the 3rd day of September 1328. In appearance Castruccio was agile, tall and very attractive in figure, not fat but slender, pale, and indeed tending toward the pallid, with straight blond hair and a very handsome face; he was forty-seven years of age when he died. And shortly before his death, knowing himself to be dying, he said to many of his closest friends in his Luccan dialect: “Io mi veggo morire, e morto me, vedrete disasseroncato.” In clearer language these last words mean “you will see upheaval” or rather as the Luccans say, “you will see the mondo andare.” And he prophesied well, as you will soon be able to understand. And according to what we later learned from his closest relations, he confessed and took the sacrament and the holy oil with devotion. But he remained in great error, because he never recognized that he had offended God in his offense against Holy Church, but rather soothed his conscience with the belief that he had acted rightfully for the empire and for his commune. After he died in this state, his death was kept secret until the 10th day of September, as he had ordered, and then his son Arrigo seized the cities of Lucca and Pisa with his cavalry and defeated the popolo of Pisa, fighting them everywhere they found refuge. And when these things were done, he returned to Lucca, where all went into mourning, his people all dressed in black, riding in with ten horses covered in drapes of silk and carrying ten banners—two with the arms of the empire, and two with those of the duchy, and two of his own, and one of the Commune of Pisa, and likewise one each of the Communes of Lucca, and Pistoia, and Luni. And he was buried in great honor in Lucca at the Church of the Friars Minor of Saint Francis on the 14th day of September. This Castruccio was a worthy and magnanimous tyrant, wise and astute, diligent and laborious, accomplished in arms and provident in war, very fortunate in his undertakings and greatly feared and respected; in his time he did some great and remarkable things and was a terrible scourge to his citizens and to the Florentines, Pisans, Pistoians, and all Tuscans during the fifteen years he ruled as lord of Lucca: he was very cruel in his killing and torturing of men, ungrateful for favors he received when in need and necessity, drawn to new people and new friends, and vainglorious because of his state and his lordship; and he fully believed that he would be the Lord of Florence and a king in Tuscany. The Florentines were greatly cheered and comforted by his death, as soon as they could believe that he was dead. It fell to us, the present author, to make a record of the death of Castruccio. When we were in great agitation because of the persecution that Castruccio was directing against our commune, which seemed to us almost impossibly great, we lamented of it in our letter to Master Dionigi da

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Borgo San Sepolcro, our friend and a devout man, a member of the Order of the Augustinians and a Master of Divinity and Philosophy in Paris, begging him to let me know when our difficulties would come to an end. He briefly responded to me in his letter, saying “I see Castruccio dead and I see that at the end of the war you will gain the lordship of Lucca by the hand of a man who will have black and red arms; this will cost great trouble, expense, and shame for your commune—and you will enjoy this lordship for only a short time.” We received this letter from Paris in the days when Castruccio had won the victory which we described above at Pistoia; when I wrote back to the master that Castruccio was in greater pomp and estate than ever before, he immediately responded “I reaffirm what I wrote to you in the other letter. And if God has not changed his judgment and the course of the heavens, I see Castruccio dead and buried.” And as soon as I received this letter, I showed it to my fellow priors—I was then a member of that collegio—for only a few days beforehand Castruccio had died. And thus in every respect Master Dionigi’s opinion was a prophecy.²³⁸ Now we will digress, leaving for a little while the news of Tuscany and making mention of other things occurring in these times in various parts of the world, and in particular the actions of the Bavarian, who had stayed in Rome, before returning to our subject—the matters of Florence.

LXXXVIII How Philip of Valois was crowned King of France. In May of that year 1328 on the Octave of Pentecost, Messer Philip of Valois, son of the late Messer Charles of Valois, and successor to the Kingdom of France, was crowned King of France with great celebration and honor along with his wife at the city of Rheims; he was crowned, because none of his three cousins, who had been Kings of France, and who were sons of King Philip the Fair, had left any male sons. And when this was done, he restored the Kingdom of Navarre to the son of his late cousin Messer Louis of France who did homage to him for it and who was its successor by virtue of his wife’s dowry—she was daughter

 Dionigi da Borgo San Sepolcro (1300 – 1342) was an Augustinian friar who in 1328 was a professor of theology at the Sorbonne. He was to have a considerable influence on both Petrarch, with whom he formed a friendship in Avignon, and the young Boccaccio, whom he encountered at the Angevin court in Naples, introducing them to authors and ideas of early Humanism. It was to Dionigi that Petrarch addressed his famous letter describing the ascent of Mont Ventoux. Moschella, “Dionigi da Borgo San Sepolcro.”

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of the King Louis who was King of France by succession from King Philip his father and King of Navarre by succession from Queen Joan his mother. He also did this to resolve the dispute that this man had moved against him, claiming to be the true heir to the Kingdom of France through his wife, who was the daughter of King Louis the eldest of the brothers, the son of King Philip the Fair—and hence as much a cousin as him.²³⁹ And at that coronation, once he had wisely disposed of the affairs of his kingdom, he gave the order to move with all his power against the Flemings, who had rebelled against the lordship of the kingdom and chased away their count and lord.

LXXXIX How the said King of France defeated the Flemings at Cassel.²⁴⁰ In those days, the people of Bruges and all the towns on the coast of Flanders were in rebellion against Louis Count of Flanders, their lord, as we mentioned at some earlier point. After Louis got out of their prison and was residing in the city of Ghent, they led armies against him and attacked him many times and they chased all the nobles and the great burghers from the land. And so, the said count went to France and to his sovereign lord, that is to say Philip of Valois, the new King of France, complaining of the things that the Flemings, his vassals, were doing to him. The said King of France sent a messenger to them commanding them to hold the count as their lord and to restore him to power, but they were disobedient, responding pridefully that they were not prepared to obey the count or him, and when the king recalled the injuries and the humiliations committed by the Flemings against his ancestors and the house of France, he prepared to lead a host against them. And he moved against them with a great army and all the barons of France. And in addition to the French he brought with him the Count of Savoy, the Dauphin of Viennois, the Count of Hainaut, the Count of Bar, and the Count of Namur and many other barons from Brabant and from the borders of Germany, who were his allies and in his service. They numbered more than twelve thousand knights accompanied by a

 Philip III of Navarre (1306 – 1343) was married to Joan II of Navarre, who was the granddaughter of King Philip IV of France.  The Battle of Cassel took place on 23 August 1328 and was the culmination of a long conflict that pitted the rebels of Flanders against Count Louis I of Flanders and his feudal overlord, the King of France. Sumption notes that this victory was followed by a “reign of terror.” Sumption, Hundred Years War, 186 – 87.

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very large popolo on foot, and with this host he moved out from France and went to Flanders. The Flemings were not frightened when they learned that such a large army was coming against them, but, like worthy and courageous men, they set aside all their trades and professions and came on foot together to the borders of Flanders, making camp on the hill of Cassel to prevent the King of France from entering their country. The King of France and his host made camp at the foot of the said hill, and there they stayed for many days, neither host attacking the other—except for scraps and skirmishes—because each host held a strong position. In the end the two hosts felt so secure that almost no one kept their armor on, owing to the excessive heat of that season. And the Flemings, wisely, to learn of the state and the condition of the French host, sent into their camp a fishmonger of Bruges to sell fish; this man, whose name was Gialucola, was very shrewd and cautious and knew how to speak French well; he was one of the greatest leaders of the host, and for the good of his homeland he placed himself in mortal danger, selling his fish for many days in the host of the French and seeing and learning their state and condition. When he returned to his men, he told them everything he had learned and how if they were courageous it would be an easy thing for them to capture the King of France and defeat his entire host; for owing to the heat their enemies were not under arms, nor were they on their guard. And he had it ordered that they challenge the king to a battle on the Feast of Saint Bartholomew of August, which is the 24th day of the month—this challenge was happily accepted by the king and all his men. And then Gialucola said to his men, “It would be best for us to add trickery to our valor. The king is awaiting the day chosen for the battle, and in the meantime is hardly keeping up his guard at all, especially in the afternoon, when, because of the heat, all his men strip off their arms and go to sleep. Let us arm ourselves in secret and let us suddenly attack their host, and I, along with certain chosen men, will go straight to the king’s tent, for I know it well.” And it was done just as he had said and planned, for on the 23rd day of August, the year of Our Lord 1328, two days before the day of the battle, the Flemings, wearing breastplates in the middle of the afternoon, without making any noise—no trumpets nor any other instruments—descended the hill of Cassel and attacked the camp and the host of the King of France. The French were not at all on their guard, and so the Flemings caused great harm and killed many Frenchmen so that, as they had planned, they were accomplishing their aim of defeating the King of France and his host. And the said fishmonger and his companions had already gone all the way to the king’s tent without meeting any resistance whatsoever; the king was at the point of being killed by these attackers and was only just able, by great effort and at great risk, to escape on horseback. But what held the Flemings back, as pleased God, was that they came too heavily

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armored in their breastplates, and since the heat was great, and since they were tired after the race they had run down the hill, they could not keep up the fight and many lost their strength. On the other hand, the Count of Hainaut and the Count of Bar and the Count of Namur were with their men by their tents on the far side of the host; they had not been resting easy nor had they enjoyed the comforts of the French, but had stayed awake and armed in the German manner. As soon as they saw the descent of the Flemings, they mounted their horses and blocked their way, and thus the French had some protection and were able to arm themselves and mount their horses. For this reason the French formation grew stronger while the Flemings, exhausted because of their heavy armor, grew weaker. And so, as pleased God, the Flemings were defeated that day and more than twelve thousand of them died on the field and the others fled here and there throughout the land. And once their victory was won, the king and his host immediately took Poperinghe and then the good city of Ypres and then moved towards Bruges. Those who had remained in Bruges who were opposed to the king and the count kept their courage and thought they could defend the city. But, as pleased God, and this was almost a miracle, the ladies and the women of Bruges, gathered together, took up banners with the arms of the count and ran to the Market Square of Bruges, crying out in their tongue “Long live the count and death to the traitors!” Because of this uprising the aforementioned leaders of the rebellion left the city in fear, and the ladies sent for the count, who was in Oedenburg, and gave him lordship of the city. And then the King of France came to the city with great celebration and returned the said count to his position as lord of the County of Flanders beyond the River Lys; the King then settled with him for all the expenses he had assumed in the said host and warned him to be a good lord and to take care not to lose the county again through his negligence, saying that if this were to happen to him, he would take away his lands. And when this was done, the king returned to France victoriously and in triumph, and the count stayed in Flanders and had all the fortresses of Bruges and Ypres demolished, and he had more than ten thousand Flemings of the commune, who were the leaders and the fomenters of the dissension and the rebellion, executed in many separate executions—they died violent deaths. This was a remarkable and great vendetta and a change in fortune that God permitted to occur to the Flemings, and He did so to knock down the pride and the ingratitude that this divided popolo had towards the French because of the victory they won over them in the year 1301 at Courtrai, along with many

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other battles, of which we made mention in telling of those times; it is for this reason that we have given a longer account of this battle.²⁴¹

XC How Pietro di Morrone, Pope Celestine, was canonized as a saint. In the said year 1328, in the city of Avignon in Provence, where his court was, Pope John and his cardinals canonized as a saint Pietro di Morrone, who had been Pope Celestine V and whom we thoroughly described when telling of his times—which was the year of our Lord 1294.²⁴² This man renounced the papacy for the good of his soul and returned to a life of penitence at his hermitage at Morrone. God did many miracles for him in Abruzzi both during his lifetime and after his death. His feast was celebrated on the 18th day of May and his body was stolen from the castello di Fumone in Campagna and brought with reverence to the city of L’Aquila.

XCI How the exiles of Genoa took Voltri and then lost it again. In the said year, on the 6th day of June, the exiles of Genoa who were in Savona took by force the castello di Voltri near Genoa, killing everyone they found inside. But they held it only a short time, because the Genoese host went there by land and by sea and took it back on terms of surrender.

 Here the chronicler offers a familiar explanation for a sudden, unexpected reverse: the pride and ingratitude of the Flemings awakens the anger of God, who punishes them for their sins. The mechanisms here are both natural (the heat on the day of the battle) and miraculous (the unexpected uprising by the women of Bruges). Villani’s account of the Battle of Courtrai— the Battle of the Golden Spurs—is in Nuova Cronica IX: 56.  Pietro da Morrone (1209/1210 – 1296) was born to a family of “semplici contadini” and vowed to a Benedictine monastery. He felt called to a life of isolation and spent time in living as a hermit, before founding the congregation of hermits known later as the Celestines. The spiritual prestige he acquired undoubtedly contributed to his election as pope. He was pope for a mere five months, after which he renounced the office and after a period of flight was imprisoned by his successor Boniface VIII. Herde, “Celestino V.”

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XCII How the men of Pavia stole the money the pope was sending to his knights. That year, at the beginning of July, the pay for the soldiers of the Church under the command of the legate in Lombardy was coming from the court at Avignon; the quantity of money was sixty thousand gold florins and it was guarded by one hundred fifty knights. While they were passing through the contado of Pavia on this side of the Po River, the forces of Pavia, rebels against the Church, having thought carefully about the coming of the said money, set an ambush and when part of the escort had passed by they attacked the remaining men, routed them, and seized part of the treasure—more than thirty thousand gold florins not counting the prisoners and horses and mules and goods.

XCIII How King Robert’s men took Anagni. That year, at the beginning of July, King Robert’s men, eight hundred knights captained by the Despot of Romania, nephew of the said king, and Count Novello de Baux, seized the city of Anagni in Campagna, entering it by force with the assistance of the nephews of the late Pope Boniface. By force of arms they chased out all the followers of the Bavarian, who had himself called emperor —this was a great service to King Robert, and the opposite to the Bavarian. In the said year, on the 17th of July, the Ghibellines of the Marca, along with knights from Arezzo—five hundred knights in total—came suddenly against the city of Rimini, brought there by the Malatesta Archpriest, a rebel against Rimini. These forces seized the borghi but afterwards were chased away by force, to the harm and the shame of those exiles of Rimini.²⁴³ In the said year and month of July, in the city of Avignon in Provence, where the court of Rome was, there occurred a great flood of water caused by the rising of the Rhone River. Because of the many rains that fell in Burgundy and the snowmelt in

 When Pandolfo Malatesta died in 1326 his possessions were divided between Ferrantino Malatesta and Malatesta II Malatesta—the former held Rimini, the latter held Pesaro. The archpriest is Guido, son of Giovanni Malatesta, and brother of Ramberto Malatesta. The brothers were fierce rivals of their cousins Ferrantino and Malatesta. Falcioni, “Ferrantino Malatesta”, “Malatesta Malatesta detto Malatesta Antico o Guastafamiglia,” and Larner, Lords of Romagna, 69 – 71. On struggles for power see Cardinali, La lotta dei discendenti.

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the mountains, the Rhone rose so abnormally that it broke its banks and caused immense damage in the Rhone Valley. In Avignon it damaged more than one thousand houses along its banks and many people drowned.²⁴⁴ In that same year and month of July, Alberghettino, who held Faenza, came to an agreement with the pope and submitted himself to his command—that is, to the papal legate in Bologna.

XCIV How the Parmensi and the Reggiani rebelled against the legate and against the Church of Rome. That year, on the first day of August, the men of the city of Parma, acting according to a plot of the Rossi—who were lords of that city—brought Parma into rebellion against the lordship of the Church, and they chased out its forces as well as the officials of the legate. They complained that these men had laid too many burdens on them, and indeed this was true, although they also had wicked intentions and on many occasions they had been bad Guelphs and had not been loyal to the party of the Church.²⁴⁵ And in the same way, the next day the Reggiani rebelled and made a league with Messer Cane, Lord of Verona, and with Castruccio. And so, the Florentines and the other Guelphs of Tuscany were greatly dismayed.

XCV How the Bavarian, who had himself called emperor, departed Rome with his antipope and went to Viterbo.  Compare with the chronicler’s description of the flood which struck Florence in 1333, the opening description of the next book. Floods, of course, were powerful manifestations of God’s wrath against sinful humanity, and of his willingness to punish those sins.  The Rossi were led at this time by Rolando Rossi. He had been in power since the expulsion of Giberto da Correggio in 1316. In 1322 he eliminated the family’s local rivals and afterwards drew the family into an alliance with the Church, eventually serving as a military commander for Bertrand du Pouget. By 1326, this relationship had soured, and the legate had released from prison one of Rolando’s greatest enemies. Following the rebellion described here, Rolando attempted to shore up his power by forging an alliance with Cangrande della Scala, with whose family he made a marriage bond—his daughter to the son of Cangrande. Pagnoni, “Rolando Rossi.”

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At the same time, in the year of Christ 1328, the Bavarian was in Rome, short on money because King Frederick of Sicily, the Genoese exiles in Savona, and the other Ghibellines of Italy had failed to come at the appointed time with their fleet and their money. Because of their want his men had already fallen into discord and were hated by the Romans.²⁴⁶ And as King Robert’s men had already gained strength in Campagna and in the lands around Rome, the Bavarian realized that he could no longer reside in Rome without danger to himself and his men, and so he sent his marshal with eight hundred knights to Viterbo and soon thereafter departed Rome with his antipope and his cardinals; he left the city on the 4th day of August of that year, reaching Viterbo on the 6th day of August. At his departure the Romans greatly reviled him, rebuking him and the false pope and their men and calling them heretics and excommunicates and crying out “Death to them! Death to them and long live Holy Church!” And they threw stones, wounding and killing some of them. The ungrateful popolo played follow-the-leader after him, which filled the Bavarian with great fear, so that he departed in flight and in shame.²⁴⁷ The very night of the day he departed, Bertoldo degli Orsini, the cardinal legate’s nephew, entered Rome with his men and the following morning Messer Stefano Colonna arrived—both were made senators of the popolo of Rome. And on the 8th day of August the cardinal legate and Messer Napoleone Orsini arrived with their followers and were received with great celebration and honor. When the holy city of Rome had been restored to the lordship of Holy Church, these men launched many prosecutions against the damned Bavarian and his false pope, and they burned all his decrees and privileges on the Piazza del Campidoglio. Even the children of Rome took part; they went to the graveyards where the bodies of the dead Germans and others who had followed the Bavarian were buried, and after digging their bodies from their tombs they dragged them through Rome and threw them into the Tiber River. These things occurred as a just punishment by God and were marks of disgrace and abomination for the Bavarian and his antipope and their followers—signs of their ruin and decline. Because of their departure, Sciarra Colonna and Iacopo Savelli and their followers also fled from Rome; these were the leaders of those who gave the lordship of Rome to the Bavarian. The palaces and goods of many of these men were demolished, ruined, and confiscated. And then on the 18th day of August Messer Guglielmo d’Eboli entered  Villani has already described open conflict between the inhabitants of Rome and the forces of the Bavarian, not to mention divisions within those same forces.  Villani tells us that the popolo of Rome “gli fece la coda romana” which refers to a children’s game perhaps like follow-the-leader. The mix of play and violence in the reaction of the Roman popolo would have been the ultimate humiliation for the fleeing emperor.

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Rome with eight hundred of King Robert’s knights and many foot soldiers—he was received with great honor. And thus the city was entirely secured and restored to obedience to Holy Church and King Robert.²⁴⁸

XCVI How the Bavarian went with his host to Bolsena, pursuing a plot to take the city of Orvieto. As soon as the Bavarian came to Viterbo with his troops, who still numbered more than two thousand five hundred German knights, not counting the Italians, he led his host into the contado of Orvieto and took many castelli and villate, causing great damage. And on the 10th day of August of that year he laid siege to the castello di Bolsena, and attacked it repeatedly. But in truth he had stationed himself in that place because of a plot he had arranged in Orvieto: the city was to be betrayed to him on the Vigil of the Feast of Saint Mary in August, which is the principal feast of Orvieto. When the citizens went to mass, the traitors inside were to yield the city by the gate which faces Bagnoregio. His marshal had already ridden there with one thousand knights, but as pleased Our Lady, this treason was discovered right as the marshal arrived, and the traitors were captured and executed. After his plan failed, the next day the Bavarian departed with his host from Bolsena and returned to Viterbo. Then on the 17th day of August he left Viterbo with his false pope and his cardinals and all his men and went to the city of Todi, ignoring the pacts he had with the Todini, who had given him four thousand gold florins so that he would not enter their city. When he arrived in Todi, he imposed a tax of ten thousand gold florins on the Todini and chased out the Guelphs; the antipope, for want of money, stripped San Fortunato of all its jewels and reliquaries and he even took the lamps, which were made of silver—worth a great treasure.²⁴⁹ And while the Bavarian was in Todi, he sent the Count of Oettingen with five hundred knights to serve as his count in Romagna. Accompanied by the Ghibelline forces of Romagna, this man rode burning and destroying all the way to the gates of Imola. On the other side the Bavarian had his marshal ride with one thousand knights to  Guglielmo d’Eboli’s troops, however, were chased out in a rebellion the following year, as reported by our chronicler in Nuova Cronica, XI: 118.  Saint Fortunatus of Todi (sixth century) was Bishop of Todi and his city’s defender against hostile forces during the Gothic Wars (the fact that he defended his people against barbarians stands in ironic contrast to this despoliation).

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Foligno, believing he could take the city by treason. But it pleased God that this was not done, and they returned to Todi, setting fires and burning and seizing booty in the lands of the Ducato.

XCVII How the Bavarian, while he was in Todi, prepared to move against the city of Florence, and the preparations of the Florentines. At that time, while the Bavarian was in Todi, persecuting both Romagna and the Ducato and causing much ruin, he was constantly hounded by the Ghibelline exiles of Florence and by the Aretines and the other Tuscans of the imperial party, who wanted him to come to Arezzo so he and his army could attack Florence from that city. The plan was that Castruccio, who was still alive and whose power had greatly increased after his victory over the Florentines at the city of Pistoia, would come with his host across the plains from Prato while the Ubaldini, accompanied by the forces of the Count of Oettingen and the Ghibellines of Romagna, would bring the Mugello into rebellion and block the roads from all sides against the Florentines. They represented to the Bavarian that once he had defeated the city of Florence (which was very much within his power) he would be Lord of Tuscany and of Lombardy and then he could quite easily conquer the Kingdom of Puglia, taking it from King Robert. The Bavarian agreed and accepted this plan, and had begun preparing for his journey to Arezzo. The Florentines were very frightened, and rightly so, for this was around the time of the harvest, and there was dearth and a scarcity of provisions and so if the Bavarian had actually come and if the Ghibellines had carried out the plan, the Florentines would have had great difficulty defending the city—they feared danger from many directions, seeing themselves surrounded by such powerful tyrants and enemies. However, they did not despair nor did they cast themselves down among the cowardly and the defeated, because those who live as cowards die as cowards and because taking even small measures can get us through many perilous moments. Hence the Florentines took heart and strength and with great prudence and care ordered the reinforcement of the castelli of the Valdarno, that is Montevarchi, castello San Giovanni, Castelfranco, and Incisa, and they supplied them with food and everything necessary for defense and for war. And they sent each castello two captains from the ranks of the greatest citizens— one grande and one popolano—with soldiers on horseback and with a large number of good crossbowmen. They prepared Prato, and Signa, and Artimino, and all the castelli of the Lower Valdarno in the same way and they had the entire con-

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tado emptied of provisions and fodder; this they carried to Florence or to strong and walled towns so that the enemy would find nothing for themselves or for their animals to live on. And they sent for their allies and kept close watch by day and night in the city and at the gates, towers, and walls while reinforcing all those places where the city was weak. Like bold men they were ready to endure every suffering and every deprivation in order to keep their city, with the aid of God. And they ordered that a message be sent to King Robert and to the duke, which was then sent, asking that without delay the duke come personally with his forces to the defense of the city of Florence, declaring that if he did not come, the commune was firmly decided that the two hundred thousand gold florins they were giving to the duke for his wages according to their agreement would not be paid, excepting only the wages of the knights maintained by his captain Messer Filippo Sangineto, which might amount to around one hundred and ten thousand gold florins per year—the commune would use the rest to wage war. The king and the duke were greatly troubled by this request, but seeing the need of the Florentines they contented them by ordering that Messer Bertrand de Baux be sent with four hundred knights under his pay (as the king did not want to put the duke himself at risk against the Bavarian). This aid was late, but it pleased God, whose mercy toward the pressing needs of our commune never fails, very soon thereafter to deliver us from the tyrant Castruccio, by his death, as we have already described, and later by diverse and various changes and events which occurred to the accursed Bavarian, which we will later recount. And not only did God protect us, but also pointed us toward victories, toward prosperity, and toward good conditions.

XCVIII How the tyrant Messer Passerino, Lord of Mantua, was killed. In that year, on the 14th day of August, Luigi Gonzaga of Mantua, having made a plot with Messer Cane Lord of Verona, and with the aid of Messer Cane’s knights who had come secretly to Mantua, betrayed Messer Passerino and rode through the city of Mantua crying out “long live the popolo and death to Messer Passerino and his gabelle!”²⁵⁰ When they charged into the piazza and found the said Mess-

 The Bonacolsi gained control of the city of Mantua in the mid-1270s, under the family’s chief, Pinamonte Bonacolsi. Rainaldo Bonacolsi, or Passerino, had held sole power since the death of his brother in 1309, his position as vicar of the emperor recognized in 1311. Luigi Gon-

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er Passerino, unprepared and unarmed, coming towards them on horseback to see the cause of the commotion, the said Luigi struck him in the head with his sword and he died instantly. Then he captured the son and the nephew of the said Messer Passerino, and since the son was a wicked and criminal man, he rightly had him killed by the son of Messer Francesco della Mirandola, whose death Messer Passerino had brought about—wrongly and traitorously. And then he made himself lord of the city. And thus was revealed the judgment of God, in the words of His Holy Gospels—“I will kill my enemy with my enemy”—casting down one tyrant by means of another tyrant. This Messer Passerino was of the house of the Bonacolsi of Mantua and their ancestors were Guelphs. In order to become lord and tyrant, however, he made himself a Ghibelline, chasing his rivals and every powerful man out of Mantua. He was small in stature but very wise, provident, and rich; he was Lord of Mantua for a long time and also Lord of Modena and he defeated the Bolognese, as we mentioned earlier, in the year 1325. But after reaching the summit of his glory and triumph, his power began to decline, day by day, as pleased God.

XCIX How the men of Fermo in the Marca seized San Lupidio. In the said year, in the month of August, the men of the city of Fermo in the Marca took by treason the castello di San Lupidio. They raided it and entirely plundered it, and with much killing chased out the Guelphs. The said town was almost destroyed.

C How the Sienese took Montemassi with the assistance of Florentine forces. In the said year, in the month of August, the Florentines, neither wearied nor frightened by the return of the Bavarian to Tuscany, sent five hundred knights captained by Messer Testa Tornaquinci to the aid of the Sienese, to defend zaga was the head of an influential family that had benefited from the Bonacolsi signoria and whose members were part of the “oligarchia bonacolsiana.” His coup d’état was supported by Cangrande della Scala and successfully established his family as lords for generations. Lazzarini, “Luigi Gonzaga.”

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them from the forces of Castruccio, who had sent six hundred of his knights into the Maremma to lift the Sienese siege of the castello di Montemassi—they had already captured, plundered, and burned the castello di Pavanico. And it is certain that the Sienese would not have been able to stay in the field, if it were not for the Florentine forces. In fact, Castruccio’s men immediately retreated and the Sienese took the castello on terms of surrender with the Florentines as the guarantors; this occurred on the 27th day of August. We will leave these matters of foreigners in the broader world and return to the progress and the movements of the Bavarian.

CI How Don Peter of Sicily came to the aid of the Bavarian with his fleet and that of the men from Savona, and how they came to Pisa, where the Bavarian was. In the said year 1328, in the month of August, Don Peter, who had himself called King Peter, son of Frederick Lord of Sicily, came to the aid of the Bavarian, called emperor, with eighty-four ships, both galleys and transports, and with three great ships and many small ships—between those from Sicily and those of the Genoese exiles who were living in Savona—and with six hundred knights, Catalans, Sicilians, and Latins.²⁵¹ And even though they arrived to assist him later than had been planned and promised, they landed in many parts of the Regno, first in Calabria, and then at Ischia, and then above Gaeta, following the coast, harming and raiding the lands of King Robert without meeting any resistance whatsoever. And then in the territory of Rome they took Astura and then went to the mouth of the Tiber, believing that the Bavarian was at Rome. When they did not find him there, they devastated the lands around Orbetello and went to Corneto; and while they were there, they heard news that the Bavarian was at Todi and they sent him ambassadors asking that he come to the coast to confer with them. When the Bavarian heard of these things, he changed his plans, which had been to advance on Florence by way of Arezzo, and on the 31st day of August he departed from Todi together with his antipope and all his

 Peter II of Sicily (1304– 1342) was the son of Frederick III of Sicily and Eleanor of Anjou. He had been recognized as King of Sicily with his father in 1321, although this contradicted the terms of the Treaty of Caltabellotta, according to which Sicily was supposed to pass to the Angevins after the death of King Frederick. Corrao, “Pietro II, Re di Sicilia.” Villani has a low opinion of Don Peter, whom he characterizes as “quasi un mentacatto,” that is, a fool, or madman. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 71.

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court and men; he went to Viterbo, and left there the antipope, the empress, and the other people and, accompanied by eight hundred knights, he went to Corneto to meet with Don Peter. Once those lords had come ashore, they conferred together for several days, with much disagreement and recrimination, because the fleet had not come at the promised time, and because the Bavarian was demanding the money he had been promised in their agreements. Don Peter and his council asked the Bavarian to invade the lands of King Robert, saying that he would come with the fleet by sea and would give him the promised money, which was twenty thousand ounces of gold. Then, in the midst of their dispute, they received news via ambassadors from the Pisans who told them how Castruccio’s men had seized the city of Pisa and chased out the officials of the Bavarian. What is more, the Bavarian did not feel he was able, nor did he feel that his men were willing, to cross into the Regno, since he had heard that the passes were guarded and that provisions were in very short supply everywhere. He decided to move towards Pisa with his wife and with all his troops by land, while the fleet came by sea. And this was what was done, for on the 10th day of September they departed from Corneto, and while they were on their way the perfidious heretic and master and guide of the Bavarian, maestro Marsilius of Padua, died at Montalto.²⁵² The Bavarian and his host arrived at Grosseto on the 15th of September. And Don Peter’s fleet captured and devastated Talamone, then landed at Grosseto, and, together with the Bavarian, laid siege to the city at the request of the Genoese exiles and the Counts of Santafiore; they did this to take the port and block the passage of merchandise belonging to the Florentines, Sienese and the other Tuscans who were taking that route in order to avoid Pisa. And they remained there at the siege for four days, launching great attacks with the crossbowmen who were in the fleet; they climbed the walls of Grosseto many times but were chased away by force, and more than four hundred of the best men were killed there. Because of the greater numbers and the attacks the city could not hold out much longer, but at this moment there arrived news and ambassadors sent by certain men of the imperial party in Pisa to the Bavarian, telling him how Castruccio, Lord of Lucca, was dead and that his sons and their forces had taken over the city, and that by God he had better make every effort to come to Pisa, because if he did not, they feared that they [Castruccio’s sons] would give the city to the Florentines. For this reason, the Bavarian departed from Grosseto on the 18th day of September and rode swiftly so that he en-

 Villani is mistaken, since Marsilius died in 1342. He is likely conflating Marsilius with John of Jandun—his friend and fellow servant of Louis IV. On the relationship between the two men and their journeys with Emperor Louis IV, see Maiolo, Medieval Sovereignty, 170 – 71.

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tered Pisa on the 21st day of September where he was received with great rejoicing by the Pisans, for they were out from under the lordship of the sons of Castruccio and the Luccans. When these men heard of the coming of the Bavarian, they departed Pisa and returned to Lucca and the Bavarian returned the city of Pisa to his lordship and named as his vicar Tarlatino de’ Tarlati of Arezzo, whom he made knight and to whom he gave the gonfalone of the popolo—and so the Pisans were greatly contented, and it seemed that they had recovered their freedom after the tyrannous lordship they had experienced under Castruccio and his sons.²⁵³ And when this was done, Don Peter of Sicily, who had held many councils with the Bavarian and with the other league of Ghibellines, departed from Pisa with his fleet on the 28th day of September and the Genoese exiles did the same. But a bad thing happened to Don Peter, for when he was already near the island of Sicily with his ships, a storm rose against him and all his ships were scattered to many places on the shores near Rome and the Maremma; these ships were in great danger and doing all they could to save themselves. Around fifteen of his galleys with the men aboard were lost at sea, and many others were broken and torn apart in many places. And after a dangerous voyage Don Peter arrived in Messina with only four galleys while the remaining galleys arrived in many Sicilian ports having lost men and equipment—in sum, the Sicilians received a great defeat. We will leave for a time this subject and return to matters of Florence and other parts of Italy.

CII How Messer Cane della Scala won lordship of the city of Padua. In the said year 1328, the city of Padua was greatly afflicted and had entirely lost power, lordship, and population and had lost the greater part of its contado, owing to the discord among the grandi citizens and the suffering caused by the recent war with Messer Cane della Scala, Lord of Verona. In these circumstances the men of the house of Carrara of Padua, who had exiled their neighbors and ruined their own Guelph party because of their desire to be lords and rule as tyrants, almost by necessity, because they could not hold the city  Tarlato “Tarlatino” Tarlati (d. 1353) was the son of Angelo Tarlati and brother to Guido Tarlati and Piero Saccone Tarlati. According to Scharf his “vocazione” was “essenzialmente militare.” He was present in Rome with Louis IV, where he and his brother were knighted by the emperor. He ruled alongside Piero Saccone until the latter yielded Arezzo to the Florentines in 1337. Scharf, “Tarlato ‘Tarlatino’ Tarlati.”

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well, came to an agreement with Messer Cane and arranged a marriage bond with his family, and they gave him lordship of Padua, which he had long desired, on the 8th day of the month of September; and on the 10th day of the month he entered the city in great triumph and power. And as soon as he arrived in Padua, he restored order and returned the city to a just and proper state—wherever it had suffered harm—without taking revenge on anyone and returning to the city anyone who wished to return under his lordship.²⁵⁴ And so the prophecy of Master Michael Scotus about events in Padua was fulfilled, as long ago he had said, “Padue magnatum plorabunt filii necem diram et orrendam datam Catuloque Verone.”²⁵⁵

CIII How the Florentines seized the castello di Carmignano. In those days, Messer Filippo di Sangineto, hearing, along with the other war captains of Florence and the council of the priors (for we were at that time part of that council), that the castello di Carmignano was not well supplied and that its inhabitants were terrified by the death of Castruccio, secretly planned to attack and assault it and take it by force. And they put this plan into action in the following manner: the said captain along with certain Florentines and part of the cavalry and the popolo on foot departed San Miniato and the other towns of the Valdarno on a prearranged night and took the road through the mountains and by morning had surrounded Carmignano; and similarly, the Florentine cavalry that was stationed in Prato, along with the Pratesi and many foot soldiers, also came to surround this place, so that there were in total eight hundred knights from beyond the Alps and five thousand foot soldiers surrounding Carmignano. The castello was quite strongly situated, part was walled by Castruccio and part was palisaded, moated and fortified with towers and brattices of wood. But it was a huge ring and enclosure, and inside there were fifty knights

 This was the culmination of a long struggle during which Cangrande supported the Paduan exiles, who contested the control exercised over the city by Marsilio da Carrara. Cangrande’s deal with Marsilio was given form by the marriage arranged between Marsilio’s niece Taddea and Cangrande’s nephew Mastino II della Scala. Marsilio da Carrara was left to control Padua as Cangrande’s vicar. Varanini, “Cangrande della Scala.” For the Da Carrara and the political history of Padua see Hyde, Padua in the Age of Dante, 275 – 82.  “The sons of the magnates of Padua will weep for the dreadful and horrible death suffered by the dog of Verona.” The dog, of course, is Cangrande della Scala.

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and around seven hundred foot soldiers; they would have needed more than twice this number to guard the castello. Messer Filippo, captain of the Florentines, had all the knights dismount and to each captain he assigned foot soldiers with pavises and crossbows, pitchforks, brushwood, and torches, and he had each captain take up his position around the castello; and then, to the sound of trumpets and drums, he had the castello assaulted and attacked from more than twenty directions. This battle was harsh and grueling and lasted from the morning to the hour of nones, but in the end, because of the great size of the enclosure and the skill of our knights, they won the battle in many places, inflicting great harm on those who were inside, and they entered by force into the town and raised their banners. When the defenders of the town saw that their enemies had entered, they abandoned their posts and the town, and those who could fled behind the fortifications of the citadel while the attackers entered the town, seized it, and plundered it thoroughly, taking great booty. This took place on the 16th day of the month of September of that year. And the citadel held out for eight days more, its fortifications battered day and night by the mangonels and siege towers erected by the attackers; the defenders suffered great hunger and lack of provisions because of the many inhabitants who had fled there for refuge. In the end, the citadel and its fortifications surrendered on terms which spared the people and allowed them to carry away what they could. And the soldiers who were in the citadel received twelve hundred gold florins as compensation for their horses. Such generous terms were offered to them because the Bavarian had already arrived in Pisa, and his cavalry had already reached Pistoia, so that it was very dangerous for our host to remain at that siege. There was great rejoicing in Florence at this acquisition of Carmignano, and hope that good fortune had turned its favor toward the Florentines. Many councils, however, were held about whether to demolish the town and its citadel, out of fear of the Bavarian, or whether to keep it. In the end, it was decided that it should be kept, and its defenses reduced in size; it was also decided that it should be completely walled with towers of stone and plaster, and that the citadel and its fortifications should be strengthened and that it should never be given up by the Florentines, but that it should be perpetually incorporated into our contado—and all these things were immediately done.

CIV How the King of France made peace between the Count of Savoy and the Dauphin of Viennois.

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In the said year, at the end of September, King Philip of France, because of the pleas and the efforts of Queen Clementia, who had been wife of King Louis of France and daughter of Charles Martel, King of Hungary, and niece of King Robert, had the Count of Savoy and the Dauphin of Viennois, the nephew of the said queen, make peace—there had been a long and deadly war between these two men.²⁵⁶ And since the said queen was sick and near to death, the king, to give her consolation, had this peace made in her presence and had the two lords kiss one another on the mouth. The queen shortly afterwards passed from this life, which was a great loss, since she was a wise and worthy lady and queen.²⁵⁷

CV How the Bavarian went to Lucca and deposed Castruccio’s sons from lordship. While the Bavarian was in Pisa, the Pisans complained greatly to him about the sons of Castruccio, saying that they and their father Castruccio had plotted with the Florentines against the honor of the crown, and this was partly true. And so, the Bavarian grew very angry with them, also because they had seized control of Pisa, and because they would not allow his men to enter Lucca. And so, to calm the Bavarian’s anger against her sons, the wife of the late Castruccio came to Pisa and gave him gifts worth ten thousand gold florins—coins, jewels, magnificent horses—and she placed herself and her sons at his mercy. For this reason, and on the advice of the Pisans and certain Luccans, the Bavarian traveled to Lucca on the 5th day of October and was received there with great honor. But the citizens were provoking disturbances in the city, since they did not want the sons of Castruccio to remain as lords, and on the 7th day of October the city rose up and barricades and roadblocks were put up around the houses of the Onesti and in other places. In the end, the city was seized by the Germans and the Bavarian took it under his lordship and left as lord his baron the porcaro (saying porcaro in German is the same as saying count castellan, but he was

 In 1328, the Count of Savoy was Edward the Liberal (1284– 1329) and the Dauphin of Viennois was Guy VIII de la Tour de Pin (1309 – 1333).  Clementia of Hungary (1293 – 1328) was daughter of Charles Martel of Anjou. She was married to King Louis X of France after the death of his imprisoned wife Margaret in 1315. After the death of Louis in 1316, she gave birth to the short-reigned infant King John, who was then succeeded by his uncle Philip V. Villani clearly admires her character—she is one of the virtuous women of his chronicle.

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called porcaro in our language).²⁵⁸ And he imposed a tax of one hundred fifty thousand gold florins on Lucca and its contado, spreading the payments out over one year, and promising to leave them free from further taxation. And he freed from prison Messer Raimondo di Cardona and his son, he who had been captain of the Florentines, paying four thousand gold florins for his ransom, making him swear to obey his lordship and retaining him in his pay with one hundred knights—he did this at the behest of the King of Aragon.²⁵⁹ When he returned to Pisa on the 15th day of October, he imposed a tax of one hundred thousand gold florins on the Pisans. These taxes in Pisa and Lucca caused much complaining and sorrowing by the citizens since they were excessively burdensome, given the bad state of their cities, weakened as they were by the wars. It was at this point that the porcaro, whom the Bavarian had left in Lucca, made a marriage alliance with the sons of Castruccio and returned them to estate and lordship, giving signs that he wanted to hold power over Lucca and the contado in common with them. For this reason, certain people in Lucca and Pisa accused them of disloyalty to the crown, and so on the 8th day of November, suspicious about what the porcaro had done in Lucca and about the Germans of Lower Germany who had left him and gone to the Cerruglio, as we will soon tell, the Bavarian returned to Lucca and deposed the said porcaro from lordship; indignant, this man departed Pisa for Lombardy and then went to Germany. The Bavarian then removed every title to the duchy from Castruccio’s sons and sent them and their mother into exile at Pontremoli; the Commune of Pisa, with the consent of the Bavarian, condemned the sons of Castruccio as well as their guardian, Neri Saggina, and all the Florentine exiles and whoever led them in destroying the popolo of Pisa and seizing the city. They were condemned as traitors in their goods and in their persons.

CVI How certain of the Bavarian’s men rebelled against him and went up to the Cerruglio di Vivinaia.

 Porcaro is a corrupted form of burgravio or burgrave, but in Italian it also means “swineherd,” so the word might have been both comical and subversive.  Raimondo da Cardona, whose military career unfolded in service to King Robert and Bertrand du Pouget, began his term as war-captain for the Florentines in 1325, and commanded their troops at the Battle of Altopascio—he was imprisoned after the battle. Enzensberger, “Raimondo da Cardona.”

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During this time the Germans of Lower Germany who were with the Bavarian had begun to disdain him and, as we mentioned before, discord had begun between them and him when they were at Cisterna, in Campagna. While they were at Pisa, they were not receiving their pay and wages from the Bavarian, and so some of them formed a conspiracy and a plot. The conspirators were around eight hundred horsemen, most of whom were from among his best men and they were followed by many other noblemen who had been left on foot because of poverty. They left Pisa on the 29th day of October of the said year, believing they could capture the city of Lucca, bring it into rebellion, and hold it for themselves. And they would have succeeded, if not for the fact that the Bavarian, hearing of their foolish departure, sent messengers to Lucca, warning against receiving them in the city—and his intention succeeded. For this reason, they stayed for a while in the borghi of Lucca, plundering them of all their goods, and then went to the Valdinievole where, since they found they were not allowed to enter any walled fortress, they finally took up position on the Cerruglio, which is on the mountains of Vivinaia and Montechiari and which Castruccio had strengthened during his war with the Florentines; they themselves reinforced this place and held it, ordering all the nearby towns to bring them tribute and provisions. During their stay there, many times they sought to come to terms with the Florentines, and the Duke of Cambenic of the house of Saxony, and Messer Arnaldo di … , their leaders, came to Florence. But their negotiations had few results at the time, because they were asking for overly generous terms and a great deal of money, and also because the Florentines felt that they could not be trusted. Despite all this, they were continuing to negotiate with the Bavarian to be reconciled with him, so as to have their wages, and indeed they received some of their wages, more out of fear that they might come to an agreement with the Florentines than out of love. It happened that, during their negotiations with the Bavarian, he sent to them as ambassador and negotiator Messer Marco Visconti of Milan, who, on behalf of the Bavarian, made them a certain promise of money to dislodge them from that place, and lead them to Lombardy. When the deadline for this arrangement passed and the Bavarian had not given them what he had promised, they held the said Messer Marco under courteous guard as their prisoner for a ransom of sixty thousand gold florins. It was said that the Bavarian sent Messer Marco out of malice, to have him captured and to get rid of him, since he did not trust him after what he had done to his brother Messer Galeazzo in taking away the lordship of

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Milan.²⁶⁰ This company of the Cerruglio would be the cause of great events and changes in the city of Lucca, as we will mention at the proper time.

CVII How King Robert and the duke his son sent five hundred knights to the aid of the Florentines. In the said year, on the Feast of All Saints, Messer Bertrand de Baux arrived in Florence with five hundred knights, which King Robert and the duke his son had sent from Puglia under their pay to serve the Florentines in opposing the Bavarian. This was to satisfy in part the Florentines’ request that the duke come in person, since it was his duty to come to the defense of the city of Florence—since he received two hundred thousand gold florins, according to the terms of the agreement with him. The Florentines were just as satisfied by the coming of these knights as they would have been had the duke come in person, for his lordship was already becoming irksome to them, and they were looking for ways to avoid giving him the money that year since he was not staying personally in Florence.²⁶¹ But this question was soon settled, as we will shortly tell.

CVIII How Charles, Duke of Calabria and Lord of Florence, died. In the said year, on the 9th day of the month of November, as pleased God, Messer Charles son of King Robert, Duke of Calabria and Lord of the Florentines, passed from this life in the city of Naples from a sickness of fever which he contracted while falconing in the Gualdo—this caused great sorrow in Naples and in all the Regno.²⁶² And he was buried with great honor, like a king, at the Monastery of Santa Chiara in Naples on the 14th day of November. His obsequies—very grand and honorable with a great number of candles—were later performed in

 Marco Visconti was the key figure in Louis IV’s decision to arrest Galeazzo Visconti and his family in 1327.  Villani has already recorded dissatisfaction with the arrangements between Florence and Duke Charles, detailing their wrangling over the pacts and the duke’s responsibilities.  The death of Charles was a disaster for King Robert and the Regno, as Charles was the only male heir to the throne. Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli, 143 – 44.

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Florence by the commune, the Guelph party, and all the guilds, in the Church of the Friars Minor on the 2nd day of December. In attendance were the signorie and the captain who had served the duke, and men and women, and all the good people of the city of Florence, so many that they could barely fit into the Piazza of Santa Croce, much less the church. This duke left no male heir, but only two female children, one already born, and another carried by the pregnant duchess. And so, his father King Robert and all the Regno felt great sorrow, since the king had no other male child.²⁶³ In body this Duke Charles was rather handsome and well-formed, somewhat heavyset and not overly tall; he went about with his hair unbound and was very good-looking, with a handsome round face and a full black beard. But he was not as worthy a man as he could have been, nor was he very wise; he delighted in delicate living and he delighted in women, and loved ease more than the exertions of war, although his father King Robert kept him on tight reins out of fear for his person—because he had no other sons. He died at the age of … years. He was very Catholic and honorable and he loved justice. The citizens of Florence who loved the Guelph party were troubled by the death of this lord because of their party allegiance but most citizens were contented, because of the burden of his expenses and the money he took from the citizens and because they were left free and in liberty, since the rule of the Pugliesi had already begun to greatly displease them: Duke Charles had left these Pugliesi as his officials and governors and they strove at nothing else but by every strategy to bring money into the coffers of the commune and to keep the citizens from receiving their honors and privileges as they wanted everything for themselves. It is certain that if the duke had not died, he would not have been safe for long, because the Florentines would have risen against his lordship and rebelled against him.

CIX How the Florentines reformed the city leadership after the death of the duke.

 King Robert’s ultimate successor was Joan I of Naples, whose marriage to Andrew, son of Charles I of Hungary, is described in Nuova Cronica XI: 223. Her assumption of power in 1343 was followed by political turmoil and in 1345 by the murder of Andrew at Aversa. This murder set in motion an invasion of the Regno by Louis I of Hungary and the flight of Joan from Naples. Villani describes these events in the thirteenth book of his chronicle. On Joan and her reputation, see Casteen, From She-Wolf to Martyr.

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After the Florentines heard of the duke’s death, they held many councils and discussions and heard much advice on how they should reform the city’s government and the leadership in a communal manner, so that the parties dividing the citizens might be eliminated.²⁶⁴ And it pleased God that the men who were priors at that time, acting on the advice of one good man per sesto, by common accord invented the following manner of electing priors and gonfalonieri—to wit, the priors along with two popolani electors per sesto chose and reported on all the popolano Guelph citizens eligible for the office of prior, those above the age of thirty years; and the gonfalonieri of the companies along with two popolani electors per gonfalone did the same; and the captains of the Guelph party along with their council conducted a similar collection of names; and the five officials of the Mercanzia with the advice of the seven capitudini of the greater guilds, two consuls per guild, did likewise. At the beginning of the month of December, after the aforementioned collections had been carried out, the priors and the gonfalonieri gathered in the hall of the priors, and with them were their advisers, the twelve buonuomini—with whom the priors undertook important deliberations—and nineteen gonfalonieri of the companies, and two consuls for each of the twelve greater guilds, and six electors for each sesto chosen by the priors and by the said twelve councilors, so that the total number was ninetyeight. And each man whose name had been collected was put to a secret vote using white and black beans, which were collected by two Friars Minor and two preachers and two hermits (wise and honest foreigners) who took turns in the room collecting and counting the beans. And whoever had sixty-eight votes, that is sixty-eight black beans, was approved for prior, and his name was placed in writing in a secret register which was held by the preaching friars; and then his name and surname were written on a thin little slip of paper, and this was placed in a purse sesto by sesto as required; and these purses were placed in a strongbox locked with three keys, which was sent to the sacristy of the Friars Minor. The conversi brothers of Settimo, who were in the priors’ armory, kept one key, the captain of the popolo kept the second, and the servant of the friars kept the third. And at the end of each two-month term of the priors, at least three days before their departure from office, the old priors along with the captain were to sound the bell, gathering the council and have the said strongbox brought forth and opened in the presence of the council. The purses were to be opened, sesto by sesto, and the slips mixed together and drawn by chance.

 This reform of Florence’s government was fundamental, as it put in place electoral methods that would persist for generations. See Najemy, History of Florence, 128 – 32 and Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 99 – 125.

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And those whose names were drawn were to be the new priors, observing the individual prohibition for the priorate, which was two years (for one could not be a prior again if one had been a prior within this period), and the divieto for sons, fathers, or brothers, which was one year, and the divieto for the family, which was six months. And this reform was first approved by the appropriate councils, and then by the full parlamento on the piazza of the priors, where many people were gathered and where there were many speakers. There, the reform was praised and confirmed on the 11th day of December 1328, with heavy penalties set forth for those who might act against it and it was decided that every two years in the month of January everything be done again in the same manner, and at that time, those whose names are found in the register, and who have not yet been drawn or selected will remain; and those whose names are again approved by the aforementioned scrutiny are to be mixed in with those who have not yet been drawn; and those whose names have been drawn are to be placed sesto by sesto into another purse until all the other names have been drawn. The twelve buonuomini, the councilors of the priors, were approved in a similar manner and by a similar scrutiny, and those who were elected were to serve four months, and those who were in one collegio were in the other collegio; the gonfalonieri of the companies were chosen in the same manner, except that they could be youths of twenty-five years or above, and their office was to last four months whereas before it had lasted six months; each of the twelve greater guilds chose their consuls in a similar manner. And the Council of One Hundred, and the Credenza, and the Ninety, and the general council, were changed back to what they had been of old; a Council of the Popolo was made which consisted of three hundred popolani men, selected and approved as worthy and Guelph; a Council of the Commune was also made whose members were great men belonging to the great houses as well as popolani, consisting of two hundred fifty approved men; and the councilors were limited to terms of four months, whereas the terms had been six months—this was done to involve the citizens and give them part of the offices. In such a manner was the city of Florence reformed in its government and its officials, and a short time later, so as to avoid petitions, the foreign podestà were also chosen by purses or by sacks of names approved by scrutiny. We have made memory of this reform at such length because it was well-ordered and enacted by common consent and because for some time there followed quite a tranquil and peaceful period for our commune—that it might be an example to those who will come after. But since it is the Florentines’ custom to often want to make changes, these good rules were very soon corrupted and spoiled by factions of wicked citizens, who wished to rule completely over the others, using fraud to manipulate the reforms in order to place their followers in the purses—men

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not worthy of the said offices—and setting aside good and worthy men. From this followed much harm and danger for our city, as we will later recount.²⁶⁵

CX How a tax was levied against the clergy in Florence. In these days, on the authority of an old papal letter, a tax of twelve thousand gold florins was levied on the clergy in Florence so that their benefices might assist in the defense of the city and contado against the rebels and the persecutors of Holy Church (although it is true that this tax had been commanded earlier by the priorate which was sitting at the time the Bavarian was expected to come toward Florence by way of Arezzo and when Castruccio was alive and expected to come from the direction of Pistoia). The ungrateful and thankless clergy, however, did not want to pay this tax, and it was necessary to force them. For this reason, they appealed to the pope, and then placed Florence under interdict on the 18th day of November, then lifted it until Epiphany, then reimposed it until the Bishop of Florence—who was in the Marca—returned and to their great shame lifted it, since it had been decided to remove the clergy from the protection of the commune. This was on the 5th day of February in the year 1328. We will leave for a time the events in Florence, and tell of matters occurring in foreign parts at this time.

CXI How much of the city of Norcia in the Ducato was cast down by earthquakes, along with many of its surrounding castelli. In that year 1328, at the beginning of December, many earthquakes struck the Marca in the neighborhood of Norcia, so that nearly all the said city of Norcia collapsed. And the city walls, the towers, the houses, the palaces, and the churches fell down. And because this disaster occurred suddenly and at night,  One is reminded of the passage from Dante’s Purgatory, cited later by Villani in Nuova Cronica XIII:19 and 118. “Compared to you, Athens and Lacedaemon, / Though civil cities, with their ancient laws, / Had merely sketched the life of righteousness; / For you devise provisions so ingenious— Whatever/ Threads October sees you spin, / When mid-November comes, will be unspun.” Purgatorio, trans. Mandelbaum, VI: 139 – 44.

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more than five thousand persons were killed. A castello near Norcia called Le Precchie collapsed in the same way, leaving neither person nor beast alive. And the same thing happened to the castello di Montesanto and part of Monte Sammartino, Cerreto, and the castello di Visso.

CXII How the Bavarian, while in the city of Pisa, condemned Pope John, and how Pope John, in Avignon, pronounced sentence against the Bavarian. That year, on the 13th day of the month of December, the Bavarian, who claimed to be emperor, gathered a great parlamento, which was attended by all his barons and by the great men of Pisa—laypeople and clergymen—who were of his sect. At this parlamento, Fra Michele di Cesena, who had been Minister General of the Friars Minor, preached a sermon against Pope John, attacking him with many false allegations and adducing many authorities to argue that he was a heretic and an unworthy pope.²⁶⁶ And after that, the said Bavarian, in the manner of an emperor, pronounced a sentence of deposition against the said Pope John. And at the very same time, in the month of December, around the fasting time of the Ember Days, the said Pope John in Avignon, in consistory with his cardinals and the prelates of his court, proclaimed and took great action against the said Bavarian as a heretic and a persecutor of Holy Church and its faithful, and then issued a sentence depriving him of and deposing him from every dignity and estate and lordship, and commanded all inquisitors of heretical depravity to proceed against him and any person who might give him aid, or comfort, or favor.

CXIII How the antipope and his cardinals entered the city of Pisa and preached against Pope John.

 Michele da Cesena (ca. 1270 – 1342) was Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor from 1316 until his deposition by John XXII. Though he was initially an ally of the pope, his steadfast assertion of that the Franciscans possessed only “usu di fatto” and not full ownership of their property, in the face of the contrary pronouncements of Pope John, led to his removal and his embracing of Louis IV’s cause. Dolcini, “Michele da Cesena.” See also Rollo-Koster, Avignon and Its Papacy, 49 – 51.

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In that year, on the 3rd day of January, Fra Pietro da Corvara, the aforementioned antipope, entered Pisa in the manner of a pope with the seven cardinals he had appointed. He was received with great celebration and honor by the Bavarian, called emperor, and by his followers and by the Pisans: the clergy and the religious of Pisa, as well as the laypeople, went with the said Bavarian in a great procession on foot and on horseback to meet him. And yet, those who saw this procession said that it seemed to them that people had been forced to take part in it and saw it as a dishonorable thing, and the good and wise men of Pisa were very disturbed, since it did not seem to them that they had done well, tolerating such an abomination. Then on the 8th day of that month of January, the said antipope preached in Pisa, offering forgiveness of sins and penalties, insofar as he was able to do this, to those who rejected Pope John, holding him as an unworthy pope, if they would confess their sins within eight days. He also confirmed the sentence that the said Bavarian had issued against Pope John by means of Fra Michele’s sermon, which we described earlier.²⁶⁷

CXIV Of a number of raids that the forces led by King Robert’s captain and the forces of the Florentines carried out in the contado of Pisa. In those days, while the Bavarian was in Pisa with all his forces, Messer Bertrand de Baux, King Robert’s captain, was in San Miniato on the borders with his men and those of the Florentines; they numbered one thousand horsemen and many foot soldiers. On the 10th of January they raided the contado of Pisa, riding through the Valdera all the way to Ponte di Sacco; they took great plunder of men and animals, and they burned the entire land—they stayed for two days and one night. Nor did the Bavarian’s men leave Pisa to defend their contado, for the Bavarian said to the Pisans that if they wanted his knights to ride out they would have to pay them. For this he was greatly criticized and thought a coward by the good people of Tuscany. Then on the 21st day of February the said Messer Bertrand, leading his troops and those of the Florentines, raided the contado of Pisa and again took great plunder; this raid, however, cost him some of his foot soldiers, who, in their greed for plunder, spread themselves

 Villani identifies a “better” and “wiser” part of the population who are able to see rightly, past the appearance of majesty in these ceremonies.

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across the countryside—on their retreat more than one hundred fifty were left behind, either killed or captured.

CXV Of a certain act of treason that was set to occur in Florence, but was discovered. In that same year, in the middle of January, a plot was laid by Ugolino di Tano degli Ubaldini along with certain Florentines of small estate to betray the city of Florence. It was to occur in the following manner: he was to secretly introduce two hundred of his soldiers into Florence, and these men were to stay in the Borgo Ognissanti and the Borgo San Paolo; on a pre-arranged night they were to set fire to four houses in different parts of Florence, in San Piero Scheraggio and Oltrarno (these houses were put out to rent and were full of brushwood). When these fires had taken hold and people were rushing to fight them, the soldiers, whose leader was a certain Giovanni del Sega da Carlone—a daring and bold soldier—were to gather on the Prato d’Ognissanti with many more of their followers and Ghibellines, crying out “Long live the emperor!” They were to block the roads and break open the Porta del Prato and the Porta de le Mulina. And then, summoned by a pre-arranged fire signal, one thousand of the Bavarian’s knights with one thousand foot soldiers riding behind them, led by the said Ugolino and other Florentine exiles, were to come by night from Pistoia and go to the Prato, attacking and seizing the city. And in the same way, the Bavarian’s marshal was to move out from Pisa that same night with many men and come to Florence. But it pleased God that this plot was revealed by certain friends of the said Giovanni del Sega and therefore He saved the city of Florence from this great peril. However, many citizens wondered whether this betrayal could have succeeded, since there were no powerful men in the city who would have responded to the appeal. What is more, there were many horsemen and numberless foot soldiers in Florence, and the city is so large, and there are so many refuges and fortresses from which they could have offered a defense. But if the conspirators had gone forward with their plot, it would not have been without great risk and danger, since the conspiracy would have taken place at night and would have been sudden and unexpected, and so the citizens would have been terrified and suspicious of one another for fear that the conspiracy was larger than it was—so there are arguments on both sides. But whatever may have been the case the said Giovanni suffered torture by tongs: he was pulled on a cart through the whole city while his flesh was torn off his body with tongs heated in a fire, and then he was planted headfirst in the ground. Three

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others who had heard of this plot, and had not revealed it, were hung to death on the Prato d’Ognissanti and Ugolino di Tano and many of his followers were condemned as traitors. And those who revealed the plot received two thousand gold florins from the commune and were given the privilege of being permitted always to carry any weapons they liked—offensive or defensive—to protect their persons. Many citizens and foreigners nonetheless said that even though the conspirators had gathered supporters and laid their plot, since it seemed to the Bavarian’s council that it could not be completed or brought to a successful conclusion without great danger to themselves, they abandoned it. The said Ugolino degli Ubaldini and his kinsmen and many of their allies and relations in Florence pled their innocence, declaring that they were not guilty.

CXVI How the antipope named as his cardinal Messer Giovanni Visconti of Milan. In the said year, on the 29th day of January, the antipope, at the request of the Bavarian and of Messer Azzone Visconti of Milan, made Messer Giovanni di Messer Matteo Visconti his cardinal and then sent him to Lombardy as his legate.²⁶⁸ And the said Bavarian confirmed, like an emperor, the lordship of Milan for Messer Azzone Visconti. In return, the said Messer Azzone promised to pay him one hundred twenty-five thousand gold florins in a number of payments to satisfy his knights, who were at the Cerruglio. Then the Bavarian named Messer Marco Visconti as captain of those knights and gave Messer Azzone leave to return to Milan. Messer Azzone left for Lombardy with one of the Bavarian’s barons who was called the porcaro and with certain of the knights from the Cerruglio. When they arrived in Milan, this porcaro received twenty-five thousand gold florins from Messer Azzone and then left with them for Germany without a word to the Bavarian or the knights at the Cerruglio. When this became known in Lucca, the Bavarian was not happy and believed that he had been tricked by the porcaro and by Messer Azzone Visconti; and the knights of the company at the Cerruglio kept their captain Messer Marco Visconti as their hostage and prisoner in lieu of the wages promised them by Messer Azzone. It was  Giovanni Visconti (1290 – 1354) was son of Matteo I Visconti and Bonacossa Borri. Since 1317 he had been the “esponente ecclesiastico di referimento della dinastia” as it struggled for power, a struggle that deeply divided the church in Milan. Here the antipope has named him Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’Eusebio. Cadili, “Giovanni Visconti.” For his appointment see Miranda, “Cardinals.” For a recent treatment see Cadili, Giovanni Visconti.

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in this manner, amid tricks and dissimulations, that the said antipope and he who styled himself emperor lived in Lucca and in Pisa. And in those same days, the people of the cities of Volterra and San Gimignano made a secret truce with the Bavarian and with the Pisans, so that they would not raid their territories. The Florentines were highly indignant when they learned of this truce, and they sent their ambassadors to strongly rebuke them.

CXVII How the captain of the patrimony and the Orvietans were defeated in Viterbo after believing they had captured the city. In the said year, on the 2nd day of February, the captain of the patrimony, who was serving the pope with a force of Orvietans, had laid a certain plot with certain citizens of Viterbo, who were to betray their city to him. They entered the city through one of its gates with three hundred knights and seven hundred foot soldiers and they rode through the city all the way to the piazza. Then, however, owing to bad leadership, and because they believed they had captured the city, they began to disperse and engage in plunder. The Lord of Viterbo, with many of the citizens, began to defend and barricade the streets; and they beat the men who remained on the piazza in combat, who were defeated and chased away. And more than one hundred horsemen and more than two hundred foot soldiers were killed and captured. And on this same day the people of Orvieto relinquished rule over Chiusi to the Lords of Montepulciano, because the Bishop of Chiusi was one of that family; and they allowed the return of all parties and all exiles to Chiusi.

CXVIII How the Romans took the lordship of Rome from King Robert because of a food shortage. In those days, King Robert’s senator in Rome was Messer Guglielmo d’Eboli, his baron, who commanded three hundred knights to defend the city. The Romans were suffering a terrible shortage of food caused by the high prices that were afflicting all of Italy—they were complaining that King Robert was not resupplying them from the Regno. On the 4th day of February the popolo rose up, crying “Death to the senator!” and chased him to the Campidoglio, attacking him so

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harshly that he and all his men could not defend themselves. He surrendered and relinquished his lordship, to his great harm and shame, and the Romans named as their senators Messer Stefano Colonna and Messer Poncello Orsini, who transported some of their wheat, and that of other powerful Romans, to the market and thus quieted the popolo.

CXIX How in the said year, and more so in the following year, there was a great increase in the price of food in Florence and almost all of Italy.²⁶⁹ In the said year 1328, there began a great increase in the price of wheat and foodstuffs in Florence, so that from its value of seventeen soldi per staio at harvest, that year it was worth twenty-eight soldi per staio, and then suddenly, in a few days, rose to thirty soldi per staio. And then at the beginning of the next year 1329, the price continued to rise every day to such a degree that, by Easter of 1329, the staio was worth forty-two soldi, and before the new year in many places in the contado the staio was worth one gold florin and wheat really had no price since only rich people had enough money to buy it when they needed it. This meant great pain and suffering for the poor people and lasted until 1330. And this occurred not only in Florence, but in all of Tuscany, and in most of Italy. And so cruel was this food shortage that the Perugians, the Sienese, the Luccans, and the Pistoians and many other towns of Tuscany chased away from their lands all the poor beggars—for they could not feed them. The Commune of Florence, acting on wise counsel and with good foresight, and taking account of the mercy of God, did not allow this to be done, but supported almost the majority of the poor beggars of Tuscany, and spent a great quantity of money filling its storerooms, sending to Sicily for wheat, having it shipped by sea to Talamone in the Maremma, and then transporting it to Florence at great risk and expense; it did the same in Romagna and in the contado of Arezzo. And since the commune was willing to bear this heavy cost, even during this great food shortage, it kept the price at one half of one gold florin per staio when sold in the market, although this was mixed with one quarter measure of barley. Even so the anger of the popolo in Orsanmichele was so great, that it was found necessary to post guards to watch over the officials; these guards were furnished with a block and an axe to inflict punishment by cutting off limbs. Over those two years, the Commune of

 On famines in Italy, see Mocarelli and Strangio, “Italy,” 25 – 47.

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Florence spent more than sixty thousand gold florins in feeding the popolo. All this spending would have been useless, were it not for the fact that, in the end, the officials of the commune decided not to sell wheat in the market but rather to make bread for the commune at all the bakeries of the city; and so, every morning, bread of wheat and barley weighing six ounces per loaf was sold at three or four cellars per sesto at four denari per loaf. This provision supported and contented the fury of the popolo and of the poor folk because at least everyone could have bread enough to live on and those who couldn’t scrape together the money to buy a staio could survive on eight or twelve denari per day. And although I, the writer, was not worthy of so important an office, I found myself serving with others as an official of our commune in that bitter time, and by the grace of God we were among the inventors of this remedy and provision, through which the popolo was pacified and their fury abated and by which the poor people were contented without any scandal or uprising of the popolo or of the city. And I tell the truth when I say that in no city were so many alms given to the poor by the wealthy and pious citizens as were given during that terrible famine by the good Florentines. Hence, without question, I reckon and believe that because of these alms and this provision for the poor popolo, God protected and will continue to protect our city from great adversities. We have spoken at such length on this matter so as to set an example for future citizens of our city, that they might take measures and provisions when our city falls into so perilous a famine, so that the popolo might be safe in the favor of and reverence for God, and so that the city might not fall into the dangers of an uprising or rebellion. And observe that whenever the planet Saturn is anywhere between the end of the constellation of Cancer and the stomach of Leo there will be famine in our land of Italy, and particularly in our city of Florence, since the city appears to belong to part of that sign. We are not saying, however, that this is necessary, for God can make worthless what is precious, and precious what is worthless, according to his will, either out of grace for the merits of holy persons, or to cleanse sins. But speaking of the natural world, Saturn, according to the sayings of poets and astrologers, is the god of the farmers, and so it is true that his influence is great over the working and the sowing of the land; and when he is found in houses and signs which are adverse and contrary to him—like Cancer and even more so Leo—he uses his powers over the land poorly, for he is by nature sterile and the constellation of Leo is sterile, and thus he brings scarcity and sterility, and not richness and abundance. We have seen this by experience in past times, and this experience should suffice for those who understand this reasoning, for this situation has re-occurred every thirty years, and sometimes in its quarters according to the conjunctions of good or harmful planets.

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CXX How the Bavarian’s antipope while in Pisa took action against Pope John and King Robert and the Commune of Florence. In that year 1328, on the 19th day of February, the Bavarian’s antipope, who was in the city of Pisa, during a full parlamento attended by the Bavarian, all his barons, and some of the better people of Pisa, gave a speech in which he tried and pronounced sentence of excommunication against Pope John, against King Robert, against the Commune of Florence, and against any of their followers—he raised false accusations against them. While this parlamento was gathering, there occurred a great miracle, both visible and clear: suddenly, there came down from the heavens just about the greatest storm of hail and rain and terrifying wind that has ever fallen on Pisa. Now because it seemed to most Pisans that going to this speech would be wrong, and because of the bad weather, few people were coming to the parlamento. And so the Bavarian sent his marshal on horseback with men-at-arms and with foot soldiers around the city to force the better people to attend this parlamento and speech. However, even under compulsion, few went. And while the said marshal was riding around the city, in the midst of this storm and tempest, he caught a chill. That evening, to cure himself, he had a bath drawn, to which he had aqua stillata added, and while he was bathing it caught fire and he was instantly burned to death in his bath—no one else was harmed. This was thought to be a great miracle of God and a sign that the unseemly deeds of the Bavarian and the antipope were not pleasing to God. And then on the 23rd day of February the said Bavarian revealed to the Pisans that he would be leaving Tuscany, that pressing matters made it necessary for him to go to Lombardy, and so, because of how he had oppressed them, the Pisans were very content.

CXXI How the Ghibelline party of the Marca took the city of Iesi, and cut off the head of Tano, who was its lord. In the said year, on the 8th day of March, the Ghibellines of the Marca, whose war captain was the Count Chiaramonte of Sicily, accompanied by some of the Bavarian’s men, suddenly entered the borghi of the city of Iesi—the inhabitants

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favored them and admitted them to the city.²⁷⁰ The leader and lord of Iesi was Tano da Iesi, a great captain of the Guelph party, much feared throughout the Marca, who had long held the city in subjection as a tyrant and who was much feared and hated by its citizens.²⁷¹ When the borghi and the city had been taken, the soldiers besieged and attacked the houses and the citadel where this Tano and his family had taken refuge. Since this Tano was not prepared and had no provisions, and was unable to defend himself, he surrendered, and before three days had passed the said Count Chiaramonte had his head cut off as an enemy and a rebel against the empire. And before killing him, he made Tano confess. It is said that he confessed of his own free will, and confessed himself guilty, not to the sin of rebellion, since it seemed to him that by rebelling against the empire he had done a meritorious thing in the service of Holy Church, but of the following thing: having been at that time elected war captain of the Florentines, he was preparing to come to Florence, and was prepared at the behest of certain grandi and popolani of the city, for reasons of party conflict, to wreck our tranquil state and to form a new party and, like a tyrant, exile people from our city of Florence. Whether he would have been able to do this or not, it is true that he confessed it at his death, and so, by the grace of God, our city was unintentionally freed from the ill will of the tyrant by the hand of our enemies.

CXXII How the Aretines took Borgo San Sepolcro by siege. That year, the lords from Pietramala d’Arezzo had petitioned the Bavarian for titles of lordship over Arezzo and over Città di Castello, which they held, and over Borgo San Sepolcro, which was not subjected to them; and since the men of the  Giovanni Chiaramonte, Count of Modica (d. 1342), was the son of Manfredi I, Count of Modica. His powerful family served the Aragonese King of Sicily and he was married to Eleanor, the daughter of King Frederick III. The count’s service to Louis IV dated back to the beginning of the emperor’s descent into Italy, although, by the time of these events, the emperor was in retreat, and would soon depart the peninsula, the two men would remain close associates. Our chronicler will return to the fortunes of the count when he describes the consequences of the feud between his family and the Ventimiglia (which would pit him against Frederick III and cause him to switch his allegiance for a time to King Robert). Walter, “Giovanni Chiaramonte, Il Giovane.”  Tano Baligani (d. 1329) was the son of Fillipuccio Baligani and since 1324 the Lord of Iesi— formerly a Ghibelline and then a Guelph. His deposition from power was part of a longer story of struggle between Iesi and its neighbors in the Marche. Capasso, “Tano Baligani.”

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Borgo wished to rule their town themselves, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines of Borgo San Sepolcro set to defending it, in order to remain free. And so the said Tarlati, the lords from Pietramala, laid siege with their host—made up of Aretine forces and the forces of their allies—to the town of Borgo San Sepolcro, which was very strong because of its walls and its moats. They remained at the city for more than eight months, besieging it from many fortifications and meeting absolutely no resistance. The men of Borgo San Sepolcro sent their ambassadors to the Florentines to offer themselves unconditionally to Florence, if it would free them from the siege and defend them against the Aretines. However, the Florentines decided not to undertake this venture because of the presence of the Bavarian, who was at that time in Pisa, and because the Borgo was far away and outside our frontiers and impossible to supply. In the end the the borghiani, seeing themselves abandoned by their Guelph allies in Tuscany, and seeing that certain of the best men of the town had been captured by the Aretines during their raids, surrendered to the Aretines on terms at the end of the month of March, and dominion over the town was left to the said lords from Pietramala d’Arezzo.

CXXIII How the Bavarian went to Lucca, seized the town and deposed from lordship the sons of Castruccio. In the said year, on the 16th day of March, the Bavarian departed Pisa and went to Lucca.²⁷² He went there because of a certain dispute that had arisen in Lucca between the Pogginghi, with their following of grandi and popolani allies, and the Antelminelli with the sons of Castruccio and their followers. Each side had built barricades in the city and were fighting so as not to fall under the lordship of tyrants—that is, the sons of Castruccio and their followers or others of the Antelminelli. On the third day after arriving, the Bavarian had his marshal and cavalry raid the city, which led to a great fight and battle, during which a fire was set which burned most of the houses of the Pogginghi and the area around San Michele and also the area from Filungo all the way to Cantone Bretto; this fire, in the best and most costly part of the city, caused enormous damage to buildings and possessions. In the end, many of the Pogginghi and their followers

 Green notes how in both Pisa and Lucca, the death of Castruccio led to a “groundswell” of opposition to the accession of his sons and made possible a “return to the full enjoyment” of “former republican institutions” in both cities. Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 19 – 20.

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were chased out of the city. When this was done, the Bavarian reformed the city and took control, making Francesco Castracani degl’Interminelli his vicar in Lucca—he did this in return for the twenty-two thousand gold florins he received from him in coin and in promissory notes. And he entirely removed from power the sons of Castruccio, who, even though they were relations of the said Messer Francesco, hated and despised him, because both they and he wished to be lord. Once the city had been reformed, the Bavarian returned to Pisa on the 3rd day of April 1329.²⁷³

CXXIV How the followers of Castruccio’s sons, along with Messer Filippo Tedici raided the city of Pistoia and how they were chased out.²⁷⁴ In those days, the sons of Messer Filippo Tedici, along with the forces of Castruccio’s sons, who were their brothers-in-law, accompanied by Serzati Sagina, who called himself Lord of Altopascio, along with their followers and the forces of their German allies on horse and on foot, entered the city of Pistoia and rode unopposed through it, crying out “Long live the young dukes!” (that is, the sons of Castruccio). And believing that they had taken the city, the Panciatichi, the Muli, the Gualfreducci, and the Vergellesi—Ghibellines of old and enemies of the Tedici—along with their allies and the Bavarian’s vicar, and with followers from the popolo and many of their allies in the city, rode with arms in hand through the city in their turn, crying out “Long live the emperor!” And they routed, and defeated and chased out from the city the Tedici, and the Lord of Altopascio and their followers, and many were killed and captured.

 Francesco Castracani degli Antelminelli (d. 1355) was a cousin of Castruccio. He kept this vicariate for a very short time, as he soon faced Marco Visconti and the Company of the Cerruglio. Forced to flee, Francesco had a very active career as a condottiere. Luzzati Laganà, “Francesco Castracani degli Antelminelli.” For the expulsion of the sons of Castruccio and the vicariate of Francesco degli Antelminelli, see Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 23 – 25.  Filippo Tedici was the nephew of Ormanno Tedici, Abbot of Santa Maria de Pacciana and signore of Pistoia. Filippo deposed him in 1324 and in 1325 sold Pistoia to Castruccio. The death of Castruccio led to his removal from power. Villani, Nuova Cronica, X:261 and 294 and Boccardi, Pistoia nel medioevo, 123 – 24. For Ormanno Tedici see Paolieri, Un abate al potere.

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CXXV How the legate’s men sought to take Reggio, and how Forlì and Ravenna submitted themselves to the command of the legate.

At that time and in that month, a plot had been laid to betray the city of Reggio to the papal legate in Bologna. And so his marshal rode there with more than eight hundred knights and many foot soldiers, and they got all the way to the borghi of the city. But they came so late that the plot had already been discovered. And so, some of those who had planned this betrayal were captured and killed, and the troops of the Church suffered harm and shame and returned to Bologna. And in that month, on the 26th day of March, the people of Forlì and the people of Ravenna, by means of a certain peace accord, submitted themselves to the command of the legate in Bologna.

CXXVI How the troops of Messer Cane of Verona were defeated at the castello di Salò in the territory of Brescia. In the said year, Messer Cane della Scala, who was making great war against the Brescians, had a large fleet of river boats and other ships built and on the 24th day of March he launched an attack with many men-at-arms on the castello di Salò in the Brescian territory. Entry was given to them by traitorous men, and they raided and plundered the town. In the end, when the Brescians learned of this raid, they went to Salò and fought their enemies, defeating them and chasing them away from the town, and more than five hundred were killed.

CXXVII How the Bavarian departed from Pisa, went to Lombardy, and led his host against Milan. In the year 1329, on the 11th day of April, Louis of Bavaria, he who had himself called emperor, departed from Pisa to go to Lombardy. The reason was that the Visconti, who held the lordship of Milan, were not obeying him as he wished, because of the dispute with Messer Marco, and because the Bavarian seemed

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ready to cast down from power the sons of Castruccio, who were of the same sect as the said Visconti. And as the Bavarian left Tuscany, he gave hope to his followers in Pisa and in Lucca and elsewhere in Tuscany that he would soon return, even though it seemed to the Pisans that his departure took a thousand years, because of the unbearable burdens he had laid on them, which had yielded him little honor and done little to improve the position of the Pisans or the Luccans. He left as his vicar in Pisa Messer Tarlatino d’Arezzo with six hundred German knights, and in Lucca Francesco Castracani Antelminelli with four hundred knights. And when the said Bavarian arrived in Lombardy, he had all the tyrants and the grandi of Lombardy summoned to a council at Marcaria. Most of them attended, including Messer Cane della Scala, and the Lord of Mantua, and the Lord of Como and Cremona—only the Visconti of Milan were absent. This council lasted until Good Friday, the 21st day of April, after which the Bavarian planned an attack on Milan with these Lombards, because Messer Azzone Visconti and his kinsmen would not obey him and would not give him lordship of Milan and also because he heard that they were negotiating an accord with the pope and the Church. After this, he returned to Cremona to prepare his troops. Then, shortly thereafter, in the month of May, accompanied by the League of Lombardy, the said Bavarian moved against Milan with two thousand knights and stationed himself at Monza, remaining there and in the contado of Milan for a long while, devastating the country. But he took not a single town in the contado of Milan, although he did take the city of Pavia through negotiations and on terms of surrender at the end of the month of June; and then he and his troops returned to Cremona because of the uprising against the legate and the Church which had already begun in the cities of Parma, Reggio, and Modena, which we will later mention.

CXXVIII How the company of Germans came to Lucca from the Cerruglio, and became lords of the city. On the 15th of April of that year, four days after the departure of the Bavarian from Pisa, the Germans who had rebelled against him and who were at Cerruglio in the Valdinievole, as we earlier mentioned, named as their captain Messer Marco Visconti of Milan, who had been their hostage on account of wages

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they had been promised.²⁷⁵ These Germans numbered around six hundred men on horseback and were very cruel and accomplished men-at-arms. They had a plot with certain Florentines, whose chief and leader was Messer Pino della Tosa, along with the Bishop of Florence, and certain other citizens who remained secret; ever since the Bavarian’s stay in Pisa, these men had been making the Germans great promises of money from the Commune of Florence. The Germans had also had a plot with those German forces that had served Castruccio, and which were guarding the castello dell’Augusta in Lucca. They departed the Valdinievole during the night and came to Lucca where, as had been planned, they were given entry to the castello dell’Augusta. And straightaway they sent for Arrigo, Castruccio’s son, and for his brothers, who, because of the Bavarian’s sentence of exile, were at their castello di Monteggiori. Having arrived and entered the castello di Lucca, they were ready to seize control of the city. The people of Lucca feared plunder and burning, and so the following Sunday, together with Francesco Antelminelli, who was Lord of Lucca for the Bavarian, they surrendered and gave the lordship of the city itself to Messer Marco and his followers from the Cerruglio. And then the Germans began to raid the surrounding countryside, plundering and killing those who would not obey their commands—like savage and needy men who live by thievery. Because the people of Camaiore resisted them, they were burned and plundered, their town was burned and devastated, and more than four hundred of the townspeople were killed; this was on the 6th of May. Then they raided and laid waste to the lands around Pescia. In the midst of this revolution in Lucca, Messer Marco and his followers sent Augustinian friars as their ambassadors to Florence to request that the Florentines pay them the money they had been promised according to the terms of their agreement: they offered to give the Florentines lordship of Lucca and the castello if they would pay the soldiers their back wages—they had calculated the debt and were asking around eighty thousand gold florins—and if they would pardon and release Castruccio’s sons, although as citizens and not as lords. There were many, many council meetings in Florence on whether to accept this offer. Either because envy truly destroys every good thing, or because it was not yet time for us to enjoy a tranquil state, or because they felt they were doing the right thing, there were many opponents of this plan in Florence. The principal opponent was Messer Simone della Tosa, because of his sect, and he was a relative by lineage of Messer Pino, along with many of his followers, both grandi and popolani. He  Green notes how this takeover was interpreted by the Florentine government as a turn towards Guelphism (they had, after all, rebelled against the Bavarian). Their interests, however, were purely mercenary: to exploit their control over the city and its surrounding territory. Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 24– 26.

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showed with elegant and convincing reasoning what trust we should repose in Messer Marco and the Germans, who had been our adversaries and our enemies; he also showed how it was not to the honor of the Commune of Florence to pardon Castruccio’s sons for the many offenses it had received at the hands of their father. And so the beneficial agreement, whereby the Commune of Florence would have had the lordship of Lucca, was abandoned because of envy among our citizens, and we made the worse choice to the great cost and harm of our commune, as we will describe later on, at the proper time.

CXXIX How peace was made between the Florentines and the Pistoians. Because of this revolution in Lucca, the Ghibelline leaders who held the city of Pistoia, knowing that they could not hold the city without great danger unless they made friends with the Florentines, sought out peace negotiations with the Commune of Florence. These were, as we have already said, the Panciatichi, the Muli, the Gualfreducci, and the Vergellesi; they were all opponents and enemies of Messer Filippo Tedici and his followers, and suspicious of the sons of Castruccio and their followers because of their family ties with Messer Filippo. The man who brought about and completed these negotiations was Messer Francesco di Messer Pazzino de’ Pazzi because he was related by marriage to the Guelph Panciatichi, who were able to gain the trust of the other Panciatichi and their followers who were Lords of Pistoia. These negotiations soon had a very good outcome, because it was as beneficial for the Florentines as it was for the Pistoians; they were completed on the 24th day of May 1329, and the terms were as follows: the Pistoians yielded Montemurlo to the Florentines, paying twelve hundred gold florins to the soldiers who were stationed there; they perpetually ceded their claims to Carmignano and Artimino and Vitolino and many other towns in the foothills which had been captured and were held by the Florentines; they promised to allow all the Guelphs except the Tedici to return to Pistoia within a certain period of time and promised to share offices with the Guelphs and consider the Commune of Florence’s friends as their friends and its enemies as their enemies. As a pledge, they gave guardianship of the citadel of Tizzano to the Florentines, and they fulfilled their obligation to readmit the Guelphs before the agreed-upon time. The Pistoians requested that the Florentines take the city of Pistoia under their protection and that they station there a popolano captain with men-at-arms—and these things were done. And to make this peace more secure, the Florentines had the syndic

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of the commune, who was Messer Iacopo Strozzi, create two knights from among the Panciatichi, and one from the Muli, and one knight from the Gualfreducci, giving them two thousand gold florins. The Florentines also contributed thirtysix knights to the cavalry of Pistoia at their own expense. And the said Ghibellines of Pistoia ordered that every banner showing the imperial eagle and also every banner of the Bavarian, of Castruccio, and of the Ghibellines be cast down and that the golden shell of Saint James be added to their banners. There were great celebrations of this peace in Pistoia—with displays of arms and other games—and then in Florence on the following Feast of the Ascension there was costly and magnificent jousting on the Piazza Santa Croce. Six knights fought every day for three days and there was all manner of jousting for men on horse—with winners and losers—with many well-aimed blows and many knights knocked down, and the balconies were ever full of beautiful ladies and very worthy people.

CXXX How the legate of Lombardy had a host sent against Parma, Reggio, and Modena and how those cities obeyed his commands. In the said year, at the end of May, the pope’s legate in Lombardy, who was in Bologna, had a host with more than two thousand knights and a large popolo sent against the cities of Parma and Reggio, because these cities had rebelled against the Church and refused to obey its legate. Then on the 25th of June, because of certain feigned peace negotiations with the pope at his court Parma and Reggio returned to obedience and the legate placed his rectors and his officials in the cities, but with only a handful of men, so that lordship and power in those cities still remained in the hands of the lords of those cities. Afterward, on the 5th day of July, the host of the Church moved against the city of Modena, and because of this the Modenese surrendered to the legate as had Parma and Reggio, and in the same manner.

CXXXI How the legate of Tuscany and the Romans sent a host against Viterbo. Meanwhile the legate of Tuscany, who was in Rome, sent a host of Romans and his other forces against the city of Viterbo. He did this because Viterbo had re-

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belled against the Romans and against the Church and was governing itself under the power of a tyrant. The legate and his troops devastated the surrounding country and took many of the city’s castelli, but they could not capture the city.

CXXXII How the Pisans chased the Bavarian’s vicar and his troops from Pisa. In the said year, in the month of June, the Pisans had heard that the Bavarian was remaining in Lombardy and for the present was not returning to Tuscany. And because they were displeased with his lordship, and also because of the revolution and the changes that had taken place in the city of Lucca, they plotted with Count Fazio the Younger to chase away the Bavarian’s vicar, Messer Tarlatino of the Pietramala d’Arezzo, along with all his officials. And so, they summoned to Pisa from the city of Lucca Messer Marco Visconti with some of the forces of the knights of the Company of the Cerruglio, enemies of the Bavarian. On a Saturday evening they roused the city to rebellion, distributing arms to the popolo and Messer Marco’s knights. These men all gathered at Count Fazio’s house, cut the Ponte alla Spina, set fire to the Ponte Nuovo, and fortified and barricaded the Ponte Vecchio which stands below the houses of the count. They did this so that the Bavarian’s soldiers, who were stationed in Pisa under the command of his vicar, could not cross over or raid the quartiere of Quinzica where the count was with his forces and the forces of the popolo. The next morning, Sunday, on the 18th day of June, the forces of the count and the popolo had grown, and they wished to cross the Ponte Vecchio in order to attack and do battle with the vicar at the palace. But the vicar, seeing himself poorly matched against such a large force, departed Pisa along with his household. The palace was plundered of all its goods. Then, when the uprising had died down, the Pisans reformed the city under their power and sent away most of the Bavarian’s soldiers.

CXXXIII How Messer Marco Visconti came to Florence to take part in certain negotiations and how he was killed by his brothers and his nephew upon his return to Milan.

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After the revolution in Pisa described in the previous chapter, the Pisans and Count Fazio compensated Messer Marco Visconti richly for the service they had received from him. The said Messer Marco did not want to return to Lucca, because, as we mentioned before, he had been made a hostage by the Bavarian to the knights of the Cerruglio, for their pay. He sought out the Commune of Florence in letters, saying that he wanted to pass through Florence on his way to Lombardy; his intention was to speak with the priors and those who ruled the city about things that would help them take the city of Lucca. He was given permission to come under safe conduct and he arrived in Florence on the 30th day of June of the said year with thirty mounted men of his household. The Florentines received him graciously and did him much honor; and while he resided in Florence, he, on his own account, constantly held feasts for knights and gentlefolk. And in the Palace of the Priors, before the priors and the other officials and the Bishops of Florence, Fiesole, and Spoleto (this last was a Florentine) and before the inquisitor and certain legates who were in Florence on behalf of the pope, he swore obedience to Holy Church. And he promised that he would go and place himself at the mercy of the legate, and then of the pope, and that he would always be a son and a defender of Holy Church. While he was in Florence, he held talks with the knights of the Cerruglio, who were holding the castello di Lucca, with the object of getting them to give the castello and the whole city to the Commune of Florence in exchange for eighty thousand gold florins. The most important commanders and captains of the knights came to Florence for these talks and offered to give many of their leaders as hostages to ensure their promises would be kept. There were many opinions on this matter in Florence, with most agreeing to the plan, especially the common people and those belonging to the party of Messer Pino della Tosa—who, as we said before, had set in motion the negotiations to take Lucca from Messer Marco and the knights of the Cerruglio. The other party, whose leader was Messer Pino’s kinsman Messer Simone della Tosa, opposed it out of envy, or perhaps because, since the plan had not been set in motion by their party, they would not receive honor or gain from it. Instead, they brought up the many doubtful points and dangers—how the Florentines could lose the money and the men they would send to guard the castello dell’Augusta. And so, because our crooked citizens could not agree on a matter of public importance, the plan was abandoned and Messer Marco departed from Florence on the 29th day of July; one thousand gold florins were granted him by the Commune of Florence to help him with his expenses. This Messer Marco then went to Milan and was received with great honor by its citizens. He had a great following among the Milanese, a following greater than any of his brothers or his nephew Messer Azzone Visconti, who was Lord of Milan. And for this reason, their envy and apprehension grew, that Messer

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Marco might take the lordship away from Messer Azzone, as a result of his negotiations in Florence with the Guelphs; and perhaps Messer Marco wished to return to the pope’s good graces and become Lord of Milan—indeed he could have done it and he may have intended to at an opportune time. It happened that on the 4th day of September of that year, Messer Azzone held a great feast, present at which were Messer Marco and Messer Luchino and Messer Giovanni Visconti— his uncles—and other Visconti and many other gentlefolk of Milan. When the feast was over and Messer Marco and the other good people were departing, Messer Marco was recalled to the palace by Messer Azzone, on the pretext that he and his brothers wished to speak with him in secret. The said Messer Marco, without taking precautions, and without arms, went to meet them, and when he entered a chamber with them, just as the fratricidal traitors had planned, they and their armed soldiers rushed out upon Messer Marco and without wounding him they seized him and strangled him until he was suffocated.²⁷⁶ When he was dead, they flung him from the windows of the palace down to the ground. All the Milanese were very disturbed by this wicked murder of Messer Marco, but no one dared speak of it out of fear. This Messer Marco was a handsome knight and tall in stature, proud and bold and accomplished in arms and very daring in battle—more than any Lombard of his time. He was not terribly wise, but if he had lived he would have wrought great changes in Milan and in Lombardy.

CXXXIV How the castelli of the Valdinievole made peace and came to an agreement with the Florentines. That year the league of the castelli of the Valdinievole—Montecatini, Pescia, Buggiano, Uzzano, Colle, Cozzile, and Massa, and Monsummano, and Montevettolini —saw the bad conditions prevailing in Lucca and saw how the Pistoians had made peace with the Florentines and how this had been to their profit and advantage. And thus, on the advice of their Ghibelline allies in Pistoia, and especially the knights who had been newly created by the Commune of Florence, and so as to return to a peaceful state after their long wars and the dangers they had endured, they sought peace with the Florentines; this peace treaty was complet-

 Villani uses the word caini—Cain-like, referencing the fratricide Cain from the Old Testament—to describe the men who committed this murder.

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ed that year on the 21st day of June. The Commune of Florence pardoned and forgave all offenses it had received from them during the guerra castruccina and they promised the Florentines to have Florence’s friends as their friends and Florence’s enemies as their enemies, and they made a military alliance with the Florentines and requested a captain from Florence.

CXXXV How the Pisans negotiated to buy Lucca, how Florentine forces raided all the way to the gates of Pisa, and how peace was made between the Florentines and the Pisans. In the said year, at the beginning of the month of July, the Pisans, having heard of the talks set in motion by Messer Marco Visconti with the Florentines and the German knights of the Cerruglio who were holding Lucca, fearing that the power and might of the Florentines would grow if they acquired Lucca and returned it to the Guelph party, and knowing that they would then be nearer to them, intervened in the negotiations and sought to buy Lucca from the Germans for sixty thousand gold florins. Once they had reached an agreement, they paid thirteen thousand gold florins as a deposit, money which they eventually lost because of their haste, for they took no hostages and received no guarantee (their loss resulted from the varied events and changes that later took place in Lucca). When the Florentines heard of this agreement they were outraged and had Messer Bertrand de Baux, King Robert’s marshal, launch a raid against the Pisans (he had been in San Miniato with Florentine forces numbering more than one thousand horsemen and many foot soldiers). They raided all the way to Borgo San Marco outside Pisa and then all the way to the city gate without any resistance whatsoever, burning and destroying and carrying away a great booty of prisoners, animals, and goods. And then they turned, passing through the Valdera, plundering and burning whatever they came upon; and they took by force the castello di Pratiglione and the castello di Camporena, held by the Pisans, and they demolished them. When the Pisans considered how pressed they were by the Florentines, and when they considered that they had rebelled against the Bavarian and were in a very bad state, they sought peace with the Florentines; the Florentines agreed to this so as to better provide for the war over Lucca. And so the peace was concluded by the syndics and ambassadors of both sides at Montopoli on the 12th day of the month of August of that year. It included the terms and the exemptions contained in the previous peace and also the stipulation that the Pisans would be enemies of the Bavarian and of whoever was enemy

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of the Florentines. The following September certain Ghibellines of Pisa, disliking the peace with the Florentines, plotted with the men of Lucca to betray Pisa, but this treason was discovered, and certain of the plotters were captured and killed and many were made rebels and exiled.

CXXXVI How the Florentines took back the contado of Ampinana, which was held by Count Ugo. In the said year, on the 15th day of July, the Florentines sent some of their soldiers into the Mugello and had them retake the popoli and the contado of the former castello di Ampinana, which Count Ugo da Battifolle had retaken in the manner we earlier described at the time of the defeat at Altopascio.²⁷⁷

CXXXVII How the castello di Montecatini rebelled against the league of the Florentines. In the said year, on the 17th day of July, the Ghibelline allies of Castruccio’s sons, who were in Montecatini, aided by Luccan soldiers in Altopascio, brought Montecatini into rebellion against the Florentine league—they chased away the Guelphs and had the castello provisioned by the Luccans. For this reason the Florentine soldiers carried out raids in the Valdinievole and seized and burned the borgo of Montecatini. Amerigo Donati remained there as captain for the Florentines, with many men-at-arms on horse and on foot, to guard Buggiano and the other towns of the league in the Valdinievole and to make war against Montecatini. At this juncture around twelve great men, grandi Ghibellines from the castello di Montevettolini, went secretly to Montecatini to plot the revolt of Montevettolini. Messer Amerigo’s spies discovered this, and he had these men seized as they left the castello; because of their capture he took lordship of the castello di Montevettolini for the Commune of Florence, whereas before the inhabitants of Montevettolini had not allowed entry to the soldiers of Florence. And from  Ugo Guidi (d. 1335) was the son of Guido, Count of Battifolle. Ugo had received Ampinana in a division of his father’s goods with his brother Simone, although it had already been absorbed into the Florentine contado. He occupied it in the wake of Florence’s defeat at Altopascio, earning him for a time condemnation as a rebel. Bicchierai, “Ugo Guidi.”

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this moment there began the siege of Montecatini by the Florentines; it was not the close siege it would later become, as will be described further on, but their garrisons of horsemen and foot soldiers were stationed in the neighboring castelli, and provisions could not enter unless by stealth or under strong escort.

CXXXVIII How Messer Cane della Scala took the city of Treviso and suddenly died there of an illness. In the said year, on the 4th day of July, Messer Cane della Scala of Verona led his army and all his forces against the city of Treviso—there were more than two thousand knights and an enormous popolo. That city of Treviso was ruled as a commune, but its greatest citizen was the Avvogaro of Treviso.²⁷⁸ Messer Cane remained at the siege for fifteen days and then freely took the city under terms of surrender, offering safety to all goods and persons, to each according to his station. And on the 18th day of the said month Messer Cane entered the city with his men in great celebration and triumph and thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Master Michael Scotus, who said that the Dog of Verona would be Lord of Padua and of all the March of Treviso. But, as pleased God, after the great rejoicing of Messer Cane, after his intentions had been fulfilled, there came great sorrow—it seems that such things occur most often by the will of God, to show His power, so that no one might trust in any human happiness. For after Messer Cane reached Treviso and had feasted in great celebration, he suddenly fell ill, and, on the Feast of the Magdalene, the 22nd day of July, he died in Treviso and was carried dead from the city for burial in Verona. And he left behind no legitimate son or daughter but only two bastards who were sent into exile by their uncles, the brothers of Messer Cane, to prevent them from ruling—and one of them was killed. And observe that this was the greatest tyrant, and the most powerful, and the richest in Lombardy since Ezzelino da Romano, and there are those who say that he was greater than Ezzelino. And at the moment of greatest glory, he lost his life and his heirs and his nephews Messer Alberto and Messer Mastino were left as lords after him.²⁷⁹

 The Avvogaro mentioned by Villani is Guecellone Tempesta. The arrangement he reached with Cangrande left him with possessions and a position of captain in Treviso. Damiani, “Guecellone Tempesta.”  On the death of Cangrande, see Spangenberg, Cangrande I della Scala, vol. 2, 125 – 30.

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CXXXIX How the legate of Lombardy took the city of Faenza on terms of surrender. In the said year, on the 6th day of July, the legate of Lombardy sent a great host from Bologna against the city of Faenza, which Alberghettino di Francesco Manfredi had brought into rebellion and was holding, and this host laid siege to the city for twenty-five days. In the end, on the last day of July, acting on the advice of his father and of Messer Riccardo his brother, who were outside the city with the legate, he accepted terms of surrender—these included great promises to the said Alberghettino. And Alberghettino came to Bologna to the legate, who made him into one of his familiars, giving to him and to his companions clothing and wages and showing him great love. And on the 25th day of the said month of July, the host of the Church, which was besieging Matelica in the Marca, was defeated by the Ghibellines and the rebels against the Church.

CXL How the cities of Parma, Modena, and Reggio rebelled against the legate. In the said year, on the 15th day of August, the legate of Lombardy summoned the sons of Messer Giberto da Correggio and Rolando de’ Rossi under his safeconduct to Bologna (this Rolando had been Lord of Parma). Out of fear that he might bring the city into rebellion against him, and on the pretext that he did not want to make peace with the aforesaid sons of Messer Giberto, the legate detained Rolando in Bologna and had him thrown into prison.²⁸⁰ For this reason the brothers and relations of the said Rolando, along with the popolo of the city, which greatly loved him, brought the city of Parma into rebellion against the legate and the Church, and they captured all of the legate’s officials and as many of his men as were in the city. And in the same way, the cities of Reggio and Modena rebelled, fearing for their own interests and disliking the trickery and treason done to the said Rolando under the said safe-conduct.

 Rolando Rossi, who had held lordly power as a “signore di fatto” in Parma since 1328, would remain a captive until 1331. Pagnoni, “Rolando Rossi.”

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CXLI How the Germans who were in Lucca again tried to sell the city to the Florentines, and how the Florentines were not wise enough to take it. In those days, the city of Lucca was in a state of great change and in very bad shape; it had no lord or regime set over it, except for the captains of the Germans of the Cerruglio who were its masters and who ruled it as captured plunder. These Germans were conducting negotiations with many peoples and communes and lords in the surrounding lands, wishing to sell the lordship of Lucca for money, since they knew that they could not hold it effectively. And once again they made an offer to the Commune of Florence, but its rulers could not reach an agreement, as during the negotiations undertaken by Messer Marco Visconti of Milan, recorded in an earlier chapter—because of the enviousness of the citizens. But certain worthy and rich citizens of Florence wanted to buy the city for the commune for eighty thousand gold florins, for their benefit, believing that they would be doing a great honor for the Commune of Florence and also that they would profit handsomely, as they would pay the expenses and the gabelle and the revenues of Lucca would come into their hands according to the terms of the agreement. The exiled merchants of Lucca agreed with them, and they put forward ten thousand gold florins and asked the Commune of Florence to put forward only fourteen thousand gold florins more; then the commune would take control of the castello dell’Augusta and offer twenty of its greatest and best captains as hostages to guarantee observance of the terms. The initial money for Lucca would come from the Commune of Florence and all the remaining money, fifty-six thousand gold florins, would be paid by individual citizens of Florence who wished to participate. And we, the author, can attest to this with complete truth since we were part of this group. But the squinting, disloyal, and perpetual envy of the citizens of Florence, and especially of those who were governing the city, kept them from giving their consent. They put forward a false and hypocritical excuse, which they had offered in opposition the last time, under the pretext of decency: that word was spreading through the whole world that the Florentines had purchased the city of Lucca out of lust for monetary gain. But in our opinion, and in the opinion of the wiser men who later examined the matter, when balanced against the defeats and the damages and the money the Commune of Florence spent because of the Luccans during the guerra castruccina, the Florentines could have taken no greater revenge, nor could any greater praise or more glorious fame have spread through the world than to say: the merchants and the individual citizens of Florence, using their money, bought Lucca and its citizens and contadini, who were their enemies, as their servants. But God re-

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moves reason from those whom He wishes ill and does not allow them to make good decisions; or perhaps—but no, not perhaps—the sins of the Florentines were not yet purged, nor was their pride tamed, nor their usury and ill-gotten gains. For He made them spend and waste their wealth in war, pursuing their discord with the people of Lucca; because for every denaro that would have been spent buying Lucca, the Florentines later spent one hundred or more, and indeed we could even say an infinite amount were later spent by the Florentines in the said war, as those who read ahead will discover we have written in the appropriate places. For it was possible, by means of the aforementioned loan of money, with neither expense nor loss, to take honorable and great revenge against the Luccans, to buy them as servants, to take their goods, and to do this at their expense; and, under our yoke, to give them peace and to pardon them and make them our free companions as they were accustomed to be of old with the Florentines.

CXLII How Messer Gherardino Spinoli of Genoa then acquired lordship over the city of Lucca for money. The negotiations between the Germans of Lucca and the Florentines had broken off, because, as mentioned in the previous chapter, those who governed the Commune of Florence would not allow them to be completed. Rather, they threatened those who were working on them and threw some of those who had begun them into jail. And so, at this juncture, Messer Gherardino degli Spinoli of Genoa came to an agreement with the said Germans, giving them thirty thousand gold florins and retaining some of them in his service (those who wished to remain with him under his pay). In return they gave him the city of Lucca and made him its lord, and he, with great energy, took control of the city. He went to Lucca on the 2nd day of September of that year and took lordship of the city without conditions and without opposition.²⁸¹ Then he put his forces in order and asked the Florentines for a peace or a truce, but they wanted no part of this; rather, at the beginning of October they brought about the rebellion of the castello di Collodi near Lucca. Messer Gherardino came with his cavalry and the popolo of Lucca to besiege this castello di Collodi, which, since it was

 Gherardino Spinola (d. 1346) was a condottiere with a history of pro-Ghibelline service. Damiani, “Gherardino Spinola.” See also Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 28 – 30.

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not aided in time by the Florentines, as had been promised, surrendered to Messer Gherardino and the Commune of Lucca on the 20th day of the said month of October—and this was little to the honor of the Florentines. And so there was much complaining and blame in Florence, leveled at those who had not allowed the commune to conclude an accord with the Germans, nor had known how to conduct the war and the campaign they had begun. Once the said Messer Gherardino had taken the castello di Collodi, with great care he set about gathering money and hiring soldiers to lift the Florentines from the siege that they had already begun to lay to the castello di Montecatini in Valdinievole.

CXLIII How the Milanese and the Pisans, after the offenses they had committed for the Bavarian and the antipope, reconciled with the pope and the Church and were restored to communion. In the month of September of that year, at the city of Avignon, where the court of Rome was located, the Milanese and their lord Messer Azzone Visconti were reconciled and restored to communion by Pope John. And in pacts drawn up by their ambassadors, they placed themselves at the mercy of the said pope for the offenses they had committed against the Church, and Messer Giovanni, son of the late Messer Matteo Visconti, whom the Bavarian had made cardinal by his antipope, as was mentioned earlier, renounced his cardinalate—the pope made him Bishop of Novara and then lifted the interdict from Milan and its contado. And in a similar manner, the said pope reconciled and absolved the Pisans, because they had worked so hard to win over their grande citizen Count Fazio da Donoratico.²⁸² This man was keeping the Bavarian’s antipope under his protection in one of his castelli in the Maremma, where the Bavarian had secretly left him when he departed from Pisa. The antipope was deceived and betrayed by them and then sent as a captive to Avignon to Pope John, as we will mention further ahead. This accord, arranged by the Pisan ambassadors at the papal court, brought great benefits to the said Count Fazio—for the pope

 Bonifazio della Gherardesca, “Il Novello,” Count of Donoratico (d. 1340), was the son of Gherardo della Gherardesca. He emerged as the dominant political figure in Pisa in the wake of Castruccio’s death and the Bavarian’s departure. Although he had to contend with a number of rebellions, he retained his power as signore until his death in 1340. Ceccarelli–Lemut, “Bonifazio Novello della Gherardesca.” On the complex balance of interests in Pisa during this period, see Ciccaglioni, Poteri e spazi politici a Pisa.

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gave him the castello di Montemassi, which belonged to the archbishopric, along with other rich gifts and ecclesiastical benefices. Other grandi citizens of Pisa who took part in this affair benefited as well; indeed, many of them were made papal knights and received rich gifts. And the January after these ambassadors returned to Pisa, the treaty and accord were officially announced before the full parlamento of Pisa; and all the Pisans swore an oath in the principal church before a papal legate, who was a clergyman from beyond the Alps, to be ever obedient and faithful to Holy Church and to be enemies of the Bavarian and every other lord who might come to Italy without the approval of the Church.

CXLIV How the legate of Tuscany took Viterbo, and pacified the entire Patrimony, and also the Marca. That year in the month of September, Silvestro de’ Gatti, who, against the will of the Church, held tyrannical lordship over the city of Viterbo, was betrayed and killed in Viterbo by a son of the prefect, who then seized the city and restored it to the obedience to the Church. And then, at the beginning of the following November, Messer Giovanni Gaetano degli Orsini, cardinal and legate in Tuscany, came to Viterbo and had the city and all the cities of the Patrimony restored to peace and good conditions under the lordship of the Church. At this same time, all the cities of the Marca made peace and returned to the obedience of Holy Church; and each of the parties of these cities stayed in its place.²⁸³

CXLV How the Bavarian gathered his men in Parma, believing that he could take the city of Bologna, and how he then departed Italy and went to Germany. In the said year, at the start of the month of October, the Bavarian, who considered himself emperor, and who was at the city of Pavia, came to Cremona and then on the 17th day of November came to Parma. And there he joined with the knights that his vicar had sent him from Lucca, which included more than

 For the cardinal legate’s confrontation with Silvestro de’ Gatti, the death of the latter, and the pacification described by our chronicler, see Beattie, Angelus Pacis, 124– 31.

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two thousand knights from beyond the Alps. His intention was to capture the city of Bologna, and to take it from the pope’s legate, Messer Bertrand du Pouget, who held it for the Church. He sought to do this by means of a plot that certain Bolognese and others had laid. This plot, however, was discovered, and some of the traitors were executed, as will be mentioned in the next chapter. Seeing that his plan had come to nought, the Bavarian departed from Parma on the following 9th day of December accompanied by ambassadors sent by the most important leaders of Parma, Reggio, and Modena, and they went to Trent to take council with certain barons of Germany and with the tyrants and lords of Lombardy in order to plan for the hiring, at their earliest opportunity, of new soldiers and a strong force of men to lead against the city of Bologna and to take the contado of Romagna from the Church. And while he was at the said council, he had news from Germany that the Duke of Austria, who had been elected King of Germany and who had been his adversary, had died—and so he immediately abandoned the venture he had begun in Italy and went to Germany and thereafter did not cross to this side of the mountains.²⁸⁴

CXLVI How the city of Bologna was almost betrayed and taken from the cardinal legate by the Bavarian. In the said year, in the month of October, there was a conspiracy in the city of Bologna to bring it into rebellion and to take it from the cardinal legate, who was there as representative of the Church. At the head of this conspiracy was Ettore of the Counts of Panigo, under orders from the Rossi of Parma (the legate was, as we described earlier, holding Rolando Rossi in prison).²⁸⁵ The Archpriest of Bologna, who was of the Galluzzi family, and Messer Guido Sabatini and many other grandi and popolari of Bologna supported this plot, for they disliked the lordship of the legate. And Alberghettino de’ Manfredi took their side, who

 Frederick “the Fair,” Duke of Austria (1286 – 1330) was the son of Albert I of Germany and Elizabeth of Görz-Tyrol. He had been Louis IV’s great rival for power in Germany, but had been defeated at the Battle of Mühldorf in 1322.  Ettore da Panigo (ca. 1295 – 1345) was a Bolognese condottiere who had served both the Church and the emperor as representative in Modena. Upon the failure of the conspiracy described in this chapter, he continued to command troops, fighting on behalf of Mastino della Scala and Azzone Visconti—he fought at the Battle of Parabiago—and forming his own mercenary company, the Compagnia Grande. Damiani, “Ettore da Panigo.”

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had been removed from his lordship of Faenza by the legate, who thereafter kept him in his pay and by his side in Bologna. According to their plan the so-called emperor, the Bavarian, who had come with his forces from Pavia to Parma, as we mentioned in the previous chapter, was to go to Modena and have part of his men raid the Romagna; and during this raid, on the orders of Alberghettino, they would bring Faenza into rebellion, thereafter stationing the said cavalry in the city. And when the legate ordered the forces of the Church to ride out of Bologna toward the frontiers—because of the coming of the Bavarian and the raid carried out by his soldiers—the city of Bologna was to be roused to rebellion by those who were guiding the plot, along with their followers. On the appointed day, Ettore da Panigo, along with Guidinello da Montecucchieri and a great number of foot soldiers, was to come down from the mountains to Bologna to join up with those citizens who had formed the conspiracy. These men with their followers, who were many, were to chase away the legate and his troops and allow the Bavarian and his troops to enter the city. This conspiracy was secretly revealed to the legate by a certain follower of the conspirators, who believed that by doing so he would improve his standing. And so, the legate had the said Alberghettino arrested along with the Archpriest de’ Galluzzi and the said Messer Guido and Nanni de’ Dotti, the brother-in-law of Ettore da Panigo, and many other grandi and popolani citizens of Bologna. But he was unable to capture the said Ettore, because he was already in the mountains gathering his forces. When this conspiracy had been investigated and when the traitors had confessed their participation, the legate discovered that the conspiracy was so vast, and that it involved so many citizens of Bologna, and citizens of such standing, that he did not dare inflict punishment, even with all the power of his soldiery, for he feared greatly that the city of Bologna would rise up in wrath against him—indeed this restraint was quite necessary because the Bavarian and his forces were so close. For this reason, the legate sent an appeal to the Commune of Florence requesting men for his guard and the Florentines immediately sent three hundred of their best knights along with four hundred crossbowmen whose surcoats were decorated with a scarlet lily on a white field—very good and able men (Messer Giovanni di Messer Rosso della Tosa carried the banner of the Commune of Florence). As soon as the said troops arrived in Bologna, the legate was more secure and in a stronger position, and so on the third day he had his marshal, in the presence of all his troops and those sent by the Florentines—all under arms—cut off the heads of the captured leaders of the conspiracy on the piazza of Bologna (all except for the archpriest who was a clergyman and whom he therefore had killed by starvation in wretched imprisonment). And I can bear witness to these things, for at that time I was in Bologna as an ambassador of our commune to the legate. Were it not for the assistance

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that our commune sent so quickly, the city of Bologna would have been lost by the Church and its government would have become imperial and Ghibelline. And the legate and his men risked death, or being chased out of Bologna, as the city was so full of suspicion and ill will against the legate and his men. For this reason, the legate retained the men sent by the Florentines for many months in his service to guard him, at the expense of the Florentines. But this assistance by the Florentines was little appreciated by the legate, as one will see when we treat of his deeds further on.²⁸⁶

CXLVII How the Pistoians gave their castello di Serravalle to the Commune of Florence to guard. In the said year, on the 11th day of November, the Commune of Pistoia freely gave their beloved and strong castello di Serravalle to the Commune of Florence to guard for three years. The movers of this decision were the Panciatichi, the Muli, the Gualfreducci, and the Vergellesi, as well as some Ghibelline families. These were men who loved peace with the Florentines and the well-being of their city, and had been the first to bring about peace with the Florentines, and gave them their city of Pistoia to guard, as we mentioned earlier. This surrender of Serravalle was much welcomed and appreciated by the Florentines, and from that moment onward it seemed to them that they could be sure of the city of Pistoia, because Serravalle was and is a great fortress, and is almost the key and the gate to our plain and the plain of Pistoia. And one might also say that it is the citadel of Pistoia and the entrance to the Valdinievole, from which it is possible to defend our castelli and our borders and make war on the contado of Lucca. And then for a long time afterward, it was under the guardianship and the lordship of the Florentines, with great peace and well-being to the city of Pistoia. And from then on, the Florentines began to tighten their siege of Montecatini.

 The allusion is to the legate’s later alliance with King John of Bohemia, which provoked Florence to join a league opposing him.

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CXLVIII How the sons of Castruccio sought to take the city of Lucca from Messer Gherardino Spinoli. At that same time, during the feast days of Christmas, on the 27th day of December, the sons of Castruccio, along with their allies and the German forces who had been in the pay of and were allies of Castruccio, believed they could take the lordship of Lucca from Messer Gherardino. And so, brandishing weapons, they raced through the city of Lucca on horseback and on foot, shouting “Long live the young dukes!” They did this from morning to the hour of tierce without meeting any opposition. This greatly terrified Messer Gherardino, and had he not been in the castello dell’Augusta he would have lost the city. But, reassured by the exhortations of the worthy men of Lucca who loved his lordship, he recovered his strength and had his soldiers take up arms. And around suppertime, they rode out from the Augusta and raced through the city of Lucca until evening, crying out “Death to traitors and long live Messer Gherardino!” For this reason, the sons of Castruccio and the leaders of their supporters left Lucca and went to their castelli and Messer Gherardino remained lord; and he sent many Luccans of Castruccio’s party into exile and discharged and sent away their former soldiers, replacing them with Germans from Lombardy. And, for his own security, he had many of his allies and friends and kinsfolk come from Savona to Lucca. Because of these events in Lucca, the Florentines increased the number of troops at the siege of Montecatini, and believed that they could take the castello with little effort through boldness. The attack, when it came later, was less successful than they had hoped: during the night on the 17th of February, a part of the Florentine host at the siege of Montecatini used ladders and wooden towers to attack the castello and scale the walls and some of them boldly entered the castello, but the forces inside the town were so strong and so prepared, and were such warlike soldiers, that they crushed their attackers, and all those who entered were captured and killed.

CXLIX How the Turks and the Tartars defeated the Greeks of Constantinople. In the year of Christ 1330, the forces of the Emperor of Constantinople had crossed the Abidus Straits into Turkey to make war against the Turks, and the

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Turks had sent for aid from the Tartars of Turkey.²⁸⁷ And when they arrived with a great army, they attacked the army of the Christians and Greeks and defeated them, and few escaped being captured or killed. The Greeks lost all the territories on the other side of the Bosphorus, so that thereafter they had no power or lordship there. And the said Turks, with their war ships, carried out raids by sea, and they captured and plundered many islands of the Archipelago. This greatly reduced the sway and the power of the Emperor of Constantinople. And every year afterwards, they would gather their fleets, sometimes of five hundred and sometimes of eight hundred ships—large and small—and raid all the islands of the Archipelago, plundering them and laying waste to them and carrying the men and the women away as slaves; and they made many more islands their tributaries.

CL How the King of England ordered the beheading of his uncle the Earl of Kent and of Mortimer. In the said year 1330, in the month of March, young Edward King of England had the Earl of Kent, his uncle, blood brother of his father, arrested. And he accused him of planning a conspiracy to bring the island of England into rebellion and to take away his lordship, and for this reason he had the count’s head cut off. The king was much blamed for this, and it was said that he had acted unjustly, and that the count was not guilty. Indeed, it was found that the said count had been deluded by diviners, who made him believe that Edward his brother, who had been King of England and who had been killed, as we mentioned earlier when we described events in England, was alive and in good health. For this reason, the count his brother mounted a search for him and launched an investigation which greatly disturbed the land. And then the following month of October, the king similarly accused Mortimer, who had been governor of the realm and of the queen his mother, during his war with her husband and with the Despensers. He accused him of treason and had him hung—it was said he was not guilty. Such are the rewards of those who get mixed up in the affairs of lords, or who cover themselves in great sin, for it was said that this Mortimer used to lay

 Villani may be describing a campaign launched in 1329, during which the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus Paleologus III went to break the Turkish Siege of Nicaea and Nicomedia but was defeated at the Battle of Pelekanon. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 169 – 70.

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with the queen, the mother of the said king. And from this moment onward, the king greatly reduced the power and state of his mother the queen.²⁸⁸

CLI How the Florentines created ordinances that took all ornaments from their women.²⁸⁹ In the said year, on the first of April, it was decided that the women of Florence had gone well beyond decency in their excessive ornaments of crowns and garlands of gold and silver, and of pearls and precious stones, and pearl-studded hairnets and plaits and other various and costly head ornaments; and it was the same with their clothing which was cut with different fabrics and with silk brocade in many patterns, with trim both of pearls and of gilded silver buttons paired together and often in four to six rows, and clasps of pearls and of precious stones on their breasts decorated with diverse figures and letters; and in a similar manner they held immoderate wedding banquets and also other banquets with many excessive and immoderate foods. Measures were taken about these things, and certain very strict laws were made by special officials, stating that no woman could wear any crown or garland of gold, silver, pearls, stones, glass, or silk, or indeed anything of any resemblance to a crown or garland even if made of painted paper; nor could they wear hairnets or plaits of any kind except for simple ones; nor any garment which is cut or painted with any picture, if not made of woven cloth; nor any garment decorated with stripes or diagonals, if not a simple division into two colors; nor any decoration of gold, silver, silk, of precious stone, or even enamel, or glass; nor could they wear more than two rings on a finger, nor any girdle or belt with more than twelve silver plates; and that from that moment onwards no one could dress in samite, and those

 Edmund, the Earl of Kent, had participated in the rebellion against Edward II, but had become estranged from the regime of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer. The belief that Edward II was still alive posed a profound threat to the power of Edward III and justified the execution of his uncle, although it is likely that the decision was made by Mortimer. The execution of Mortimer, following swiftly on the heels of that of the Earl of Kent, was the move by which Edward III gained full control over his throne. Ormrod, Edward III, 85 – 89 and 90 – 93.  In his discussion of the debates that took place in Florence after the Great Flood of 1333, Villani specifically includes excessive ornamentation and gluttony among the sins which, in his view, provoke divine anger against Florence. On fashion in fourteenth-century Italy, see Stuard, Gilding the Market. On sumptuary legislation, see Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy.

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women who had garments of samite had to mark them, so that no other could be made; and all garments made of embroidered silk were forbidden and were to be taken away; and that no woman could wear clothes that were longer than two braccia behind or with a neckline of more than one and a quarter braccio in front; and in a similar manner striped tunics and clothing were forbidden for boys and girls, and all decorations and even ermines, except for knights and their ladies; and men were forbidden all ornaments and belts of silver and tunics made of sendal or goat-hair. And it was ordered that no banquet could be held with more than three courses, and at weddings there could be no more than twenty platters, and the bride could take no more than six ladies along with her to the banquet; and at the banquets for the celebration of new knights there could be no more than one hundred platters, in three courses; and when the new knights held court they were forbidden to dress so as to give some of their garments to jesters, for prior to this law they did much of this kind of giving. They created a foreign official to enforce these provisions of the law and to seek out ladies, and men, and children who were doing the said forbidden things so as to apply large penalties. Furthermore, they ordered that all the guilds correct their ordinances, monopolies, and impostures, and that all meat and fish be sold by weight for a set price per pound. By means of these laws, the city of Florence corrected many of the excessive expenses and costly ornaments, to the great profit of the citizens but to the great harm of the silk merchants and the goldsmiths, who, to increase their profits, had every day invented new and diverse ornaments. When these bans were put in place, they were much commended and praised by all Italians. Those women who wore excessive ornaments were forced to return to a proper manner of dress and although they complained loudly, because of these strict laws they all abandoned these outrages. Even so, because they could not have cut cloth, they began to seek out striped and foreign cloth, as much as they could get, and sent for it from as far away as Flanders and Brabant, with no concern for the cost. Nonetheless, these laws were to the great advantage of all citizens who no longer had to bear the excessive expenses of their ladies and banquets and weddings, as they did before. These laws were greatly commended, because they were useful and moral; and almost all the cities of Tuscany and many other cities of Italy sent to Florence for copies of the said laws and confirmed them in their cities.

CLII How Messer Gherardino Spinola, Lord of Lucca, rode with his forces to supply Montecatini, but could not do so.

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In the said year, on the 23rd of April, Spinetta of the Marquesses Malaspina came from Lombardy and went to Lucca bringing men-at-arms. And Messer Gherardino Spinola, Lord of Lucca, accompanied Spinetta with his forces on horseback and on foot to supply Montecatini. On their way, they took the citadel of Uzzano, which was held and guarded for the Commune of Florence by two of the Obizzi— exiles from Lucca—and fifty soldiers. However, they were not able to supply Montecatini, nor could they get near it, because the Florentines had reinforced the siege and had constructed ditches and defenses on the side facing Lucca and had channeled into them the rivers Pescia and Borra—and so they returned with little honor to Lucca. And then on the 2nd day of the following month of May, the said Messer Gherardino, having gathered more men and having received aid from the Pisans, as he had in the past—they gave him six hundred knights and three hundred crossbowmen—made another attempt to supply Montecatini. He led his men all the way up to the palisades and the army of the Florentines, but what happened to him the previous time happened to him again, and in a similar manner: he could neither approach nor pass the ditches and defenses because there were more than one thousand knights and a very large popolo in the host of the Florentines. And note, o reader, that all the siege works were surrounded by ditches and palisades with brattices from the foot of Serravalle all the way to Buggiano; there were guards at all points of the Florentine camp and the siege works; the ditches were full of water and positioned close together and the rivers Nievole and Borra had been directed into them. The siege works occupied more than six miles in the valley while on the side of the mountain —counting the surrounding castelli and the other fortifications on the hills, plus the defenses which had been placed and the wooden bars that had been lowered, which were guarded day and night by large forces of foot soldiers— there were more than twelve blockading fortifications, so no men or provisions could get in or out of Montecatini, except for what was plundered on the slopes and in the vicinity of the hill. The siege fortifications of the Florentines stretched fourteen miles in circumference, and those who saw them, and we were among these, considered it a great thing and a costly undertaking. For it is certain that the siege fortifications and the belt of trenches and palisades that one reads Julius Caesar built at the castello di Alesia in Burgundy, which can still be seen, were not greater or as great as that which the Florentines built around Montecatini.²⁹⁰ We will now leave for a time the deeds of the Florentines and the siege of

 Villani is referring to the famous siege works built by Julius Caesar around Vercingetorix’s stronghold of Alesia, during the Gallic Wars. This celebration of Florentine skill demonstrates the degree to which the “daughter” has surpassed the “mother”—here the comparison is partic-

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Montecatini to tell of other events in other lands which occurred in those times, although we will soon return to the subject—how the Florentines took Montecatini by starving it out.

CLIII How the Church’s marshal and some of King Robert’s troops were defeated near the city of Modena by the Modenese. In the said year 1330, on the 24th day of April, Messer Bertrand and Messer Raimondo de Baux, and Messer Galeazzo, bastard brother of King Robert, were returning from Reggio (they had been in Lombardy for King Robert, serving the Church). With them was the marshal of the Church and of the legate, who led many good men-at-arms, numbering six hundred knights, in the service of the legate in Bologna. Together they believed they could take the villa of Formigine, which is six miles from Modena—they had been promised that it would be betrayed to them. Having learned of this, the Lord of Modena rode to the said town of Formigine the night beforehand with the popolo of Modena and three hundred knights. When morning arrived, the aforementioned soldiers of the Church, finding that they had been deceived and hearing of the arrival of the forces of Modena, began to fear an ambush by a much larger army than the forces actually in the field. They retreated in formation to a meadow near the town, failing to notice that this meadow was surrounded by ditches and marshes. The troops of Modena, knowing the place, went forth boldly and took the entrance to the meadow, trapping the said knights inside—they could neither fight nor escape, because of the mire and the ditches which surrounded the meadow. And whoever came forward to fight was killed by the foot soldiers stationed on the banks of the ditches, for all the horses collided with lances, and a foot soldier could do more and fight better than a knight. And in this way the said men were for the most part captured and sent to Modena, for few of them escaped. This was considered a great misfortune, and provoked great fear in the cardinal legate in Bologna and all the party of the Church in Lombardy and Tuscany.

ularly pointed since Villani regarded Julius Caesar as the founder of Florence. Villani, Nuova Cronica, II: 1.

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CLIV How Pope John, out of fear, refused to allow the Count of Hainaut to cross into Provence. In the said month of April, the Count of Hainaut was journeying to the court of the pope in Avignon accompanied by his men, around eight hundred knights, to receive the blessing of the pope and to attack the Saracens of Granada—he was doing this to fulfill a vow and undertake a pilgrimage.²⁹¹ When, however, he was already at Ricordana, Pope John began to look on his coming with the greatest possible suspicion, because the said count was father-in-law to the Bavarian, who was called emperor and who was his enemy. And so, he sent for the Seneschal of Provence and for all the knights and barons of the land telling them to come to Avignon with arms and horses; he also armed all his household and those of the cardinals and prelates and also all the courtiers to serve as his guard. And the Florentines were there with around one hundred men under arms on barded horses—very skilled men—not counting the Florentines on foot who were more than three hundred men under arms. Once he had made these preparations, the pope sent messengers to command the Count of Hainaut not to enter Provence under pain of excommunication, absolving him of his vow if he turned back; and the count, so as not to disobey the pope, returned to Hainaut.

CLV How the legate led a host against Modena, and how he returned with little honor. At the beginning of the month of June of that year, the Parmensi, rebels against the legate and the Church, took Borgo San Donnino, which had been held by the legate’s men. For this reason, and also because of the defeat his men had received at the hands of the Modenese, the said legate gathered his host and rode against Modena with more than one thousand five hundred knights and these men went right up to the city devastating the surrounding lands. When the Modenese returned, with the aid of the Parmensi and the Reggiani, they rode past the host of the Church, and their eight hundred knights and three thou-

 William I of Hainaut (ca. 1286 – 1337) was the son of John II of Hainaut. His daughter, Margaret II, married Louis IV in 1324.

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sand foot soldiers went all the way to the canal of the Muccia, within six miles of Bologna. The two hosts faced off with the said canal between them, but the army of the Church did not dare fight, and since it had so many more knights than its enemies, this was considered a great act of cowardice. We will now leave off telling of the deeds of the legate of Lombardy and return to the deeds of the Florentine host, and how it took the castello di Montecatini.

CLVI How the Florentines took the strong castello di Montecatini by a long siege. On the 11th day of June of that year, the reinforcements that the Lombards had sent to Messer Gherardino Spinola, Lord of Lucca, arrived—four hundred fifty German knights. Thus he found that he had, between his troops, the Pisans, and other allies, more than twelve hundred knights and a very large popolo. And so he left the city with his host to relieve Montecatini, which was about to exhaust its provisions due to the Florentine siege, and made camp in the place called … As soon as his men had made camp, however, a dispute arose between Messer Gherardino and Messer Francesco Castracani, and Messer Gherardino was wounded by one of the Antelminelli who then fled to Buggiano; as a result, Messer Francesco and his followers and a certain captain were arrested and sent to Lucca and some of them were executed. After the Florentines reinforced their host with one thousand five hundred knights, with their allies, and a very large popolo, the greater part of them made camp at Brusceto, almost directly opposite the host of the Luccans. The trench and the palisade were between them, and the forward defenses and the parish below Montecatini were no less well guarded. The captain of the Florentine host was Messer Alamanno degli Obizzi, an exile from Lucca, accompanied by a group of knights from Florence, both grandi and popolani from the greatest families, men who were wisest and most expert in matters of war.²⁹² The names of these men are Messer Biagio de’ Tornaquinci, Messer Giannozzo Cavalcanti, Messer Francesco de’ Passi, Messer Gerozzo de’ Bardi, Messer Talento Bucelli. They were accompanied by others, young squires, both grandi and popolani, who were captains of the companies of foot soldiers. Messer Gherardino and his men attacked the Florentine

 Alamanno degli Obizzi (d. 1350) was an exile from Lucca and a condottiere, fighting here alongside Amerigo Donati. He served Florence on several occasions during his long career as commander. Damiani, “Alamanno degli Obizzi.”

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trench many times in many places, but they could not get near it, because they were blocked from all sides. And they challenged the Florentines to battle, but because the Florentines had the advantage, they did not wish to accept. Before dawn on the 22nd day of June, the army of Lucca and its allies had taken up arms and four hundred fifty knights and five hundred of their best foot soldiers had been sent ahead secretly during the night. These men were captained by the German named Gobbole, who was a great master of war, along with Burrazzo of the Counts of Gangalandi and other exiles from Florence and also with Luzzimborgo, brother of Messer Gherardino. These men rode all the way up to Serravalle directly facing the place called La Magione, where there were fewer guards, and by force of arms they crossed the Ponte alla Gora above the Nievole and came to La Pieve where they fought with its garrison and guards—there were around one hundred knights and many foot soldiers stationed there by the Florentines. They defeated these,and captured and sent Messer Iacopo de’ Medici and the French captain Messer Tebaldo di Ciantiglio along with many others as prisoners to Montecatini. When the troops of Lucca saw that their men had captured the pass, they moved in formation in that direction with the intention of breaking though the Florentine host and relieving the castello; but when the Florentines saw this movement, they sent a force of five hundred knights and many foot soldiers who raced there with such energy and such speed that they prevented any more Luccans from getting through. Those who had moved forward could not go back without danger and so they gathered on the hill of Montecatini, and from up there they made many assaults on the Florentine host and its fortifications— by day and by night—while Messer Gherardino did the same from the other side with the remainder of the Luccan host. Seeing this, and considering the great perimeter they had to defend, the Florentines and the captains of Florence reinforced their host with many foot soldiers. These were citizen volunteers sent by the order of all the guilds, the Guelph party, and other wealthy individuals; the commune also sent paid foreign soldiers; in this way, the number of foot soldiers was doubled. Since the captain of the host had fallen ill, the podestà and other citizens were also sent to join. For eight days, Messer Gherardino fought this battle to relieve the castello and to recover those men who had passed beyond our lines, but finally seeing that his forces could not stand up to those of the Florentines, and that his host was smaller than that of the Florentines because of his men trapped inside Montecatini, and that he and the remainder of his army were in great danger, he broke camp and retreated with his host, part going by way of Pescia and part by way of Vivinaia. He returned to Lucca, having won little honor and in a state of great apprehension, completely abandoning Montecatini. Afterwards, the Florentines tightened their siege, placing a fortification at a place called Le Quarantole, so near to the castello that they captured the

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springs outside the walls, so that those within, having no food to live on and bad water to drink, surrendered the castello to the Commune of Florence, which agreed to spare their persons, arms, and horses—this was on the 19th day of July of the said year. After the Luccan forces on horse and on foot had left the castello, the Florentines entered with great rejoicing, for they had been at the siege for more than eleven months, and inside they found no more than three days’ provisions.

CLVII How there was a great debate in Florence over whether to demolish Montecatini. The said battle and the capture of Montecatini greatly reduced the power of Messer Gherardino Lord of Lucca and the Luccans while exalting and magnifying the Florentines—as befit a great victory. Once Montecatini was captured, there was great debate over it in Florence, with many councils held over whether to completely demolish it or to leave it standing. It seemed to many that it would be better to demolish it so that the commune might avoid the expense of guarding and defending it as well as expenses in time of war and also that its ruins might stand as a perpetual testament and memorial of revenge for the defeat that the Florentine foot soldiers suffered there while fighting over this same castello in 1315—this defeat, which we mentioned earlier, came at the hands of Uguccione da Faggiuola, the Pisans, and the Luccans.²⁹³ Others counseled that it not be demolished, because the people of Montecatini were by nature Guelphs and devoted to the Commune of Florence, both now and in the past. They recalled that in the days when the Guelph exiles of Florence had been chased from Lucca by the forces of King Manfred and the Ghibellines of Tuscany, which this chronicle described when treating that time, no town in Tuscany, whether city or castello, was willing to shelter them, except for the men of Montecatini, who offered them and wished to give them their entire support. For this reason the people of Montecatini were never allies of the Luccans; rather, the Luccans persecuted them until they forced them into subjection, whereas earlier they

 Montecatini was a strategically important stronghold, projected forward from Pistoia towards Lucca. It was also, as our chronicler points out, the site of one of the most humiliating losses Florence had ever had to endure—the 1315 Battle of Montecatini. This battle was an epochal defeat for Florence and its Guelph allies. Villani describes it in Nuova Cronica, X: 70 – 72.

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were exempt from control and an independent commune.²⁹⁴ For this reason, and also because the war between the Florentines and the Luccans was not over, it was decided to leave Montecatini standing so it might be used to make war on Lucca, because it is a strong town and a barrier on the frontier, and is almost inside the contado of Lucca. The inhabitants of Montecatini allowed the Guelph exiles to return, and they swore perpetual loyalty to the Commune of Florence and promised to pay their exactions²⁹⁵—real and personal—just like any town in the contado of Florence. They also promised that on every Feast of Saint John the Baptist in June they would offer a costly wax candle decorated with the image of the said castello at his church in Florence.²⁹⁶ And the Florentines took them under their protection, offering them freedom and protection as they do for their beloved subjects. And observe that this name Montecatino is really Monte Catellino, because Catiline, exiled from Rome, first established it as his fortress and retreated there when he left Fiesole, before he was defeated by the Romans on the plains of Piceno, which are today called Peteccio, and which are very near that place. And we find this in a true chronicle. But the name Catiline was changed to Catino in the coarse and corrupt vulgar tongue. It is no marvel that this site has seen many revolutions and battles, for they are certainly caused by the remains of Catiline.²⁹⁷

CLVIII How in those days the Sun and the Moon became dark. In the said year, on the 16th day of the month of July, a little after the hour of vespers, almost half the Sun was darkened while it was leaving the sign of Cancer, and during the subsequent opposition of the Moon and the Sun, the Moon was darkened in Sagittarius. And then, on the 26th day of the following Decem Villani describes the expulsion of the Guelph exiles from Lucca in Nuova Cronica, VII: 85 (although there he notes that they flee to Bologna and, more profitably, over the Alps to France).  The Italian is fazione, a duty or tribute imposed by the commune or by one of the city’s guilds.  The church referenced is the Baptistry of San Giovanni, to which customary gifts of wax candles were brought on the feast day of the saint.  Catiline has an important place in the first book of the New Chronicle, which describes his part in the foundation story of Florence. According to Villani, after the failure of his plot, Catiline retreated north to Fiesole, where he provoked a rebellion against Rome. Florence was founded after the suppression of this rebellion. His presence here is fitting, since Villani is discussing the recovery of a castello lost to rebellion. For Catiline and Fiesole see Villani, Nuova Cronica, I: 31.

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ber, the Moon was completely darkened in the sign of Cancer. Among other things, this signified, according to certain wise astrologers, that since the sign of Cancer is the ascendant sign of the city of Lucca, the Luccans were going to suffer many losses and be brought low, which later happened to them because of the siege the Florentines laid to the city of Lucca, and other revolutions and adversities, which they later endured, and which we shall recount ahead. We will now leave for a time the war waged by the Florentines against the Luccans, to speak of other events that occurred in those days in other lands.

CLIX How King Philip of France came to the pope in Avignon to treat with him. In the said year, at the beginning of the month of July, King Philip of France came to Provence as a pilgrim to Santa Maria di Valverde and to Marseilles to visit the body of Saint Louis, the former Bishop of Toulouse and the son of the late Charles II. He came with a small company, only his private household.²⁹⁸ When he had completed his pilgrimage, he came to Avignon and stayed for more than eight days in secret council with Pope John, he and the pope, with no other person present, discussing many things and many plots that could not be known. It was said that they spoke of the crossing he had planned to Outremer and of other matters in Italy, which were later revealed when they came to fruition, and which we will mention ahead. When this was done, without delay the king returned to France.²⁹⁹

CLX Of certain armies in Lombardy.

 Saint Louis of Toulouse (1274– 1297) was the son of Charles II of Naples. After the death of his older brother he was first in line to inherit his father’s power but renounced his position to his brother, King Robert of Naples. He became a Franciscan and took up the office of Bishop of Toulouse in 1297, the year of his death, and was canonized in 1317. On Saint Louis see Livarius, “St. Louis of Toulouse.”  Villani is likely alluding to what he will later describe as a hidden plan by the king and the pope to reduce the powers of Italy to subjection—it will play itself out in the actions of Bertrand du Pouget and King John of Bohemia.

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That year, in the said month of July, the Della Scala, the Lords of Verona, sent an army against the city of Brescia and captured many of its castelli in the bresciana. And the legate of Lombardy had an army sent against the city of Modena—all the way to the borghi—which devastated everything around the city, and then returned to Bologna.

CLXI Of treason that was planned in Pisa, and how the Pisans sent the antipope as a captive to Pope John in Avignon. In the said year, in the month of July, a conspiracy had been planned in the city of Pisa, at the head of which was Messer Gherardo del Pellaio de’ Lanfranchi, either because it appeared to him and to his faction that those ruling the city were opposed to the imperial party and were too inclined toward the Church and the Florentines or because he envied their lordship. When this conspiracy was discovered, the said Messer Gherardo and many of his followers departed from Pisa and were condemned as rebels, while four popolani who were arrested were hung as traitors. When this had been done, on the 4th day of the following August, the Commune of Pisa, with the cooperation of Count Fazio, sent the antipope as a captive to Avignon on two Provençal war galleys according to the terms of the agreement negotiated by their ambassadors with the pope. The antipope arrived in Avignon on the 24th day of August, and then the following day, in a public consistory before the pope and the cardinals and all the prelates of the court, the said antipope—with a halter around his neck—threw himself at the feet of the pope, begging for mercy; and in a fair speech, citing authorities, he confessed himself a sinner and a heretic, together with the Bavarian who had made him antipope, and placed himself at the mercy of the pope and the Church. And so, after the pope had responded to his speech wisely, shedding tears that, it was said, reflected more an excess of happiness than any sentiment of pity, he raised him up from the ground with his own hands, kissed him on the mouth, forgave him, and gave him a room below his treasury with books to read and study. Thereafter he lived at the board of the pope, who held him in courteous captivity and did not permit him to speak to anyone. And he lived in this manner for three years and one month. And when he died, he was buried honorably in the Church of the Friars Minor in Avignon in a friar’s habit. The Pisans’ trickery and their betrayal of the antipope placed the Commune of Pisa and Count Fazio in great favor with Pope John: they got whatever they wanted at his court and he sent around twenty knightly mantles to Pisa. And for this rea-

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son, the Florentines and the other communes of Tuscany that had always been faithful and devoted to Holy Church were greatly indignant.

CLXII How the King of Spain defeated the Saracens of Granada. In the said year, in the month of August, the King of Castile and of Spain was besieging a castello of the King of Granada, when the host of Saracens from Granada that was coming to relieve it was defeated and its men killed and more than fifteen thousand Saracens captured—and the King of Spain took the town.³⁰⁰

CLXIII Of a new and excellent charitable bequest that one of our citizens left to Christ’s Poor. In September of that year, there died in Florence one of our citizens, a man of small account, who had neither son nor daughter, and he left what he possessed in a well-ordered testament for God. Among the other bequests he made, he ordered that all the poor people of Florence, those that went about begging for alms, should each be given six denari. And it was publicly announced by his executors that on a certain morning all the poor folk in each sesto were to gather in the biggest churches of those sesti and were to be shut inside—so that they would not go from one church to another. After each poor person had been given, as they left, six denari, it was found that the total came to four hundred thirty lire di piccioli, which amounted to more than seventeen thousand persons: men and women, children and adults, not counting the shame-faced poor and the poor in the hospitals and the prisons and the religious mendicants, who had a bequest of their own worth twelve denari a person given to more than four thousand persons. This was regarded as an excellent deed and a very great number of poor people. The number, however, is not surprising, because  Villani may be describing the Battle of Teba, which took place in August 1330. It was fought around the fortress of Teba, besieged by King Alfonso XI of Castile, who had been making war on Granada since the middle of the 1320s. The battle is famous for the presence of Sir James Douglas, carrying with him the heart of King Robert the Bruce of Scotland.

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these people were not only from Florence; rather, the charity distributed in the city draws people from all of Tuscany and from even further afield to Florence. We have recorded this bequest, since it was regarded at the time as an excellent deed, and in order to give a good example to those who wish, for the good of their souls, to give alms to Christ’s Poor.³⁰¹

CLXIV Of certain events that occurred in Lucca, and how the Luccans retook the castello di Buggiano when it was betrayed to them. When he took power, Messer Gherardino Spinoli, Lord of Lucca, acting on the terms of an accord, had readmitted the Quartigiani, Pogginghi, Avogadi, and others to Lucca—these were people who, as we mentioned earlier, had been chased out by Castruccio and his followers. On the 10th of September that year, the said Messer Gherardino, acting on his suspicions, raided the city with his cavalry and had Messer Pagano Quartigiani and one of his nephews and others seized, accusing them of plotting with the Lord of Altopascio and with the Florentines to betray the town to them. And in truth, the Florentines had sent banners to these men, and a plot had been laid. Because of this, Messer Gherardino had their heads cut off. And then on the 19th day of September, the defenders of the fortress above Buggiano, having plotted treason, rebelled against the Florentines and captured their podestà, Tegghia di Messer Bindo Buondelmonti, and handed him over to the Luccans. When the cavalry of Lucca arrived two days later, they attacked the borghi of Buggiano, where the Florentine soldiers were garrisoned, but these Luccans received great harm, because the said soldiers came out and fought them, routing them and pushing them back into the castello. Very disturbed by this rebellion, the Florentines prepared to send a host against Lucca, as will be described in the next chapter, since there is much to tell.

 Villani’s aims are clearly stated: highlighting the charity of a pious Florentine and urging its imitation. Henderson notes that this chapter is notable for the way the chronicler distinguishes between different categories of recipient and also for how he extends the use of the term “poveri di Cristo”—a phrase that had been used to describe friars is now being used for the poor in general. Henderson, Piety and Charity, 257– 58.

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CLXV How the Florentines laid siege with their host to the city of Lucca. After the Florentines lost the castello di Buggiano, they prepared to lead their army against the city of Lucca, since they had heard that it was much weakened. Florentine forces departed from Pistoia and the Valdinievole, climbed up to the Cerruglio by night, and attacked it, taking it on terms of surrender on the 5th of October of that year. They also took the castello di Vivinaia, and Montechiari, and San Martino in Colle, and Porcari. Later, on the 8th of October, they descended to the plain and made camp at Lunata. On the 10th of October they closed in to besiege the city at a distance of a half mile, placing their camp between the road that goes to Pistoia and the road to Altopascio. They surrounded their camp with trenches and palisades with brattices and gates, and constructed many houses made of wood boards covered with stone shingles and tiles so that they could stay there during the winter. In the beginning, the captain of the said host was Messer Alamanno degli Obizzi, an exile from Lucca, along with a council of six knights from Florence. When this host first arrived, it included eleven hundred soldiers on horseback in the pay of the Florentines, while in Lucca there were only five hundred knights. Later, men from King Robert and Siena and Perugia arrived to join the Florentine host—around four hundred knights and a great number of foot soldiers. And on the 12th of October the Florentines held three palios ³⁰² in front of the city to take revenge for those that Castruccio had run outside Florence. The palio for the horse race was the color of a pomegranate, fitted to a lance, filled with twenty-five new gold florins; the second, for which the foot soldiers raced, was of blood-red cloth; the third, for which the prostitutes of the army raced, was of cotton wool. These palios were held as near as one crossbow shot from the gates of Lucca; all the host gathered under arms to watch them. They sent a message declaring that anyone from Lucca who wished to come out to race or to watch these palios being raced, could come and return in safety—and indeed many left the city to see the celebration. Among those who came out were two hundred armored knights from Germany, men who had left Montecatini when it was besieged; because of an accord offered by the Florentines, these men then stayed in camp in the pay of the Florentines—their chief was the German called “Il Gobbole” who later made  The palio is a ceremonial banner, but also the horse race whose winner earns the banner. Races and games were frequently held outside the walls of besieged cities, perhaps out of scorn for the defenders, but perhaps also as a means of gathering intelligence, or provoking defections.

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much war against the Luccans. The Luccans were greatly frightened by the departure of these two hundred knights, while the Florentine host gained great advantage. The Florentines, however, adopted a bad strategy in this war: the captain and his council did not permit that anything be destroyed, allowing the plains six miles around Lucca to be sown with grain, with the intention of showing the Luccans that the Florentines would treat them well, so that they would surrender to the Florentines. But the captain and the other exiles from Lucca grew rich from this protection of the land, because they demanded protection money from the contadini of Lucca—and so they corrupted and ruined the host. For this reason, the Florentines elected as their captain Cantuccio di Messer Bino de’ Gabrielli da Gubbio; this election was more due to factional allegiance than reason, since it made a squire unused to war into a captain and charged him with leading many noblemen and knights and barons. This election had bad consequences, for if Messer Alamanno degli Obizzi’s captaincy of the host was found wanting, that of Cantuccio was even more so—although in another way and in other circumstances it was even more dangerous, as we shall describe later. We shall leave for a time this siege of Lucca, which lasted for many months, to speak of other things that occurred in those times; and later we shall return to our description, to tell of the fate of the said host.

CLXVI How the castelli of Fucecchio and Santa Croce as well as Castelfranco di Valdarno gave themselves freely to the Commune of Florence. In the said year, in the month of October, while the Florentines were besieging the city of Lucca, the castello di Fucecchio and Castelfranco and Santa Croce, which had been under the protection of the Commune of Florence after the overthrow of the Guelph party in Lucca, of their own free will and at their own request and initiative, ceded and submitted themselves to the Commune of Florence, to be their distrettuali and contadini, subject to mero et mixto imperio. ³⁰³ They would be treated as contadini and popolani in Florence and they agreed to pay all exactions required by the commune—real and personal—according to a correct tax valuation and also that each of the said castelli would give a large wax candle, decorated with a figure of the castello, at the Feast of Holy

 In other words, thoroughly subject to the legal authority of Florence.

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Saint John in June. These pacts were completed and confirmed and accepted in Florence on the 4th of December 1330.

CLXVII How King John of Bohemia first crossed into Italy and then took the cities of Brescia and Bergamo. That year King John of Bohemia, son of the late Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, had come to Carinthia because of certain matters he had to settle with his brother-in-law the Duke of Carinthia.³⁰⁴ At this time, the people of the city of Brescia in Lombardy were in a bad state: they were greatly pressed by their exiles, and by the Lord of Milan and by the Veronese, and they were receiving neither help nor relief from King Robert, to whom they had given themselves (he had difficulty assisting them because of the power of the Ghibellines of Lombardy). And so, they sent secret ambassadors with full powers to the said King John and yielded their city freely to him. The Bohemian, lacking money and greedy for power, accepted and took this lordship without awaiting any other counsel. He sent three hundred knights back with the said ambassadors and then immediately afterward took to the road. On the 31st of October 1330 he reached Brescia with four hundred knights and was received by the Brescians with great honor as their lord. After he had stayed a short while in Brescia, one of the parties of Bergamo, who were called the Colleoni, sent an appeal to King John, asking him to send his troops to the city, for Bergamo was greatly divided and the citizens were fighting one another—whereupon the king sent his marshal with three hundred knights. He was given entry to the city, the party of the … was chased out, and lordship passed to King John. This entry of King John into Italy provoked great change and revolution, as we will mention while recording his deeds ahead.

CLXVIII Of a great flood of water that took place in Cyprus and in Spain.

 King John of Bohemia (1296 – 1346) was the son of Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia since 1310. King John’s wife Elizabeth had been sister to the Duke of Carinthia’s late wife Anne.

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In that year 1330, in the month of November, it rained almost continually for twenty-eight days and nights on the Island of Cyprus. This was an unusual and excessive amount of rain and no one could remember such a thing ever occurring in that land. Because of the abundance of rain, the rivers grew so large descending from the mountains that when they reached the city of Nicosia and the city of Limassol, even though by their nature they have little water, they swelled to such a degree that they completely flooded those cities and ruined many houses in them. And in those two cities and in the castelli and the farms of the island more than eight thousand persons died, drowned in this flood. In the same year and in similar fashion, a great flood took place in the lands of Spain, and the river of the great city of Seville grew so excessively that it almost rose to the the height of the city walls, and were it not for the protection provided by the said walls, the city would have been entirely submerged. And outside the city, the flood did damage beyond measure, flooding houses and causing a great number of people to drown.³⁰⁵ In the said year, on the 16th of January, Matteo de’ … , a tyrant and the Lord of Corneto, was killed along with many of his Ghibelline followers by Guelphs of that city during an uprising of the popolo after which the Guelphs took power.

CLXIX How the body of San Zenobius was found. In the middle of the said month of January, the Archbishop of Pisa (who was a Florentine), the Bishop of Florence, the Bishop of Fiesole, and the Bishop of Spoleto (another Florentine), accompanied by canons of Florence and many clerics and prelates, had the altar of San Zenobius uncovered—it lies below the vaults of Santa Reparata—in order to find the body of the beato Zenobius. It was necessary to dig ten braccia under the ground before it was found.³⁰⁶ And after they found it, inside a coffin placed within a tomb of marble, they removed some of his

 The 1330 flood of the Pedeieos River in Cyprus, then ruled by Hugh IV, was apparently a very resonant event. See Hill, A History of Cyprus, vol. 2, 306.  Saint Zenobius was a fourth-century Bishop of Florence. Villani discusses Zenobius in the twenty-fourth chapter of the second book of the New Chronicle, where the saint is described as a citizen of Florence, a “santissimo uomo” for whom God performed many miracles. He notes that “si crede che per gli suoi meriti la città nostra fosse libera da’ Gotti.” George Dameron notes the way the translation of his relics responded to the anxieties of the city during a time of dearth. Dameron, Florence and Its Church, 226.

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skull, and enclosed it nobly in a head made of silver which resembled the face and head of the saint, so that every year on his feast day it could be shown with great solemnity to the popolo. They put the rest of his body back in its place with great devotion—orations and hymns—sounding the bells of the Duomo day and night almost continually for ten days, during which time an indulgence was given by the bishops to the popolo who visited him. Because of this translation and indulgence, almost all the popolo and the devout persons of Florence, men and women, small and great, went to visit him with great devotion and offerings.

CLXX How the host of the Florentines withdrew from the siege of Lucca and how the people of Lucca surrendered to King John of Bohemia. We return to our description of the siege of the city of Lucca by the Florentines, as we left it five chapters ago. With the departure of the German knights from Lucca and with the arrival of King Robert’s men, the Sienese, the Perugians, and other allies who sent aid to the Florentines, the Florentine host had increased greatly in men-at-arms on foot and on horse while the troops of Lucca had grown very frightened at their declining numbers. For this reason, the Florentines ordered their host to surround the city completely, so that no provisions and no other aid might get in, since, contrary to the terms of the peace, the city was being secretly supplied with men-at-arms and provisions by the Pisans. This was done on the 19th day of December, one part of the host crossing the Oseri where it comes from Pontetetto, constructing many bridges and crossings, and stationed itself at the villa of Cattaiuola, somewhat beyond Pontetetto towards Pisa where there are certain buildings and gardens—costly and fair—that had been made by Castruccio. And in the meantime, the aforementioned Gobbole, the German, leading his forces along with many raiders on foot and volunteer soldiers, stationed himself in the borgo of Ponte San Piero, and at the head of a meadow along the road that goes toward Ripafratta, they built a fortification or a fortress, garrisoned with men-at-arms. Because of these tighter siege lines, the Luccans in the city were confined and distressed; and their provisions and wine and many other necessities began to fail. They were forced to gather together all their provisions and their wine, after which the commune set up taverns for distributing watered wine and small quantities of meat—and similarly storehouses for bread, which was distributed by weight to the soldiers and to the families. Because of their dire situation, the rulers of Lucca, on their own initiative, ordered that an accord be sought with the Florentines, and they sent one

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of their greatest men most secretly under safe-conduct to Florence where he offered to surrender the city on terms (this offer, which was very close to being accepted, included a number of pacts and terms and required that Messer Gherardino abandon his power). According to its terms, they would pay them money; the castello dell’Augusta would be demolished; the Ghibellines would remain together with the Guelphs in Lucca, and the offices would be shared between them under the protection and lordship of the Florentines; certain noble Ghibellines, numbering twenty-four of the most influential, would be made knights by the commune and the popolo of Florence, in the manner of the Pistoians, and to each the Commune of Florence would give five hundred gold florins and this so as to be sure of them; the gabelle and the revenues of the Commune of Lucca would go to the Commune of Florence to pay for guarding Lucca, and the remainder would pay for the gift made to the knights; and in addition, within five years the Luccans were to pay to all Florentine citizens who had been captured by Castruccio the money they had paid to ransom themselves from him, which amounted to more than one hundred thousand gold florins. And this accord would most certainly have been reached were it not for the fact that out of envy and avarice, which spoil every good thing, a part of those Florentines who were involved in conducting these negotiations with the leading citizens of Lucca, because they wanted all the honor and the profit for themselves, revealed the plan to Messer Gherardino and then undertook new negotiations with him, and some of them went secretly to Lucca to speak with him about it—for this reason one set of negotiations was spoiled in favor of another, and Messer Gherardino became greatly suspicions of the citizens of Lucca. And I, the author, even though I was not worthy of setting in motion such great things, can bear true witness to this, because I was one of those few men charged by our commune with setting in motion the first set of negotiations, the one that was spoiled in the manner described. But as pleased God, to the shame of our commune, divine justice, which does not absolve the punishment due for terrible sins, quickly applied penance in the double, sudden and unexpected manner we will now describe.³⁰⁷ First, the Florentines made captain of their host Cantuccio de’ Gabrielli da Gubbio, whom we mentioned earlier, and he arrived on the 15th of January with his company of fifty knights and one hundred sergeants on foot. He was not very astute and was unaccustomed to leading such a host, where there were three hundred gentlemen nobler, worthier, and more skilled

 Compare this explanation with Villani’s earlier dismay at the inability of Florentine leaders to make an easy purchase of Lucca from the Germans of the Cerruglio Company. There too, divine anger at the sinfulness of the city clouded its leaders’ minds. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 141.

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than him. It happened that a certain Burgundian of small account committed some act of folly, and when Cantuccio’s servants captured him, Cantuccio, acting as if he were serving as podestà in Florence, wanted to execute him. Enraged by this, the Burgundians, who had more than six hundred horsemen in the pay of the Florentines, all proud and rough men, took up arms and seized the evildoer from the captain’s men and wounded and killed some of them. The Burgundians then rushed furiously to the house and lodging of the captain and plundered everything, and killed as many members of his household as they could and put his quarters to the torch—this fire burned a quarter of the camp, causing great harm and danger. The Florentine camp and host were in great danger, but the wise captain councilors who had come from Florence quieted the furor of the Burgundians with the help of the German knights who obeyed and followed them, and hid the captain and those they could find of his men—in the end the security of the host rested entirely in their hands. Were it not for the weakness of the people of Lucca, the outbreak of this discord would have placed the Florentine host in great danger of defeat. At this juncture, Messer Gherardino, encouraged by the discord in the Florentine host, abandoned his negotiations with the Florentines and immediately sent his ambassadors, together with syndics holding full powers, to Lombardy to King John, and these men gave lordship of Lucca to the king under certain conditions—the king, for his part, promised to defend the city. And on the 12th of February the king sent three of his ambassadors to Florence and these, with handsome words and promises of peace and love, sought to win over the Florentines, asking them to abandon their siege of Lucca, since it was his city, and make a truce with him. A response was given to these men before the full council: that the said host besieging Lucca was there at the request of the Church and King Robert, and for that reason it would not depart. The said ambassadors departed the city and went to Pisa. A few days after receiving this response, King John sent his marshal to Parma with eight hundred knights to aid Lucca. And when the Florentines heard this, they hired Messer Bertrand de Baux, who was returning from his imprisonment in Lombardy—since he had been exchanged by the legate for Rolando Rossi of Parma—and made him their war captain. Once he reached the host at Lucca, he decided that it was foolish for it to remain there, given the outbreak of violence, which had so greatly disordered it that a certain Messer Arnoldo, a German captain for the Florentines, had left the camp with one hundred knights and had entered Lucca. For this reason, and also because of the coming of King John’s marshal to Lucca, removing the host seemed to him to be the best course of action. And he did exactly this on the 25th of that month of February 1330. The host gathered safe and sound on the hill of Vivinaia, and, departing that spot, they plundered the town and set it on fire. And in this way the cam-

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paign of the Florentine host, which was so fortunate at its outset and in its progress, and which faced a Lucca at the end of its powers, ended in failure. And thus, one should never despair over anything, nor glory in any campaign, nor be overly hopeful before one sees the end—for campaigns often end in a different manner than how they are begun, according to the pleasure of God. Later, on the first day of March, King John’s marshal came from Lombardy and entered Lucca with eight hundred German knights, taking power over the city for the king. And Messer Gherardino departed, ill-content with King John and with the people of Lucca, having suffered a loss of more than thirty thousand gold florins of his own money which he had spent purchasing the lordship and fighting the war on behalf of the people of Lucca—he could get none of this back. When the said Messer Gherardino complained of this to King John, he was reproached and told that he had been a traitor, that he had negotiated with the Florentines in order to give them Lucca. And a letter from the Commune of Florence was shown him, in the presence of the king, which Messer Gherardino had requested as a written record of the negotiations.

CLXXI How King John’s men raided the contado of Florence in the contrada of Greti. Because of the arrival of King John’s men in Lucca, the Florentines abandoned the borgo of Buggiano, which they had held, and set fire to it. And similarly, on the 9th of March that year they left the castelletto del Cozzile and the castelletto della Costa above Buggiano. And then, on the 15th of that month of March, the aforementioned marshal of King John, who was in Lucca with one thousand knights and two thousand foot soldiers, departed with his men from Buggiano and passed below Montevettolini, knocking down the defenses, and entered Greti in the contado of Florence without meeting any resistance. They took and burned the borgo of Cerreto Guidi and attacked the castello; they took and burned Collegonzi and Agliana and raided the territory for three days, leading away one hundred prisoners, four hundred large animals, and two thousand small animals as plunder; and they caused great devastation with great shame to the Florentines, who had as many or even more knights in their pay, for no resistance whatsoever was made by these men. Because if even two hundred knights had held the defenses from Montevettolini to the Guisciana, which would have been easy enough to defend, not a single attacker would have returned, for they would all have been captured or killed; for even though this raid was bold and courageous on their part, it succeeded because of our folly

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and lack of foresight in failing to defend the pass. However, it was said that certain captains of the Florentines, who were guarding the castelli di Valdinievole, knew of the raid and treasonously allowed the enemies to pass without opposing them. When this became known, they were dismissed by the Florentines and denied their pay.

CLXXII How lordship over Parma, Reggio, and Modena was given to King John. In the said year, on the 2nd day of March, John King of Bohemia entered the city of Parma in Lombardy, welcomed with great honor: the city was given to him by Rolando Rossi and the Rossi family to oppose their enemy the cardinal legate, who stood for the Church in Bologna. And shortly thereafter, in a similar manner, the cities of Reggio and Modena gave themselves to the said king, on certain conditions, so as not to return to the lordship of the Church and its legates and officials from Cahors. The pope made a show of being very troubled by these things, and he sent sealed letters to Florence which were read coram populi and which announced that it was not by his will nor that of the Church that King John had crossed into Italy and taken the lordship of Lucca and of the aforementioned cities in Lombardy. However, all this was deception by the pope and the legate, as one will understand reading of their deeds further ahead.

CLXXIII How a great war began at sea between the Catalans and the Genoese. In the said year and month of March there began a war of the Catalans against the Genoese and the Venetians. It was a very harsh and brutal war, because of the many robberies committed at sea by the Genoese attacking the ships of the Catalans and the Venetians. Because of this war, the Genoese made a truce with their exiles and with the men of Savona, which later led to peace between them, as we will mention further ahead. The Venetians, because of their cowardice and their fear of the Genoese, made peace very quickly with them in return for a small compensation, less than ten thousand gold florins, although they had lost more than one hundred thousand gold florins, not counting the many worthy men of Venice killed at sea by the Genoese. The war with the Cat-

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alans lasted for a long time thereafter with much killing and harm done on both sides as one will find described ahead.

CLXXIV How the popolo of Colle di Valdelsa killed their captain and lord and gave themselves into the protection of the Florentines. In the said year, Messer Albizzo, who had been Archpriest of Colle, was Lord of Colle di Valdelsa.³⁰⁸ He had made himself captain of the popolo with his brothers, Messer Desso and Agnolo of the Tancredi family, and they held Colle in the manner of tyrants, outrageously crushing the popolo and whoever had power in the town. And so, on the 10th of March the popolo of Colle, who disliked such tyranny and lordship, plotted treason, and with the assistance of people from Montegabbro and Picchiena—who were cousins and relations of the said lords —killed the said captain archpriest and Agnolo his brother on the piazza of Colle when they came out after eating. Messer Desso defended himself boldly for a long time, but in the end, owing to the great number of his enemies, he was wounded and then captured through betrayal by Agnolino Granelli de’ Tolomei; they later strangled him in prison. And they captured a ten-year-old son of Agnolo, and out of fear kept him as a prisoner, and he is imprisoned still, so that none of that family might escape, although another of his brothers was in Florence. Once they had done these things, out of fear of this family’s relations, who were the Rossi of Florence and other powerful men and grandi of Florence, they established a popular government and then gave the guardianship of the town of Colle to the commune and popolo of Florence for many years, summoning a Florentine podestà and captain. The Florentines were satisfied with this, because the said captain, along with certain grandi, had acted the tyrant in Florence, and during the famine had oppressed the popolo of Florence by issuing a prohibition which prevented provisions from being delivered to Florence; and he was a friend of Castruccio, even though he reckoned himself a Guelph.

 Albizzo Tancredi and his brothers, members of a powerful local family, exercised lordly powers over Colle. Ciucciovino, Cronaca, 278 – 279 and Biadi, Storia di Colle, 93 – 98. On the history of Albizzo Tancredi and Colle, see Cammarosano, Storia di Colle di Val d’Elsa nel medioevo.

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CLXXV When the metal doors of San Giovanni were begun and the bell tower of the Badia of Florence was completed. In the said year 1330, work began on the metal doors of San Giovanni. They were very beautiful and of marvelous workmanship and cost. They were modeled in wax and then the figures were polished and gilded by a certain master craftsman named Andrea Pisano. They were cast in the fire of a kiln by master craftsmen in Venice. And I, the author, as a member of the Calimala Merchants’ Guild, the overseers of the Opera di San Giovanni, was named an official in charge of this work.³⁰⁹ And in the same year, the bell tower of the Badia of Florence was raised and completed. We had this work done at the plea and request of Messer Giovanni Orsini of Rome, cardinal and legate in Tuscany and lord of the said Badia, and it was paid for with his income from that Badia.

CLXXVI Of certain miracles which took place in Florence. In the year 1331 there died in Florence two good and just men. Although they were laymen, they were of holy life and conversation and were givers of great alms. One had the name of Barduccio, and he was buried in Santo Spirito in the place of the Augustinians. And the other had the name of Giovanni … , and he was buried in San Piero Maggiore. God performed clear miracles through each of these two men, healing the sick and the paralyzed and doing many other things. And for each man a solemn burial was carried out and many wax images were placed at their tombs in fulfillment of vows.

CLXXVII Of a meeting that took place between King John and the legate of Lombardy.

 Andrea Pisano (1290 – 1348) executed these famous bronze doors, which portray episodes from the life of John the Baptist and representations of the Virtues. For the doors and the sculptural work of Andrea Pisano, see Finn, The Florence Baptistery Doors and Moskowitz, The Sculpture of Andrea and Nino.

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In the said year, on the 16th of April, on the River Scoltenna between Bologna and Modena, a secret meeting took place between King John of Bohemia, son of the late Emperor Henry, and the cardinal legate of Lombardy, who resided in Bologna as the representative of the Church. They reached an accord together, and at their departure they kissed one another on the mouth. And then, on the following day, they feasted together in great celebration at the castello di Piumazzo. For this reason, all the lords and the tyrants of Lombardy, and also the Commune of Florence—which considered King John to be an enemy because of its old enmity toward his father the Emperor Henry and because of his campaign in Lucca and in Brescia—became very suspicious and full of wrath against the cardinal legate. It seemed to them that he and the Church had with dishonest intentions caused the said King John to come to Italy; and that he, using the power of the said king, and according to the design of Pope John and the King of France, wished to take over the lordship of Lombardy and of Tuscany. And so, to guard against this, it was decided to make a company, league, and an oath with King Robert against King John and against anyone who might give him aid or favor. And the pope, dissembling with the Florentines in the letters he sent to them, made a show of being content with this league. Whence, later, followed the abasement of the king and the legate, as we will mention further ahead.

CLXXVIII How the casa Malatesta of Rimini became divided and split apart. In the said year, in the month of May, the casa Malatesta of Rimini in Romagna was at its greatest estate, more powerful than it had ever been; a short time before, six of the family had been made knights with great honor, and their house was triumphant not only in the city of Rimini but in almost all Romagna. But, led by greed for tyrannical lordship, Messer Malatesta the Younger, son of Messer Pandolfo, betrayed and chased all his relations from Rimini, pursuing them with arms in hand to kill them, capturing some of them who later died in prison. He, for his part, accused them of wanting to chase him away. As a result, the said casa was ruined and this threw almost all Romagna into turmoil. And it seems to be a curse of that land, and also a terrible custom of the Romagnols, that they willingly betray one another. And note that it seems to be the case regarding lordships honored with worldly dignities, that when they are at the height of their power, they soon experience their decline and ruin, and this occurs not

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without the foresight of divine judgment, so as to punish sin, and so that no one might place their faith in false prosperous fortune.

CLXXIX How the city of Florence was long under interdict. In the said year, on the 10th of May 1331, the legate of Tuscany placed the city of Florence under interdict. The reason was that he had petitioned the pope to have the parish of Santa Maria Impruneta, which was vacant, transferred to his mensa just as he had done for the Badia of Florence. The patrons of this parish were the casa Buondelmonti and at their urging the citizens did not permit the legate to receive the revenues or the profits of that parish; they acted in this way also because it seemed to the citizens that the legate wished to occupy all the good benefices in Florence and that he had taken that benefice from the Buondelmonti by trickery. They endured this interdict for a further nineteen months, which caused the citizens great trouble and difficulty in every spiritual matter—so much so that the said Buondelmonti came to an agreement with the legate for which the popolo of Florence was much obliged to the said Buondelmonti.³¹⁰

CLXXX How King John departed Lombardy and crossed beyond the mountains. In the said year, King John had arranged with the legate a false peace and agreement to readmit the Guelph exiles to Lucca, and some of them returned there against the will of the Florentines. Among those who had sought this agreement was Messer Alamanno degli Obizzi, for which reason he fell into great disgrace with the Florentines. Later those Guelphs who had returned to Lucca departed the city because of its bad government. When Lucca, Parma, Reggio, and Modena had been reorganized under his lordship, the said King John left his son Charles³¹¹ behind with eight hundred knights, and departed from Parma on  The conflict over this pieve had been ongoing for many years, and was part of a deeper conflict between two powerful Florentine families—the Buondelmonti and the Bardi (one of the original claimants was the Florentine Cathedral Canon Federico de’ Bardi). Dameron, Florence and Its Church, 27– 28. See also Beattie, Angelus Pacis, 173 – 74.  Charles (1316 – 1378) was the future Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor.

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the 2nd of June to go to court in France and in Germany to arrange greater things with the pope and with the King of France in order to overcome the freedom of the Italians, as this chronicle will mention ahead.

CLXXXI How some Florentine forces were defeated at Buggiano. In the said year, Messer Simone Filippi of Pistoia,³¹² who was vicar in Lucca for King John, sent his army to lay siege to and build fortifications at the castello di Barga in Garfagnana, which the Florentines held—as he had heard it was poorly supplied. For this reason, to force Messer Simone to lift the siege of Barga, the Florentines had Messer Amerigo Donati, captain of Valdinievole, ride with four hundred knights against Buggiano. But the forces of Lucca—around five hundred knights—came by night to Buggiano. On the 6th of June, Messer Amerigo and his men, who were unprepared for such an event, and who were not on their guard, were suddenly attacked at Brusceto below Montecatini and were routed and defeated, with around one hundred horsemen captured and killed. Messer Amerigo and the others fled to Montecatini. And the following July Uzzano, which the Florentines held, was lost through treason.

CLXXXII How Pope John restored the Milanese and the people of the Marca to the communion of the Church. In the said year, on the 4th day of June, Pope John, in Avignon, restored the Milanese and the people of the Marca to the communion of the Church. They had long been excommunicated, owing to their stubbornness and the many sins they had committed against Holy Church, which we earlier described. And the pope did this at the request of the legate of Lombardy—one reason was to break up the league that had just been created amongst the Lombards and the

 Simone Filippi (d. 1335) was a Pistoian Ghibelline and condottiere who had served Emperor Henry VII during his descent in Italy and had been named first Vicar of Cremona and then Vicar of Lucca by Henry’s son King John. Damiani, “Simone Filippi.”

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other reason was to ensure that the people of the Marca would be reverent toward the legate, whom he had made their marquess and lord.

CLXXXIII Of fires that broke out in the city of Florence this year.³¹³ In the said year, on the 23rd day of June, at night during the Vigil of the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, a fire broke out on the far side of the Ponte Vecchio, and all the workshops there, around twenty in number, were burned—with great losses to many artisans—and two youths died. In addition, some houses in San Sepolcro which belonged to the Magione dello Spedale partly burned. And then, on the 12th of September, near nightfall, fire broke out at casa Soldanieri da Santa Trinita in certain low houses of carpenters and of farriers, which were at the crossroads of Via di Porta Rossa. Six people died there since the furious fire, fed by the burning of a great quantity of wood and the horse stalls, made it impossible for them to escape. And then on the 28th of February, near nightfall, fire broke out in the Palace of the Commune, where the podestà dwells, and burned the entire roof of the old palace and two parts of the new roof from the first vaults upward. For this reason, it was ordered by the commune that everything should be redone in vaulting all the way to the roof. And then on the following 16th of July fire broke out in the palace of the Wool Guild at Orsanmichele and burned everything from the first vault upward and a prisoner, who went there believing he could escape, died there along with his guard.³¹⁴ Thereafter the palace was redone by the Wool Guild and was nobler and vaulted all the way to the roof.

CLXXXIV How two lion cubs were born in Florence.

 It is possible that Villani drew this material directly from city records, since he recounts four incidents spanning more than a year, breaking the continuity of his narration. For fire in Florence see Contessa, L’ufficio del fuoco and Slater and Pinto, eds., Building Regulations.  Villani’s language makes it unclear whether the prisoner was in this place to escape from his captors or from the flames.

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In the said year, on the 25th day of July, on the Feast of Saint James, two lion cubs were born in Florence to the lion and the lioness of the commune, who lived in the enclosure opposite San Piero Scheraggio. And they lived and later grew to be large—and they were born live and not dead, as the authors of books on the nature of beasts say.³¹⁵ And we bear witness to this, for I along with many other citizens saw their birth, and saw them immediately go and suckle at the lioness. And it was considered a great marvel that lions were born and survived on this side of the sea, something that no one in our day could recall. It is true that two were born in Venice, but they died right away. It was said by many that this was a sign of good and prosperous fortune for the Commune of Florence.³¹⁶

CLXXXV How the Florentines took the lordship of Pistoia. There was great suspicion and envy in Pistoia that year, over the question of who should rule the city, since the part of the citizens that loved living well wanted the lordship of the Florentines, and the other part wanted to remain free. The day after the Feast of Saint James, the Florentines, having heard of this division, and, because of the said suspicion, having sent their men to Pistoia—five hundred knights and one thousand five hundred foot soldiers—had them ride through the city crying out “Long live the Florentines,” without, however, committing any robbery or any other evil act. For this reason, the Pistoians by solemn council, since they could do nothing else, gave lordship for one year to the commune and the popolo of Florence. Once the city had been reformed, they sent more than one hundred men into exile and the majority of the Guelphs returned to Pistoia, most of whom were opposed to the lordship of the Florentines, for they wished to rule the city as tyrants and seize power from the cavalieri Panciatichi and Muli and Gualfreducci—Ghibellines who had been made knights by the popolo of Florence—and from their followers. For it seemed to them that the Florentines, because of the promises they had made, were maintaining these men in greater status than themselves, the ungrateful Guelphs returned to Pistoia by the Florentines. And later on, before half a year had passed, since it seemed to them  According to the Physiologus, lion cubs were born dead and were only brought to life after three days by the breath of their father—this served as an allegory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after his crucifixion. Physiologus, trans. Curley, 4.  On animal collecting in Florence during a later period, see Groom, Exotic Animals, and especially 38 – 41 (her discussion of lions in Florence).

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that the Florentines were treating them benevolently and keeping them in a peaceful condition without imposing burdens, the Pistoians of their own free will named two of their anziani to serve as syndics and sent them to Florence to yield guardianship and lordship over their city freely to the Florentines for two years beyond the previous cession. And the Florentines took the city and with great seriousness put it in order, choosing for the Pistoians foreign officials whose term of office was to be six months; a capitano della guardia, with six horse and fifty foot soldiers, who was to be a great popolano of Florence and whose term of office was to be three months; a foreign conservatore of the peace with ten horse and one hundred foot soldiers; and the podestà of Serravalle and two castellans for the Florentine fortresses. And in Florence they elected twelve worthy popolani for three-month terms, to whom they gave full balia in the governing of Pistoia and in reforming the offices—together with the priors of Florence. This was in the middle of January. And then at the end of the following February, for the greater security of the city, the Florentines had them begin construction of a beautiful and strong castello on the side of the city that faces toward Florence; this castello was completed and guards and castellans were stationed there with one hundred foot soldiers paid for by the Pistoians, and in addition to these there were three hundred foot soldiers to guard the city.

CLXXXVI How the Sienese besieged and defeated the Counts of Santafiore and how the Pisans took Massa. That summer the Sienese led a host against the Counts of Santafiore and the Orvietans did the same to the Counts of Baschi in the Maremma and did them great harm. While the Sienese were at the siege of Arcidosso, the Counts of Santafiore, with two hundred German knights they had received from Lucca, and with all their forces, came to the assistance of the said castello, and were defeated by the Sienese—later the Sienese took the said castello. While the Sienese host was thus occupied, the people of Massa rebelled against their lordship and chased from Massa the podestà of Siena and the casa Ghiozzi, along with their followers and party, and gave themselves to the Pisans.

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CLXXXVII How the Catalans sailed against Genoa with their fleet and how, because of this, the Genoese made peace with their exiles. In the said year, at the beginning of August, the Catalans sailed to the Riviera of Genoa and Savona with a fleet of forty-two galleys and thirty warships, and burned many castelli and ville and farms and caused great devastation.³¹⁷ However, neither the Genoese nor the people of Savona dared resist them, because the Guelphs inside Genoa and the Ghibellines outside Genoa, who were in Savona, were disorganized and divided. Once the Catalans had inflicted this shame and this harm on the Genoese and their exiles, they departed safe and sound to Sardinia. It seemed to the Genoese in the city and those in exile that they had suffered great shame because of this attack by the Catalans, and so they sought to make peace with one another. And each side sent a great and rich embassy to King Robert in Naples, committing their disputes to his adjudication and begging him to establish peace between them. King Robert concluded this peace on the 8th of September 1331, with pacts that the exiles would all return to Genoa and would yield all the fortresses they were holding in Savona and on the Riviera to the commune. And by common agreement of everyone, those inside and those outside, they made King Robert their lord for three years beyond the term that he had received from the Guelphs inside the city; and they gave him three hundred knights and five hundred sergeants, paid by the commune, to guard the city and his vicar and also the castello di Peraldo above Genoa. And they promised to oppose the Bavarian and King John and any other lord who might cross into Italy against the will of the pope and the Church and King Robert. The Doria and Spinola would be free to assist whichever side they wished in King Robert’s war against Don Frederick, who held Sicily—as they liked. For one of the Doria was admiral for the ruler of Sicily, and one of the Spinola was admiral for King Robert. The Florentines assisted King Robert in the said peace, for the exiles considered themselves enemies of the Florentines, because of the assistance that the Florentines had given the said king against them when they were at the Siege of Genoa. The king was little pleased with this peace treaty since he greatly feared the power of the Ghibellines who were returning to the city, but, although he made this quite clear to the Guelphs, they nonetheless wanted it. And then in January of 1333 they extended King Rob-

 On the Catalan attacks, the exhausting civil wars, and the peace, see Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, 199 – 202.

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ert’s lordship of Genoa by five years, but this peace and the lordship of the king lasted only a short time, because the Ghibellines violated their agreement and chased the Guelphs from the city, taking lordship away from the king, as will be mentioned at the proper place further ahead.

CLXXXVIII How the legate of Lombardy had the city of Forlì besieged, and how it surrendered to him. In the said year, in the month of August, the pope’s legate in Bologna sent an army to lay siege to the city of Forlì in Romagna; the host he gathered had a force of fifteen hundred knights and a very large popolo. The legate had the besiegers build fortifications around the city, because the citizens were not obeying his commands and had chased away his vicar and treasurer. And the Florentines, although they were angry with the legate because of the alliance and the company he had made with King John, nonetheless sent as aid to the Church one hundred knights to this host. And the host stayed at Forlì until the end of October and then, after it had departed, on the 21st day of November, the citizens of Forlì accepted terms of surrender from the legate according to certain terms and agreements—that is, they had to accept his vicar and treasurer and to pay only the census; but they were allowed to choose of their own free will the force of knights which guarded the city, who would then swear obedience to the legate.

CLXXXIX How the Duke of Athens crossed to Romania with men-at-arms but was not able to conquer anything. In the said year, at the end of the month of August, the Duke of Athens, that is to say the Count of Brienne, departed from Brindisi and crossed to Romania with eight hundred French knights, noble men brought from France, and five thousand Tuscan foot soldiers who served him for pay and who were dressed in a common livery—all very good and very admirable men-at-arms—to re-conquer

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his lands that the men of the company were occupying.³¹⁸ In addition to these knights, he was also followed by many people from the Kingdom of Puglia. As soon as he arrived, he took the town of Arta and much of its territory, ville, and farms. If his enemies had met him on the battlefield, it is certain that he would have re-conquered his lands and won the victory, for he had with him a large and excellent cavalry which would have held the field against anyone in Romania—Latins or Greeks. But the men of the company, according to their stratagem, limited themselves to guarding their fortresses and did not come out to give battle. For this reason, the cavalry and the soldiers of the duke, who were spending a lot because of their great needs and their long stay— since they could not have battle—became exhausted and could not keep the field. And so, the duke’s campaign was in vain, although it had cost him much treasure, and the duke and his men were all forced to leave those lands. It was said by wise men from the moment of his departure, that if he had gone with fewer men and less expense, limiting himself to skirmishes, relying on rested troops, he would have won back his lands and the venture would have brought him honor.

CXC Of events in the war between us and the men of Lucca, during which Messer Filippo Tedici of Pistoia died. In the said year, on the 14th day of September, while the men of Buggiano were harvesting their grapes, guarded by seventy knights of Lucca, our men from the Valdinievole—around one hundred fifty knights and many foot soldiers—fell upon them, defeated them, and chased them all the way to the borgo of Buggiano. During this chase, as had been planned, around two hundred of their knights arrived from Pescia, and, when they found our men dispersed and following after their enemies, these knights struck them and defeated them, and five captains and around fifty or more of our knights were captured. And then on the 21st day of that month, two hundred knights and one thousand foot soldiers who

 This is the Catalan Company, an army of Iberian warriors which fought in the pay of the Byzantines against the Turks between 1303 and 1305. After the Byzantines murdered their leader Roger de Flor, they became the enemies of their former employers and thereafter operated in their own interests. They came to control the Duchy of Athens after the epochal Battle of Halmyros in 1311—the battle that caused the death of Walter V of Brienne (the father of this Duke of Athens). Kagay, “Catalan Company.”

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had left from Lucca under the command of Messer Filippo de’ Tedici of Pistoia with the object of capturing the castello di Popiglio in the mountains of Pistoia (which was supposed to be betrayed to them), entered the castello, leaving their horses outside—the knights had dismounted because of the narrowness of the place. Those inside the castello who were unaware of the plot boldly drove them out, while people of the surrounding countryside made their way to the crossings and the strong mountain passes, and captured their horses and defeated them. And Messer Filippo the traitor of Pistoia was killed there by country folk, as he deserved, along with many other worthy men, and more than one hundred horses were captured.³¹⁹ And then, the following March, the men of Lucca who were in Buggiano set an ambush to capture Massa in Valdinievole. This was discovered by the Florentine forces in Montecatini, and they fell upon them and defeated them and many on their side were captured and killed—and four horse detachments were sent captive to Florence. And this is how a war of skirmishes goes—sometimes in one place one loses and in another place one wins.

CXCI How the Marquess of Monferrato took Tortona from King Robert. In the said year, in the month of September, the Marquess of Monferrato and his forces entered the borghi and the city of Tortona in Piedmont, which was betrayed to him by the citizens.³²⁰ The men who were stationed there for King Robert, whose captain was Messer Galeazzo, the bastard brother of the king, retreated to the upper part of the city and to its citadel. Then later, since they could not hold the upper city, which was not well supplied, they abandoned it, to their shame, and it was left under the lordship of the marquess.

 Filippo Tedici earns Villani’s ire for being an ally, indeed the son-in-law, of Castruccio Castracani; he is a traitor because of his deposition of his uncle Ormanno and his sale of the city of Pistoia to Lucca.  Teodoro I Paleologo (ca. 1291– 1338) was a son of the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus II Paleologus. He inherited the title to the Marquessate on the death of Giovanni, the last marquess of the Aleramici. After his arrival in Italy in 1306 he launched a campaign to gain control of his territories, with which he was invested in 1310 by Emperor Henry VII. Settia, “Teodoro I Paleologo.” See also Settia, ed., Quando venit marchio Grecus in terris Montisferrati.

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CXCII How the Po River broke its embankments in the mantovano. In the said year, in the month of October, the Po River in Lombardy swelled to such an unaccustomed height that it broke its embankments in many places in the mantovano and the ferrarese and devastated a great deal of territory— and ten thousand people, both small and great, died by drowning.

CXCIII When work began again on the Church of Santa Reparata of Florence, and how there was great abundance that year.³²¹ In the said year, in the month of October, when the city of Florence was in a very tranquil and good state, work began again on the principal church of Santa Reparata di Firenze, for it had long been empty and unused owing to the various and diverse wars and expenses undertaken by our city, as earlier described. And the responsibility for this work was given by the commune to the Wool Guild so that it might move forward more rapidly. The commune committed to it a gabella of two denari per lira for every coin spent by the camera of the commune, as had been customary in the past, and beyond that they ordered a gabella of four denari per lira to be levied on every gabelliere on the sums they spent buying their gabella from the commune—these two gabelle earned twelve thousand lire di piccioli per year. And the lanaiuoli ordered that every shop and workshop of the artisans of Florence should have a little box for paying the danaro di dio, from what was sold and bought—and in the beginning this brought in two thousand lire per year. And the said work was funded by these sources of income. In this year there was a great abundance and surplus of foodstuffs in Florence, and a full staio of wheat was worth eight soldi piccioli with the gold florin worth three lire which was considered a great marvel after the unusual shortages of the year 1329 and then the year 1330 which we described earlier. In those days many good ordinances were made in Florence regulating the sale of all foodstuffs, so that meat and fish were to be sold by weight and poultry at an appro In an earlier chapter, Villani describes the beginning of these renovation efforts in 1294, also a period in which the city was “in assai tranquillo stato.” The existing church was “molto di grossa forma e piccolo a comparazione di si fatta cittade.” Villani, Nuova Cronica, IX: 9.

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priate price. And an official was named to oversee these ordinances and penalties were established for those who failed to observe them.

CXCIV Of war begun in Bohemia against King John. In the said year, in the month of November, King John, who had gone to Bohemia, gathered his forces with the assistance of his uncle the Archbishop of Trier and his brother-in-law the Duke of Carinthia and found himself with more than five thousand knights. He did this because the King of Poland, the King of Hungary, and the Duke of Austria, who were his enemies, had gathered a great army of more than fifteen thousand knights—Germans and Hungarians—to invade and devastate the Kingdom of Bohemia. They were acting on the orders of the Bavarian, who wished King John ill because of his ventures in Italy while the King of Hungary was acting at the petition of his uncle King Robert and because he was the son-in-law of the King of Poland. These two armies faced one another for many days on the banks of … , each army keeping to its side, but then King John’s plans made it necessary for him to depart and go to France. King John was thought mad by wise men for seeking out new ventures in Italy and leaving his kingdom in danger, but he did so at the request of the King of France, to pursue certain great plans, as the reader will understand reading ahead. And once he departed from Bohemia, his enemies crossed into his kingdom and twice defeated King John’s men, causing great devastation to his lands, and they would have devastated it even more if a harsh winter had not forced them to depart.

CXCV How the King of France promised to cross to Outremer. ³²² In the said year, on the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, King Philip of France proclaimed in Paris before his barons and prelates that two years from the coming March he would undertake a crossing to Outremer to reconquer the Holy Land.

 Philip VI’s planned crusade was not brought to fulfillment, ultimately rendered impossible because of his war with Edward III (indeed a “crusading fleet” was already menacing England in 1336). See Tyerman, “Philip VI and the Recovery of the Holy Land.”

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He requested aid and monetary subsidies from the prelates and the communes of his realm and bade the dukes, the counts, and the barons prepare themselves to go with him. He sent his ambassadors to Avignon to Pope John, to notify him and his cardinals of his venture and to request from the Church, in a document of twenty-seven chapters, large subsidies, favors, and benefits—many of which were indecent and outrageous. Among these, he wanted all the treasure of the Church and the tithes of all Christendom for six years, to be paid in three years, and in his kingdom he wanted the fees due for investitures and reassignments of all ecclesiastical benefices. He also demanded for his son title to the Kingdom of Arles and Vienne and for his brother Messer Charles he wanted the lordship of Italy. Because neither the pope nor the majority of his cardinals wished to accept these demands, they responded that for forty years his ancestors had received the tithes of the kingdom to assist in crossing to Outremer and they had spent them in other wars against Christians. However, they continued, the king should proceed with his venture, and once he had set forth the Church would give him all appropriate temporal and spiritual assistance to aid in the holy passage. Because of these requests and responses, there arose a degree of hostility between the Church and the King of France.

CXCVI How the Aretines sought to capture Cortona. In the said year, at the end of January, Messer Piero Saccone de’ Tarlati, Lord of Arezzo, in order to take the city of Cortona, hatched a treasonous plot with Messer Guccio, brother of Messer Rainero di … who was its lord—he promised him many rewards.³²³ And this man, because of discord with his brother, who was not treating him as he wished, agreed to the said betrayal. The Aretines rode there by night, but their plot was discovered and the said Messer Guccio was captured by his brother, and some of his followers, citizens who were involved with him in the plot—more than thirty of them—were hung from the battlements of the city walls facing the outside. And the said Messer Guccio was thrown into a dark prison, where, with great suffering, as he deserved, his life ended.

 The Lord of Cortona was Rainero Casali and his brother was Uguccio. The conspiracy, which was to have involved the ambush of Rainero by his brother and the seizure of the city with the assistance of the Aretines, failed when the conspirators failed to secure entry by Piero Saccone and his men. Ciucciovino, Cronaca, 320 – 21.

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CXCVII How the exiles of Pisa came to attack Pisa, and how the Florentines sent their aid. The exiles of Pisa, whose chief was the former Bishop of Aleria in Corsica, had made an alliance with the people of Parma and with certain Genoese Ghibellines whose chief was Manfredi de’ Vivaldi, who held the castello di Lerici, and also with troops from Lucca, numbering five hundred knights and a large popolo, and together they had captured many towns belonging to the Pisans on the other side of the Magra River and had raided above Sarzana—and on the 9th of January that year they came raiding all the way up to the city of Pisa. As a consequence, the Pisans were full of fear and suspicion toward the citizens inside their walls who were allies and partisans of the exiles, and day and night they remained under arms, keeping the gates closed for fear of losing the city. They sent messages to the Commune of Florence by many ambassadors, one after another, begging the Florentines to help them for God’s sake and send knights to guard their city, and promising always to be brothers and allies of the Commune of Florence. For this reason, the Florentines sent two hundred knights to them, and to Montopoli and to the other Florentine castelli in the Valdarno they sent more than five hundred who would go wherever the Pisans requested—to Pisa or to wherever they were needed. When these knights arrived in Pisa, the exiles retreated and the Pisans sent certain people, whose loyalty they doubted, out into exile and the city was left in peace and without fear. This service on the part of the Florentines came at a moment of great need for the rulers of Pisa, for were it not for this service it is certain that their city would have rebelled against them and overthrown their government.

CXCVIII How the Bolognese gave themselves unconditionally to the Church, and how the legate built a castello in Bologna. In the said year, on the 10th of January, by act of their solemn councils, perpetually privileged and free, the Bolognese gave themselves without any pact or reservation to the pope and the Church of Rome. This came about because of the shrewd measures taken by the legate of Lombardy, who dwelled in Bologna. He had promised them, using false letters from Pope John, that within one year the pope and his court would come to reside in Bologna. Using this trickery

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as a pretext, he began to have a castello built in Bologna—strong and magnificent—at the end of the meadow against the walls, saying that he was building it as the residence of the pope and preparing every feature of the residence nobly for this purpose. And he had built for himself what was almost another walled castello further inside the city, seizing for this purpose many houses belonging to citizens, saying that he would live there once the pope had come. And he had the areas marked out where all the other cardinals were to reside. All of these things he did purposely, falsely, so he could build the said fortress in order to better lord it over the Bolognese. Because of the profit they expected if the court were to come to Bologna—for everyone hoped to become rich—the Bolognese let themselves be fooled and consented to the building of this fortress and castello in Bologna. They sent their solemn ambassadors—their greatest citizens and syndics—to the pope in Avignon, giving him by an act of solemn obligation unconditional lordship and praying him on behalf of their commune to hasten his arrival at his city of Bologna. These ambassadors and syndics were received with grace by the pope and their act of obligation was accepted by the Church, the pope promising them many times in public councils that without doubt he would come to the city within the year. This promise was dissimulated and fictitious and was not honored by the pope, for which he was reproached by all Christians who knew of it, for the promise of a pope must not be false unless driven by need (which he did not have). But divine providence does not fail to justly punish he who goes back on his word using fraud and trickery, for a short time later when the aforesaid legate had finished building the said castello and was at the height of his glory and triumph, his host was defeated at Ferrara, the Bolognese rebelled against the Church, and chased him from Bologna—and they entirely demolished and tore down the said castello, as we will relate further ahead.³²⁴

CXCIX How the legate was made Count of Romagna and how he took the city of Forlì. In the year 1332, Pope John made the legate Count of Romagna, and the people of Forlì freely gave him lordship of their city. And the said legate entered the  The castello di Galliera would be torn down by rebels in 1334. The site would serve an analogous purpose under the papacy of Julius II, whose later fortress would also suffer the same fate —demolition by the Bolognese who saw it as a symbol of domination. See Frati, Il saccheggio and Vianelli, “Rocca o minaccia.”

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city’s walls in great triumph and honor with more than fifteen hundred of his knights, with the intention of visiting all the cities of Romagna and then of going to the Marca. He remained there, however, worried about Bologna because of new things arising in Lombardy, which we will describe a little further ahead.³²⁵

CC How the Commune of Florence ordered the building of the town of Firenzuola on the other side of the mountains. That year, the Ubaldini lords were divided and at war with one another. The parties competed in their appeals to the Commune of Florence, declaring that they would return to the obedience and the lordship of the commune if their members were freed from sentence of exile—and this was accepted by the Florentines. But since it was remembered that the Ubaldini had been reconciled with the commune many times in a similar manner, but had then rebelled when it was to their advantage, as one can find earlier in this chronicle, the commune planned to build a large and strong town on the other side of the crest of the mountains on the Santerno River, so that the Ubaldini would no longer be able to rebel and also so that the contadini of the distretto of Florence on the other side of the mountains would be free and exempt (for they were serfs and vassals of the Ubaldini). And so, they chose six great popolani of Florence to oversee construction of this town and gave these men extensive authority. It happened that when these officials were meeting in the Palace of the Popolo with the lord priors, they fell into a great disagreement about the name of this town, with one person suggesting one name and another person suggesting a different name. And I, the author of this work, finding myself among these men, said “I will suggest a very beautiful and useful name, and one that suits this venture. This will be a new town, and one situated in the heart of the mountains and within the lands of the Ubaldini, and it will lie near the borders of Bologna and Romagna. If it does not have a name that the Commune of Florence cares for or holds dear, then in the dire times of war that may come in the future, it will often be captured and brought into rebellion. But if you give it the name I suggest to you, the commune will be more jealous of it and will take more care to guard it, be-

 He returned because Azzone Visconti had surrounded the city of Modena and was devastating the surrounding territory, as Villani will describe in Nuova Cronica, XI: 206.

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cause I would call it, if it pleases you, Firenzuola.” When they heard this name, everyone, in accord and without any disagreement, was content and approved it. And, in order to increase and favor its status and power, they gave the town a standard and gonfalone decorated on one half with the arms of the commune and on the other half with the arms of the popolo of Florence. And they ordered that when it came time to give the principal church of that town its name, it should be called San Firenze. They granted freedom to anyone who would live in the town for ten years, and gathered all the neighboring people and all the people of the surrounding ville to live in it, releasing them from all sentences of exile that had been imposed by the commune. They also ordered that a market be held there one day a week. And construction began in the name of God on the 8th of April that year at almost the 8th hour of the day—as counseled by the foresight of astrologers, since the sign of Leo was rising—so that from its foundation it might be more lasting and strong, and more stable and powerful.

CCI How the Turks devastated most of Greece from the sea. In the said year, in the months of May and June, the Turks prepared three hundred eighty ships for war—great boats and warships—manning them with more than forty thousand Turks, and came by sea against Constantinople. They attacked the city and would have taken it, were it not for the aid of the Latins, both Genoese and Venetians. After that, they devastated many islands in the Archipelago and carried off more than ten thousand Greeks as slaves. Out of fear the men of Negroponte agreed to pay tribute, which caused a great clamor in the west—among the pope, the King of France, and the other rulers of Christians. And for this reason, these rulers planned to gather a fleet that would attack the Turks the following year—and this was done.³²⁶

 Raids like the one Villani describes here, carried out by the Turkish commander Umur of Aydin, threatened not only Byzantine possessions, but also the possessions of Latin powers— like Negroponte. Therefore, these years saw efforts to create a common military response. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 171– 74.

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CCII How the Della Scala took the city of Brescia and the city of Bergamo from King John, and how a league was established between us and the Lombards. In the said year, it seemed to the Guelphs of the city of Brescia that they were faring badly under the lordship of King John. And so, led by their ancient enmity against his father the Emperor Henry, and to show their contempt for the strong castello he had built above the city to keep them in greater subjection, they plotted to betray the city to the Della Scala Lords of Verona, who promised to maintain them in power and to chase from the city the Ghibelline party, which held with King John—and they set this plot in motion. On the 14th day of the month of June, after Messer Mastino della Scala had ridden to Brescia with fourteen hundred knights and a very large popolo, the Guelphs of the city began the uprising with weapons in hand, crying out “Death to the Ghibellines and to King John and long live the Della Scala lords!” And, fighting against their enemies, they opened a certain city gate they controlled and through it they admitted Messer Mastino and his men and chased out the Ghibellines and the men of King John. Many were captured and killed, except for those who escaped into the castello or who fled from the city. They laid siege to that castello, and entirely surrounded it with trenches and palisades. King John’s men held it until the 4th day of the month of July, since they were expecting aid from King John’s son, who was at Parma. He, however, did not dare come, hearing of Messer Mastino’s power and hearing that he held the city, and so the castello’s defenders surrendered and their lives were spared. And then, the following September, in a similar way, the said Messer Mastino took the city of Bergamo from King John’s men. And at this point, after negotiation, a league was established between the said Della Scala lords, and the Lord of Milan, and the Lord of Mantua, and the Marquesses of Ferrara with King Robert and the Commune of Florence against the Bavarian and King John or whoever might give him aid or favor—they would have each other’s friends as friends and enemies as enemies irrespective of their loyalties to empire and to Church. This league was to be composed of three thousand knights: six hundred from King Robert and six hundred knights from the Commune of Florence and eight hundred knights from the Della Scala lords and six hundred knights from the Lord of Milan and two hundred knights from the Lord of Mantua and two hundred knights from the Marquesses of Ferrara. The league was confirmed by ambassadors and syndics with solemn acts and oaths. And included in the pacts was the stipulation that the league would help Messer Azzone of Milan conquer the city of Cremona and Borgo San Donnino, and the Della Scala the city of Parma, and the Lord of Mantua

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the city of Reggio, and the Marquesses of Ferrara the city of Modena, and the Florentines the city of Lucca. And observe, o reader, this new revolution in the affairs of the world: King Robert, the leader of the party of the Church and the Guelphs, and also the Commune of Florence, joined in company with the greatest tyrants and the greatest Ghibellines of Italy, and particularly with Messer Azzone Visconti of Milan, who served Castruccio when he defeated the Florentines at Altopascio and who then came with his army all the way to the city of Florence, as we mentioned earlier in this chronicle. But King Robert and the Florentines were led to this by their fear of the Bavarian and King John and by their anger at the legate for the alliance he had made with King John. This league was praised by some and criticized by others, but at that time it was without doubt the salvation of the city of Florence and threw the plans of King John and the legate into confusion, as he who reads ahead will discover.

CCIII Of a great battle that took place above Barga, and how the Florentines lost it. That year the Luccans were with King John’s troops besieging Barga in Garfagnana, which was held by the Florentines. Many fortifications had been built around Barga, manned by eight hundred knights and a very large popolo. When the Florentines heard that provisions were running low for those in the town, they had their war captain ride there with all their cavalry; they departed from Pistoia on the 7th day of July and took the path through the mountains. When they arrived at Barga, however, they were in no way able to supply the town because of the blockades and the fortifications with which the Luccans had surrounded it, and so they turned back having won little honor. But later the Florentines, wanting to win the fight, formed a company with Marquess Ispinetta, for although he was a Ghibelline he was an enemy of the people of Lucca. They paid him great sums of money and sent him two hundred knights while he summoned another two hundred knights from Lombardy from the Della Scala lords and the Lords of Mantua. And he reached Barga in Garfagnana on the 12th day of September with four hundred knights and a large popolo, promising the Florentines that he would supply the town by force. For their part the Florentines moved out from Pistoia on the 7th day of September, numbering eight hundred knights and a large popolo, and took the Cerruglio, and Vivinaia, and Montechiari with the intention of forcing the Luccans to lift the siege of Barga. And if the Florentine forces had stayed in these places, and garrisoned them and supplied them, then most certainly they would have won the war for Lucca, for these places are so close above

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Lucca that they could have raided all the way to its gates every day. But when they saw that the Luccans were not leaving the siege but were in fact reinforcing it and also that Messer Simone Filippi, King John’s vicar, had ridden there with all the forces which remained in Lucca and had sent for knights from Parma, the Florentines abandoned the Cerruglio and those other fortresses above Lucca and rode to Garfagnana to the assistance of Barga. And there they fought against their enemy with all their force and skill—the Florentines attacking from one side and Spinetta attacking from the other side—and issued a challenge to Messer Simone Filippi, whose men were so well protected that neither the Florentines nor Spinetta could get near them. Knowing that the town could not hold out for much longer, Messer Simone did not wish to fight, and so the Florentines lost the battle and departed, returning to Pistoia, while Spinetta returned to his lands; and on the 15th day of October Barga surrendered to the Luccans, who spared the lives of its defenders. This campaign improved the position of the Luccans in the war, while the Florentine position was worsened. And much criticism was leveled against those who ruled Florence, some saying that it had been foolish to hold the town for so long and with such little profit, and that this plan had displeased most Florentines from the very beginning, and that it would have been possible to supply the town by spending three hundred gold florins, yet those who were in the priorate at that time failed to do this—although it later cost more than one hundred thousand gold florins, not counting the shame. And observe that when the Commune of Florence has undertaken ventures that are excessive and overly long, they have always turned out badly. And this can be seen clearly by reading earlier in this chronicle.

CCIV How the Genoese raided Catalonia with their fleet. In the said year, on the 20th day of August, fifty war galleys and six warships full of Genoese departed Genoa to attack the Catalans, to take revenge for the attack they had made the year before on the Riviera of Genoa. When they arrived in Catalonia they raided all of it: the coasts, as well as the islands of Mallorca and Menorca. And they caused great devastation and committed much robbery in many places without any resistance, and they seized five Catalan galleys that had run aground while fleeing—most of the men escaped, but they burned the galleys. They returned to Genoa safe and sound and with great honor on the 15th of October 1332.

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CCV How and why the Commune of Florence condemned the Commune of San Gimignano. In the said year, on the 10th day of September, the podestà of San Gimignano and many people of that city pursued their exiles with banners raised to the villa of Camporbiano in the contado of Florence, and because this villa then harbored these exiles, they attacked and burned it. The Commune of Florence was outraged by this act and the Florentines summoned the podestà, or in truth the capitano, along with many inhabitants of San Gimignano who had taken part in this raid, but these men did not appear to answer the summons. And so, the Commune of San Gimignano was condemned in Florence to pay a fine of fifty thousand lire and the said podestà, who was from Siena, was condemned, along with one hundred forty-seven men of San Gimignano, to be burned. And when the Commune of Florence made ready to have its soldiers carry out this sentence, the Commune of San Gimignano asked for forgiveness and pardon, placing itself freely at the mercy of the popolo and the Commune of Florence. For this reason, on the 10th day of October they were shown mercy and were pardoned; they were required to renew the ban on their exiles, to yield up their goods, and to compensate the people of Camporbiano for all the damage done to them, according to an estimate by the inhabitants and by the ambassadors of Florence, who were to go there to investigate. And these things were done.³²⁷

CCVI How the captain of Milan went back to war against the legate of Lombardy and King John. In the said year, in the month of October, Messer Azzone of Milan and his men had ridden to Cremona, pursuing a plot to take the city, which sided with the Church. Part of his men had entered the city by a gate that had been surrendered to them by the traitors, but the soldiers of the Church who were there in the city fought them and chased them out, capturing and killing some of them. After The exiles in question were members of casa Ardinghelli and the podestà was Piero Saracini. The submission of the Sangimignanesi to Florentine demands was a clear sign of their helplessness in the face of the larger city’s power—it presaged their final submission in 1353. Gardner, The Story of Siena and San Gimignano, 336 – 37.

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wards, because of this defeat, Messer Azzone and the Lord of Mantua, along with more than fifteen hundred knights, rode against the city of Modena and remained near the city for twenty days, devastating the surrounding territory. For this reason, there was great fear and suspicion in Bologna, and the legate, who was in Romagna on his way to the Marca, returned with his men to Bologna in great haste, filled with great worry and afraid of losing Bologna.

CCVII Of many fires that broke out in the city of Florence. In the said year, on the 13th day of November, a fire broke out at San Martino in the street that runs toward Orsanmichele, and three houses were burned along with the tower, or in truth the palace of the Giugni, doing great harm to the lanaiuoli who had their workshops in those places—four people, men and youths, died in this fire. And the following evening a fire broke out in Oltrarno at the house of the Bardi and burned two houses. And that very same evening a fire broke out at the corner of Borgo San Lorenzo, although it burned little. And then on the 19th of November fire broke out in the Borgo al Ciriegio and burned a house. And on the 26th of January, at midday, a fire broke out opposite the old bell tower of Santa Reparata at the Via di Balla, and this fire burned a house. And note that these things clearly show the influence of the planet Mars in Florence, for Mars has power over Florence, and when its triplicity is in the sign of Leo it is a sign of fire; and indeed in little more than one year many fires have broken out in our city, as appears here as well as earlier and later. Or, in truth, these fires broke out because of poor planning and poor watchfulness— this seems a more likely explanation.³²⁸ And do not marvel that in our treatise we record every fire that has broken out in our city of Florence, since when compared with other events they appear of little importance. But at no time does fire

 Villani makes this argument elsewhere, when describing disasters, natural and human: the stars make the city vulnerable to disaster, but human action or inaction actually brings it about. It fits with the sense of the chronicle as an appeal to human agency in a world governed by God —Florentines have a measure of control through penitence, through careful planning with an eye to the city’s past experience.

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break out, that the entire city is not disturbed, with all its people under arms and in great watchfulness.³²⁹

CCVIII How the host of the Marquesses of Ferrara was defeated by the son of King John at San Felice. That year the soldiers of the Marquesses of Ferrara were gathered in force with aid from the League of Lombardy. They had eleven hundred knights and a large popolo and were besieging the castello di San Felice in the contado of Modena— their captain was Messer Giovanni da Campo Sampiero of Padua—and had closely surrounded this castello with fortifications. And so Charles, son of King John, departed from Parma with his men and came to Modena to relieve the said castello; and the legate sent his cavalry of around eight hundred knights from Bologna to the borders of Modena, ordering that if the said Charles should request it they should fight against the marquesses. When the said Charles heard it said that the marquesses’ host was very scattered and disordered he acted like a bold leader, and, without waiting for aid from the legate’s men (since his strength and daring were increasing), he rode out of the city with nine hundred very worthy knights and with all the popolo of Modena. And when he reached the enemy host, he immediately attacked it, and the battle was hard fought and lasted from nones until after vespers. In the end King John’s men were victorious and more than five hundred knights and many from the popolo of the League of the Lombards were killed and captured. And among the captured were the said Messer Giovanni and many captains. This battle took place on the 25th of November that year. The standing of King John grew greatly because of this battle, and the legate also took on strength. And because the legate hated the marquesses, who would not yield him lordship of Ferrara, he immediately stirred up war against them and burned the villa of Consandolo. The marquesses, although they had been defeated, raided the territory of Bologna and burned the villa of Cierie.

 Villani indicates the possibility that fires might be used to sow panic or to provide cover for popular tumult. Indeed, he elsewhere describes plans to use fire to distract the city at the beginning of an uprising. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 115.

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CCIX How Messer Azzone Visconti took the city of Pavia from King John. In the said year, at the end of November, Messer Azzone Visconti, capitano of Milan, took the city of Pavia, which was yielded to him by a certain party of the citizens. This city was held by King John’s men, and when Messer Azzone took control of the city by force, King John’s soldiers could not withstand the great power of the Milanese, and they retreated into the strong castello that had been built long ago by Messer Matteo Visconti when he was Lord of Pavia. They bravely held this castello for more than four months, awaiting the aid that King John’s son and the men of the Church were to send from Piacenza and from Parma and also the coming of King John to Lombardy, as they had promised. The said castello was entirely surrounded with trenches and palisades by the men of Milan and also strong fortifications and fortresses manned by a large force of cavalry and a very large popolo. When, as we will mention ahead, King John arrived in Lombardy with a powerful force of cavalry, he came with more than fifteen hundred knights to the aid of the castello—this at the beginning of March. By force of arms he broke through some of the fortifications and palisades but because of the strength of the place he could only supply it with a very small quantity of provisions. A short time after he departed, the people in the castello ran out of provisions and for this reason a German count who was inside, serving King John, surrendered and was allowed to depart safe and sound with his soldiers—and so he did. The capitano of Milan was greatly exalted by this battle, while King John was brought low.

CCX How King John went to Avignon to Pope John. In the said year, in the month of November, King John came from France to Avignon in Provence to take council with Pope John. He led a company of many barons and lords of the Rhone Valley, to ensure that he would be given safe passage, because he feared entering the lands of King Robert. And he had good need of them, for the Seneschal of Provence, Messer Filippo di Sangineto, gathered more than six noble knights of Provence to contest his coming and the men of Avignon were under arms and at his command. But the pope, at the petition of the said lords, gave him permission to come in safety, and commanded the seneschal not to attack him. When King John came before the pope in Avignon, the pope made

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a great assault on him with words and threats, reproaching him for his ventures in the cities of Lombardy and in Lucca, which belonged to the Church. But this was a ruse, because all his campaigns were planned with the King of France and the legate of Bologna and were aimed at casting down the tyrants of Lombardy; and also because the King of France was secretly treating with the pope that he, or in truth his brother Messer Charles—who had no kingdom—might be king in Italy.³³⁰ With false apologies, King John placed himself at the mercy of the pope and the pope reconciled with him, as had been planned. He stayed at court more than fifteen days, every day in secret council with the pope, where they planned many secret things, which they carried out a short time later—the plots they laid were obvious, as we shall tell those who read further. And when King John left court, he went to France to proceed with these plans. We will leave for a time the movements of King John to speak of other news from Tuscany, but we will soon return to him, for we have much on our hands to tell.

CCXI How the Sienese defeated the Pisans and how the Pisans later raided all the way to Siena. In the said year, after the Pisans had seized power over Massa in Maremma, as we mentioned earlier, the Sienese and their captain, numbering three hundred knights and a large popolo, rode to the aid of a castello that the Pisans and the Massetani had besieged with two hundred knights and one thousand foot soldiers captained by Messer Dino della Rocca of the Maremma. The Sienese found their enemies in disarray and so on the 16th of December of that year they defeated them, causing them great harm, and many were captured and killed—the said captain was also captured. Afterwards the Sienese raided in the Valdera all the way to Forcole, to the great harm of the Pisans. Because of this defeat the Pisans, enraged, sent to Lucca and Parma for aid and hired as many troops as they could, so that in short order they had eight hundred good knights from over the mountains and named as their war captain Ciupo degli Scolari, an exile from Florence.³³¹ And he, in the following month of Feb This is Charles II Count of Alencon (1297– 1346), son of Charles de Valois and Marguerite d’Anjou.  Ciupo degli Scolari was a Ghibelline exile from Florence and condottiere; he would be involved in the political and military struggle for Lucca in 1341 (Nuova Cronica, XII: 133 and 134). Damiani, “Ciupo degli Scolari.”

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ruary, rode into the contado of Siena all the way to the plain of Filetta, destroying and burning whatever lay in his path and meeting no opposition. They burned Bagno a Macereto and then returned to Valle di Strova and to Badia a Spugnolo and did the same in those places and his scouts raided all the way to Camposanto, which is two miles from Siena—altogether they seized a great deal of plunder and caused great devastation. And they would have done more, if the Florentines had not sent two hundred knights from their forces to guard the castello di Colle, whereupon the Pisans, in fear, retreated and returned to Pisa, having won great honor. The Sienese had requested the assistance of the Florentines, asking that they send their forces to Siena to fight against the Pisans when they were attacking them. The Florentines had not wanted to give them these forces so as not to break the peace with the Pisans, fearing for the Florentines in Pisa, and their merchandise. As a consequence, the Sienese became greatly indignant with the Florentines, and they attributed all the dishonor, shame, and harm they had received at the hands of the Pisans to the Florentines, because they had not assisted them.

CCXII How King John’s son came to Lucca, and how the said King John returned to Lombardy. In the said year, on the first of January, Charles, the son of King John, came from Parma to Lucca and the Luccans paid him great honor as a king and their lord (although he remained but a short time in Lucca). But before he departed, he demanded forty thousand gold florins from the Luccans; in the end, however, with great effort and toil on the part of the citizens, he received twenty-five thousand gold florins. And so the celebrations the Luccans made at his arrival turned into bitterness and loss. And when he had done these things, the said Charles returned to Lombardy to see his father King John, who was returning from France and who had arrived in Turin at the end of January, accompanied by the Constable of the King of France, the Count of Armagnac, the Count of Forez and the Marshal of Mirepoix and many other lords and barons and with a company of eight hundred specially chosen knights of France and Burgundy and the Rhone Valley. It was said that he had received, either as a gift or as a loan, one hundred thousand gold florins from the King of France. The king arrived in Parma on the 26th of February and there he met with his son who led more than two thousand good knights, not counting the five hundred of his soldiers who were stationed in Lucca. He then departed Parma on the 10th of March

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with fifteen hundred knights, intending to bring aid to the castello di Pavia and retake the city. There he fought the battle we described earlier in the chapter on his loss of the city of Pavia. And since he could not achieve his aim he raided into the contado of Milan and then into the contado of Bergamo, causing great devastation. However, the Milanese commander did not wish to withdraw the army from the castello di Pavia, nor would he confront King John in battle, and since the king could not have battle he returned to Parma on the 27th of March.

CCXIII How the legate commanded the Florentines to leave the League of the Lombards. In the said year, on the first day of February, ambassadors from the legate came to Florence, beseeching our commune to abandon the league of the lords of Lombardy, saying that they were tyrants and his enemies and enemies of Holy Church, and citing many authorities and putting forward many arguments, stating that our city’s alliance with these lords was not appropriate and that they were hardly good allies, and that they had been in league with enemies who had sought to defeat us. It was responded to them that the league could not be abandoned, because it had been made with the assent of Pope John and King Robert and was directed against the Bavarian and against King John, our enemies and enemies of Holy Church—and also that the legate was not doing well by allying himself or associating with King John. In fact, because of this request by the legate the league took on greater strength, because the coming of King John with such a large force of cavalry as he was leading from beyond the Alps raised great suspicion of both him and the legate, and these suspicions would be borne out by their deeds, as will follow in coming chapters. And it is certain that if this league had not been created and maintained, our city would have faced great danger, because the legate and King John had planned to launch war in many places to bring our republic into submission to them, since certainly the legate’s greatest desire was for the Florentines to yield themselves to him like the Bolognese had done, and the things he was undertaking with King John were directed to this end—and this was revealed to be true by letters that were later discovered, by their opening phrases as well as their contents. And therefore, it was not folly if the Florentines allied themselves with the lesser enemy in order to confront the greater and more powerful one.

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CCXIV How the legate’s host defeated the marquesses at Consandolo, and then laid siege to Ferrara, and how the Florentines sent aid to that city. In the said year, on the 6th of February, the legate’s cavalry and men who were in Argenta suddenly rode to Consandolo, where the marquesses’ forces were, and boldly attacked and defeated them, taking the villa and the port and all their ships. And Marquess Niccolò was captured along with forty good men, commanders, to the great harm and loss of the marquesses. This defeat caused the marquesses’ power to decline greatly while the lordship and the power of the legate rose to such a degree that immediately and without delay, by his command, his cavalry, numbering fifteen hundred knights, along with a very large popolo and fleet of ships, laid siege to the city of Ferrara. They immediately took the borgo opposite the city as well as the Island of San Giorgio, and day after day their host grew larger: the legate sent all the commanders of Romagna to the siege, and two quartieri of the popolo of Bologna along with all Bologna’s cavalry were continually present in the said host. And they surrounded and almost closed off the city of Ferrara on both sides of the Po River so that no one could enter or leave without great danger. And so the marquesses and those in the city of Ferrara felt that they were in a bad way, and they were utterly terrified by the sudden and unforeseen siege, for they had not prepared themselves, not believing that the legate would make war on them, and also because they had been greatly weakened by the defeat they had suffered at San Felice. And they would most certainly have lost the city, had they not sent for aid from the lords of Lombardy, who were required to assist them as members of the league, and from the Commune of Florence. In response, the Florentines sent them four hundred knights of their best cavalry whose captains were Messer Francesco degli Strozzi and Ugo degli Scali under the banner of the Commune of Florence— the white field and the vermillion lily and above them the arms of King Robert. These men departed from Florence on the 2nd of March, and they were obliged to travel by sea to Genoa with great effort and expense, since they could not go by way of Parma or Bologna or Romagna; then they went from Genoa to Milan and then to Verona. The lords of those places received them with great honor. And the portion of the knights who were part of King Robert’s contribution were allowed to stay at our frontier with Lucca, so that they would not have to fight against the banners of the Church and of the legate.

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CCXV How King John came to Bologna to the legate. In the year 1333, on the 3rd of April, King John came to the legate in Bologna and passed Easter with him in great celebration. The Bolognese were much disturbed by this coming of King John to Bologna, and it appeared a bad thing to them. But they could do nothing to prevent it, since this would have been against the will of the legate; rather, they needed to pay fifteen thousand gold florins to the said King John, against their will but at the command of the legate. The king promised the legate that he would go with his cavalry to join the host at Ferrara, since he had heard that the league was going to its aid, and he sent ahead the Count of Armagnac with three hundred of his knights and his banners—then he returned to Parma to plan his next move. The Florentines, seeing the open alliance between King John and the legate, sent messages secretly to their knights that they should have no regard for the reverence they owed the legate, since he had become their enemy after King John came to Bologna and accepted his wages and sent his men and his banners to the host at Ferrara.

CCXVI How the legate’s host besieging Ferrara was defeated. The legate’s host besieging Ferrara had grown much larger, and it was about to get even larger because King John and his forces were arriving at the city as required. The men of the League of Lombardy began to fear that the city might be lost because of their delay in relieving it and so they decided to send aid before the arrival of King John. They immediately sent seventeen hundred knights: six hundred from the Della Scala, five hundred knights from the Milanese, and two hundred knights from the Lord of Mantua, along with twenty-five warships in the Po River, and four hundred knights from the Commune of Florence. This cavalry arrived in Ferrara almost unknown to the men in the besieging host, and they immediately decided to attack it. Since, however, the besieging host was greatly fortified behind trenches and palisades, each of the new companies refused to attack from that side, and there was a great dispute among them about this. In the end, the Florentine captains boldly promised to undertake this attack with the Avvogaro of Treviso and Marquess Spinetta, together with a select company of one hundred fifty knights from the forces of the Della Scala family. Among these, there were more than forty exiles from Florence, noble men, all

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of whom very willingly rallied beneath the banner of our commune and did not abandon it, even though it included the rake and the arms of King Robert. And they rode out by the gate that faces toward Francolino to attack the host on the side that was most fortified with trenches and palisades. Signalled by the sounding of a bell, all the other troops in the city exited on horse and on foot by the Porta del Leone and the fleet did the same by the Po River—their objective was to attack the Ponte da San Giorgio. Although this attack was strong and sudden, it would have had no effect against the barricades, barriers, and trenches that had been built between the city and the host, were it not for the fact that the Florentine troops, along with the others mentioned above, attacked the host from behind, and, employing sappers, they made a narrow passage over the moat and broke through some of the palisade. This palisade was poorly defended, because the sudden and unexpected attack from many sides, accompanied by cries and by the sounding of bells and instruments, left the men of the host almost stunned. And so the attackers, with great effort, nearly on top of one another, climbed to the cleared area of the besiegers’ camp where they found the Count of Armagnac and almost all the cavalry of Languedoc under the banners of King John, numbering six hundred knights, and boldly attacked them. The count and his men defended themselves and kept up the battle, fighting with energy in close formation for more than one hour so that it was unclear which side fought harder—in that entire host there was no one else that withstood the attack or fought against the attackers. In the end, thanks to our good men and our good captains, who all performed marvels of arms that day, we were victorious and the men in the count’s formation were defeated and routed. When this happened, the whole remaining host turned tail and fled, but flight availed them little since they were blocked by the Po River, and attacked from the boats and the warships. Almost none of them escaped, except for the few who started swimming, for everyone else was either captured or killed or drowned in the Po. And the Ponte di San Giorgio collapsed because of the great weight of the people who were fleeing across it, and many of these men drowned. Among the captured that day were the Count of Armagnac, and the Abbot of Granselva, and all the barons of Languedoc, and the lords of Romagna and the cavalry of Bologna—those who were not killed in the battle. This lamentable defeat, which greatly reduced the power and lordship of the legate and greatly weakened the power of King John, took place on the 14th of April 1333. The Lords of Ferrara and the forces of the league were all rich in prisoners and in plunder. But a few days later the marquesses, to ingratiate themselves with the Bolognese, released all the popolani of Bologna and a short time later the cavalry and the lords of Romagna, so as to win them as allies and steal them away from the legate.

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CCXVII Of fires and other things which occurred in the city of Florence. In the said year 1333, during the night of the 19th of April, a fire broke out in Florence at the Porta dell’Alloro at Santa Maria Maggiore and a house burned. And then on the 17th of July a fire broke out in Parione, and another house burned. And this year, work began on the foundations of the great Porta da San Friano, or rather the Porta da Verzaia, which was excessively large in comparison to the other gates of the city—the officials who began this work were much criticized. And one month before the Feast of Saint John the Baptist this year, two brigate of artisans were formed in Florence: one was in the Via Ghibellina and its three hundred members were all dressed in yellow; the other brigata was in the Corso de’ Tintori near the Ponte Rubaconte and they dressed in white, and numbered around five hundred. And for around an entire month there were games and entertainments throughout the city as they went about two by two with trumpets and many instruments, wearing garlands on their heads and dancing, with their kings very honorably crowned, with canopies of cloth-of-gold above their heads; at their courts they constantly offered lunches and dinners, at great and lavish expense. But this cheer would a short time later turn into weeping and pain, and especially in those neighborhoods, owing to the flood that came to Florence, which caused more damage there than in other parts of the city, as we will recount further on.³³² And these celebrations seemed a contrary sign of future troubles, as is usually the case for false and deceptive worldly joys —for after excessive happiness follows excessive bitterness. And it is good to note this, as a lesson for us and for those who will come after us.

CCXVIII Of the movements of King John, after he came to Bologna at the bidding of the legate. In the said year, on the 15th of May, after the said defeat at Ferrara, the legate, fearing for his state, sent for King John, who, accompanied by a small following,  The flood, in other words, punishes all Florentines, but also discriminates, visiting greater destruction on particularly sinful neighborhoods. It should be emphasized that Villani identifies these as brigate of artisans—their pride in aping the customs of their betters may be one aspect of the sinfulness identified here. For this see Trexler, Public Life, 220.

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came from Parma to Bologna to meet with him. He soon departed with money he received from the legate. But then, on the 8th day of June, he returned to Bologna with two thousand knights with whom he intended to move into the Romagna and bring relief to the castello di Mercatello in Massa Trabaria, which was under siege by the Aretines. The king’s coming filled the Bolognese with great fear and suspicion, that King John might wish to become their lord and return the Ghibellines to Bologna. While he was staying in Bologna, however, the Aretines took the said castello on terms of surrender, because his relief efforts were delayed. And it was openly said that King John, acting as the Aretines’ friend, at their behest and out of Ghibelline party spirit, delayed his aid. For this reason, the legate grew angry with him, and the king departed without his leave on the 15th of June, returning to Parma. Then on the 16th of July, the said King John came to the city of Lucca and had a tax of fifteen thousand gold florins imposed on the people of Lucca to pay his men. Once this was collected, on the 13th of August, he and his son departed from Lucca and went to Parma.

CCXIX How the Count of Anguillara and Bertoldo degli Orsini were killed by the Colonna. In the said year, on the 6th day of May, the Count of Anguillara and his brotherin-law Bertoldo di Messer … degli Orsini were coming to meet with Messer Stefano della Colonna and with the others in order to negotiate an accord (there having long been trouble between the Colonna and the Orsini of Rome).³³³ But Stefanuccio di Sciarra della Colonna set an ambush with his company of mounted men-at-arms outside the castello di Cesaro and they suddenly attacked the said Bertoldo degli Orsini and the said count, who were not expecting this and who had fewer men than their attackers. Seeing that they were under attack, they defended themselves with vigor, but, being outnumbered, they were routed, and the said Bertoldo and the count were killed. This Bertoldo was the most respected man of Rome and the most valiant, and his death was a great loss, and the Colonnesi were greatly rebuked for the treachery by which he was killed and also because in all the wars that had taken place between the Orsini and the Co Peter Partner has Petrarch describe the “bad time for the Roman area” in 1336: “Peace is the one thing I have not found. The shepherd goes armed to the woods, the armoured laborer uses a lance instead of a goad … at nighttime there are dreadful cries without the walls; in the day, cries of ‘To arms, to arms!’” Partner, The Lands of St. Peter, 327.

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lonna, never had any one of them been killed or wounded. This was the beginning of much evil and it is for this reason we have mentioned it.³³⁴

CCXX How the Saracens took the strong castello di Gibraltar in Spain. In the said year, in the month of June, the Saracens of Morocco and those of Granada heard that the strong castello di Gibraltar in Spain, which of old had belonged to them, was poorly supplied with provisions.³³⁵ Encouraged by the grain shortage in that land and having laid a plot, they immediately came by sea and by land with many ships and an army of soldiers on horse and on foot. And they took it on terms of surrender after a few days, when it was betrayed to them by the castellan, in return for the large amount of money they paid him (although it could have held out until help arrived even if it was low on provisions). As soon as the King of Spain knew of this, he immediately came with his host and all his power and he would have retaken it most quickly, because owing to the king’s speedy arrival it had not yet been resupplied. However, as pleased God the king’s ships that had departed from Seville with fodder and supplies for the host were delayed for many days by a storm at sea. And so, the Christian host suffered a great shortage of provisions, and was forced to depart. Indeed, if the Saracens of Granada had known this, not a man would have escaped death or capture. Three days after the host had departed, the ships and the provisions arrived, but this relief was in vain. And thus it often goes in war, as God disposes events in order to punish sins.

CCXXI How the young King Edward defeated the Scots at Berwick.

 The victims were Bertoldo di Poncello Orsini and Francesco dell’Anguillara. This murder, which took place as the Orsini and the Colonna were considering a truce, led to terrible reprisals by the Orsini legate. Gatto, “Francesco Anguillara” and Beattie, Angelus Pacis, 146 – 47.  Gibraltar had been in Christian hands since 1309, when it was captured by Ferdinand IV of Castile. Noble rebellions and the simultaneous siege of Castro by the King of Granada complicated King Alfonso XI’s attempts to respond to this invasion and the subsequent siege. Alfonso XI would make a later, failed attempt to recover the castle in 1350. Agrait, “Sieges of Gibraltar.”

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In the said year, on the 19th of July, King Edward the Younger of England was with a great host of Englishmen and other peoples besieging the city or rather town of Berwick, which is on the border between England and Scotland. The Scots came to relieve the town with their king, whose name was David, son of the worthy Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, of whom mention was made earlier, and without delay all their forces confronted the English in battle. And because he had good cavalry, which came from Flanders, Brabant, and Hainaut and was captained by Messer Henry de Beaumont, the King of England defeated the Scots, and more than twenty-five thousand men, almost all of whom were on foot, were killed or captured. And a few days after the King of England had won this victory, the town of Berwick freely surrendered to him.³³⁶ This war recommenced in the following manner, as we described in time of the good Edward the Elder, grandfather of this Edward the Younger: there had been great wars and battles between Edward the Elder and King Robert the Bruce, followed by peace; and when King Robert the Bruce died he left behind his son, the said David, who was a little boy; when David had grown in age, the said Edward the Younger gave him his sister to wife and crowned him with the Kingdom of Scotland, having him anointed as king—for no one in Scotland had ever been anointed and blessed—and his possession of the kingdom was recognized in return for homage. Then, the said David, seduced by Philip of Valois, King of France, rebelled against the King of England and crossed with his wife to France. It was for this reason that the old war between the English and the Scots was renewed. And so, the King of England deposed the said David from the Kingdom of Scotland and declared him to be a rebel; he then elected and crowned as King of Scotland Robert Balliol [Edward Balliol], countryman of Robert the Bruce, and launched the war that led to the said defeat. And although the King of England was victorious in this war, the Earl of Eriforte and two of his other cousins and many other great barons of England died. We have laid out the causes of this renewed war, because the great war between the King of France and the King of

 This was the Battle of Halidon Hill. The context of the battle was a 1332 invasion of Scotland by Edward Balliol, son of King John Balliol and English-supported rival to David II, son of Robert the Bruce. After winning a victory at Dupplin Moor, the invaders lost the initiative to their enemies and moved southward to cross the border with England. By spring 1333, however, Edward had won the active support of the English and had returned to besiege the town of Berwickupon-Tweed. Edward III was present at this battle, his troops in an optimal position and supported by a large number of longbowmen—the Scots’ troops were slaughtered. Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots, 119 – 38; Brown, The Wars of Scotland, 1214 – 1371, 235 – 36; and Sadler, Border Fury: England and Scotland at War, 192– 94.

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England later arose from it and was born from it, as this chronicle will describe further on.

CCXXII How the Dauphin of Viennois was killed by the Count of Savoy’s men. In the said year, at the end of the month of July, the Dauphin of Viennois was besieging La Perrière, a castello belonging to the Count of Savoy, with fifteen hundred knights, both his men and his allies.³³⁷ The Dauphin wanted to launch an attack on the said castello, and while he was going around it, unarmored, reconnoitering, he was shot by a bolt from a large crossbow so that when he was taken back to his tent and the bolt was removed he passed from this life. And really, it is folly for princes to go exploring in this way while unarmored, since they place themselves and all their host in danger. But the death of the Dauphin did not cause his barons and knights to abandon the siege; rather, like bold and worthy men they stayed for so long that they took the castelletto by force, and whomever they found inside they flung from the walls with their mangonels; and then they raided the territory and the lands of Savoy, meeting no resistance whatsoever. After him, Messer Humbert, his brother, who was in Naples with his uncle King Robert, was made Dauphin; he came to his lands on the advice of Pope John and King Robert, because the King of France was asking the pope to have the Kingdom of Vienne and Arles; and he made peace with the Count of Savoy, so that the King of France might not exercise lordship over him.³³⁸

 Dauphin Guy VIII of Viennois (1309 – 1333) was the son of Dauphin John II and Beatrice of Hungary. He was a well-respected warrior who fought at the Battle of Cassel and spent much of his reign locked in warfare against the Savoy (the Count of Savoy mentioned in this chapter is Count Aymon the Peaceful). On events after the death of the dauphin see Cox, The Green Count, 23 – 32.  Dauphin Humbert II of Viennois (1312– 1355) was the son of Dauphin John II and Beatrice of Hungary. Near the end of his life, Humbert transferred his lands to King Philip VI of France, in return for a substantial monetary payment. He ended his life as a member of the Dominican Order. See Cox, The Green Count, 29 – 30 and 74– 75.

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CCXXIII How the King of Hungary came to Naples, and how his son married the daughter of the Duke of Calabria. In the said year, on the last day of July, Charles Robert, King of Hungary, arrived with his second son Andrew and many barons at the city of Bastia in Puglia.³³⁹ When they arrived in Manfredonia, they were received with great honor by Messer John, King Robert’s brother and Duke of Durazzo, accompanied by many barons, and were then escorted all the way to Naples. When he arrived, King Robert came to meet him at the meadows of Nola, kissing him on the mouth in a sign of great hospitality; and it was ordered that a church be built at that place in honor of Our Lady as a perpetual memorial of their union - and this church was later built. When they arrived in Naples, the great celebration began, and the King of Hungary was greatly honored by King Robert. The King of Hungary was his nephew, son of the late Charles Martel, firstborn of King Charles II, and it was said by many that he should have succeeded to the Kingdom of Sicily and Puglia. Because King Robert seems to have been aware of this claim, and also because the Duke of Calabria, King Robert’s son, had died leaving no heir but only two daughters, nor did King Robert have another male son, he intended, lest the kingdom fall to another lineage, that after him the kingdom would succeed to the son of his nephew the King of Hungary. And on the 26th of September that year, by the dispensation and the will of Pope John and his cardinals, he had the eldest daughter of the late Duke of Calabria, who was five years old, married to the said Andrew, who was seven years old, and he made him Duke of Calabria. The marriage took place with great celebration, and the Commune of Florence sent eight ambassadors from among the greatest knights and popolani of Florence, accompanied by fifty pages all dressed in the same livery to do honor to the said kings—who were very pleased. Then, shortly after these celebrations were finished, the King of Hungary departed and returned to his lands, leaving his son and his wife in Naples with splendid companions under the protection of King Robert.³⁴⁰

 Andrew (1327– 1345) was the son of Charles I of Hungary and Elizabeth of Poland. On Robert’s efforts to determine succession, see Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli, 152– 53.  Andrew’s murder and the consequences for the Regno form some of the most exciting chapters in the thirteenth book of Villani’s chronicle. See especially Villani, Nuova Cronica, XIII: 51. See also Casteen, From She-Wolf to Martyr.

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CCXXIV How peace was made between the Pisans and the Sienese. In the said year, on the 2nd day of September, the long negotiations to find an accord between the Pisans and the Sienese for the war they had fought over the city of Massa, negotiations set in motion by the commune and the Bishop of Florence—who worked hard to bring it about—were brought to completion in the city of Florence by great embassies from each of the communes. This was done in the following manner: Massa would remain free, and every faction that was in exile would be readmitted; neither the Pisans nor the Sienese would have any power there, but for three years the said Bishop of Florence would impose any lordship he wished—during this time he imposed the lordship of Florence. The guarantor of this peace for the one commune and the other commune was the Commune of Florence and there was a penalty of ten thousand marks of silver to be paid by the side that broke peace with the other side. This peace was observed for only a short time by the Sienese, as will be mentioned ahead.

CCXXV How the cities of Forlì, Rimini, and Cesena in Romagna rebelled against the legate. In the said year 1333, on Sunday, the 19th day of September, Francesco di Sinibaldo Ordelaffi, who had been chased out of Forlì by the legate, entered Forlì secretly, hidden in a cartload of hay.³⁴¹ And as soon as he was in the city he sent for all his allies, leaders of the city, by whom he was much beloved on account of his ancestors. When they learned of his arrival, they greatly rejoiced, because it seemed to them that they were living badly under the lordship of the men of Cahors and Languedoc. And so right away they had the entire popolo take up arms and then thronged to the piazza crying out “Long live Francesco and death to the legate and to anyone from Languedoc!” They seized the city and robbed the leg-

 Francesco II Ordelaffi (d. 1374) was the son of Sinibaldo Ordelaffi. His Ghibelline family had held lordly power in Forlì since the early fourteenth century. Francesco’s uncle named him as successor in 1331, but when Forlì fell to the papal legate Bertrand du Pouget in 1332, Francesco was removed from Forlì and granted Forlimpopoli. The broad league against King John of Bohemia and the legate, whose formation Villani has discussed, gave Francesco his chance to return to power in Forlì. Poloni, “Francesco di Sinibaldo Ordelaffi.”

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ate’s officials, some of whom were killed—those who escaped fled to Faenza. And then on the following Wednesday, on the 22nd of September, Messer Malatesta of Rimini and his followers entered Rimini with two hundred knights and many foot soldiers by a gate which had been betrayed to them by the men of the city; he seized the city and his men killed, robbed, and captured as many of the legate’s men as were inside—more than five hundred men between horsemen and foot soldiers—for none were able to flee from the city. And likewise, in those days the city of Cesena was brought into rebellion by the citizens themselves, except for the castello, which was very strong. The forces of the legate retreated into this castello, but it was besieged inside and out by the men of Cesena and the other Romagnols, who surrounded it with moats and with palisades; since it was not relieved by the legate, its defenders surrendered and their lives were spared at the beginning of January. And observe that the said rebellion was not without cause. One of the most important causes was that all the lords and leaders of Romagna had been captured at the defeat of Ferrara where they had served the Church and the legate. They needed to ransom themselves, and the legate—like an ungrateful lord—did not wish to provide them with anything for their redemption, not even a loan of his money.

CCXXVI How the sons of the late Castruccio intended to take Lucca from King John and how he departed from Italy and left Lucca to the Rossi of Parma. In the said year, King John of Bohemia had the intention of leaving Italy, seeing that his ventures were not as fortunate as he had expected. And while he was in Parma he tried through many negotiations with the Florentines, Pisans, and others to sell the city of Lucca. But in the end, since it seemed to him that this was a shameful thing to do, he did not conclude an agreement. When they heard about this, the sons of the late Castruccio—whom King John was holding as hostages with him in Parma because of his suspicion of them—fearing that they might lose their state, secretly left Parma and went to Garfagnana. And they planned, with their followers from Lucca and the exiles of Lucca, to capture the city and bring it into rebellion against King John. And so on the 25th of September of that year, they entered Lucca by night with a great following of men on horse and on foot, and they seized the city and were its lords that day and the next—all except for the castello dell’Augusta, into which the forces of King John in Lucca had retreated. When King John heard that the sons of Castruccio had departed and learned of their conspiracy, he immediately left Parma with part of his men,

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and in less than two days he came to Lucca; that is, it was Monday evening on the 27th of September. And because of the suddenness of his arrival—so sudden indeed that the Luccans could hardly believe it until they saw him—his men were able to seize the city as soon as they arrived. That very night the sons of Castruccio and their followers left Lucca and went to Garfagnana and King John publicly condemned them as traitors. He stayed for a number of days thereafter in Lucca, but then, after extracting as much money as he could from the Luccans, he ceded the guardianship and the lordship of the city of Lucca to the Rossi of Parma, pawning it to them for thirty-five thousand gold florins which he received from them in coin.³⁴² After returning to Parma, on the 15th of October of the said year, he immediately departed accompanied by his son and by certain leaders of his troops and went to Germany, leaving Parma and Lucca under the lordship of the Rossi, and Reggio under the lordship of the Da Fogliano, and Modena under the lordship of the men of casa Pigli—and from each of these he received a great deal of money. Such, and with such honor, was the departure from Lombardy and from Tuscany of King John, who, when he first came to Italy, had received from false fortune so much success with so little effort and who had firm hope of becoming in short order the king and the lord of Italy with the aid of the Church and its legate and with the favor of the King of France—a hope which came entirely to naught.

CCXXVII Of a great controversy caused by Pope John, who declared that the souls of the blessed cannot see God perfectly until the Day of Judgment. In the said year 1333, in Avignon, Pope John proclaimed his opinion regarding the vision possessed by souls after they have passed from this life (he had conceived and formulated this opinion two years before). To wit, he preached many times in public consistory before all his cardinals and court prelates that no saint, not even Saint Mary, can perfectly see the hoped-for holy sight, that is God in His Trinity, which is the true Deity. Rather, he said, they can only see the humanity of Christ which He took from the Virgin Mary. And he declared that this imperfect vision would last until the sounding of the angelic trumpet, that is when the son of God will come to judge the living and the dead, saying to

 These were Rolando, Marsilio, and Pietro Rossi. On the period of Rossi power in the city see Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 56 – 76.

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the blessed “Venite benedicti patris mei, percipite regnum, etc.” and on the other hand, to the damned, “Ite maladetti in ignem etternum.”³⁴³ And from then onward the blessed will possess perfectly the clear vision of the true and infinite deity and this will be the opposite of the torments of the damned; for, so he said, just as the imperfection and incompleteness of their blessedness will end on Judgement Day, thanks to the virtue of their good deeds, that very imperfection is to be understood as the punishment, and the penalty, and the suffering [owed] for bad deeds.³⁴⁴ Hence, observe that he did not demonstrate in his opinion that there is a hell until the words are spoken “Ite maladitti etc.” He expounded and argued this opinion of his, adducing many authorities and sayings of the saints. This matter was displeasing to the greater part of the cardinals, [but] nonetheless he commanded them and all the theologians and prelates at court under pain of excommunication that each one study the question of the vision of the saints and report to him, each according to their opinion—either in favor or in opposition—protesting that he had not as yet decided either way, but rather what he was saying and proposing was a disputation and a means of finding the truth. But despite all his protestations it was said and indeed it was seen in his actions that he agreed with and believed in the said opinion, because when any theologian or prelate provided him with any authority or saying of the saints that in any way favored this opinion, he received that person with pleasure and graced him with some benefice. When the Minister General of the Friars Minor, who was from the pope’s land and who was his man, preached this opinion in Paris he was rebuked by all the masters of divinity [in the city] and by the Franciscans, the Augustinians, and the Carmelites. This minister was also strongly rebuked by King Philip of France, who told him that he was

 “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” and “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matthew 25:34 and Matthew 25:41.  The controversy over the Beatific Vision—the direct apprehension of God—was one of a number of theological controversies which contributed fuel to the fire of conflict between the pope and his enemies. On the controversy, see the introduction to Dykmans, Les sermons de Jean XXII sur la vision béatifique. Villani expresses a lively interest in theological debate around the Beatific Vision, treating the issue as it evolves, in XII: 19 (1334, John XII’s retraction of his opinion that blessed souls in heaven can only see God after the Last Judgment) and XII: 47 (1336, Benedict XII’s proclamation of the Bull Benedictus Deus, reaffirming the vision of blessed souls since the crucifixion onward). Jérémie Rabiot notes that Villani is the only secular chronicler to write on this subject and considers his contribution as a form of cultural mediation, wherein he explores the dogmatic, ecclesiological, and political stakes of the issue for the layman of middling culture. Rabiot, “La culture théologique,” 15 – 18. See also Trottmann and Dumouch, Benoit̂ XII.

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a heretic and said that if he did not recognize his error he would have him killed as a Patarine, because his kingdom would not tolerate any heresy. Indeed, he continued, even if the pope himself, who had proclaimed the said false opinion, were to support this minister, he would still rebuke him as a heretic, since, speaking as a layperson, as a faithful Christian, it would be vain to pray to the saints or to hope for salvation through their merits, if Our Lady Saint Mary and Saint John and Saint Peter and Paul and the other saints could not see the Deity until the Judgment Day and have perfect blessedness in eternal life. He also said that according to the opinion presented by the Minister General every indulgence and pardon granted of old by Holy Church, or that might be granted in the future, was in vain, and this would be a great error and harmful to the Catholic faith. It would be best if before departing from Paris the said Minister General would preach the opposite opinion, stating that what he said was intended as a matter for disputation, but that his belief was what Holy Church was accustomed to believe and preach. And the King of France and King Robert both wrote to Pope John about this, politely rebuking him and declaring that although he was supporting the said opinion as a matter of disputation in order to find the truth, they believed that it was not proper for a pope to provoke dubious disputations which are against the Catholic faith, but that rather he should cut off and extirpate those who raised such disputations. The majority of the cardinals, who rejected the said opinion, were very content with this response. And for this reason the King of France became very bold with Pope John, and there was no favor or thing he could ask that the pope would dare refuse. And this was an important reason why Pope John went along with the King of France and gave him hope that he might have the lordship of Italy and the Empire of Rome, as a result of the plots set in motion by King John, which we have described earlier and as we will continue to describe further on in this chronicle. This opinion was debated in court while Pope John lived, and then for more than a year after his death but in the end, the question was concluded and his opinion was rejected, as one will be able to discover reading ahead in this chronicle. We will now leave this disputation, since we have said much about it, and return to our subject, the events in our city of Florence, to tell of great misfortune and peril—a flood of water that came in those days to our city. It will be well to describe this at length since it was one of the greatest events and dangers that the city of Florence had ever endured since it was rebuilt. Thus we will begin the twelfth book by recounting that flood, and this is necessary, since it almost completely transformed our city.

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Book Twelve I Here begins the twelfth book, which we will start by recounting a great flood that came to Florence and almost all of Tuscany.³⁴⁵ In the year of our Lord 1333, on the first of November, Florence being very powerful and in a good and prosperous state, more than it had been since the year 1300, it pleased God to visit a punishment upon our city, for as Christ says in His Gospel: “Be vigilant, for you know neither the day nor the hour of God’s judgment.”³⁴⁶ Thus, on that All Saints’ Day it began to rain excessively in Florence, and in the surrounding territory, and in the high peaks and mountains, and so it continued for four days and four nights, the rain ever increasing in an unusual and extraordinary way. It seemed that floodgates had opened in the sky,³⁴⁷ and along with the said continuous rain, there were great and frequent and frightening bursts of thunder and lightning, and thunderbolts striking, whence everyone was afraid for their lives, ringing the bells of all the churches throughout the city, until the water rose too high. And in each house, there were basins and cauldrons to catch the water, and people in danger

 This disastrous flood of 1333 is the subject of a number of scholarly articles. See the recent Frati, “Questo diluvio,” 41– 60, and two works by Salvestrini, the article “L’Arno e l’alluvione fiorentina del 1333,” 231– 56, and a book, Libera città su fiume regale; see also Schenk “‘… prima ci fu la cagione de la mala provedenza de’ Fiorentini … ,’” 355 – 86 and “L’alluvione del 1333,” 27– 54; see also Moulinier and Redon, “‘Pareano aperte le cataratte del cielo,’” 137– 54 and 143 – 44. On the mentality and perspective around the flood, see Ortalli, “‘Corso di natura’ o ‘giudizio di Dio,’” 155–88, and Louis Green, Chronicle into History, 33 – 34. For a discussion of Antonio Pucci’s Centiloquio, and three contemporary poems, in their descriptions of the flood, see Pucci and Rossi, La grande inondation. For further narrative sources, see the bibliographies in Frati and Salvestrini. On the relation of the flood to Giotto’s career and works, Skaug, Giotto and the Flood of Florence in 1333.  This phrase occurs in Matt. 24:42, where it is closely preceded by a reference to Noah and the flood: “For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.” Matt. 24:38 – 41. See also Matt. 25:13, Mark 13:32– 37, and Luke 12:40.  The expression “aperte le cataratte del cielo” mirrors the Latin phrase “cataractae caeli apertae sunt” from Gen. 7:11. Villani clearly had the Genesis passage in mind as he composed his description of the flood that devastated Florence, as many parallels are evident.

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were screaming and crying out to God “Have pity! Have pity!” as people fled from house to house, from roof to roof, making bridges from house to house, whence there was such a great noise and tumult, that it drowned out the sound of the thunder.³⁴⁸ The rain caused the Arno River to swell with such an abundance of water, that firstly, descending from its source in the high mountains with great destruction and force, it submerged much of the Casentine plain, and then it submerged all the Arezzo plain, and that of the Upper Valdarno, in such a way that it covered and overran everything with water and spoiled all the crops that had been sown, knocking down and uprooting the trees. Moving forward, it carried with it every grain and wool mill on the Arno, and every building and house along the Arno that was not sturdy, causing many people to perish. And then the Arno, descending onto our plain near Florence, joined together with the River Sieve, which was similarly huge and overflowing and had flooded the whole Mugello plain, to such a degree that every stream that ran into the Arno looked like a river. And as a result, by nones on Thursday, November 4th, the Arno was so swollen as it reached the city of Florence that it covered all the plain of San Salvi and of Bisarno, having risen beyond its banks, the height of the water being in many places six or eight braccia deep on the fields, and in some places more than ten. The surge of the water was so great, that the space where the Arno flows through the city was not able to receive it, because of the many weirs³⁴⁹ made within the city for the mills; indeed, the Arno, because of these weirs, had risen above its former bed by more than seven braccia. And therefore, at the Porta Croce a Gorgo and the Porta Renaio, the height of the water rose over six braccia and it broke and knocked down the outer door of the said gate, and each of the other gates it also broke and cast to the ground.³⁵⁰ And in the first sleep of that night it broke through the communal wall along the Corso de’ Tintori, across from the front of the dormitory of the Friars Minor—for a length of one hundred thirty braccia. Through this break, the Arno came more

 This passage is replete with internal rhymes (onde, sonando, suono, tuono), coupled synonyms, and repetitions of words (“house to house,” “roof to roof”) that recreate the incessant pounding of the thunder (natural sounds) and church bells (human sounds). A tangle of descriptive phrases, whose verbs are mainly gerunds and in the imperfect tense, often without clear subject, disperse the focus of the action, finally ending on the word “thunder.”  The weirs were low dams intended to regulate the level and flow of the water of the Arno, which in turn provided steady power to the mills, factories of dyers and tanners, and to the Zecca, or mint. The weirs also served to protect the city from enemy incursions by boat.  These were the two city gates on the eastern side of the city. Porta San Francesco (del Renaio)—later known as Porta Giustizia but no longer in existence—was right at the banks of the Arno, near the current Piazza Piave, and the Porta alla Croce was about 1/3 mile to the north. That gate is still visible at the modern Piazza Beccaria.

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fully into the city, and brought forth such a great abundance of water, that first it broke and ruined the place of the Friars Minor,³⁵¹ and then all of the city on this side of the Arno. All throughout the city, the streets were badly flooded, some more and some less, but the worst flooding was in the sesti of San Piero Scheraggio, Porta San Piero, and Porta Duomo.³⁵² We will now describe this in such a way that whoever will read this in times to come will be able to understand the exact and remarkable measurements of the flood levels as we will describe presently. In the Church and Duomo of San Giovanni, the water rose up to the floor above the altar, more than halfway up the porphyry columns before the front door. And in Santa Reparata, it reached as far as the arches of the old vaults below the choir. And it knocked down the column with the cross with the miracles of Saint Zenobius that was in the square.³⁵³ And at the Palace of the Popolo where the priors are, it climbed to the first step of the stairway where one enters, opposite the Via Vacchereccia, which is almost the highest point of Florence. And at the Palace of the Commune, where the podestà stays, it climbed to a height of six braccia in the lower courtyard where trials are held. At the Badia of Florence, it reached the foot of the main altar, and similarly in Santa Croce, where the Friars Minor are, it rose to the foot of the main altar. In Orsanmichele and in the Mercato Nuovo it rose to two braccia, and in the Mercato Vecchio to two braccia, over the entire area. And in the Oltrarno, it rose to a great height in the streets along the Arno, especially in San Niccolò, and in Borgo Pidiglioso, Borgo San Frediano, and Borgo da Camaldoli, causing great ruin to the poor and common people who lived in ground-floor dwellings. The water was in the piazza as far as the cross street, and it was in Via Maggio almost as far as San Felice. On that same Thursday, at the hour of vespers, the force and impetus of the water flowing in the Arno riverbed broke through the weir at Ognissanti and destroyed two large sections of the communal wall that faces it, behind the Borgo San Friano; it tore down a section of more than five hundred braccia. And the guard tower at the end of the said wall was almost completely knocked down by two lightning strikes. Right after the weir of Ognissanti broke, the Ponte Carraia was destroyed and fell, except for two arches on this side of the river. And immediately afterward, the Ponte Santa Trinita fell in the same way, except

 The Friars Minor are the Franciscans and the building described was part of the complex of structures at Santa Croce. The current Church building was under construction at that time. Frati, “Questo diluvio,” 8 – 9. The dormitory to which Villani refers was destroyed by fire in the early fifteenth century.  San Piero Scheraggio and Porta San Piero were the two easternmost sesti, to the north of the Arno, and the sesto of Porta Duomo occupied the northern part of the city.  The three columns mentioned were all in Piazza San Giovanni.

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for one pier and one arch on the side of the church. Meanwhile, the Ponte Vecchio had become packed with a great deal of timber that had been caught up and captured by the Arno, and, because of the narrowness of the Arno bed at that point, the water rose and surpassed the arches of the bridge and entered into the houses and shops built upon it—and because of the excess of water, the bridge was knocked down and destroyed, so that nothing remained there but two of the middle piers. And at the Ponte Rubaconte,³⁵⁴ the water ran over the arches from the side and partially broke the embankment, and rushed into many places. And it broke and knocked down the castello Altafronte,³⁵⁵ and the majority of the houses of the commune along the Arno, from the said castello Altafronte to the Ponte Vecchio. And the statue of Mars that was on the column at the foot of the said Ponte Vecchio, on this side, fell into the Arno. And note, regarding Mars, that the people of antiquity said and wrote that if the statue of Mars were to fall or be moved, the city of Florence would see great peril or change.³⁵⁶ And not without reason was this said, for this has been proven by experience, as this chronicle will recount. To one looking upon the said destruction —the statue of Mars fallen; all the houses destroyed between the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte Carraia, as far as the millpond along the Arno; all the roads in Borgo San Iacopo ruined, as well as those along the Arno on both sides—it seemed almost chaos.³⁵⁷ And in the same way, many houses with poor foundations were destroyed in many parts of the city. And if the communal wall had not broken the following night from the force of the water that had accumulated at Prato d’Ognissanti, a breach of around four hundred and fifty braccia which released the abundance of the water which was filling the city and was still rising, the city would have been in great danger, as the water would have risen in all parts of the city twice as much as it did. Once the said wall had fallen, however, all the water in the city rushed back with great fury towards the Arno, and on Friday, at the hour of nones, the water had almost completely receded from the city, except near the riverbed, leaving the city and all the streets and houses and shops at street level and cellars—and there were many of these—full of foulsmelling sludge, which took more than six months to clear out; and almost all the wells of Florence were ruined, and it was necessary to redig them since the level of the riverbed had sunk. As the said flood moved to the west of the

 Today, this is known as the Ponte alle Grazie.  Castello Altafronte, which today houses the Galileo Museum, stood overlooking the Arno about halfway between the Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Rubaconte.  Villani, Nuova Cronica, II: 5 and IV: 1. Treated also by Green, Chronicle into History.  The phrase “looking upon the destruction” has no evident subject, and thus the reader becomes the assumed subject, viewing the scene through the author’s eyes.

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city, the Arno covered in extremely high water all the plains of Legnaia, Ertignano, Settimo, Ormannoro, Campi, Brozzi, Sammoro, Peretola, and Micciole as far as Signa, as well as the contado of Prato; it ruined fields, vineyards, and carried away household furnishings, and houses, and mills, and many people and almost all the animals, and then, having passed Montelupo and Capraia, it was joined by a number of rivers that flow into the Arno below Florence, each of which rushed along angrily destroying all their bridges. Similarly, and to greater extent, the Arno flooded and destroyed the Lower Valdarno, and Pontorme, and Empoli, and Santa Croce, and Castelfranco, and it destroyed most of the walls of those towns, and all the plain of San Miniato and that of Fucecchio and Montopoli and the Pian di Marte at the Ponte ad Era. And arriving at Pisa, all would have been submerged if the Arno had not gushed out from the Fosso Arnonico, and from the Borgo alle Capanne into the floodplain, and then in this floodplain there formed a great and deep canal leading to the sea that had not been there before. And from the other side of Pisa, it gushed into the Oseri and ran into the Serchio. But even so, it flooded much of Pisa, and did great damage there, and it destroyed all the plain of Valdiserchio and the territory around Pisa (even though it deposited so much earth there that it raised the ground in some places by two braccia, which was very useful for the city). This flood did infinite damage to the city and the surrounding territory of Florence, leaving about three hundred people dead—at first it was thought more than three thousand, men and women, children and adults—and a great quantity of livestock perished, and a great number of bridges, houses, mills and fulling mills were destroyed, and in the contado there was not any bridge over river or stream that was not ruined. There was much loss of merchandise, woolen cloth in the care of wool workers in the contado, and equipment, household goods, and wine—this was carried off in full casks, many of which broke—as well as wheat and grains that were in the houses, not counting the loss of that which was already sown, and the ruin of the land and the fields; the water covered and destroyed and tore apart the mountains and hills and carried off all the topsoil. So, to estimate the cash value of the damage to the Florentines, I, who saw these things, would not be able or know how to set any kind of sum, or even make an estimate of it, but the Commune of Florence alone was so devastated by the destruction of its bridges, and walls, and streets that it cost more than one hundred fifty thousand gold florins to rebuild them. And this damage happened not only in Florence and its distretto —although the unusual abundance of water in the Arno caused the worst damage in Florence—but wherever there were rivers or streams in Tuscany and Romagna, they became so swollen that they carried off all their bridges and overflowed their banks, especially the Tiber, and they covered the plains around them doing extreme damage to the contado of Borgo San Sepolcro, and of Cas-

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tello, Perugia, Todi, Orvieto, and Rome; and the contado of Siena and Arezzo and the Maremma were greatly affected. And note that in the days of the flood and many days following in Florence there was a great shortage of flour and of bread because of the damage to the mills and bakeries, but the people from Pistoia, Prato, Colle, and Poggibonsi, and the other towns of the contado and its surroundings came to Florence’s aid with a great abundance of bread and flour, which was much needed. The wise Florentine elders who still had good memory debated which had been the greater flood, this one or the one that happened in AD 1269. Most said that the earlier one may not have brought much less water, but due to the raising of the bed of the River Arno, caused by the lack of foresight of the commune in allowing those who had mills on the Arno to build the weirs, such that the river had risen more than seven braccia from its previous level, the city was more flooded and suffered more damage than in the previous flood—but God removes wisdom from those He wishes ill. Because of the problem caused by the weirs, it was immediately decreed by the Commune of Florence that between the bridges there should be neither weir nor mill, nor above the Ponte Rubaconte for the space of two thousand braccia, nor below that of the Carraia for the space of four thousand braccia, on threat of heavy penalties. And the order was given, and officials were called to have the fallen bridges and the walls rebuilt. But returning to the question posed above, we believe that this flood was much larger than the previous one, and that the rise of the waters was not due so much and solely to the rain, but rather to earthquakes. It is certain that clear water surged up from underground with great jets over many lands, and this we saw in many places, even in the mountains.³⁵⁸ We have documented this excessive flood more fully than usual to make a perpetual memory of it, because it was a remarkable event: since the city was destroyed by Totila Flagellum Dei, Florence had not experienced such a great misfortune or such loss.

II Of an important debate that occurred in Florence, on whether the said flood happened because of the judgment of God or by the forces of nature. In Florence, the flood caused great marvel and fear in all people, who wondered if it might be a judgment of God sent on account of our sins, since after the flood

 Schenk tells us that Villani is the only one to document this earthquake, though one source does seem to mention the same jets of water. Schenk, “‘… prima ci fu la cagione,’” 368.

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receded, for several days the rain did not stop, nor did the continual and very frightening thunder and lightning; for this reason, most people in Florence turned to penitence and holy communion, and this was well done to appease the ire of God. And a debate was held about the flood among the wise clerics and masters of theology, and similarly by natural philosophers and astrologers: whether it had come about by natural causes or by the judgment of God. The natural philosophers responded that while the will of God was most important, much of the cause was due to celestial movements and powerful conjunctions of the planets, assigning a number of reasons to it, which in part we will recount briefly and roughly, to make this better understood. On the 14th of last May there was an eclipse,³⁵⁹ or if you will a darkening of most of the sun at the end of the sign of Taurus, the house of Venus with the caput dragonis. ³⁶⁰ Since then, this darkening of the skies was the topic of sermons by wise clerics and explanations of astrologers at the pulpits of Florence—which we heard—proposing that the eclipse signified a great drought in the summer that was then beginning³⁶¹ and that in the opposition³⁶² to the eclipse there would be a great excess of water, and earthquakes and great danger and death to people and livestock, and they admonished the people to penitence. And then near the beginning of July, there was a … degree conjunction of Saturn and Mars at the end of the sign of Virgo, in the house of Mercury, which signifies an excess of water and flooding because of these two unfavorable planets. But they said that what had the most effect, as one conjunction followed the other, was that on the day of the flood, the sun was found to be in opposition to its previous eclipse at nineteen degrees of Scorpio, in conjunction with the cauda dragonis and with the star that is called the heart of the scorpion, and these stars are always unlucky, and produce great peril at sea and on land. Moreover Venus, a watery planet, was at the end of Scorpio, and, in addition, the sun while in such a conjunction found itself under siege by these two unlucky constellations, that is,

 The astrological interpretation is based on three separate charts: one for the eclipse of 14 May 1333, a second “near the beginning of July” 1333, and the third on 4 November 1333, the day of the flood.  One of the two lunar nodes, points where the lunar orbit intersects with the ecliptic. The caput draconis refers to the ascending node; the cauda draconis, mentioned later, the descending node. Tester, A History of Western Astrology, 162.  “Nella presente state vegnente.” A reference to the “present” stands out here, suggesting either copyist error or Villani’s awkward incorporation of sources.  Opposition is one of the astrological aspects, which are determined by a planet’s position in the zodiac, or by its position in relation to another planet. Opposition occurs when planets are on opposite sides of the zodiac, or 180 degrees apart on the celestial sphere, and is considered a conflictual, negative influence.

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Saturn and Mars, in conjunction together in the sextile aspect.³⁶³ Saturn was in Libra in its exaltation and it was in conjunction with the moon, a bringer of the future, and this moon came to Saturn with water signs and ascendants that had previously been in conjunction with it, that is, it brought with it Saturn, Venus, and Mercury—all water planets—to the house of Libra. And the ascendant of Saturn’s conjunction was Taurus, his exaltation in the house of Venus, where the solar eclipse had been, and in opposition in the month prior to the flood was Cancer in his own house which signifies abundance of water. And the said water planets, Venus and Mercury, were in Scorpio, which is a water sign and in the house of Mars, and with the cauda dragonis. And in the beginning and for most of the lunar month before the flood there were heavy rains in Florence and in many areas, and this was a sign of the future flood. And on the other hand, the planet of Mars, upon the arrival of the flood was found in the sign of Sagittarius, which has a warm and dry nature, and which willingly shoots its arrows; Mars was enveloped in the said sign with Mercury, a changeable planet and evildoer when among evildoers, cold and damp and watery, and against the nature of Mars and of the said sign of Sagittarius—this Mars was fighting with the rays of Saturn, which sent to Earth their influences, that is, an excess of thunder and rain, and flashes of light with lightning, and flooding and earthquakes. And in addition to that fact, the planet of Jupiter, which is favorable, sweet and good, in that hour found itself in the sign of Aquarius and house of Saturn and in conjunction with Saturn in trine aspect,³⁶⁴ and with Mars in a sextile aspect, such that its virtue was defeated by the said two unfavorable planets Saturn and Mars, and with no power; but it was fitting that it add itself to the misfortune of the evil planets because of its location in the sign of Aquarius. And note reader, and understand, even if you grasp nothing of the said science, you will find at the moment and day the flood came, almost all the seven planets of the heavens were conjoined either bodily, or by diverse aspects and in houses and at the ends of signs, so as to move the air and the heavens and the elements to give forth the aforementioned influences. When the astrologers were asked why the flood happened more in Florence than in Pisa, which was on the same Arno, and why were the floodwaters not higher there, or in other areas of Tuscany, they responded that the first cause was the bad planning of the Florentines in permitting the high weirs, as has been mentioned. The second cause was astrological: Saturn, which brings misfortune, and floods and ruin and del-

 A sextile conjunction is an aspect of sixty degrees, interpreted usually as positive.  This is an aspect of 120 degrees, considered a positive influence.

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uge when in opposition, was in its exaltation³⁶⁵ in the sign of Libra, and Libra represents the city of Pisa, and is opposite the sign of Aries, which seems to represent the city of Florence, and the ascendant of the sun’s entry into Aries in the said year was ruler. Libra and Aries were found … to the west with the sun setting and this sun (for which Aries is the exaltation) found itself conjoined and besieged at the time of the flood in a bad and unfavorable place, as we have said. And Mars, which is the ruler of the sign of Aries, was found in conjunction with Saturn and overpowered by him in the way that we have mentioned previously. And these oppositions and conjunctions appear to have caused the excessive flood and damage that affected the city of Florence more than it did Pisa. And let this information, that we have gathered from the more lengthy deliberations of the astrologers, suffice on this matter. On the said issue, the wise clerics and masters of theology responded in a holy and rational fashion, saying that the reasons given by the said astrologers could be true in part, but not by necessity, or only insofar as it was pleasing to God, since God is superior to every heavenly movement, and it is He who moves, sustains, and governs these movements.³⁶⁶ And the force of nature is to God as the hammer is to the blacksmith; with it, he can fashion diverse types of things, having imagined them in his mind. In a similar way, and even more so, the forces of nature and of the elements, and even demons, by the commandment of God, are a whip and hammer to punish the sins of earthly peoples; and it is not possible for our fragile nature to foresee the abyss and the eternal knowledge of predestination and the foresight of the Almighty—we hardly recognize His works that are visible to us. And in order that our reader might draw something useful from this debate, we say that God has the power to send and advance His judgments upon the world, both through the force of nature, and, when it pleases Him, above it, and even against nature, as He is the all-powerful Lord of the Universe; and He does this for two purposes, either out of His gracious mercy or for the execution of His justice. And so that it is clearer and easier to understand for those who will read this, we will roughly outline and collect here the many long arguments and subtle declarations of the said wise men, giving some true and clear examples and miracles relevant to this subject from the Holy Scripture. And we will start from the beginning of Genesis, where it says “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;³⁶⁷ and He said, and so it was done, etc.” It  The exaltation of a planet is its placement in a certain sign of the zodiac where its powers are increased. Each planet had a specific exaltation.  This is a common medieval view; hence the aphorism sometimes attributed to Ptolemy, “The stars incline; they do not determine.”  Two biblical loci are blended into one: Gen. 1:1 and Ps. 38:9.

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was by grace above the power of nature that He made, through His infinite power, the movements of the heavens and nature by means of a single word, where before there was nothing; and whosoever has the power to make something, even materially, can undo and transform it; and God, more than anyone, can make everything, and alter, and undo, and transform everything. Afterwards, in the eighth chapter of that same Book of Genesis, God said to Noah: “Make the Ark, because I want to send a flood of waters over the earth, so that all creatures will die on account of the sins of mankind etc.”³⁶⁸ And He did this to render justice. Next, one reads in the twenty-third chapter of the Book of Genesis about the angels who came to Abraham and to Lot, who, because of sins against nature, destroyed the five cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and others;³⁶⁹ and this was an execution of justice carried out beyond the ordinary course of nature. And God said to Abraham that if ten just men had been found there He would have pardoned all the others, so great is His clemency and infinite mercy. And in the twentieth chapter of Genesis, God announced to Abraham, who was one hundred years old, and to Sarah his wife, who was ninety years old and barren, that she would conceive Isaac, the father of Israel, and so it happened;³⁷⁰ and this too was above nature, and by the grace of God, so that from Him would be born His people and His only son Jesus Christ. And we read further, in Exodus, starting with the tenth chapter, of the plagues that God sent upon the Pharaoh and his people of Egypt because of the prayers of Moses and Aaron, and for the cruelty that they were doing to the people of God.³⁷¹ And in the end He opened the sea by grace for the people of Israel, and they passed through it safely, and He drowned the Pharaoh, with his horsemen and soldiers in that sea.³⁷² And the said grace for the people of Israel, and the said plagues upon the Pharaoh, were done through the operations of divine justice and were above nature, and were not accomplished by the movements of the stars. Also by grace and above nature, and against nature, for His people, God nourished them for forty years in the desert with manna,³⁷³ and with the guidance of the column of cloud and fire.³⁷⁴ And He laid waste to that tribe: part perished by the sword for their infidelity, part were punished by serpent

 This is Gen. 6:14 combined with Gen. 6:17, though missing the verses in between.  Not a direct quote, but the story of Lot and his daughters and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is found in Gen. 19.  Gen. 18.  The ten plagues of Egypt are described in Exod. 7– 11.  This occurs in Exod. 14:26  Exod. 16:35.  Exod. 13:17– 14:29, 40:38. Also Num. 14:14, Deut. 1:33, 9:12, Neh. 9:12, 9:19.

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bites for their gluttony, part He made the earth swallow up for their pride and rebellion—that was Abi and Daviron and their followers³⁷⁵—and part He cleansed and destroyed by fire for their sin of making unworthy sacrifices. And all these plagues were above nature, through the judgment of God because the people were sinful. The great city of Nineveh was judged by God to be deserving of destruction because of its sins, and through the sermons of Jonah, the prophet sent by God, they corrected themselves and turned to penitence, and they received grace and mercy from God;³⁷⁶ whence it is clearly manifest that God removes His judgments because of prayers and penitence, and for this reason, even more so the course of nature can and must follow the will of God, and He can operate beyond the power of nature, as He pleases, because He made Nature itself, as we said before. What will we say of the act of grace and the miracle that God made above nature and against the course of nature in response to the prayers of Joshua His servant, and the captain and king of His people, when He made the sun turn back in its course by ten arms’ lengths.³⁷⁷ Among the other miracles in the Book of Kings was that by which God, against the course of nature, caused many of the people of God to die by pestilence, because of David’s sin of vainglory when he counted his people.³⁷⁸ And of how many different punishments by battle does one read in the Book of Kings, and in the other books, God granting victory sometimes to His people and sometimes against His people according to their sins and merits? For example, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city of Jerusalem the first time, and led all the Jews into servitude, those that escaped death.³⁷⁹ When Nebuchadnezzar, because of his human sins, became a beast for seven years,³⁸⁰ King Antiochus in a similar way destroyed Jerusalem for a second time.³⁸¹And all this happened because of the sins and abominations of the sons of Israel. And when they repented to God, Judas Maccabeus, man of little power and humble origins, along with his father and his brothers, took revenge,

 Villani has these names incorrectly. Actually, Dathan and Abiron. Deut. 11:16.  Jon. 3 – 4. On another note, the subject and verb in this sentence do not coincide in Villani’s text: “The great city … they corrected.” This type of anacoluthon, or discontinuity in a sentence, is not uncommon in medieval vernacular.  This may be a conflation of Isa. 38:8, in which Isaiah speaks about the shadow of the sun turning back by ten steps and Joshua in Josh. 10:12–13 who orders the sun to stand still.  Villani’s citation is in error. This story is recounted not in Kings, but in 2 Sam. 1– 9 (census), 10 – 17 (punishment) and 1 Chron. 21:1– 6 (census), 7– 17 (punishment). God offered David a choice of three punishments and he chose a plague of three days on the land of Israel.  2 Kings 25.  Dan. 4:16. In his dream, God gives him the mind of a beast.  This was Antiochus V. The material derives from 1 Macc., 6:18 – 22.

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and destroyed the Kingdom of Antiochus.³⁸² And all these judgments of God were due to sins, and above every course of nature. And for this reason, God said to his people, “I am the Lord God Sabaot,” that is to say, in Latin, the Lord of Hosts and the God of Battles, “and I cause defeat and loss for whomever I wish, according to their merits and sins, and victory in battle is in my right hand.”³⁸³ And all this is done by the divine power and above the course of all nature. Much has been said about the miracles that there are above nature and against nature that God did in the Old Testament. We will say something of the New Testament as well. There can never be, nor was there ever, nor will there ever be a greater example of grace than the divine power that deigned to incarnate itself in the Virgin Mary full of grace, to be God and man born of a virgin and suffer passion and death. Now during His passion, the whole sun became dark at noon, and the moon was in opposition, and even though according to nature’s laws the moon could not darken, this occurred above nature, because the maker of nature was suffering pain.³⁸⁴ And such a great mystery, fashioned thus, was over every natural power, and it pleased the Most High to observe justice for the sins of the first man, and to show grace and mercy to redeem the human generation; and no word is impossible for God. The miracles that Jesus Christ did while evangelizing on Earth, and then those done by His apostles and the other saints and martyrs and virgins in His name, are still present every day and they are above nature and the order of the celestial sphere; founded upon the aforesaid true reasons and principal arguments, the solution of the matter we are discussing is very clear. What will we say about the destruction of the city of Jerusalem for the third time, and about the persecution and routing of the Jews done by Titus and Vespasian, emperors of Rome, as revenge for the sin committed in the just and unjust death of Christ, the son of God? Certainly, this was a clear and evident judgment of God, and not the course of nature, that never again did the Jews have their own state, nor vessel of their own command, and that their exile has lasted more than one thousand three hundred years. The many other persecutions, destructions, pestilences, floods, battles, and shipwrecks that happened in the time of the Romans and pagans by means of God’s judgment to punish sins, before and after the coming of Christ, events which took

 1 Macc. 7.  This quote is not readily identifiable.  The account of the darkening of the sun at Christ’s crucifiction occurs in three of the Gospels: Mark, Matthew, and Luke. It was known that a solar eclipse could only occur at a new moon, and that Passover was always held on a full moon. For this reason, monk and astronomer John Sacrobosco, in his Sphere of the World, stated that “the eclipse was not natural—nay, it was miraculous and contrary to nature.” Bartlett, The Natural and the Supernatural, 68 – 69.

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place above the course of nature, would be infinite to recount, and would confuse our account. And the same thing continued to occur in the time of the Christians, with the Goths, Vandals, Saracens, Lombards, Hungarians, Teutons, Spaniards, Catalans, French, and Gascons who have come to Italy, and who keep coming every day. These pestilences can be quite clearly perceived, by those with understanding, in this chronicle and in other books that mention them— then and now, these are a means for God’s punishment of sins. And thus, returning to the subject of our question and our declaration regarding it, and gathering together the aforementioned true and clear examples—all the plagues and battles, ruins and floods, fires and persecutions, shipwrecks and exiles—we can clearly see how these happen in the world by the permission of divine justice to punish sin, sometimes by means of nature and sometimes above nature, as the divine power wills and disposes.³⁸⁵ And note further, o reader,³⁸⁶ that the night in which the said flood began, a saintly hermit, who was in prayer in his solitary dwelling above the Abbey of Vallombrosa, felt and visibly heard³⁸⁷ a din of demons that seemed like a company of armed knights riding furiously. Hearing this, the said hermit crossed himself, and went to his window, and saw the multitude of these knights, terrible and black; and beseeching one of them in the name of God, the hermit asked him to tell what this signified, and the knight told him “We are going to drown the city of Florence on account of its sins, if God will allow us.” And I, the author, to have the truth on this matter, got this story from the Abbot of Vallombrosa, a religious and trustworthy man, who had it from the aforesaid hermit of his abbey, upon questioning him. And thus, the Florentines should not believe that the present pestilence, about which this debate has arisen, came to them by anything but the judgment of God, even though the path of the sun is partly in harmony with it, to punish our sins, which are excessive and displeasing to God. Indeed, because of pride, because of neighbors wanting to claim power and tyrannize and plunder one another; because of the infinite greed and evil profits the commune makes from fraudulent commerce and usury, profits raked in from all sides because of the ardent envy of one brother and neighbor towards another; yea truly, because of the vainglory of the women and their extravagant expenses and ornaments; yea, because of our gluttony in eating and drinking excessively, so that more wine is consumed in one parish of Florence in the taverns, than our ancestors used to consume in all the city to As he does elsewhere, Villani reflects on the vast material of his chronicle as a whole and reminds us that it reveals the workings of God, and His judgment upon human actions.  Villani’s direct address to the reader, used also further on in this chapter, is perhaps inspired by his imitation of sermon form with examples and exhortations to penitence.  An example of synesthesia.

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gether;³⁸⁸ yea, truly because of the excessive lust of men and women;³⁸⁹ and yea, truly because of the worst sin—our ingratitude in not recognizing that our great advantages and our powerful state, which overcomes our neighbors on all sides, come from God. But it is marvelous how God sustains us and maybe it will seem to many that I say too much, that I—a sinner—should not be allowed to say these things. But if we Florentines do not want to fool ourselves, we will see that it is all true; how many blows and scourges has God given us in our present day, even from the year 1300 onwards, not to mention the previous years reported in this chronicle: first our division into the Whites and the Blacks; then the arrival of Messer Charles of France, his chasing out of the Whites, and the destructive consequences of this expulsion; then the judgment and the peril of the great fire that we had in 1304, and others that happened later in the city of Florence causing great harm to its citizens; after that, there was the arrival of Henry of Luxembourg, emperor, in 1312, and his siege of Florence and his destruction of our contado, and following upon this, the mortality and corruption that took place in the city and in the contado; after that, the defeat at Montecatini in 1315 and later Castruccio’s persecutions and his war upon us, the defeat at Altopascio in 1325, and his ruin that followed, and the excessive expenses of the Florentine Commune in providing for these wars; and then the crop failures and the famine of the year 1329, and the coming of the Bavarian who called himself emperor, then the coming of King John the Bohemian, and then the present flood; whence arose the disputation, if all these other adversities were collected into one, whether they would not be as great as this one. And thus, Florentines, you should believe that these many threats from God, and beatings, are not without cause—they are caused by our excessive sins—and it seems that God’s judgment is as apparent in these adversities as it was for our ancestors. And I, the author, am of this opinion on the flood: that due to our outrageous sins, God sent this judgment by means of the heavenly movements, and then He sent His mercy, since the devastation lasted a short time, so as to not let everything perish, because of the

 In Nuova Cronica, XI: 94 the chronicler will tell us exactly how much was consumed: from 55,000 to 65,000 cogne.  The Seven Deadly Sins, in the most common formulation by Pope Gregory I (late sixth century AD), are Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. Villani’s tirade includes all of these except for Sloth and Wrath, instead including Vainglory and Ingratitude. Aquinas treats Gratitude and Ingratitude in his Summa Theologiae 2:2, question 106 – 7. Ingratitude also is the subject of one chapter in Valerius Maximus’s Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX (Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings) 4:3. Villani cites Valerius in IX: 36, among the classical authors who inspired him to write the chronicle. See Timpe and Boyd, Virtues and Their Vices; Newhauser, Seven Deadly Sins; and Tucker, Virtues and Vices in the Arts.

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prayers of the saintly and religious people living in our city and its territory, and because of the great alms that are given in Florence. And for this reason, dear brothers and citizens, whether living now or yet to be born, whoever will read and understand should have quite a great motivation to correct themselves and leave off their vices and sins, due to the fear and the threats of God’s justice, for the present and in times to come; and so that the anger of God spreads no further over us, and so that we can patiently and with strong spirit sustain adversities, recognizing God as omnipotent. If we do this, and through virtue do good deeds, we merit mercy and grace from Him, and may this good be doubled, to the exaltation and magnificence of our city. News and stories of this flood and its sudden occurrence to our city of Florence reached all Christian lands, making it seem even more serious and perilous than it had actually been, even though the real damage was inestimable. And when the news came before his majesty King Robert, our friend and, by his faith and devotion to us, our lord, he sorrowed for us with all of his heart, and as a father does for his son, he sent us admonishment and comfort by means of a sermon he composed himself, offering his assistance in the form and fashion related by the said sermon, or letter.³⁹⁰ This letter seems to us worthy to make note of word for word, in this our work, for perpetual remembrance, so that the clemency and sincere love that the said king felt for our commune will be manifest to the citizens who will succeed us, and who will read this, so that they might draw from it useful, good and holy examples, and admonitions and comfort, insofar as the whole letter is full of authoritative words from Holy Scripture, as one would expect from the most excellent philosopher and learned teacher, more than a king who wore the crown a thousand or more years ago.³⁹¹ And even though this letter in Latin, the way he sent it, was more noble and of more lofty language and intelligence because

 This “sermon, or letter” has not been found to correlate with any of the existing letters or sermons by King Robert of Anjou, and thus represents a valuable preservation of this document. The chronicler states that the original text was in Latin and that he has translated it or had it translated into the vernacular (farla volgarizzare). Contorted and unclear wording in several places suggests the difficulty of reproducing the lofty and ornate Latin phrasing. This type of letter would have been entirely characteristic of King Robert, who was known for his unusual habit of preaching. His sermons (of which more than two hundred fifty survive) became part of his kingly image. See Pryds, The King Embodies the Word, and Kelly, New Solomon. Kelly maintains that, in this particular instance, the letter helped to rehabilitate the king’s image among Florentines: “If in the past Florentines had criticized Robert for the cowardice and avarice that made him neglect the city’s military needs, by late 1333 his perfect solicitude was being trumpeted among the citizenry.” Kelly, New Solomon, 234.  This is glowing praise on the part of the chronicler.

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of its beautiful Latin phrases, it seemed to us appropriate to translate this into the vernacular, so that it might follow our vernacular material, and so that it may be useful to uneducated laypeople as well as the learned.³⁹²

III This is the letter and sermon that King Robert sent to the Florentines on account of the said flood. To the noble and wise Priors of the Arts, and to the Gonfaloniere of Justice, to the council and commune of the city of Florence, dear friends and devoted servants, Robert by the grace of God, King of Jerusalem and Sicily, sends sincere greetings and love. We learned with bitterness in our whole heart, and with full compassion of soul, of the deplorable occurrence and terribly sad event, that is to say the unforeseen and sudden disaster, and the very damaging downfall,³⁹³ which the excessive overflow of the waters—partly because divine consent³⁹⁴ opened the floodgates of the sky—brought to your city. Regarding these cases, it is neither proper for us to interpret them, nor for you to attribute them, as other than the Holy Scripture says, for example, imagining that these things happened by chance. It is not fitting for us, whose kingly condition requires that we preserve truth, to be a flattering friend, or to criticize God’s justice, saying that you all are innocent. The doctrine of the Apostle says “If we say that we have not sinned, we fool ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”³⁹⁵ Thus, our sins require not only that we confront these perils, but also greater ones. We must ascribe this singular flood to particular sins, just as the universal flood was sent by God for universal sins, through which the path of each body in the human generation was shortened. We know the order of these pestilences through the writings of the Gospel, since the truth of God put the defeats dealt by enemies before, then added to this the flood from storms, about which Saint Gregory speaks, commenting thus upon the Gospel, where it is written “There will be

 This same idea and phrasing occur also in Villani, Nuova Cronica, I: 1. Laypeople (as opposed to clerics) lacked training in Latin. To be a scholar or learned, literacy in Latin was necessary.  There is a play on words here, as the Italian cadimento means a falling of water, but recalls moral downfall.  Again, there is ambiguity. “In part” could refer to God’s consent, or the opening of the floodgates.  1 John 1:8.

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signs in the sun and in the moon etc.”;³⁹⁶ “we maintain,” says Saint Gregory, “without ceasing, that before Italy was to be wounded by the knives of the pagans, I saw in the heavens armies of fire, and I saw he himself resplendent with splendor as with flashes of lightning, he who then spilled the human blood. The confusion of the sea and the storm is not only recent news, and while many perils have already been announced and accomplished, there is no doubt that also a few more are to follow which can be similarly attributed, to happen for our correction, not to distress us to the point of desperation.”³⁹⁷ And we believe among these things that not only is God’s justice a wet nurse to these perils,³⁹⁸ but we believe the divine goodness to be yea, like a mother, compassionately correcting and changing us for the better, as Saint Augustine says in his sermon on the fall of the city of Rome: “Before the judgment, God works his discipline many times not choosing those he strikes, nor wishing to find those he condemns.”³⁹⁹ And he himself said this upon that verse of the Psalms: “Just as smoke gradually disappears, so do they disappear; all that we suffer in tribulations in this life is a punishment from God, Who wishes to correct us thereby, so that in the end, He doesn’t condemn us.”⁴⁰⁰ For this reason, Saint Augustine himself in the aforesaid sermon on the tribulations and oppressions of the world says: “How many times we suffer some thing which is op-

 This quotation is from Luke 21:25 (with parallels in Matt. 24:26 and Mark 13:24): “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.” Robert’s words two sentences further on, “the confusion of the sea and storm,” are drawn from this line.  Robert uses a sermon from Gregory the Great, the first homily from his XL Homiliarium in Evangelia Libri duo (col. 1076B) to comment upon the above cited line from Luke 21:25. Useful for context is Palmer, The Apocalypse, 59 – 62. The text diverges slightly from the original.  For another use of lactation imagery in the context of God’s judgment, see the apocryphal 2 Esdras 8:8 – 12. A portion of the passage is: “For thou hast commanded out of the parts of the body, that is to say, out of the breasts, milk to be given, which is the fruit of the breasts, That the thing which is fashioned may be nourished for a time, till thou disposest it to thy mercy. Thou broughtest it up with thy righteousness, and nurturedst it in thy law, and reformedst it with thy judgment.” King James version with Apocrypha 2 Esd. 8:10 – 12.  The citation is from Augustine’s Sermon on the Fall of Rome (Sermo de excidio urbis Romae, 2:1). Cristiano Lorenzi identified this source (“Osservazioni,” 578) while working on a critical edition of the fourteenth-century historical romance L’Avventuroso Siciliano, since Robert’s letter is copied, from Villani or another contemporary version, and embedded there. Bosone da Gubbio, L’Aventuroso Ciciliano, ed. Lorenzi, 30 – 33.  The phrase about smoke derives from Psalms 68:2 (though in the Latin Vulgate, 67:3). There follows a citation from Augustine’s Sermon 22 (Sermo sanctii Augustini de Psalmo LXVII), as noted in Lorenzi, “Osservazioni,” 579.

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pression or tribulation, tribulations are at the same time our correction.”⁴⁰¹ But in these things, we should take much care and look at ourselves and realize that we do not merit anything as a result of our merits and that we should not marvel, almost as if the sins we mentioned are not the cause of our tribulations; since Augustine himself says in the sermon on the fall of Rome: “Men marvel; now they should marvel only and not blaspheme.”⁴⁰² Further, for these reasons we must avoid murmuring against God, as if our iniquity were blaming the divine goodness, and as if our innumerable and extremely great faults were reproaching the highest justice, just as Augustine admonishes, in the aforesaid sermon on the tribulations of the world, saying, “O brothers, one must not murmur, as some of those people murmur.” And the Apostle says: “And they were vases of serpents.” Now, what unusual thing does human generation withstand now, that our fathers did not suffer?⁴⁰³ Moreover, there is something else: it would be a small thing to recognize one’s sins if one did not propose to avoid them going forward. In that case, it is not to be doubted that he who prays for forgiveness, obtains it by prayer, and thereby acquires divine grace, and avoids the severity of justice, just as the wise Solomon said: “Son, you sinned, now do not persevere any longer in sin, but pray on your past sins, that they be discharged from you.”⁴⁰⁴ We read of other cities which, because of their grave sins, had their undoing by ample vengeance announced to them, but they were saved, and their sentence was revoked due to their penitence and prayers. In the time of the Emperor Arcadius, God, wishing to strike fear into the city of Constantinople, and frighten it in order to reform it, revealed to a faithful man that the city was to perish by fire from the sky. This man made it known to the bishop, and the bishop preached it to the people. The city was converted to tears of penitence, as once ancient Nineveh had been. The day came on which God had threatened His punishment, and there appeared towards the East a cloud with the stink of sulfur, and it stayed over the city, so that the men might not think that the one who had spoken thus had been fooled by a falsehood; and as the people fled to the church, the cloud began to diminish, and little by little it disappeared,

 The source is another of Augustine’s sermons, identified in Lorenzi, “Osservazioni,” 579. Augustine, Sermo de tribulationibus et pressuris mundi, vol. 2, col. 441.  Augustine, De excidio urbis Romae, 2:1.  Augustine, Sermo de tribulationibus et pressuris mundi, vol. 2, col. 441. Augustine’s quote includes verses from 1 Cor. 10:9 – 10: “We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.” Lorenzi notes the error in the “killed by snakes” phrase, hypothesizing corruption of the Latin original (“Osservazioni,” 580).  Eccles. 21:1.

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and the people were out of danger.⁴⁰⁵ As Augustine proposes in this sermon, “According to this, God, through the mouth of the prophet, had foretold that the immoderate city of Nineveh had to be destroyed. And we find that it was delivered from this fate by means of harsh penitence and by cries of prayer; nor is almsgiving very far from penitence and adoration—it is their companion in salvation, according to the advice that Daniel gave to Nebuchadnezzar that he should make restitution for his sins through the giving of alms, and temper God’s sentence against him.”⁴⁰⁶ Let us look together, therefore, at the frightening judgment of the flood and let us think about seeking the remedy, but let us avoid the remaining part which we should fear; for which not our own words but those of the Savior we include here; and He said: “Now do you all think that those eighteen people upon whom the tower fell in Siloam, and who were killed, were alone guilty of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem? No, I say to you; but if you will not do penitence, similarly you will perish.”⁴⁰⁷ Titus says: “A tower is made to equal the city, so that a part frightens all; as if to say that all the city within a short time would be occupied, if the inhabitants were to persevere in their faithlessness.” Bede shows this as well, saying “Because they did not do penitence, in the fortieth year from the passion of Christ, the Romans, starting in Galilee where the preaching of our Lord had begun, destroyed the godless people to their roots.”⁴⁰⁸ But so that, because of the words we have said just now, we be not judged a harsh friend, and so as to not cheat you of the rewards for your virtues which we are confident are accepted by God’s benevolence, according to the Holy Scripture which not only reprimands the presumptuous so as to instruct them, but soothes the afflicted, so that through the remedy of consolation its passages might often comfort them. We confess that such suffering and oppressions come to test us in order that in what God examines, the virtue of patience in us may be praised. The Apostle gave witness: “His merciful providence does not try us beyond our capacity,⁴⁰⁹ but let the contemptation bear fruit.”⁴¹⁰

 Augustine, De excidio urbis Romae, 7:6. Lorenzi, “Osservazioni,” 583.  The source is Dan. 4:24, but the wording is not exact.  Luke 13:4– 5.  “Titus says … roots.” From Thomas Aquinas’s Golden Chain. See Aquinas, Opera Omnia, 333. For further details on Aquinas’s use of fourth-century Titus Bostrensis and Bede for his passage, see Lorenzi, “Osservazioni,” 581– 82.  The “Apostle” is Paul; the source is 1 Cor. 10:13, though the end of Villani’s phrase diverges from the original. “God … will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” The Vulgate gives: “Tentatio vos non apprehendat nisi humana: fidelis autem Deus est, qui non patietur vos tentari supra id quod potestis, sed faciet etiam cum tentatione proventum ut possitis sustinere.”

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What greater usefulness could we faithful seek, than to draw from such miseries the efficacious demonstration of the love of God who approves them, because— and this pertains to you—the holy and religious cleric, the female Judith, by way of example, directs and sends the following words, “It is time, oh brothers; because you are priests of the people of God, their souls depend upon you, upon your speech, so straighten⁴¹¹ their hearts, so that those who are tempted may recall that our fathers were also tempted, so that they could be tested as to whether they truly loved their God: they should recall how our father Abraham was tempted, and having been tested by many tribulations, he was made a friend of God, and so with Isaac, and with Jacob, and Moses, and all those who pleased God, they passed through many tribulations and were faithful.”⁴¹² Whence the angel said to Tobias: “Since you were dear to God, it was necessary that you be tried by temptation.”⁴¹³ So do we believe ourselves and you Florentines to be better and more innocent than our fathers the Patriarchs, who through their many tribulations and punishments either sent or allowed by God surpassed the saints? Do we disdain, or feel resentful, we worthy members,⁴¹⁴ at having to suffer those things that were not shunned by our apostles, the body of our Church, our head Christ—that is fire and iron, and lowly torments, we, almost severed from our ancestors, as if we did not belong to them, and as if we did not take part in their fortune, or perhaps we are more holy than they, and so with impatience we bear these things? But if in our impatience, it seems too arduous to follow the fathers of the Old and New Testaments, at least we should not disdain to take examples of patience from the pagan princes and philosophers,⁴¹⁵ who include: Fabius who overcame his anger before Hannibal, as Seneca writes, in book one of On Anger; and Julius Caesar, in the book on the Lives of the Caesars; and Octavius Augustus in Policraticus, book three chapter fourteen; Domitian, as witnessed by the great orator Licinius;⁴¹⁶ and King Antigonus ac-

 The word contentazione is the result of the blending of the adjacent Latin words cum and temptatione. Since contentazione is not a word in Italian, it is translated here with an invented word in English.  “… directs and sends … straighten their hearts.” The words dirizza (directs), and dirizziate (straighten) in close proximity are a stylistic flourish.  Jth. 8:21– 23.  Tob. 12:13.  There is an extended metaphor here whereby the Florentines are seen as members of the Holy Church and members/limbs of the body of Christ, suffering his torments.  This is a rather limited section on pagan writers, in comparison to information drawn from religious texts and authorities.  Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars; John of Salisbury, Policraticus. The orator Licinius is unidentified.

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cording to Seneca, in On Anger book three; and regarding the patience of philosophers, we find examples such as Socrates, in book three of Seneca’s On Anger, and Diogenes, in On Anger book three, just before the end, so that the open or hidden complaints of a person or persons should not overcome us, as happens when patience is lacking.⁴¹⁷ Further, as for those murmurings of the faithful who say that these times are worse than the ancient ones, and that God has saved the indignation of His anger until now, and that He has set aside the present days to spread His anger, may they read, or better hear those who read regarding the toils and sweat of Adam, thorns, tribulations, the flood and decay. Times of toil, hunger and war have passed, and they are written about in order that we not murmur in our present day against God. That time of our fathers has passed, very distant from our times, when the head of the dead ass was sold for its weight in gold; when droppings of the dove could buy no small sum of silver; when the women agreed among themselves to eat their own young children.⁴¹⁸ In sum, are we not horrified to hear those things? Having read all those things, we are so frightened by them, that we realize that we have more to be happy about, than to murmur about in our times. Thus, when was there good for the human generation? When were we not in fear? When were we not suffering? When did we have certain happiness? When false happiness? Where is life safe? After all, is not this earth almost like a great ship carrying men buffeted by storms, in peril, subject to so many waves, so many storms, fearing the danger, sighing at port,⁴¹⁹ and, citizens, it is to repay the appreciative and grateful reasoning of your judgment, and your thoughts of fairness—as much in wealth as in comforts, and in power—that God made your city noble and saved it from destruction, and exalted it beyond comparison above all the nearby and even distant cities, such that it can be said to resemble an adorned tree, with fronds and flowers, spreading its branches to the ends of the earth. In exchange for so many and such great temporal benefits, may you not be spared the adversity that causes your tongues to say with Job: “If we receive good things from the hand of our Lord, why can we not bear the bad things?”⁴²⁰ And further, these afflictions are sometimes sent to us as a means to salvation, and they come to us

 Porta gives the following annotations to the text: Seneca On Anger, 1.11.5 (Fabius); 3.22.2– 5 (King Antigonus); 2.7.1 (Socrates); 3.38.1 (Diogenes).  For the accounts of the head of the ass and the women eating their own children, see 2 Kings 6.  “Further, as for those murmurings … sighing at port …”; this passage, as noted by Lorenzi in his “Osservazioni” (584), is based, with some revisions, on Augustine’s Sermo de tribulationibus et pressuris mundi, vol. 2, col. 441.  Job 2:10.

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for spiritual profit, since if these were not sent or permitted by God sometimes, we would believe our cities here to be stable and permanent, and we would hardly care to seek the eternal, saying with Saint Peter: “It is good for us to be here.”⁴²¹ But the evils that press us the most make us turn towards the sky and attend to future glory. And if by chance some shameless and arrogant person should presume to oppose the work of the eternal artisan, he is answered by the goodness of the creatures, a goodness that the maker of all things from the beginning took care to place in His creatures. Given that this river has dispensed so many delights and so many useful things from the commencement of your city, why should you take it ill, if it once, by its unusual flooding, did you some damage? But another slanderer will say—since we said before that tribulations are admonishments and corrections—they say that in order that I might become better, those people are punished, in order that I might live, those people die, in order that I might be saved, those people are lost. “No, however” says Saint John Chrysostom,⁴²² “they are punished for their own sins, but this punishment becomes—for those who see it—material for salvation.” Now will the envious perhaps rise up against this, judging you—because of this downfall—to be involved in greater sins than they are, and for this more hateful to God? Indeed, will they believe themselves to be more just than you, and less guilty and more pleasing before the just judge? Indeed, these people, due to that same error, will prefer the truly peaceful King Solomon, to whom was reserved the building of the temple, upon whose time shone the tranquility of peace, whose kingdom knew no war, to his most holy father David, who was prohibited from building that same temple, who was named by God “the man who spreads blood,” who was subjected to provocation by continuous perils of war, and who twice was openly and publicly corrected by God. In that same way, those who do not know the holy books will say that the friends of Job were more innocent than he, and will set them ahead of Job in terms of their rewards; however, we do not read that they were examined by God through pestilences in the same way as Job, since in truth they were not gold or silver worthy to be tested in the fiery furnace, or to be placed in the treasury of the highest king, but they were mostly hay or manure, which, when placed on the fire, gives off a stink displeasing to God and abominable to men. Now, with similar blindness, will we judge the sailors to be

 Luke 9:33.  Saint John Chrysostom (ca. 349 – 407) was Archbishop of Constantinople, Catholic saint, early Church father, ascetic and preacher. The quotation may be from one of his homilies, for example “That Demons Do Not Govern the World,” pt. 7– 8. “He chastens some in order that he make the more careless [people], through fear, by means of the punishment of the others, more in earnest.” Chrysostom, “That Demons,” 184.

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better than Jonah the prophet, for whose testing the storm was raised, and for this he was drowned in the sea and swallowed by the fish, he who was a messenger of God and proclaimer of penitence, and a figure of the suffering Christ, while the sailors were pagans and worshippers of idols? It should not surprise you, if the grace and prerogatives of the virtues we mentioned God saw and respected in you, and that He should test these; and once they are proven, that He should reward and crown you, who have always been known in Italy as the radiant arm of the Church and noble foundation of all faith. Thus, those envious people who reproach you should not marvel if, a bit further on, through the promised sayings of the Holy Scriptures, we show by the test of your virtues that you are acceptable to God, approved by His will. If, in the meantime, you recognize that because of your sins, you incurred the aforesaid afflictions, and you bear them with the virtue of patience, as an expiation for sins, give thanks with pious voices. The most wise king says: “My son, do not cast away the discipline of the Lord, and do not fall short when you are corrected by Him; he whom the Lord loves, verily He chastises, just as a father who is satisfied with his son.”⁴²³ The Apostle did not disdain to include this proverb in his letters, saying “My son, do not consider the discipline of the Lord to be of little importance, nor should you find it tiresome when you are reproved by Him: he whom the Lord loves, He chastises; He beats whomsoever He receives as a son.”⁴²⁴ Behold, thus, from what is written above, it is clear that the pressures of the aforesaid sufferings demonstrate your virtues and merits and that you are not only received as friends by God, but are special to Him as adoptive children. To the children upon whom discipline is imposed, not only is recompense promised, but a sure inheritance is reserved. Thus, it appears through the truth of the Holy Scriptures that virtues and merits are remunerated by the most just king of kings, also in some people truly; in these people they shine publicly, and also manifestly, in this earthly life, as an example to inspire change in the good—just as it is written regarding blessed Job—to whom the goods he lost were restored twofold; but for others who are more precious and better without comparison, is reserved the merit of future glory. The aforesaid admonishments, which we consider not so much excessive as necessary to fortify your prudence, we took care to send to fulfill the debt of love, for your comfort, and also out of the compassion that causes us to sympathize from the depths of our friendship,⁴²⁵ and we added  King Solomon, from Prov. 3:11– 12.  Heb. 12:5 – 6. Paul the Apostle was sometimes thought to be author of this letter, though from the third century on, this was in doubt.  The expression is in fact “con tutte le interiora dell’amistade,” or “with all the guts of friendship.”

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the consolations of the true books, as well as those concrete consolations we can effect, that we have offered previously.⁴²⁶ But our promised letter, a few days after your aforementioned case was clear to us, we ordered that it be sent to you, but since the letter contained much less than the letters of some other people, with the thought that it might arrive more quickly, we suspended the sending of it. But now, more carefully making it ready, and judging in any case that it was pertinent to your information and your caution, we are sending it to you.⁴²⁷ Nor should it be bothersome for you as friends to read the length of the present letter, which did not bother us to compile amidst many very tiring worries. Dated at Naples, under our secret seal, December 2, second indiction, in the year 1333.

IV Some other things that happened in Florence as a result of the flood. The day after the heavy rains had ceased, since the aforementioned three bridges in Florence had been destroyed, and the whole city was open and exposed⁴²⁸ along the Arno River, certain of the grandi sought to act against the popolani, thinking that they could get away with it, since there was only one bridge crossing the Arno, and it was under the control of the grandi, and since the city was in disorder and exposed and the people were terrified. And so one of the Rossi family injured one of the Magli, their neighbor, and because of this, all the popolo took up arms, and for several days Florence was under heavy guard day and night. But in the end, the great, powerful, and rich, who had something to lose, did not consent to the folly of the wicked people, and, furthermore, the popolo had become vigorous and strong, and so the grandi did not dare to start anything; and, moreover, if they had, they would have fared badly. And for this reason, the city calmed itself, and the member of the Rossi family who had committed the crime was punished. And immediately the commune had some

 Robert, in this one brief phrase, hints at concrete aid, which is probably what the Florentines needed most at this moment. Villani, in his eulogy at the death of Robert, accuses him of stinginess, a shameful character trait for a king.  This passage is rather unclear in the Italian. The flowery Latin phrases of the original may have caused difficulty to the translator. In any case, it seems that Robert is apologizing for the late arrival of the letter.  The two words that Villani uses, aperta (open) and schiusa (un-closed), are, in effect, synonyms. The use of paired synonyms is not uncommon in Villani. He is suggesting that the city is vulnerable to attack.

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small wooden bridges built over the Arno, and one big one, over barges and boats chained together; but in the beginning, before the said bridges were made, people were crossing the Arno on boats. And it happened that, on the 6th of December, after a great downpour over the Arno, a boat with around thirty-two men capsized and of these, fifteen citizens drowned, and the others with God’s help survived. Let us leave the matters of Florence and of the flood, since we have said enough about them, and speak a bit about matters of Lombardy and our league. But we should not neglect to mention that when the legate who was in Bologna heard of the adversity that had come to the Florentines, he rejoiced about it, saying that these things had happened to them because they had set themselves against him and against Holy Church in Ferrara, and perhaps in part he spoke truly, but he failed to judge himself and his own defects and he did not foresee future events, nor suspect that his own judgment and punishment by God was so near at hand, as one will soon find, reading ahead.

V How the truce was broken, and war started again between the league and the legate, and the towns held by King John. In the said year, around the first day of January, as the truce between the men of King John and of the legate and our league had ended, the allies held a parlamento at Lerici, to decide whether to maintain the truce or to begin the war again. The allies agreed to prolong the truce, except for Messer Mastino and the Commune of Florence; and this was for the best, since it would prevent the legate and King John from gaining strength. And so they gave orders to begin the war again, and in that parlamento, they confirmed the division of the conquered territories as stated here; that is, that the Lord of Milan would have Cremona; and Messer Mastino, Parma; the Lords of Mantua, Reggio; the Marquesses would have Modena; and the Florentines, Lucca. For that reason, the Milanese rode against the city of Piacenza, the Veronese and the Mantuans rode against Parma and Reggio, and the Marquesses of Ferrara against Modena; and our forces in Valdinievole against Buggiano. And then on the 8th of January the Luccans rode against Fucecchio and Santa Croce and took great plunder in livestock, and the war began again. And then, on the 23rd of the following month of February after four hundred horsemen from the League of Lombardy rode upon Parma and Reggio, they were defeated near the castello di Correggio by the troops of Parma and by soldiers of the legate, and Ettore of the Counts of Panigo and many other captains were captured.

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VI How the legate lost Argenta, and shortly after was chased out of Bologna. By the 7th of March of that year, the Marquesses of Ferrara and their armies had held the town of Argenta, which was defended by the forces of the Church and the legate, under siege for many months. The Archbishop of Embrun,⁴²⁹ who had been sent to Lombardy by the pope, requested that the allies in Lombardy meet him for a parlamento in Peschiera. In these talks, he requested three things on behalf of the pope: first, that the league be dissolved, with a promise of honorable peace for the allies; second, that the siege be lifted from Argenta; third, that the marquesses free the Count of Armagnac and the other prisoners without ransom. Messer Mastino responded, through one of the ambassadors from Florence, that the league could not be ended, but that if Parma were left free of Church control, then the campaign that had been ordered would be called off. Regarding Argenta and the prisoners, the said ambassadors from Florence responded that insofar as Ferrara would remain under the control of the marquesses for the usual tribute, and Argenta for a smaller tribute, they could come to terms with the cardinal legate. The archbishop requested some time to respond, and he departed and went to the legate in Bologna. At this moment, Argenta was hard pressed by the siege, and since the defenders could not get assistance, and their food was running out, they surrendered. Once the armies of the Church were defeated at Ferrara, they no longer dared face the troops of the league in battle, whence the power of the legate was greatly decreased. And a few days after the marquesses won their victory at Argenta, they rode to attack the contado of Bologna with their forces. The cardinal legate of the pope in Bologna sent almost all of his cavalry to confront them, and he wanted to send along with them two quartieri of the popolo of Bologna. These were already armed on the main square, and they were going, though unwillingly, considering themselves badly treated. Whence it happened, as God willed, and truly without any preconceived plan, that one Messer Brandaligi de’ Gozzadini⁴³⁰ along with … de’ Becca-

 Bertrand de Déaulx (d. 1355) was a French churchman and diplomatic agent of John XXII in Italy. He was Archbishop of Embrun (1323) and Cardinal of San Marco (1338). Partner, “Bertrando di Deux”.  Brandaligi Gozzadini (ca. 1295 – 1348) was absent from his native city for much of his youth due to his family’s exile. He returned in 1328, perhaps due to an amnesty offered by the legate Bertrand du Pouget. He was an important figure in the new government of Bologna but was exiled in 1337 with his extended family and allies, due to conflict with the faction of Taddeo Pepoli, another leader of the city. Tamba, “Gozzadini, Brandaligi.”

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delli,⁴³¹ poor needy men who desired change and new things, considering themselves to be badly off under the lordship of the legate, and seeing his power decreased since his defeat by Ferrara and the loss of Argenta, climbed up to the balcony of the palace of Bologna with their unsheathed swords in hand and began to shout: “Popolo, popolo, death to the legate and anyone from Languedoc!” Hearing these shouts and this clamor, the armed popolo was stirred to join the uprising, and so they left the piazza and began to take over the town. They attacked the public granary and the bishop’s palace, where the marshal and other officials of the legate were staying, and they set fire to them. They robbed and killed all the foreigners from beyond the mountains⁴³² that they found in the town, and once they had done this, they began to attack the new castello where the legate was,⁴³³ so as to kill him and all his men who had fled within, and they kept up the siege day and night. This rebellion happened on the 17th of that month of March 1333. And note that all this ruin came to the legate because he treated the Florentines badly, for had he been good to them, the defeat he suffered at Ferrara would not have happened, nor would he have lost Argenta, nor would the people of Bologna have rebelled against him if they had been guided by the Florentines, nor Romagna. But excessive greed for power makes people rise up in pride and ingratitude against their friends, and this is especially the case for clerics; and it was chiefly this that made him fall into this error and made him fall in a short time from the heights of prosperity into great danger and then decline. Hearing the news, most Florentines were happy, and not angry, because of the league that the legate had made with King John; but out of fear for his person and reverence for the Church, they immediately sent four ambassadors, from among the greatest citizens of Florence, and along with them three hundred knights from their forces and from the vicariates in the foothills of the Mugello, to protect the legate and his men. When they arrived in Bologna, with much effort, and through flattery and prayers to the popolo of Bologna on behalf of the Commune of Florence, they drew the legate out from the castello with his men and his goods; on Monday the 28th of March in

 This is Colazzo de’ Beccadelli. He is identified in a fourteenth-century Bolognese chronicle: Della Pugliola, Historia Miscella Bononiensis, col. 36 2C.  Papal soldiers and representatives, from “beyond the mountains” in Avignon and Languedoc.  Villani described the construction of this fortress in Nuova Cronica, XI: 198. It was decorated by Giotto. See Benevolo, Il Castello di Porta Galliera. For Giotto’s work in Bologna during this period see Medica, ed., Giotto e le arti a Bologna.

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albis,⁴³⁴ the legate emerged from the gate of the castello, encircled by the said ambassadors and our armed men; and notwithstanding this, he was in great danger of losing his life, because the unbridled popolo of Bologna came after him shouting vulgar words; they carried arms to harm and rob him and his men and followed as far as the Ponte a San Ruffillo; and then the contadini chased him along the road all the way to Leurignano in the mountains. It is certain that without the assistance of the Florentines and their resourceful response, the legate would have been killed and robbed with all of his men. And once he left Bologna, the popolo, in a fury, knocked down and destroyed the castello, so that within just a few days, there was barely a stone remaining of what had been a rich and noble building. The Florentines brought the legate to Florence on the 26th of March,⁴³⁵ and he was received with great honor and a procession, and the commune presented him with two thousand gold florins for his expenses; he refused these, thanking the commune for the great and honorable service they had done him, recognizing that they had saved his life and his position. He left Florence on the 2nd of April, accompanied by Florentine ambassadors and men-at-arms all the way to Pisa; and from there he went to court, arriving at Avignon on the 26th of April. When he appeared before the pope and cardinals in public consistory, he expressed his sorrow at the ill-fortune he had encountered, and the shame and harm done to him by the Bolognese, demanding revenge for himself and for the Church, publicly praising the help and honors received from the Florentines. But in secret he said to the pope that he believed his every misfortune had been caused by the soldiers the Florentines had sent to aid Ferrara, whereby his army was defeated. For this reason, the pope refused to see or hear the Florentines, whom he had already begun to dislike, due to slanderous news the legate had given him in letters, because of their adherence to the league. And it is certain that if Pope John had lived much longer, he would have done everything possible to reduce the power of the Florentines and hurt them, and already he had plotted it, since above all the other cardinals he loved Messer Bertrand du Pouget, Cardinal of Ostia, his nephew (although most people said openly that he was his son, since there was a close resemblance between the two).⁴³⁶

 In 1334, Easter was on 27 March. “Monday in albis” refers to the Monday after Easter, still celebrated as “Pasquetta” in Italy.  This date is clearly incorrect. Different manuscripts have the 29th or the 31st. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 6, note 92.  This rumor, voiced also by Petrarch in his Book without a Name, seems to be without foundation, and has been rejected by scholars. See Jugie,”Bertrando del Poggetto.”

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VII Of events in Bologna after the legate was chased out. After the legate was chased from Bologna, there was great discord among the citizens, since each of the leading men wished to be lord, and those citizens who had been friends with the legate were suspect. And if the Florentines had not immediately sent two hundred knights along with two wise grandi citizens as ambassadors to offer counsel on the state of the city, and to guard it, surely the Bolognese would have torn each other to pieces and their discord would have led them to give their city to Messer Mastino della Scala, or to the marquesses, or to other tyrants. The said Florentines stayed for two months, having returned the city to as good a state as they were able, despite the fact that the Bolognese were full of ill will towards one another. But as soon as the ambassadors and knights of Florence had left Bologna, the Bolognese gave birth to their iniquities: the sons of Romeo de’ Pepoli and the Gozzadini and their followers, who had caused the city to rise up against the legate, in tumult and with fury chased out the Sabatini, the Rodaldi, the Bovattieri, and some of the Beccadelli, as well as other houses and families of the grandi and popolo; they burned their houses, and some they killed and they sent many people into exile—between those chased out and those exiled, there were more than one thousand five hundred citizens. That was on the … day of June 1334. And if the Florentines had not immediately sent their ambassadors and knights back to protect the city, Bologna would have been completely ruined and abandoned, or would have fallen into the hands of a tyrant. And note that this judgment of God was not without just cause, for although it was just that the legate be chased out from Bologna for his pride and tyranny, the ungrateful popolo of Bologna should not have done it, out of reverence for Holy Church and because of the profit that the Bolognese had drawn from the legate’s stay in Bologna, as everyone had enriched themselves by his presence. But the word of God cannot fail, that is: “I will kill my enemy by means of my enemy.”

VIII How the League of Lombardy took Cremona, and other events that happened as a result in Lombardy and Tuscany. In the year 1334, in the month of April, the army of the League of Lombardy, led by its lords and numbering three thousand knights, was attacking the city of Cre-

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mona. And then, on the first of May, the Lord of Cremona made a pact to surrender the city to the Lord of Milan, in accordance with the terms sworn to the league. Among these was the stipulation that if King John, to whom they had surrendered themselves,⁴³⁷ did not send an army to their aid before the middle of July, then they would surrender the city as set forth in the pacts. And so they did, since help did not come, since King John and his son had left Lombardy, and his army was not strong enough to resist the strength of the league. In this same period, at the end of May, the said army attacked Reggio, and then Modena, and devastated the surrounding territory. And then, since they wished to attack the city of Parma and lay siege to it, they began to move from Reggio to Parma. However, a plot had been laid, and orders to bring it into effect had been given at the papal court by Cardinal Pouget, who had been legate in Lombardy. The plot was to unfold as follows: a deposit of fifty thousand gold florins was to be made to give to the captains of Lower Germany; these men were to capture Messer Mastino della Scala and the other lords, starting a brawl among the troops to help them accomplish their treason. This plan was revealed to Messer Mastino by one of his longtime captains who was part of the conspiracy and for this reason the plot was not successful. As a result, a number of people were captured and killed and twenty-seven companies of Germans left the army and went to Parma, completely dispersing the army; and all the tyrants and lords returned to their cities in great suspicion and fear for their own persons, that they might be captured or killed by their own soldiers—all this took place on the 7th of June of the said year. In coordination with the aforesaid attack by the League of Lombardy, and according to plans, Messer Bertrand de Baux, war captain for the Florentines, rode upon the contado of Lucca with eight hundred knights, sacking Buggiano and Pescia with the intention of going as far as Lucca. He should have halted the army there, and gathered men on horse and on foot for the Florentines; and the League of Lombardy whose army was stationed at Parma should have sent five hundred knights to the said army of Lucca in support of the Florentines. But people plan things, and God determines them: because of what had happened with the Germans in Lombardy, every plan for the siege of Parma and Lucca was abandoned, and our men-at-arms returned with their captain to Pistoia.

 That is, whose rule they had accepted.

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IX Of certain holy relics that came to Florence. In the said year, on the 13th of April, some relics of Saint James and Saint Alessio were sent to Florence, along with a part of the cloth that Christ wore, through the efforts of a Florentine monk of Vallombrosa, of holy life, who procured them from his superiors in Rome. And when they arrived in Florence, they were received in a great procession by the clerics, along with the priors, the other officials, and many good people of Florence. And with great devotion they were placed in the altar of San Giovanni.

X Of events that took place in the city of Orvieto. In the said year, at the end of April, civil conflict broke out in the city of Orvieto, and Napoleuccio de’ Monaldeschi, who was the lord of that city, was killed by his kinsman Ermanno di Messer Currado. They seized the city, and they chased out the party and the followers of the said Napoleuccio, and thus the city was ruined and divided, and the said Ermanno made himself lord there.⁴³⁸

XI About a fire that broke out in Florence. On the 10th of June of the said year, as the day bell was ringing in the morning, a fire broke out in the popolo of Santo Simone at the end of the old palace near Santa Croce, and two houses burned down, and three women perished.

 Ermanno then died in 1337, giving rise to a new period of disorder and conflict amongst the Monaldeschi. Waley, Medieval Orvieto, 133 and 141– 42.

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XII When foundations were laid for the bell tower of Santa Reparata and the Ponte Carraia. In the said year, on the 18th of July, they began to lay the foundations for the new bell tower of Santa Reparata, next to the facade of the church on the Piazza San Giovanni. To do this, and to bless the first stone, the Bishop of Florence came in a grand procession with all the churchmen and the priors and the other officials with a great popolo. They made the foundations very solid, going down as far as the watertable, and master Giotto, our citizen, was chosen by the commune as overseer and superintendent of the said work on Santa Reparata.⁴³⁹ Giotto was the most excellent master of painting that could be found in his day, one who drew every figure and gesture most naturally, and he was given a salary by the commune as compensation for his talents and excellence. The said master Giotto, having returned from Milan, where our commune had sent him in the service of the Lord of Milan, passed from this life on the 8th of January 1336, and he was buried with great honor by the commune at Santa Reparata.⁴⁴⁰ At this same time and period, work was begun on the foundations for the new Ponte Carraia, which had fallen due to the flood. This work was completed on the first of January 1336, costing more than twenty-five thousand gold florins and resulting in a bridge with two fewer piers than the old bridge. And the walls along the banks of the Arno were rebuilt on one side and the other, to straighten the course of the river, and to increase the beauty and strength of the city.

XIII How Messer Mastino took the castello di Colorno in the territory of Parma.

 Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1267– 1337) was appointed master architect of Florence and entrusted with work on Santa Reparata, the cathedral of Florence. In July, he began work on the bell tower. See Tractenberg, The Campanile of Florence Cathedral and Cassidy, “Artists and Diplomacy.” Also Skaug, Giotto and the Flood.  This a precious micro-biography of the artist. Giotto actually died in 1337 (since according to the Florentine calendar, the new year did not start until March), with only the first floor of the bell tower completed; he was succeeded by sculptor Andrea Pisano.

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In the said year, in the month of August, Messer Mastino della Scala and the League of Lombardy came to lay siege to the castello di Colorno in the contado of Parma, and the Commune of Florence sent three hundred fifty knights there, very fine and good men, with Ugo degli Scali as their captain. Messer Mastino found himself there with three thousand knights, and he had much need of them, because the people of Parma, with the knights that King John had left them, and with the help of Lucca, Reggio, and Modena, were there with more than two thousand good knights, who several times made attacks aimed at breaking the siege and bringing Messer Mastino to combat. But since Mastino’s host was strongly protected by trenches and palisades, they were not able to break through, nor did Messer Mastino wish to join in open battle. For this reason, the people of Parma were unable to supply Colorno, and after it was abandoned, it surrendered itself to Messer Mastino on the 24th of September of the said year. This victory was the reason why Messer Mastino was able to take the city of Parma a short time afterward, as we will later tell.

XIV How the Florentines reconquered the castello d’Uzzano in Valdinievole. In the said year, on the 12th of September, because of a plot laid by Messer Bertrand de Baux, war captain for the Florentines, involving the payment of two thousand gold florins in return for treason, the castello d’Uzzano above Pescia in Valdinievole surrendered itself to the Commune of Florence. Once it had surrendered, the said Messer Bertrand de Baux, war captain for the Florentines, rode twice all the way to the gates of Lucca with five hundred knights and a good-sized popolo, burning and sacking and taking great plunder, seriously harming the Luccans. But he was able to do this safely because the league army was at Colorno in Lombardy, and the cavalry of Lucca was in Parma, so that the city of Lucca was lacking in men-at-arms.

XV How King John pretended to give the city of Lucca to the King of France. In the said year, on the 13th of October, while King John was in Paris, he granted to King Philip of France all the rights he had in Lucca and its contado, falsely claiming to act on behalf of and at the request of the Luccans. And the said

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King of France made it known to all the merchants of Florence that were in Paris, that since the lordship of Lucca belonged to him, they should write to our commune saying that it should not make war on Lucca or its contado. Despite this, the war did not cease. King Robert, through his letters and his ambassadors, expressed much displeasure to his nephew the King of France regarding this matter of Lucca, entreating him to abandon his claim, since the lordship was not his by right, and since the city had been taken from him, Robert, by treason, and had been made to rebel by Uguccione della Faggiuola and then by Castruccio Antelminelli. For this reason the King of France did not send his army there, nor did he take possession of the city.

XVI How the Florentines created seven bargellini to guard the city.⁴⁴¹ In the said year, around the first of November, the rulers of the city of Florence created a new office in Florence: the seven captains of the guard of the city. Each captain had twenty-five armed soldiers, and there was one per sesto and two for the Oltrarno. These would guard the city day and night, from outlaws and brawls, and offenses of gambling and arms, and they were called bargelli. The office of the bargelli appeared to be good and it started off well, but the rulers of the city did it more to guard themselves and strengthen their own state, because they were afraid that when the new reform regarding the election of the priors came into effect the following January there might be strife, because certain popolani who were worthy of holding the said office were excluded because of their party allegiances. This office lasted a year, no more—once the election was over—and then there arose an office of greater importance, called the conservatore, as we will tell further along at the proper place.

XVII An account of the war between the Catalans and Genoese.

 The bargello was an official of public security who reported to the podestà and resided with his men in the Palace of the Podestà. Like the podestà, the bargello was often recruited from outside Florence, to avoid corruption. Seven was an unusually large number of bargelli.

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In the said year, the Genoese with their war galleys did great damage to the Catalans, taking four of their large cogships in Cyprus, and another four in Sicily, and four galleys in Sardinia, all laden with riches, and they put all the men to the sword or drowned them in the sea, and they hanged six hundred at once in Sardinia, which was extremely cruel; but they did not escape the retribution for this act, in part because of a judgment of God which fell upon their city, as we will mention soon enough.

XVIII How the Turks were defeated at sea by galleys of the Church and the King of France.⁴⁴² In the said year, the fleet of the Church of Rome, the King of France, and the Venetians clashed with the Turkish fleet and engaged it in battle. The Christian fleet consisted of thirty-two galleys sent to Greece to defend it from the raiding and pillaging of the Turks; the Turkish fleet was infinite in size. More than five thousand Turks died as they fled to land, and one hundred fifty big ships of their fleet were burned, not to mention the lighter and smaller boats. And then the victors raided their coasts and some places inland, taking great plunder in slaves and in goods, to their great loss.

XIX On the death of Pope John XXII. In the said year, on the 4th day of December, Pope John died in the city of Avignon in Provence, where the papal court was. He died of sickness of flux, and his whole body dissolved, and as far as is known, he died in a proper fashion, his soul quite well-disposed with God, revoking the opinion he had set forth on the vision of the souls of the blessed after death. He did this, it was said, more because of the goading of his nephew Cardinal Pouget and some of his other relatives, so that he might not die with that suspect reputation, than of his own in This was the Battle of Adramyttion, part of a broader campaign against the Turkish principalities of the Anatolian coast. The Venetians were the organizers of the naval league and the combatants included Cypriots and Knights Hospitallers as well as the Church and the French. On the activities of this league, see Carr, Merchant Crusaders, 70 – 74.

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itiative, since he did not believe he would die so soon, and yet he died the next day. And so that it will be clear to those who will read this chronicle in times to come, so that they may not fall into error because of that opinion, we will put here word for word the said declaration faithfully translated into the vernacular, as we had a copy of it from our brother who was then at the court of Rome. “Bishop John, servant of servants of God, in perpetual memory. Since, about those things regarding the purged souls which have left the body—whether at the resurrection of the body we see the divine essence with that vision which the Apostle calls ‘little flames’⁴⁴³—by us as by many others, in our presence reciting and citing the Holy Writ and the original sayings of the saints, or by reasoning in some other fashion, many times things were said differently than they were said and meant by us, and as we now say and mean, so that doubt and confusion might be generated, behold the opinion that we have, and have had, regarding these things, according to the tenor of the present declarations, as follows: We declare, and confess with certainty and we believe that the purged souls that have left their bodies are in the heaven of heavens and in paradise with Christ, and united with the company of angels, and that they see God and the divine essence face to face clearly, insofar as the state and condition of the soul separated from the body allows.⁴⁴⁴ And if we said, preached, or wrote other things or in another manner on this subject, in no way do we wish those things we said, preached, or wrote while reciting and disputing the sayings of Holy Writ and of the saints to be said, preached, and written. And even if we said certain other things while giving sermons, disputing, forming doctrine, or teaching, or if by any other means we said, preached, or wrote regarding the aforesaid things, or on other things regarding the Catholic faith, the Holy Writ, or about the right way to act, insofar as they are in harmony with the Catholic faith and with the determination of the Church upon the Holy Writ and upon the right way to act, we affirm them; otherwise, those things we had by a different fashion, we wish that they had not been said, preached,  There is an error in transcription or translation here. The original Latin of the bull had facie ad faciem; that is, face-to-face. I Cor. 13:12.  Villani has already treated John XXII’s controversial opinion on the Beatific vision—that souls in heaven could not see God until after the Last Judgment—in XI: 227. The papal bull containing this deathbed retraction is Ne Super His, dated 3 December 1334. Villani’s translated version of this document, received from his brother Filippo, an associate for the Peruzzi company at the papal court, is quite faithful. Note that John XXII’s retraction expresses some reserve. The phrase, “insofar as the state and condition of the soul separated from the body allows,” implies that before the Last Judgment the vision of God might not be perfect, that it will be improved, when the body is reunited with the soul. This doubt will be eliminated by Benedict XII in his Benedictus Deus of 1336, treated in XII: 47.

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and written, and we revoke them expressly; and all the aforesaid things, and whatever other things previously said and written by us about whatever matter, in whatever place, and in whatever state, that we have, and have had before today, we submit to the determination of the Church and of our successors. Dated at Avignon on the 3rd of December, 19th year of our pontificate.” And then the pope annulled the reservations that he had made, so that from his death forward they would no longer be valid.

XX On the treasure that the Church found after the death of Pope John and of his life and habits. It was said that the eclipse of the sun, which occurred in the month of May the year before, signified that his death would occur when the sun came in opposition to its half course; and it seems that this is just what happened. The obsequies for the death of the said pope were held on the 16th of December in Florence, in the Church of San Giovanni, which was lit up magnificently, and with great solemnity and celebration of the offices by clerics and by all citizens. And note that upon his death, the treasury of the Church at Avignon was found to contain minted gold coins valued at more than eighteen million gold florins; and the tableware, crowns, crosses, mitres, and other gold jewelry set with precious stones, I estimate roughly at a value of seven million gold florins, with each million equaling one thousand thousands of gold florins.⁴⁴⁵ And we can put full faith in these facts and swear truthfully, since our blood brother, a trustworthy man, who was then at the court as a merchant of the pope, was told this and it was confirmed by treasurers and others who were charged with counting and weighing the said treasure and calculating the total value, so as to report it to the college of cardinals that it might be included in the inventory, and this is what they found. The said treasure, the majority of it, was gathered by the said Pope John, through his industry and wisdom, since from the year 1319 on, he made reservations on all collegiate benefices throughout Christendom—he wanted to bestow all of them himself and said that he did this to prevent simony. And from this he gained and amassed an infinite amount  Edwin Hunt notes that Villani’s figure for the value of papal treasury is so high that a number of scholars have questioned its reliability. After reviewing arguments, he concludes that the chronicler’s statistics “deserve to be treated with respect, albeit with caution.” Hunt, Medieval Super-Companies, 271.

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of treasure. Moreover, on account of the said method of reservation, hardly ever did he confirm the election of any prelate, but promoted a bishop into a vacant archbishopric, and into that bishopric promoted a minor bishop, and therefore it often happened that when a great bishopric or archbishopric or patriarchate was vacated, he made six or more promotions, and this was similar for other benefices, whence a great many funds came to the pope’s treasury.⁴⁴⁶ But this good man did not recall the Gospel of Christ, who said to his disciples: “May your treasure be in the heavens, and do not store up treasures on earth,”⁴⁴⁷ nor the treasure that Peter and the apostles asked of Matthias, when they drew lots to choose their colleague to replace Judas Iscariot.⁴⁴⁸ Let this suffice, although perhaps we have said more than is proper, since Pope John used to say that he was gathering the said treasure to provide for a holy crusade to Outremer, and perhaps that was his intention. He used up much treasure in Lombardy to overthrow the tyrants and to maintain in high style his nephew, or really his son,⁴⁴⁹ who was the legate of Lombardy, as we have mentioned previously, and he sometimes spent money fighting the Turks. He was overly happy at the murder or death of his enemies. He loved our Commune of Florence very much while we were supporters and helpers of the said legate; he did many favors to the commune and to individual citizens and indeed in his time he gave ten bishoprics to Florentines as well as many other ecclesiastical benefices; but once the commune turned against the said legate, he was its enemy, and sought our downfall in every way. He was modest and sober in his habits, and he loved coarse foods more than delicate ones, and he spent little on himself. Almost every night he rose to say the office and study, and most mornings he said mass, and was very willing to give audiences, and he dispatched matters quickly. He was a small person, heavyset and choleric, and he was moved quickly to anger. He was learned in the sciences, astute, and magnanimous in great matters. He made his relatives all quite great and rich, lived around ninety years, and was buried in Avignon, although his relatives later brought either part or all of his body to Cahors in France; he was pope for eighteen years and … months.⁴⁵⁰ Let us leave this sub-

 John Weakland, noting criticism by Villani and other chroniclers of the pope’s promotion and transferral of prelates, suggests that, in addition to the obvious fiscal benefits, the practice may have had political benefits as well, since the pope could fill positions with trusted relatives and friends. Weakland, “Administrative and Fiscal Centralization,” 295.  The reference is probably to Matt. 6:19 – 20, but it is not exact.  Acts 1:23 – 26.  Villani has mentioned this previously in Nuova Cronica, XII: 6.  The number of months is missing in the manuscript. John XXII was pope from 7 August 1316 to 4 December 1334, thus eighteen years, and almost four months.

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ject, and leave off speaking of his habits and customs, since we have said quite a lot already, and tell of the election of Pope Benedict who succeeded him.

XXI On the election of Pope Benedict XII. After the death and burial of Pope John, the cardinals, twenty-four at that time, were all in Avignon, and were placed in conclave, well-guarded and cloistered by King Robert’s Seneschal of Provence, so that they might quickly elect a pope. There was some contention and discord among them regarding the election, because the largest faction, headed by the Cardinal Périgord, who was the brother of the Count of Périgord, and who had a great following of cahorsini and French cardinals as well as the Cardinal Colonna, was working to elect as pope the cardinal who was brother of the Count of Comminges, a wise and worthy man who led a good life; they supported him, and offered him their votes, on the condition that he promise not to return to Rome, something that he refused to promise, saying that he would sooner renounce the cardinalship that he had for certain than the papacy which was a matter of chance.⁴⁵¹ For this reason, since the disagreement among the members of the conclave continued, almost as a dare, not thinking it would have any effect, they cast their ballots for the member of their college who was considered the least important of the cardinals. This was the white cardinal, a man of humble origins from Toulouse who had been a monk and then a Cistercian abbot, but who was a man of good life. It seemed to be a work of divine intervention, for without observing an organized vote each faction of cardinals, on the second time around, gave him their votes, and thus he was elected pope on the eve of Saint Thomas the Apostle, after vespers, on the 20th of December 1334.⁴⁵² And once he was elected pope, everyone was astonished, and he himself who was present said “you have elected an ass.” He said this

 Cardinal Périgord is Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord, brother of the Count of Périgord, named Cardinal of San Pietro in Vincoli in 1331. His chosen candidate was Jean-Raymond de Comminges, named as Cardinal of Porto e Santo Rufino in 1331.  Pope Benedict XII (1280/1285 – 1342) was third of the Avignon popes. Of humble origins, he entered the Cistercian order and was Bishop of Pamiers (1317), where he dedicated himself to the investigation of heresy. In 1327 he was named Cardinal Priest of San Prisca, and a theological advisor to Pope John XXII. As pope, he was known for his curbing of the abuses of clerical offices, for his reform of religious orders, and for his dogma on the beatific vision. See Bueno, ed., Pope Benedict XII and Guillemain, “Benedetto XII.”

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either out of great humility, not believing himself to be worthy, or as a prophecy of his reign, because he was a man of rough intellect as far as the courtly life was concerned, although sufficiently learned in Scripture. After that, he was crowned pope on the 3rd of January in the place of the preaching friars in Avignon, and he called himself Benedict XII. As soon as he was elected, he dismissed all the prelates, except for the cardinals,⁴⁵³ and gave the college of cardinals one hundred thousand gold florins from the treasury to cover expenses.

XXII Of certain floods that took place in Florence and in Flanders. In the said year, on the 5th of December, there was so much rain that the Arno swelled extraordinarily, so that, if the weirs that were in the river before the great flood had still been standing, a great part of the city would have been flooded. Because of that flood, the riverbed had been lowered by more than six braccia; but even so the waters broke and carried away a wooden bridge made on thick pilings, which had been erected between the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte Santa Trinita, as well as a bridge of big barges chained together, which was built between the Ponte Santa Trinita and the Ponte Carraia, causing much damage. In Flanders, Holland, and Zeeland during this time there were many excessive rainstorms, and a swelling of the waves at sea, so that all the houses and lands on those coasts were abandoned.

XXIII How a certain Fra Venturino of Bergamo moved many people in Lombardy and Tuscany to penitence.⁴⁵⁴

 He sent home prelates whose presence was not necessary at court, enforcing the laws of residence.  Fra Venturino de Apibus (1304– 1346) was a Dominican friar and charismatic popular preacher. His “pellegrinaggio penitenziale” to Rome in 1335 deeply disturbed Pope Benedict XII, who exiled him to France and prohibited him from preaching. Venturino spent these years writing religious treatises, such as De Humilitate and De Spiritu Sancto. After the death of Benedict XII, Clement VI accorded him permission to preach again (1343) and to return to Italy (1344). He took part in a crusade to Smyrna where he died, weakened by his “fatiche” and his practice of “penitenz[a]”. Piazzoni, “Beato Venturino De Apibus.” For his pilgrimage

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In the said year, around the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, one Fra Venturino of Bergamo of the Order of the Preaching Friars, who was thirty-five and of humble origins, by his sermons brought to penitence many murderous and thieving sinners, and other evil men from his city and from Lombardy. And by his efficacious sermons he moved more than ten thousand Lombard gentlemen and others to observe Lent in Rome in order to be pardoned. Almost all were dressed in the habit of Saint Dominic, that is, in a white tunic and a blue or dark purple mantle, and on the mantle there was embroidered a white dove with three olive leaves in its beak. And they passed through the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany in formations of twenty-five to thirty, and every company came with its cross held out before it crying “peace” and “mercy.” And when they arrived in the cities, the pilgrims went first to the church of the preaching friars, and in that church, before the altar, they undressed from the waist up, and humbly whipped themselves for a time. And in our city of Florence, great alms were given to them; every day, devout people—men and women—set out tables filling all the old square of Santa Maria Novella, where five hundred or more people at a time ate well, and this lasted continuously for fifteen days, until they departed for Rome. During all this time, Fra Venturino was in Florence, and he preached a number of times, drawing all the popolo of Florence to his sermons almost as if he were a prophet. His sermons were not extremely refined, nor did they reveal deep learning, but they were very efficacious and articulate, containing holy words, frightening and stimulating, which caused people to be moved, as if he were affirming and saying: “What I tell you, you must know, and nothing else; because it is the will of God.” He left for Rome with the said pilgrims, and with many others from Tuscany who followed him; there were innumerable people, decent and patient. And then from Rome the said Fra Venturino went to see the pope at Avignon, in order to beseech the grace of forgiveness for those in his following. At court, either out of envy or because of his arrogant behavior, accusations against him were made to the pope, charging him with several articles of sin and heresy, concerning which he was interrogated, and an inquiry was made, and he was found to be a good Christian of saintly habits. But for his audacity, and because he was saying that no pope was worthy if he did not reside in Rome at the See of Saint Peter, and because the pope was afraid that by his preaching he might unsettle the Christian people, he exiled Fra Venturino to Frisacca, a town in the mountains of Ricordana, and ordered him to neither give confession, nor preach to the popolo. And these are the rewards that holy persons receive from prelates

to Rome see Gennaro, “Venturino da Bergamo e la peregrinatio.” For a hagiographical work on his life, written ca. 1347, see in Clementi, ed., Legenda beati fratris.

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of Holy Church; that is to say, it was right to temper the excessive ambition of the friar, even though he was acting with good intentions.⁴⁵⁵

XXIV How the Ghibellines of Genoa chased out the Guelphs and overthrew the lordship of King Robert. In the said year, all the Ghibellines had returned to the city of Genoa as a result of the peace made by King Robert, as we mentioned in an earlier place.⁴⁵⁶ And the king had sent his official Messer Bolgaro da Tollentino to Genoa to organize the defense of the city, and to see to it that the rule of the king be prolonged. While Messer Giannozzo Cavalcanti of Florence was podestà for the king, turmoil and agitation began in Genoa between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, because most of the Genoese who were of imperial leaning—since such men are naturally proud and disdainful—were unhappy with the lordship of the king, and did not wish to extend his lordship. Because of this dissension, civil war began between the two parties and they blockaded and barricaded the whole city. In the beginning, the Guelphs had the upper hand, but then they became divided among themselves because when the aforementioned Messer Bolgaro was podestà of Genoa, he had one of the elders of the Salvatici family beheaded on the orders of King Robert, because he was a great pirate and a thief on the seas, and for this reason the Salvatici, out of hatred, came to an agreement with the Ghibellines and their followers to take lordship from the king, having agreed to do this with the Doria and the Spinola. And since they had received great help from the forces of Savona and from the Riviera, their strength on land and sea increased, and they did battle with the Guelphs and the officials of the king, chasing them out, on the 28th of February of the said year, to the great shame of King Robert; the podestà was blamed for this, because of his negligence. Once the Guelphs were chased from Genoa, they went to Monaco, and then with the assistance of King Robert they prepared a number of galleys for war and made themselves masters of the sea, robbing those less powerful than themselves, and tightly pressing the city of Genoa. The Ghibellines who remained as lords of Genoa named two captains, one from the house of Doria and the other from  The beginning of this sentence is full of sarcasm on Villani’s part, but is followed by a more judicious statement, in which he tries to justify the behavior of the Church.  According to a peace arrangement forged in 1331, King Robert was to hold power over the city, while Guelphs and Ghibellines were to share civic authority. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 187.

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the house of Spinola. This change quite spoiled the good state of Genoa and its commerce, and there was little justice there, and the power of the Genoese was greatly reduced, and later even the Guelphs who had sided with the Ghibellines were chased out of Genoa.

XXV How the decline of the Tarlati of Arezzo began, and how Borgo San Sepolcro was taken from them. In the year of our Lord 1335, Messer Piero Saccone de’ Tarlati of Arezzo, brother of the late worthy Bishop of Arezzo, of whom we have spoken in several previous places, together with his brothers and kinsmen, had full lordship over Arezzo, and Città di Castello, and Borgo San Sepolcro, and of all their castelli as well as the castelli of Massa Trabaria, dominating as tyrants as far as the Marca. They had destroyed Neri d’Uguccione da Faggiuola, and the Counts of Montefeltro, and the counts of Montedoglio, and the house of the Ubertini, and the Bishop of Arezzo of the Ubertini, and the sons of Tano da Castello, and other minor barons of the area, both Ghibellines and Guelphs, in order to rule over everything. And since, out of arrogance, they took the city of Cagli, to which the Perugians had some claims, and since they were holding Città di Castello against the Perugians, the Perugians made a secret alliance and company with the said Ghibellines and with Messer Guglielmo [Rainieri], the Lord of Cortona. They loaned some of their men to Neri da Faggiuola and formed a plot with Ribaldo da Montedoglio, who was a brother-in-law to the Tarlati and who was holding Borgo San Sepolcro for them; this man allowed the said Neri to enter the said borgo with two hundred knights and five hundred foot soldiers on the 8th of April of the said year; and he took the city, everything except for the fortress, occupied by Messer Uberto di Maso de’ Tarlati, which held out until the 20th of April. Though the Aretines came with their forces to bring aid to the fortress, the Perugians with all their allies and their army were more numerous and more powerful, so that they became lords of the city and the fortress, which surrendered itself to them, and the lives of its defenders were spared. And this was the beginning of their ruin and decline.

XXVI How part of the mountain of Falterona collapsed.

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In the said year, on the 15th of May, a slope of the mountain of Falterona, on the side that descends towards the Dicomano in Mugello, collapsed because of an earthquake and became a landslide which extended for more than four miles, as far as the villa called Castagno, and it buried that villa with all its houses, people, and animals—wild and domesticated—and trees, and quite a lot of the surrounding territory. It spouted an abundance of water from underground, unusually turbid, like water from washing with ashes. And it spewed out an infinite quantity of snakes, and two serpents with four big feet like a dog, one alive and one dead, were captured at Dicomano. This turbid water descended into the Dicomano, and discolored the River Sieve, and the Sieve discolored the Arno River all the way to Pisa; and it continued turbid for more than two months, such that the water of the Arno could not be used for any good purpose, nor did horses wish to drink it. And during this time the Florentines greatly feared that they would never enjoy it again, nor be able to wash or scour⁴⁵⁷ linen or wool in it, and that the production of wool might come to an end in Florence; then, little by little the water became clearer, returning to its normal state.

XXVII Of certain skirmishes that took place between our soldiers and those of Lucca. In the said year, on the 6th of June, the Florentine war captain, Messer Bertrand de Baux, had set up defensive ramparts, that is, a fortress, between Uzzano and Buggiano in Valdinievole to make war on Buggiano and Pescia. And as our men, numbering one hundred fifty knights, were returning from these fortifications, certain of the enemy who had planned an ambush jumped out upon them and fought them, but these enemies were defeated, and twenty-two of their knights were captured, and one captain was killed. Meanwhile, as had been planned by the enemy, two hundred knights from the Luccan army came from Pescia to Buggiano and attacked our men, who thought they had prevailed, and defeated them, and four of our captains were captured and one killed, and many knights were captured and killed.

 Purgare, “to scour,” is a technical term in wool production.

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XXVIII How the Perugians were defeated by the Aretines. In the said year, on the 8th of June, the Perugians and their allies, feeling emboldened to take on the Aretines because of the rebellion of Borgo San Sepolcro, left Cortona with the Lord of Cortona and eight hundred knights and five thousand foot soldiers and entered the contado of Arezzo, sacking the contrada of Valdichiana. Messer Piero Saccone, Lord of Arezzo, left Castiglione Aretino with five hundred knights from his army and a good number of foot soldiers, and came valiantly against the Perugians, who, seeing the Aretines, began to withdraw towards Cortona. Their ranks were in disarray and were badly led by their captains. The Aretines, among whom there were some good war captains, seeing that the Perugians were not well commanded, vigorously attacked the Perugian knights who were stationed along the road to guard against pillagers, and after the first rather lengthy confrontation, the Perugian knights were routed and defeated, and about one hundred knights—from among the best citizens and foreigners—ended up either captured or dead, along with more than two hundred foot soldiers, and the pursuit went right up to the gates of Cortona. And if they had not found refuge within that city’s walls, very few would have survived. And afterwards, the Aretines rode pillaging and setting fires throughout the contado of Perugia for five days, and they went as far as the gallows of Perugia within two miles of the city. And to mock the Perugians, they hung some Perugians who had been captured, with a cat, that is, a kitty, hanging at their side, and also lake fish, which were pierced through and dangling from the belts of the hanged men. The Perugians were much shamed by this, but they did not act frightened or defeated; rather, they immediately collected money, and sent to Lombardy for one thousand German knights, who had been in the army of King John, very good men who had left Parma a short time before when that city had surrendered itself to Alberto and Mastino. These were called the Knights of the Dove since they had taken refuge in the Abbey of the Colomba in Lombardy and its surroundings, living off plunder and without employment.⁴⁵⁸ And those soldiers came to Perugia, and with the Perugians, and with the help of the Florentines (who, as soon as they learned of this defeat, sent one hundred fifty knights to Perugia under the banner of the Commune of Florence) soon did great things against the Aretines, as one will find by reading further. And at this time, on the 15th of June,

 On the Company of the Dove, at the core of which were soldiers who had served King John of Bohemia, see Ricotti, Storia delle Compagnie, 237.

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around one hundred fifty Genoese crossbowmen passed through Florence, on their way to Arezzo in the service of Messer Piero Saccone. They were sent by the relatives of his wife—who was of the Spinola of Genoa—and they went straight through the city without stopping with their banners raised, and with the imperial and Ghibelline ensigns. The young children and young men and popolo minuto followed them shouting as they exited the city gate, and everyone robbed, captured, and injured them, so that they could no longer go to the service of the Aretines, and they returned to Genoa. The Florentine merchants working in Genoa were required to pay compensation for the damage done. For this, and for the knights that the Florentines sent them immediately without being asked, the Perugians were very grateful to the Florentines—because they had been very frightened by their sudden defeat. Because of this small assistance, they gained strength and were comforted as described above, and the council of the Perugians ordered that money be collected through gabelle as is done in Florence, with which they paid the said one thousand knights.

XXIX Of a fleet that King Robert sent against Sicily. In the said year, on the 13th of June, a fleet of sixty galleys and many other ships that King Robert was sending to attack the island of Sicily left the port of Naples with one thousand knights, and its captains were the Count Corigliano of Calabria and the Count Chiaramonte, a rebel against the King of Sicily.⁴⁵⁹ The Florentines sent the king one hundred knights for that fleet; they could not serve the king any better since their troops were in Lombardy in the service of the league, and attacking the city of Lucca, and in the service of the Perugians, as was said before. The said fleet sustained its attack on the island of Sicily throughout July and August doing great damage, but they captured no walled cities, since the relatives and vassals of the Count Chiaramonte did not obey him as they had promised. Some, however, said that the count refused to involve them because the king did not do him that honor when he came to him that he believed was his due, and also because of his imperial sympathies; and we believe this to be true, because once the said fleet had returned to Naples, the count left the  Giovanni Chiaramonte’s change in allegiance was the consequence of a royal ban inflicted on him because of his violent prosecution of the feud against the Ventimiglia, which culminated in an attempt to assassinate the head of that casa, Francesco I Ventimiglia. Walter, “Giovanni Chiaramonte, Il Giovane.”

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king and went to Germany to the Bavarian, and then returned to the service of Messer Mastino della Scala, whence he had come.

XXX How the cities of Parma and Reggio surrendered to the Della Scala lords, and what followed. In the said year, the League of Lombardy, along with the four hundred fifty Florentine knights who were continually serving the league, had greatly afflicted the city of Parma. After the capture of the castello di Colorno, which we mentioned previously, Rolando and Messer Marsilio de’ Rossi of Parma, who were lords of that city, made an accord with Messer Azzone Visconti of Milan to give him Parma and Lucca; for which reason Messer Mastino and the other lords of the league and the Florentines were very upset, and they planned a parlamento … and all were there along with Messer Azzone at Soncino, and much enmity developed between Messer Azzone and Messer Mastino, because Messer Azzone wished to pursue this venture. The Florentines, who had fears concerning Lucca, that it might fall into the hands of Messer Azzone, and placing more faith in Messer Mastino for the promises he had made to give them Lucca, made it a priority through all their deeds and with the help of the other allies to change Messer Azzone’s mind, and to make peace between him and Messer Mastino. After much negotiation, the two met together upon the River Leglio, and they put the question to the ambassadors of Florence, who decided that Parma would belong to Messer Mastino, and that the league should help Messer Azzone to acquire Piacenza and Borgo San Donnino. And once this was done and confirmed through official documents, the Rossi of Parma, not expecting help from King John, came to an agreement with Messer Mastino and with the league, the accord having been initiated by Marquess Spinetta, and then pursued and brought to conclusion by their uncle Messer Marsilio da Carrara of Padua. And the Rossi of Parma entrusted themselves entirely to him, and they gave the city of Parma to Messer Mastino and Messer Alberto della Scala who promised them great and generous terms, that the Rossi would have Pontremoli and many castelli in the territory of Parma, that they would remain the greatest citizens of Parma, and that they would receive from the commune annually for their provisioning a great quantity of money, in the amount of fifty thousand gold florins. And they promised Messer Mastino to work effectively with their brother Messer Pietro Rossi, who held the city of Lucca for King John, to make him surrender it to Mastino, in exchange for a certain amount of money to be negotiated

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with the said king. And Messer Mastino said that he made these pacts regarding Lucca at the request of the Commune of Florence, to observe the pacts of the league, and thus did he write to the said Commune of Florence and continually say to the Florentine ambassadors who were around him in Verona. And he further claimed that if Messer Pietro Rossi were to fail to keep his word, his army, five hundred knights, would be at the service of the Florentines to help them acquire Lucca—but all these promises were simply deception. The Della Scala lords of Verona took possession of the city of Parma on the 21st of June in the said year of 1335, and Messer Alberto della Scala entered the city with six hundred knights, because Messer Mastino, due to an illness he had caught at Colorno, had gone to Verona. In the beginning, the Della Scala observed fully the pacts with the Rossi of Parma, until they gained possession of Lucca. Soon after the city of Parma had been ceded to Messer Mastino, the Lords Da Fogliano, who held the city of Reggio, so as not to have armies of the league attacking them, sought an accord with Messer Mastino. On the 4th of July that year they gave the city of Reggio to Messer Mastino under certain terms of surrender and he immediately handed it over to the Gonzaga, Lords of Mantua, as stipulated in the pacts of the league. The Gonzaga would recognize this gift through homage, sending a peregrine falcon every year to Messer Mastino in Verona.

XXXI How Messer Azzone Lord of Milan took the cities of Piacenza and Lodi on terms of surrender, and the Marquesses of Modena. Then, on the 27th of July of the said year, the city of Piacenza also surrendered itself to Messer Azzone, Lord of Milan. Later, however, the Scotti of Piacenza, along with certain others, caused it to rebel against Messer Azzone, and for quite a while they were in negotiations with King Robert to give him the city. Because of his hesitation, or indeed because he feared undertaking so great a campaign against Messer Azzone, the king did not help them, for which reason, they reached terms of surrender with Messer Azzone on the 15th of December 1335. And then, at the beginning of September 1335, the city of Lodi surrendered itself to Messer Azzone. And in this way the agreements made with each of the members of the League of the Lombards were observed, to grant them their conquests, for after Messer Mastino had acquired the city of Modena with much difficulty, he gave it to the Marquesses of Ferrara on the 8th of May 1336. However, the agreement made with the Commune of Florence regarding Lucca was not observed, which led to great changes in the relationship between the Commune of

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Florence and Messer Mastino, as we will mention further on at the proper time. We will now leave the events of Lombardy for a while, to speak of events in Florence and other places in those times.

XXXII How the Florentines took guard of the castello di Pietrasanta, and then shamefully abandoned it. In the said year, on the 9th of July, Niccolaio de’ Pogginghi was holding the castello di Pietrasanta in the contado of Lucca; he had received it as a pledge for ten thousand gold florins that he had lent the Constable of France, when the Constable had come to Lucca with King John. Not being able to guard the town himself, he put it under the protection of the Commune of Florence, only keeping the citadel for himself. The Florentines sent one hundred knights and three hundred foot soldiers there, with Messer Gerozzo de’ Bardi as their captain. Because of that foolish audacity, two days later, certain exiles from Lucca, numbering two hundred foot soldiers, took the hill of Pedona which is between Pietrasanta and Camaiore, with the intention of reinforcing it. Immediately, Messer Pietro Rossi rode there with the troops of Lucca on horse and on foot, and they attacked that hill; and its defenders, having neither provisions nor help, surrendered and were brought to Lucca as prisoners; and eighteen of their leaders were hung, including two of the Pogginghi family. But then, the following April, the said Niccolaio de’ Pogginghi gave Pietrasanta to Messer Mastino della Scala, who already held Lucca, for eleven thousand gold florins, sending away the Florentine troops; but he did not finish out the year, since Messer Mastino had the said Niccolaio seized in Lucca, accusing him of negotiating with the Florentines, and took from him the said money and more; and in this way the traitor was justly betrayed by the traitor.

XXXIII Regarding a great sickness of pox in Florence. In the summer of the said year, there occurred in Florence a great sickness of pox, so that all the children of Florence and the contado were infected to an unusual degree. And more than two thousand people—both males and females— died of this sickness in Florence. It was said by some astrologers and natural sci-

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entists, that the conjunction of Mars and Saturn in the sign of Libra, and Jupiter in opposition to them in Aries, was the reason for it.

XXXIV How Grosseto rebelled against the Sienese, and how they regained it with money. In the said year, Batino, who was Lord of Grosseto through tyranny, and who was the most powerful citizen of that city, had been for a long while in exile and under house arrest in Siena (the Sienese had taken Grosseto from him unjustly and through deceit, and were holding him in Siena out of fear).⁴⁶⁰ On the 28th of July, the said Batino secretly left Siena, and caused Grosseto to rebel. Whereupon, the Sienese were faced suddenly with a serious war, and for this reason they immediately moved troops to Grosseto with great expense and many deaths among their soldiers because of the unhealthy location. They were encamped until the 8th of November, when, through a feigned agreement with those inside the city, one of the gates was betrayed to them, and some of the wall was broken. Their war captain Count Marcovaldo of the Counts Guidi entered the town with more than three hundred men, but, as planned, they were trapped and almost all were captured and the count was very lucky to save himself. When the army of the Sienese was reinforced, Batino went to Pisa for help and received knights from the Pisans and hired more knights with his own money, so that he brought five hundred knights to the Maremma, and bravely forced the Sienese to withdraw, which they did in a cowardly fashion, leaving their camp and all their equipment, taking flight. And then with the said knights, Batino raided all the lands of the Sienese in the Maremma as far as Bagno a Petriuolo, taking great plunder, and this was on the 26th of November of the said year. But then, on the 26th of July 1336, the Sienese made an agreement with the said Batino, and promised him ten thousand gold florins if he would cede them Grosseto; but they traitorously broke their promise to him, as they only paid him the first installment of the five thousand gold florins, and thus was the tyrant tyrannically deceived.

 The city of Grosseto was under the authority of the Abati del Malia family. The elder signore, Bino, who had defended Grosseto from Louis the Bavarian in 1328, had died in 1334 and his heirs had been imprisoned in Siena. For their signoria see Cappelli, “La signoria degli Abati-Del Malia.”

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XXXV How the Sienese took the city of Massa by deceit and broke the peace with the Pisans. Again, in the said year, the Florentines were keeping guard over the city of Massa in the Maremma because of the agreement made between the Pisans and the Sienese by the Bishop of Florence, as we mentioned earlier, in the year 1333. The podestà was Teghia di Messer Bindo de’ Bondelmonti and the captain was Zampaglione de’ Tornaquinci. The faction of citizens who loved the Sienese, having plotted with them, began an uprising and began to fight in the city, and gathered within barricades; and the Sienese faction joined forces with the said Zampaglione their captain, and it was said he had been corrupted by money. Immediately the Sienese popolo and knights rode upon the city, and entered from the upper side, where their faction was strong. The Florentines then sent their bishop and other ambassadors there to calm the city, but nothing could be done because the Sienese forces had captured most of the fortified buildings in the city; and so they inevitably became lords of the city, chasing out the leaders who were friends of the Pisans, and this was on the 24th of August of the said year. Because of this, the Pisans were very angry with the Sienese, since they had broken peace with them, and therefore, the Pisans sent their knights to Batino of Grosseto to assist him against the Sienese, as we have said. But they complained even more of the Florentines, because they had trusted them, and given them the city of Massa to guard, and they were guarantors of the peace under penalty of ten thousand silver marks; we, however, know in truth that the Florentines did not defraud or deceive the Pisans, but they fell short by neglecting to send the forces of their knights to the aid of the podestà of Massa and by not punishing the captain, their citizen, who people said was guilty of stirring up the revolt in that city.

XXXVI Of certain fires that broke out in Florence. In the said year, on the 25th of August, a fire broke out in Florence near Sant’Egidio and a dyer’s house was burnt. And then, on the 17th of September, fire broke out in the Piazza San Giovanni, on the side of the Corso degli Adimari, and five houses burned.

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XXXVII How the Perugians and their allies took Città di Castello. In the said year, on Saturday night, on the last day of September, the Marquess of Valliana⁴⁶¹—having made a secret pact with three brothers from Monterchi, who had once been his vassals, and having been told by the mother of one of these brothers that they were guarding one of the city gates of Città di Castello—left Monte Santa Maria suddenly during the night and rode with the sons of Tano da Castello, and with Neri da Faggiuola, and with Messer Branca da Castello, with five hundred knights from Perugia and good number of foot soldiers. By daybreak they had reached the gate of Città di Castello which was to be handed over to them by the said traitors, who responded to their calls. But when Messer Ridolfo Tarlati, who was Lord of Città di Castello and commanded one hundred knights, heard that the enemies had arrived he took up arms to defend the city. Coming to the gate where the traitors were, he was fired upon by these men from the inner tower; frightened, he immediately blocked the road in front of the gate so as to defend the city, but the marquess and his companions were masters of war, and immediately had their men go around to the other side of the city, making a show—with a great clamor of shouting and blaring of trumpets and drums —of attacking the other gate. And he, the marquess, remained behind with few men to break down the said gate. Those inside, stunned by such a sudden assault, and poorly prepared for it, ran across the city in fear, towards the other gates. Meanwhile, the gate where the traitors were was broken down and opened, as was the drawbridge, and the enemies entered. They did great battle at the roadblocks, and took these by force, since Messer Ridolfo and his sons, seeing the enemy inside, fled into the fortress with part of their men; if they had maintained a strong defense, the city would not have been lost. The city was completely raided and plundered by the Germans, and the tower of the fortress was attacked from inside and outside. Because too many people had taken refuge there, and because the tower was not furnished with the necessary food, the people surrendered themselves as prisoners on the 5th of October. And Messer Ridolfo with two of his sons and the others from the fortress were taken to Perugia as captives. And shortly after, the Perugians took the strong castello di Cisterna, and other castelli in that contrada. We have spoken at such length about the capture of Città di Castello because it came about through good fortune, and

 When Guido Tarlati first captured Città di Castello, Guido, the Marquess of Valliana, was made captain of the Florentine contingent sent to recapture it. Villani, Nuova Cronica, X: 226.

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also because of great mastery and bravery in war. And note that if the Perugians had not won this victory, they might have abandoned their war with the Aretines, since they had already begun to regret the huge expense of fielding knights and soldiers, since their popolo and citizens were poorly prepared for war, and their commune was rather lacking in wealth.

XXXVIII How the King of England defeated the Scots. In the said year, in the summer of 1335, the young Edward, King of England went again into Scotland with his barons and with Robert Balliol [Edward Balliol],⁴⁶² whom he had made the new king. He moved against King David, born of Robert the Bruce; he fought with him and with the Scots and defeated them. Indeed, the Earl of Cornwall, blood brother of the King of England, died from excessive fatigue in these battles.⁴⁶³ And King Edward captured almost the whole country of Scotland, except for the fortresses in the mountains, and some forests and marshes. And the said King David Bruce returned to France to King Philip of Valois his ally, having almost lost his kingdom. We will leave matters of foreigners and return to our topic—events in Florence and nearby territories.

XXXIX How the Florentines reestablished the office of the conservatore, and what resulted from this. In the said year, around the first of November, the Florentines who were ruling the city made a new position of leadership, which they called the captain of the guard and conservatore of the peace and state of the city. And the first conservatore was Messer Giacomo Gabrielli da Gubbio;⁴⁶⁴ and on the said day he entered

 Despite his victory at Halidon Hill, Edward Balliol had been unable to establish himself in power in Scotland and had been deposed in 1334. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 140 – 51.  John of Eltham, First Earl of Cornwall (1316–1336), was son of Edward II of England and Isabella of France.  Giacomo Gabrielli da Gubbio was chosen as podestà of Bologna in 1327 and had served as podestà of Siena in 1330. His family had a tradition of serving the Florentines, as Giacomo’s father had been podestà of the city several times. Giacomo served as podesta in Florence in 1331

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into his office with fifty knights and one hundred foot soldiers, with a salary of ten thousand florins per year with great control and authority over the exiles; and in his role as guard, he extended his office in principle and in practice so it was like that of bargello, and above every other office, and he carried out blood justice at his pleasure, without following the statutes. And he went back to staying in the buildings that had once belonged to the Pietri sons, behind and alongside the Church of San Piero Scheraggio, which in those days had been purchased by the Commune of Florence from the creditors of the Scali company for seven thousand gold florins. The popolani citizens who ruled the city made and created this office to fortify their state, out of fear they might lose it, almost in the way they had made the seven bargellini the year before, as we mentioned previously. The said Messer Giacomo stayed in this office for almost a year, executing his duties harshly, and making himself much feared by both the grandi and the popolani citizens; and almost all the exiles stayed far from the city and the contado, since he captured Rosso, son of Gherarduccio de’ Buondelmonti, who had been condemned to death for not appearing to face charges that had been made against him in a deliberation⁴⁶⁵ not because he had violated an actual statute or committed a murder, but because of a raid he and others had carried out at Montalcino in service of the Tolomei of Siena. And Messer Giacomo had Rosso’s head cut off, against the will of the majority of the Florentines, and even though he had done no offense against any citizen, nor anyone in our distretto. But Messer Giacomo wished to make himself feared, since he who offends one threatens many. And afterward, he sentenced others similarly to death, and condemned almost all the communes and the popoli of the contado for harboring exiles, rightly and wrongly, at his pleasure. And thus, conducting the duties of his office in a rigid and crude manner, he did many illicit and unlawful things in Florence, at the request of those who had called him to the city, and who were ruling the city, and also to make unlawful profit. Then, when the year was over, he went back to Gubbio with a lot of money. And to take his place, on the first of November 1336, for the next year, there came to us Accorimbono da Tolentino, a man more than seventy-five years old, who had been a good leader in Florence as podestà once before. The beginning of his term started off well, but soon after, he extended his duties, unofficially, even to the smallest complaints, with the intention of raking in before taking on this new office in 1335. Villani sees him as a corrupt tool of the ruling popolani grassi and ultimately an ineffectual leader—this is quite clear later in the present chronicle. See Ciappelli, “Giacomo Gabrielli.”  In Italian the word is riformagione, the deliberation of a communal legislative council without the authority of a statute.

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money for himself and his men. And during his tenure a certain Messer Niccola de la Serra of Gubbio was called to render an account of his time as podestà of Florence and was found wanting, and the executor of the Ordinances of Justice, his relative from the contado of Gubbio, with the favor of the said Messer Accorimbono and the new podestà, who was the nephew of the said Messer Accorimbono, did not allow the syndics charged with the review to do their duty. And so, on the 13th of July 1337, the common people became agitated, and there was commotion on the piazze in front of the palazzi of the officials, because justice was not being done with respect to the podestà and his household; and the people, throwing stones, chased out some from the households of the said officials and injured them, and killed some, causing great harm, especially to the said Messer Accorimbono, whence the whole city was in upheaval. And though the said Messer Accorimbono wished to carry out corporal justice on certain people he had captured during the said uprising, for fear of the popolo minuto he did not have the courage to do it, and in fact he would not have succeeded because of the fury of the popolo. In the end, it was necessary to condemn the old podestà, and certain of the said people who had led the uprising, with fines. And so, for this reason, a decree was made that for the next ten years, no leader of Florence could come from Gubbio or its contado. Following one error with another, the said Messer Accorimbono, at the request of certain leaders among those who ruled the city, who were motivated by faction, began an investigation in the month of September against Messer Pino della Tosa, who had died the previous June, alleging that he and Feo di Messer Odaldo della Tosa and Maghinardo delli Ubaldini had made a pact with Messer Mastino della Scala to betray Florence. The son of Messer Pino was imprisoned and tortured to make him confess this, as were other noble men of Florence, friends of Messer Pino, so as to undo his memory and destroy his friends; and this was done out of jealousy, and some say that it was the doing of one of the said Messer Pino’s relations. This accusation was not true nor was it found to be true, and the said Maghinardo came in person to ask for forgiveness. However, it was true that Messer Pino, upon the orders of King Robert, from whom he held land, sought concord between Messer Mastino and the king and our commune, bestowing freely the city of Lucca. And for the said reason, since it seemed to the said Accorimbono that he had acted badly, so as to justify himself, he condemned part of the family of Messer Pino to be censured, because he had initiated negotiations without word from the priors, and he condemned the said Feo for not appearing to answer the charges. This was much criticized by many citizens, since Messer Pino had been the most skilled and worthy knight of Florence, and the most loyal to the Guelph faction, to the popolo and to the commune. It is, however, true that he was a great organizer of grand ventures to advance himself. For

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this reason the said office of captain of the guard and conservatore came to be viewed with such horror by the citizens of Florence that in no way, despite the efforts of certain leaders among those who ruled the city, could they get the authority to renew the said Messer Accorimbono, or others in his place; and so the said office came to an end since it was arbitrary and unlawful, without observance of ordinance, law, or statute; it permitted certain people who were ruling the city, who had created the office, to censure and chase from Florence whomever they wanted, and keep the citizens in a state of fear. We have made such a long record of this office and of its activities to leave an example to citizens of the future, in order that for the good of our city, they never be desirous of creating officials with unlimited powers, because although these are created under the pretext and in the name of the good of the commune, they always bring unhappy consequences for the cities, and give birth to tyrannical lordship.

XL How Messer Mastino della Scala acquired the city of Lucca. In the said year 1335 there had been many negotiations between Rolando Rossi and Messer Mastino on the subject of Lucca, always with words and promises that they were negotiating on behalf of the Florentines. These negotiations had drawn out so long that Messer Pietro Rossi, who was in possession of Lucca, could no longer defend himself from his brothers, and reluctantly went to Verona, and agreed to grant Messer Mastino the lordship of Lucca. And thus, on the first of November, Messer Mastino della Scala obtained possession and lordship of the city of Lucca and its contado by the hand of Rolando and Messer Pietro de’ Rossi of Parma, in accordance with the terms that were made when they ceded Parma, as we said earlier. And Messer Pietro Rossi left the city of Lucca on the 20th of December of the said year, and went to Pontremoli, which, according to the pacts, remained to the Rossi family along with other castelli in the Parmigiana; and Messer Giliberto the German remained with five hundred knights as vicar for Messer Mastino in Lucca. Messer Mastino, in his letters, was always giving false hope to the Florentines, saying, and promising, and swearing to their ambassadors, who followed him continuously on this account, that he would cede to the Commune of Florence the city and contado of Lucca, as stated in the pacts of the league, once he had restored the city to a good state. He failed to observe this promise, acting as a scoundrel and a traitor, and he betrayed and abandoned the Rossi of Parma, as we will recount further on, acting as a false and disloyal tyrant, because he imagined, in his ex-

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cessive and mad greed and due to evil counsel, that by means of the city of Lucca and its strength, he could gain the lordship of all of Tuscany, as this chronicle describes, from his beginnings to his later actions. From this betrayal arose diverse marvelous events and changes in Lombardy and in Tuscany, arranged by the Florentines.

XLI How the cities of the Viscounty in Valdambra gave themselves to the Commune of Florence. In the said year, the lordship of the Tarlati of Arezzo was much weakened by the loss of Borgo San Sepolcro and Città di Castello, as we said before, and due to the power and standing of the Perugians which had increased with the aid of the Florentines. For the Perugians often raided up to the very gates of Arezzo and had rebuilt Monte Sansavino and made war continually from that place, and many times their armies defeated their opponents. For this reason, on the 2nd of November, the people of the Viscounty, that is, the castello di Bucine in Valdambra, and those of Cenina, Galatrona, Rondine, and the Torricella, which were held by the Tarlati—they had rights to most of these because they had purchased them from the Counts Guidi—fearing war, and knowing that the Aretines would not be able to defend or help them, gave themselves to the Commune of Florence which granted them immunity for five years; the said castelli were required to give one candle per year on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist. This was a good acquisition on the part of the Florentines, and a great extension and a benefit to their contado, given what followed after.

XLII How there was fighting in the city of Pisa, and how one of the factions was chased out. In the said year and at the same time, the city of Pisa was greatly divided by faction; on one side there was the Count Fazio with the majority of the popolani who held the offices of the city, and on the other side were those who did not hold offices, and heading this faction were Messer Benedetto and Messer Ceo Maccaioni de’ Gualandi, and certain people from the Lanfranchi family and other grandi, and Cola di Piero Bonconti and other popolani. And these men organized

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a conspiracy in Pisa to overthrow the count and the rulers of Pisa, his followers, by means of a treaty with Messer Mastino della Scala, for they had promised him the lordship of Pisa, and he was supposed to send them his companies of knights from Lucca. This conspiracy caused turmoil and fighting within the city, such that on the 11th of November of the said year, the said Gualandi family and their followers, with weapons in hand, attacked the podestà of Pisa and chased him out and seized his belongings, and burned all the legal documents and records of the commune, and they broke open the prisons and freed the prisoners. And then, all that day, in the Piazza San Sisto, they fought against the anziani, the count and the popolo of Pisa, who had gathered, armed, on the square of the anziani. And not being able to hold out against the popolo, they retreated in the evening to the head of the Ponte alla Spina at the Porta delle Piagge, and there they reinforced their position with barricades and blockades, awaiting aid from Messer Pietro Rossi of Lucca, who was sending them four hundred knights and a good number of popolani; these were already near the castello d’Asciano. The count and the popolo, hearing this and fearing their arrival, hastened the battle during the night, with the setting of fires, and much shooting of arrows, and promising their German and Italian soldiers double pay; the majority of these, dismounting from their horses, fought hand to hand, and by force of arms that very night they chased the rebels from the city. If these men had delayed the battle or held out through the night to the morning until the help from Lucca arrived in Pisa, their opponents would have taken the city, and Messer Mastino would have been its lord. Hearing this news in Florence, the Florentines immediately sent three hundred knights from their forces to Montopoli in service of the count and of the anziani of Pisa to assist it. Because of their rapid defense, they were not in need of these forces, although they thanked the Florentines very much through their ambassadors (even though the ungrateful Pisans kept this in mind only briefly, as one will find, reading ahead). Then the Pisans made Count Fazio their captain of war on the 15th of December, and they increased the companies of soldiers to five hundred, with five hundred on foot to guard the city; they exiled their enemies as rebels and destroyed their property—these men then went to Lucca. The Pisans then fortified Quinzica and the Borgo San Marco with trenches and palisades, and the Porta delle Piagge and the Ponte alla Spina with bridges and chains, and they cut off the roads to Lucca, building quite a few towers and bridges and drawbridges.

XLIII How the Marquess Spinetta captured Sarzana.

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Messer Mastino della Scala, pursuing his intention to have the lordship of Pisa within his power, thus organized with Spinetta, Marquess Malaspina and with the Bishop of Luni, his relation, to bring the city of Sarzana into rebellion against the Pisans. This occurred on the 4th of December of the said year, when the said bishop and Spinetta, having been granted access to one of the gates by certain inhabitants who were on their side, entered with one thousand foot soldiers and seized lordship without any opposition. And so, the Pisans felt themselves greatly threatened by Messer Mastino and by Spinetta, and they became greatly suspicious and fearful of their exiles and their followers, making sure that the city of Pisa was guarded day and night by armed men on horse and on foot.

XLIV How Messer Mastino della Scala betrayed the Florentines regarding the city of Lucca. It seemed to the Florentines that Messer Mastino and Alberto della Scala were leading them on about granting them lordship of the city of Lucca, as was agreed and set forth in the aforementioned pacts of the league, prolonging discussions and giving false hope to certain ambassadors and syndics of the Commune of Florence, who were continually pursuing them for the said reason. And so that year, on the first day of December, they ordered that, in addition to these ambassadors and syndics, a great and solemn embassy be sent to Verona, made up of six of the most important grandi and popolani citizens of Florence—to discover their intentions. These people stayed in Verona with the said tyrants, and traveled about Lombardy, meeting with them and with the other Lombard leaders, with whom the Florentines had made the league, demanding they be granted possession of Lucca and that the pacts be respected. And the said Della Scala, Mastino and Alberto, with beautiful words and false promises stringing along our said ambassadors day after day, in the end had Rolando Rossi of Parma to do the negotiating, requesting a great quantity of money for the city, saying that they had spent money on it, and that it was necessary to pay John of Bohemia to have his permission to take Lucca. When the said ambassadors reported this to Florence, the Florentines decided that, since there was no other way to have Lucca, they should not give up because of the amount, leaving

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this decision to the said ambassadors.⁴⁶⁶ These, after lengthy discussions, reached a false accord with the said Messer Mastino and Messer Alberto to pay them three hundred sixty thousand gold florins, one part in cash and the other part to be paid within a certain deadline, with guarantors of their choice in the city of Venice. And note, reader, the error and mistake of the Florentines, who, as we described earlier, could have had Lucca from the soldiers of the Cerruglio in 1329 for eighty thousand gold florins, and then in 1330 through an accord between the citizens and Messer Gherardino Spinola for even less money; and now they spent and were willing to spend an excessive amount of money on Lucca. I reckon that God did not permit us to make the right choice earlier, so as to purge the sins and wicked profits of the Florentines and Luccans, and also of the Lombards. But let us return to our subject: the order was given, the money was found, and the syndics⁴⁶⁷ were appointed by the Florentines, but the wicked advice of the Marquess Spinetta and the other Ghibellines and the enticement of the Lord of Milan and the other Lombard lords caused the disloyal Mastino to be treacherous—for since it seemed to these men that Messer Mastino was too powerful and too near to them, they wanted to make him and his brother enemies of the Commune of Florence. And so they gave him the vain hope that if he kept Lucca for himself, he would easily gain control of the city of Pisa due to its divisions; and then if he wanted he could have the city of Arezzo; and with his forces there, it would take little effort to quickly take control of Romagna and Bologna due to their divisions and the recent revolutions in those places, because of the departure and casting out of the legate; and once he had Romagna, the Florentines would not be able to resist his armies, but he would have them surrounded and besieged. The Lombard lords showed him that because of the divisions in Florence between grandi and popolani and popolo minuto on account of the excessive taxes, and those not holding positions in offices of the city, it would be easy for him to have the city of Florence in his lordship, and then all of Tuscany, and then even more distant places. The traitor Mastino, young in age, and even younger in wisdom and treachery, and arrogant and ambitious, due to the happy circumstances in which fickle fortune had placed him, felt a tyrannical desire to acquire land and lordship and to make himself king in Lombardy and in Tuscany, without regard to what he had promised and sworn to Florentines, nor considering that the power of God is greater than human strength. Thus he raised a new issue before the said ambas-

 Villani seems to refer to a letter from the ambassadors, which would have detailed their negotiations and the final position of Mastino.  Syndics would have overseen this fiscal transaction.

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sadors, saying “We do not want money for Lucca, since we have enough of that; but we would like the Florentines, if they want Lucca, to help us acquire the city of Bologna with their army, or at least that they should not oppose us wishing to acquire it, as they promised us in the pacts of the league, when the legate was lord there.” The Florentines, learning this, and thus realizing, finally, the traitorous intentions of Mastino from his dishonest and sophistic request for Bologna— because with their forces the Florentines had defeated the armies of the legate at Ferrara, for which reason the Bolognese had chased out the legate and returned to the league of the Florentines and Lombards (as was mentioned earlier)—decided that they would sooner let go of Lucca than set themselves against the Bolognese; and for this reason they sent word that the said ambassadors should depart despite Mastino’s protests and demands for explanations, and so they did. They returned to Florence on the 23rd of February of the said year. And before they had reached Florence, having just left Verona, Mastino hatched his depraved intention, and it was this: on the 14th of February in the said year, his troops that were in Lucca, without cause or provocation whatsoever raided Valdinievole and the Lower Valdarno, both places held by the Florentines, and took great plunder. And in those days, similarly, his armies that were in Modena carried out raids upon the contado of Bologna.

XLV Of the ordinance that the Florentines enacted to protect themselves from Mastino. Once their ambassadors returned from Verona, the Florentines, having realized how insolently they had been fooled and betrayed by Mastino, all in agreement appointed six of the greatest citizens, one per sesto, two grandi and four popolani, to oversee the war with Mastino, and fourteen popolani who were granted extensive authority to raise money, each officer for a term of one year. This order was the salvation of Florence, because of the measures this group took to protect against and to make war on the Della Scala tyrants, as reading on you will find. Because Mastino had threatened that before the middle of the coming May he would pay a visit to the gates of Florence with four thousand armored knights on horseback, to beat down the pride of the Florentines; and he was indeed capable of this, since he was the lord of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, Brescia, Feltre, Belluno, Parma, Modena, and Lucca; and these ten cities and their castelli gave them more than seven hundred thousand gold florins per year in income from gabelle, and there is no Christian king with such an income except the

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King of France, and this without counting their followers and their Ghibelline allies—there had never been tyrants in Italy of such power.⁴⁶⁸ And so the Florentines knew that they had a tough situation on their hands, but bold and valorous as they were, with almost no one in disagreement, each one feeling personally the insult of Mastino’s treachery, they decided to pursue the venture magnificently. Whence, the Florentines, as God willed, a short time later, waged war upon them several times, pursuing them to their shame as far as Verona, as one will find reading ahead,⁴⁶⁹ and carrying out magnificent campaigns against the said tyrants. And in those same days, the Florentines would have used their money to bring the city of Modena into rebellion against Mastino, and indeed this had already been arranged with the soldiers who were in Modena, were it not for the fact that the Bolognese did not want their friends in the service of the Marquesses of Ferrara, to whom, by the pacts of the league, Modena would have belonged.⁴⁷⁰ And they, the Florentines, through their ambassadors, complained to all the other Lombard allies about the betrayal of the Della Scala tyrants and requested their assistance; and they made a new alliance with King Robert, with the Perugians, the Sienese, and the other Guelph cities of Tuscany, and with the Bolognese and with the Guelphs of Romagna, a great and broad alliance to defend their power. Let us leave for the moment the war that had begun with Mastino to speak of other things that happened in these times, although we will return again to them, because great, marvelous and almost incredible consequences followed from them, as one will find reading further ahead about the events of the said war.

XLVI How the people of Colle again placed themselves under the protection of the Florentines, and built a fortress there. In the said year 1335, at the end of the month of January, the first term during which the people of Colle had placed themselves under the protection of the Commune of Florence had ended, or was about to end, and so they gave them-

 This estimate of Mastino’s wealth has attracted attention, but further study of the financial apparatus of the Scaliger signory would be required to affirm the figure. See Varanini, “Mastino II della Scala.”  This occurs in Nuova Cronica, XII: 82.  They were still stinging from their disastrous defeats by the Marquesses Este at Ferrara and Argenta, which precipitated the legate’s expulsion from Bologna.

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selves again for three years beyond the original end date, and with even more generous terms. For this reason, the Florentines, at the request of the people of Colle, and in order to more securely guard them with less expense, ordered and had built in Colle, at the expense of the townspeople, a strong fortress overlooking the town on the town square, near the parish church, with stone walls like wings and its own entrance, and they ordered that there be a Florentine castellan with forty foot soldiers continually on guard, whose expenses were to be paid half by the Florentines and the other half by the people of Colle.

XLVII How Pope Benedict established the opinion of Pope John his predecessor regarding the vision of the blessed souls. In the said year, Pope Benedict had held a number of consistories with his cardinals in Avignon, and had conducted together with many masters in divinity a solemn examination of the opinion of Pope John regarding the vision of the blessed souls, if after the Day of Judgment their blessedness would increase or not, of which question we have kept a record in several previous chapters, and especially about the declaration that Pope John made near the time of his death, as it seemed to the pope and to the other masters of learning that the part where he concluded that the blessed souls see the divine essence clearly face to face, insofar as the state and the condition of the soul departed from the body allows, was not perfectly declared. As the said opinion had been left hazy, he now insisted upon clarifying it. And on the 29th of January, in a public consistory, the said pope, in a saintly fashion, passed judgment and put an end to the said issue, imposing silence, declaring that the glory of the blessed is perfect, and like the saints, they have eternal life and see the blessed hope of the Trinity; and after the Day of Judgment the said glory would dwell in both the soul and the body, but would not grow sensibly in the soul, more than it had been before in the souls of the blessed.⁴⁷¹ And he made a decree about this, say-

 The issue of the Beatific Vision is treated in previous chapters of the Nuova Cronica, XI: 227 and XII: 19. Here, Villani gives a summary of Benedict XII’s papal constitution Benedictus Deus (29 January 1336). The phrasing “would not grow sensibly in the soul” captures the essential element that Benedict’s statement is intended to address, that the blessed have an immediate and full vision of God upon their death, and do not have to wait for the Last Judgment to enjoy this fully (“quodque postquam inchoata fuit vel erit talis intuitiva et facialis visio et fruitio in eisdem, eadem visio et fruitio sine aliqua intervisione seu evacuatione praedictae visionis et fruitionis

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ing that anyone who believed otherwise was a heretic. Let us leave this topic, since we have said enough about it, and let us return to matters in our city of Florence.

XLVIII How the Commune of Florence recommenced the war against the Lords of Arezzo. In the year of our Lord 1336, on the 14th of April, the Florentines had heard that Messer Piero Saccone de’ Tarlati, Lord of Arezzo, was negotiating with Messer Mastino della Scala to make a league and company with him, and to receive into Arezzo his soldiers and horsemen to defend himself, and to make war upon the Florentines and the Perugians, and that Messer Mastino’s ambassadors were continually in Arezzo. And so it was resolved in Florence to start an open war against the city of Arezzo and on that very day, they blocked the roads. Some said that the Florentines wrongfully broke their peace with the Aretines, a peace made by King Robert in the year 1316, and that it was ill-suited to the magnificence of the Commune of Florence to break peace with the Aretines, unless they had first begun an open war. And some said that it was not a breaking of the peace given the offenses committed by the Aretines against the Florentines, in always giving help to Castruccio and the other enemies of the Commune of Florence, and now in forming a league with Messer Mastino, who had made himself Florence’s enemy, and in ceding him the lordship of Arezzo. The Aretines, seeing that the Commune of Florence wanted to wage open war against them, so as to assuage its anger, tried by means of negotiation to find concord with the Florentines and Perugians. These negotiations were all in vain, since they were deceitful. In fact, the Lords of Arezzo continued to await a great number of troops from Messer Mastino, and more than eight hundred horsemen came all the way to Forlì in Romagna. For this reason, the Florentines sent six hundred knights from their troops to Romagna and these, when combined with the forces sent by the people of Bologna and the other Guelphs of Romagna, numbered more than twelve hundred horsemen, and all that summer these troops stayed in Romagna guarding the passes, so that Messer Mastino’s men would in no way be able to come to Arezzo. And it was during this time, on the 3rd of July of the

continuata extitit et continuabitur usque ad finale iudicium et extunc usque in sempiternum”). See Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus.

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same year, that the Florentines sent a raiding party of seven hundred horsemen and a large popolo against the city of Arezzo; meanwhile the Perugians and their forces advanced from the other side as far as the gates of Arezzo; and the two armies joined together, causing the ruin of much grain, and the burning of properties in the contado of Arezzo and around the city. The troops stayed there under arms, not facing any resistance, until the 8th of August, causing great losses for the Aretines. And earlier in this year, in May, at the request of the Perugians and with their forces, the Guelphs of Spoleto cast out the Ghibellines from the city of Spoleto.

XLIX How the Florentines made a league and company with the Commune of Venice, and how this was organized. The wise men of Florence who were governing the city saw that they had begun a great undertaking which promised to become even greater: the war with the Della Scala tyrants over Lucca. They considered that they could hardly wage war in any other place than the vicinity of Lucca if they had no assistance from or alliance with any other lord or commune in Lombardy to help them attack Mastino. And so, in order to end the nearby war and move it far away, they sought negotiations with the Lord of Milan, and with other tyrants and great Lombards. And, hearing that the Commune of Venice had a great dispute with Mastino of Verona and hated him because he had occupied the salt pans between Chioggia and Padua with his troops, and made other prohibitions on their trade and done things to limit their freedom in the area of Padua and of Treviso, they sought through negotiations on the part of our merchants who were active in Venice, to make a league and company with the said Commune of Venice against the said Della Scala tyrants. The said treaty, which the Florentines drafted with much art and flattery to the Venetians, to induce them to agree to it, was much liked by the Venetians. Then, wise and prudent ambassadors were sent secretly to Venice by the Commune of Florence, and there they executed the treaty with the form and articles specified here below.

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L The league between the Communes of Venice and Florence. In 1336, fourth indiction, on the 21st of June, an alliance was made between the Communes of Venice and Florence by the syndics of the said communes, with the following terms. Firstly, the duration of their league, company, and unity would be from the said day until the Feast of Saint Michael in the coming September, and then for a year from the date of that feast; that the said communes were to provide two thousand knights and two thousand foot soldiers now, who would make war in the area of Treviso and Verona, and when the said communes deemed it necessary, they would increase the quantities of these; that the replacement costs of the horses and all necessary expenses were to be shared; that a war captain should be engaged for the war and paid for in common; that the Commune of Florence would send one or two citizens to stay in Venice or wherever necessary, and they would have the authority—along with those elected by the Commune of Venice—to increase or reduce the number of soldiers as they saw fit, and would be empowered to spend money to foment rebellion in the cities under the lordship of the Della Scala; that in order to wage the said war it be permitted for the Communes of Venice and Florence to maintain two citizens and their companies, as might be desired by the said communes; and that the war captain would have full authority; and three months before the end of the said alliance, the ambassadors would meet and come to an agreement as to whether or not to prolong the said alliance; and that the Commune of Florence would make vigorous war on the city of Lucca and that, if it captured that city, it would make war on Parma; and that the said communes, together or singly, would not make peace, truce, or any treaty with the Della Scala, if this was not known by or desired by both communes. We took these pacts from the acts of our commune. And once this league was established, it was made public in Venice and in Florence on the same day, the 15th of July of the said indiction, in full parlamenti, accompanied by great celebration and joy in each of the said cities. And note reader, that this was the greatest thing ever undertaken by the Commune of Florence, as one will find reading further on; moreover, it was a great marvel that the Commune of Venice allied itself to that of Florence, for several reasons: first, it cannot be found that Venice has ever allied herself with any commune or lord, because of their great excellence and power, unless this be at the time of the conquest of Constantinople and Ro-

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mania;⁴⁷² and second, the Venetians have naturally had a Ghibelline and imperial spirit while Florentines have a spirit of Holy Church and are Guelphs; and furthermore, the Florentines stood against the Venetians in service of the Church, when they were defeated at Ferrara, as it was mentioned earlier, in the year 13… . Whence it is clear that this league was divinely sanctioned to crush the arrogance and tyranny of the Della Scala, whose most haughty members were the brothers Alberto and Mastino, wicked and lawless men, filled with every abominable vice to be found in Italy, who had risen through false and fickle earthly happiness in such a short time to such a high level, and to such high state and lordship, for which they were not worthy by either intelligence or merit. And so these words of the Holy Spirit, spoken in person through the mouth of our Lady, came true for them: “Fecit potentiam in bracchio suo, dispersit superbos mente cordis sui, deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles”;⁴⁷³ and certainly this is what happened, as one will find reading further on.⁴⁷⁴ And once the said alliance was made public, the Venetians made their plans concerning the said war, as it seemed fitting to them; and the Florentines elected ten wise merchant citizens, from the biggest companies of Florence, with full authority to raise money and provide for the said war;⁴⁷⁵ and to them were assigned two hundred fifty thousand gold florins per year on certain gabelle, most of which were redoubled. In this period our commune, due to wars and previous expenses, found itself indebted, into the future, to the gabelle and the revenues of the commune, in the amount of more than one hundred thousand gold florins, and yet money in hand was needed to support the said undertaking. And so the ten officials assigned to the matter of Venice, with the advice of other merchants wise and astute in doing this sort of thing—and we were among those others⁴⁷⁶—discovered a way for the companies and the merchants of Florence

 Romania refers to the Byzantine Empire, in this reference to the Fourth Crusade of 1204.  “He has shown strength with His arm, He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their. own heart, and brought down the mighty from their seats, and lifted up the lowly.” These are lines from the Magnificat, sometimes called the Song of Mary, drawn from Luke 1:46 – 55. Villani cites 1:51– 52.  A foreshadowing of Mastino’s defeat, in January of 1339; Nuova Cronica, XII: 90.  John Najemy describes this plan for raising the funds as an example of the increasing interdependence of the Florentine companies and city finances, which, exacerbated by the purchase of Lucca in 1341, led to the economic crisis of the 1340s. Najemy, History of Florence, 132– 33.  Villani was not one of the ten officials but did give advice. Indeed, Franca Ragone calls attention to the decline in his political career during this period. Following an accusation of embezzlement in 1331 related to his position as treasurer for the city wall construction—for which he was eventually exonerated—there are only three instances of his activity in city government

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to take upon themselves the duty of providing money for the said enterprise until the end of the war, in this fashion: they arranged a forced loan to the commune of one hundred thousand gold florins, one third of which the said ten companies would lend, and the other two-thirds would come from other wealthy people and citizens, whose loans with certain terms, some of one year, and others more, would be guaranteed by income from the gabelle. And whoever had made a loan to the commune would be compensated, without a repayment requirement, at fifteen percent per year, and whoever did not want to lend to the commune guaranteed by the said gabelle, could make a loan by means of a free contract and guarantee from the said companies and merchants, and this would yield a recompense of eight percent per year, and the companies would pass the loan on to the commune, for which they would receive interest at five percent, and whoever was faced with the forced loan and had no wealth, such that he could lend neither to the commune nor make a contract with the companies, would find someone to take on his debt, at an interest of twenty percent; and thus each provided and in this way, the funds were furnished honorably for our commune.⁴⁷⁷ And when the said one hundred thousand gold florins of the first tax were spent, they began this process again, in a similar way, sending the funds off to Venice each month, as this was necessary to pay the knights and foot soldiers that they were providing to the war. And there were two wise and prudent citizens residing permanently in Venice, whose job it was to furnish the said payments, and see to the contracts of the soldiers, and the same was true for the Commune of Venice; and there were two other ambassadors—a knight and a judge—who stayed continuously in Venice with the doge and with his council to give orders regarding the war; and two other fighting knights from each of the said communes stayed with the army, with the council of the war captain. This, in short, was the method of provisioning the war organized by the said league, and this was the sole method employed—it was very much commended by the wise people. Right away, as soon the league was made known, one thousand Florentine squires went to join it, all wearing tunics

between 1332 and 1341: in 1332, he proposes a name for the new fortress; in 1338, he stands in for someone as negotiator between Florence and Genoa; and in 1341, he is sent as a hostage to guarantee the accord between Mastino and Florence in regard to Lucca. Ragone, Giovanni Villani, 227– 28.  Najemy writes: “those unable to make the loans in either manner could cede their obligations to the companies, which made loans on their behalf and collected interest from both the commune and the citizens whose debts they assumed.” Najemy, History of Florence, 132.

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emblazoned with the lion of Saint Mark and the red lily;⁴⁷⁸ and the around six hundred of our knights who had been guarding the passes from Romagna went under the captains Messer Pino della Tosa and Messer Gerozzo de’ Bardi; and in Venice the said communes enlisted one thousand five hundred soldiers, between Germans and other foreigners, and a good number of foot soldiers that they stationed in the area of Treviso to begin the attack. And at that time the castello di Onigo rebelled against the Della Scala at the instigation of the Da Camino family. Our people had not arrived there yet, nor had they organized their troops, or appointed a captain. Messer Alberto della Scala immediately rode from Treviso with one thousand knights, and by fighting, reconquered it, causing great losses to those who had caused it to rebel. We will leave the war that had begun in the area of Treviso, and talk about events in Tuscany that resulted from the said war.

LI How the troops of Messer Mastino that were in Lucca rode upon the contado of Florence. In the said year, on the 25th of July, the army of Messer Mastino that was in Lucca, numbering four hundred knights and a large popolo, moved out from Buggiano at night and went quickly to Cerreto Guidi in Greti; finding that place poorly supplied, they attacked the borgo and took it, and did great damage, pillaging and burning houses and grain without encountering any opposition; and this was because the captain and the majority of the Florentine cavalry were in Pistoia because of the Feast of Saint James. And then on the following 5th of August, the troops of Messer Mastino, numbering eight hundred knights and many foot soldiers, whose captain and leader was Ciupo degli Scolari, a rebel of Florence, left Lucca and forded the Arno River, and sacked the Borgo Santa Fiore and other villate of San Miniato, and they stayed two nights at the villa of Martignano below San Miniato. The troops of the Florentines in Empoli and the castelli of Valdarno and Valdinievole followed them bravely and for this reason the enemy, fearing that the Florentines might ambush them if they stayed, because they had not come furnished with provisions, departed on the 7th of August in a shameful withdrawal. They passed through the borgo of

 Saint Mark is the patron saint of Venice, whose symbol is a lion. The red lily is the fleur-delys, the sign of the Florentine Guelphs.

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Santa Gonda, not daring to set it afire, for fear of the people of San Miniato, who had descended all together to the earthworks and the blockades and the barricades. Many remained there, and the others, fleeing in disarray, took refuge in various places, a good number crossing the Guisciana River. Most, however, went through the contado of Pisa, exhausted, and many died of thirst and drowned in the Guisciana. And if our knights had ridden more quickly, not even one man of the enemy would have survived due to the poor command of the troops. The enemy raids in Valdarno and in Greti caused great fear in cities unprotected by walls. For this reason, the Commune of Florence ordered that the walls of Empoli and Pontorme be immediately repaired, since many sections had collapsed because of the great flood, and they ordered that the borgo of Montelupo complete its walls along the banks of the Arno and Pesa rivers; and also that the borgo of Cerreto Guidi be rebuilt and that walls be constructed there; and this was done in a short time, because they were granted certain fiscal exemptions and releases. And in Florence it was ordered that a huge raid be made on Lucca, for revenge, and to observe the promise made in the league with the Venetians, as we will mention in the next chapter.⁴⁷⁹

LII How the Rossi of Parma renewed their friendship with the Florentines, and how Messer Pietro Rossi defeated the marshal of Messer Mastino at the foot of the Cerruglio. Since we promised to tell of the marvelous events and unexpected situations that arise because of wars, we intend hereafter to follow up and tell of them, since it often happens that because of wars, enemies become friends and friends become enemies. Earlier we described how Messer Mastino turned from a great friend of our commune into a perverse enemy because of his vices and failings and his

 Scholars familiar with the manuscript tradition of the Nuova Cronica have discovered a fracture between Chapters 51 and 52 of Book XI (XII in Porta). Roberta Cella counts eleven manuscripts and two compendia that either end or demonstrate a change of hands at this point. She notes that the chronicler’s habitual foreshadowing of the next chapter is not carried out as usual but is interrupted by the reflection on friends and enemies in Chapter 52. It has been hypothesized that Villani took a pause in writing—for whatever reason—and at this point, copies containing Book I–XI: 51 (XII in Porta) were circulated. Cella proposes that this pause may have been caused by Villani’s stay at Ferrara as a hostage in 1341, described in Villani, Nuova Cronica, XI: 130. Cella, “Centiloquio,” 87– 92.

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betrayals of our commune concerning the affair of Lucca. And conversely, we will speak of how the Rossi family of Parma, who, in recent times were our great adversaries and enemies, as was previously mentioned, within a short time became extremely trusted friends. And for this reason, in earthly things and especially in the circumstances of war, one should not have any immutable faith in anyone, since because of offenses received, a friend is often made into an enemy, and because of need or services received or the hope of receiving services, an enemy is made into a friend.⁴⁸⁰ Messers Pietro, Marsilio, and Rolando de’ Rossi of Parma and their kinsmen were in Pontremoli, and they had done many honors and much service to Messer Mastino, in giving him the cities of Parma and Lucca. And yet, the said Messer Mastino betrayed and deceived them, doing so at the petition of his cousins the Da Correggio in Parma (who were enemies and adversaries of the said Rossi), but more because this is what tyrants often do, not fulfilling their promises unless it is to their advantage. Within a short time, he seized, or had others seize all the fortifications and possessions they had in Lombardy, and caused them to be besieged in the said castello di Pontremoli, where they had retreated with all their women and families. The Rossi, seeing themselves thus treated by Messer Mastino, and seeing that they would not be able to protect themselves well from his forces without other help, made an accord with the Commune of Florence that they would be on the same side and join the league against the traitor Mastino. Our commune received and accepted the Rossi graciously, just as the ocean that receives every river,⁴⁸¹ setting aside every injury received from Messer Pietro Rossi while he held the city of Lucca; but the Florentines mostly recalled the ancient friendship of Messer Ugolino Rosso who was once our podestà, and who had been with the army of our commune at the Battle of Certomondo against the Aretines.⁴⁸² For this reason, the said Messer Pietro came in person to Florence on the 23rd of August of the

 Villani engages in wordplay here: “dell’amico nemico” (of a friend, an enemy) and then “del nemico amico” (of an enemy, a friend). The similarity and close proximity of the two terms supports his point about the fluidity of alliances, reflections that foreshadow Machiavelli’s ideas by more than a century.  Eccl. 1:7, “All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.” The topic of the verse is the vanity of life.  Ugolino de’ Rossi da Parma (1255 – 1307) was a condottiere and city leader and was the uncle of Pietro, Marsilio, and Rolando. Certomondo is a locality on the plain of Campaldino, and so this is a reference to the Battle of Campaldino of 1289, an important Guelph victory against the Aretines. That battle was treated by Villani in VIII: 131 (without however mentioning Ugolino’s role). Ugolino’s valor at Campaldino is memorialized in a painting by Jacopo Zanguidi Bertoia, at the Rocca De’ Rossi at San Secondo Parmense, entitled The Triumph of Ghibelline Ugolino Rossi after the battle of Campaldino in Tuscany in 1289 (circa 1570).

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said year, and he was received publicly and honored by the Florentines, who straight away made him their war captain. On the 30th of the said month of August, he rode boldly, like a brave knight, with eight hundred horsemen and some foot soldiers from Florence, against the city of Lucca to destroy their vineyards and to force the Luccans to lift the siege of Pontremoli. And on the first day, he paused at Capannori, sacking everything for six miles around, and then passed Lucca, stopping at the Ponte a San Quirico. And he stayed in that place for three days, each day raiding without sparing anything as far as the gates of Lucca. The armies of Lucca, numbering six hundred knights and many foot soldiers, and captained by Messer Mastino’s marshal, followed a wise strategy and departed Lucca, withdrawing to the Cerruglio where they could prevent our men from receiving supplies and block their return to Florence. Messer Pietro, to avoid being ambushed, turned his armies back in an orderly formation, and arrived at the foot of the Cerruglio, near the trench that Raimondo di Cardona⁴⁸³ had made when he and our army were defeated at Altopascio, as we mentioned earlier. That trench had been somewhat remade by the enemies, and upon it there were posted at guard eight companies of the knights of Messer Mastino, with some popolo to oppose Messer Pietro’s crossing over. At this point, our skirmishers and advance troops, numbering one hundred fifty knights, fought for this pass, and by strength of arms won and defeated the enemies, chasing them as far as the Cerruglio. And they believed they could take the castello, although this was against the will of Messer Pietro, who was continually yelling and sounding the retreat for fear of an ambush. But our men were more desirous of victory than cautious in war and among them was Messer Gherardo di Viriborgo, a German, who had the banner of our commune’s advance troops; he foolishly fought his way into the gates of the Cerruglio, but was struck down and killed by the enemies, who were prepared and positioned for ambush both inside and out. And all of our men who had climbed up to the Cerruglio with him were killed and defeated, and four captains plus many others were captured. Messer Mastino’s marshal, having won the said victory, with great boldness descended the hill with all his men, forcing ours to withdraw. Messer Pietro, a wise and bold captain, was not at all dismayed by the rout of his troops, but gathered and assembled his men, comforting them and preparing them to resist the enemy. These, due to the advantage of the descent, and because of  Raimondo de Cardona was the commander of Florentine forces at the 1325 Battle of Altopascio. His defeat, which was followed by his imprisonment in Lucca, was stunning, and comes to Villani’s mind when recounting an episode that took place in the same location—there is a not-so-subtle contrast between the military skill of Pietro Rossi and the ill-fated Raimondo de Cardona.

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the victory they had just won, struck our men with great force and pushed them back quite a bit, but because of the good leadership of Messer Pietro, and because of the brave men that were with him, they withstood, fighting vigorously, in such a way that in a short time Messer Mastino’s men were defeated, and many ended up dead, and thirteen captains and many knights were captured —Messer Mastino’s marshal and his banner, along with many others, were taken to Florence. This defeat took place on the 5th of September 1336. Afterwards, Messer Pietro gathered his men and stayed on the field until night with lit torches sounding trumpets; that night he stayed at Galleno, and then the day after, with great honor he returned to Fucecchio. We have drawn out this chapter because in one short day these large armies were engaged in three similar events—battles and wars—which were brought to the honorable end of victory by the valor of Messer Pietro Rossi. And then shortly after, Messer Pietro left Fucecchio and came to Florence suddenly and with few men; he did not want any triumphal welcome from the Florentines. And by request and mandate of the Venetians, he was called to Venice to be captain and leader of the league’s army in the territory of Treviso; and so he went to Venice at the end of the month of September, and from there, did magnificent things in works of war against Messer Mastino, as one will find reading ahead. And his brother Rolando Rossi remained in Florence as war captain for the Florentines.

LIII Of events in Florence, and how the Florentines seized certain lands in Valdarno and Chianti from the Counts Guidi and built castello Santa Maria. In the said year, on the 15th of August, in the evening, a fire broke out at the house of the Toschi on the side of the Mercato Vecchio opposite the Church of San Piero Bonconsiglio and four low houses there caught fire, with great damage to the sellers of sausage and cheese who lived in them. And on the first day of September of the said year, the castello di Laterino was rebuilt and fortified by the Florentines, in order to oppose the Aretines. And right away, the people of that castello returned to live there. They had moved to three borghi in the plain below after the Bishop of Arezzo, of the Tarlati family, had the castello destroyed, as was mentioned previously. At the beginning of the month of October of the said year, the castello di Terraio in Valdarno rebelled against Guido, the son of the late Count Ugo da Battifolle, as did the borghi of Ganghereto, and Le Conie, and Le Cave, and Barbischio, and Moncione of the Viscounty of Chianti. They did this because the young Guido ruled his vassals badly in matters of

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women and also because of the incitement and support of certain grandi popolari ruling in Florence who were enemies of the counts. And similarly, Viesca in Valdarno rose up against the sons of the late Count Ruggieri of Dovadola. The said places wished to yield themselves to the Commune of Florence, which shortly thereafter took them under its protection, citing its various legal claims to them, as we mentioned earlier where we treated this matter. Meanwhile, the said counts, having gone with their forces to reconquer the said places, did not have the power to do so. This was because all the cities of Valdarno went in common to help them, following a command from our commune, made secretly by the leaders of Florence; and so, since the counts were not able to oppose these forces, they entrusted the issue to six Florentine popolani, elected by the priors, and put the fortress of Ganghereto under the guard of Florence. The six handed down their decision on the 22nd of November, that the said places belonged to the Commune of Florence, in return for eight thousand gold florins to be paid to the said Guido. However, he had difficulty obtaining these florins; it took him quite a while, and he never got the whole amount. And this revealed great ingratitude, and was an overbearing act by the popolo of Florence: little did they recall the service made by ancestors of the counts to the commune and to the popolo of Florence, and to the Guelph party, because, according to the fair price, given the claims the counts had, the lands were worth more than twenty thousand gold florins, even though these were lands under the jurisdiction of the empire, difficult to buy or to sell.⁴⁸⁴ Be this as it may, the said counts and their relations were ill-content. The popolo of Florence, however, were motivated to commit this act by the memory of the misdeeds of Count Ugo against the Commune of Florence, at the time of the defeat at Altopascio, when he took back Ampinana in Mugello in the year 1325. And following that, on the first of September 1337, the Commune of Florence ordered and began construction of a town in Valdarno in the midst of these places in the plain of Giuffrena—in a place belonging to the Commune of Florence—and they gave it the name castello Santa Maria. They made men from all the surrounding villate and places go to dwell there, in return for certain fiscal exemptions and immunities, so as to remove in perpetuity every jurisdiction of and fealty towards the said counts. And then, on

 Villani’s disapproval and chagrin at Florence’s treatment of Count Guido of Battifolle is evident throughout his account of events, as he downplays Florence’s active role in the seizure of the family’s domains in the Valdarno. Villani devotes Nuova Cronica, VI: 37 to the lineage of the Counts Guidi. There, he mentions Guido’s ancestor Simone I (d. 1280) who had abandoned his Ghibelline allegiance to become Guelph after the Battle of Montaperti and identifies as Guelph the branch of Guido Guerra (d. 1272), who had valiantly led Florentine troops in the service of Charles of Anjou at Benevento. See Piattoli, “Guidi,” and Litta, Famiglie celebri d’Italia.

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the first day of November 1338, the people of the said town of Santa Maria went and took control of the fortress of Ganghereto that the counts had given into the protection of the Commune of Florence. They dug mines underneath it and caused it to collapse. It was believed that this was done with the consent of certain leaders of Florence, and since the guards at the time were people from Montevarchi, an accusation was made against the people of Montevarchi, and the commune of the new town was ordered to pay the counts eight thousand gold florins in compensation; ownership of the towns they had acquired from the counts remained in their hands and these were worth more than four thousand florins. Let us leave for a while the matters of Florence, and speak of the league and the Venetians, how they acted against Mastino.

LIV How the army of Venetians and Florentines, whose captain was Pietro Rossi, encamped at Bovolenta. In the said year 1336, at the beginning of October, the Counts of Collalto in the trevigiana rebelled against the Della Scala and handed over La Motta and some of their other castelli to the Commune of Venice; and the men of our league and of the Venetians gathered at La Motta. Around that time, on the 15th of October, the Venetians believed that they could take the castello di Mestre by bribery, but were deceived and betrayed by Messer Mastino’s castellan, who planned to capture some of the more important Venetians who were going there to act on this plot. They did not arrive at the appointed time, but more than two hundred fifty of their foot soldiers were captured, and so the Venetians were greatly insulted. Then on the 20th of October, Messer Pietro and Messer Marsilio Rossi, captains of the Florentine and Venetian armies, left La Motta with one thousand five hundred knights and three thousand foot soldiers, riding boldly through the trevigiana burning and plundering the countryside. They went as far as the gates of Treviso without meeting any resistance, and from there they went to Mestre and burned all the borghi. When they came to the area around Padua, they put themselves in great danger, because of all the streams and canals they had to ford, whose bridges had been cut to impede them. And so, they took on this great hardship and risk, abandoning themselves to fortune, like courageous and valiant men. And, as pleased God, they arrived in Pieve di Sacco on the first day of November. This seemed almost unbelievable to Messer Alberto and Messer Mastino della Scala, who were in Padua with more than four thousand knights. They rode out, as far as the … bridge, and if they had ridden

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out any further, not one of our soldiers would have escaped death or capture, since they had been led into a place where they could go neither forward or backward. But the wisdom and courage of Messer Marsilio Rossi and the grace of God saved them, since he immediately began sending letters and messages to the Della Scala camp, to Messer Mastino and his marshals and barons, requesting battle. Messer Mastino, who by nature was too cowardly to abandon himself to the fortune of battle, and who also doubted his own people, because of the many letters that had come to his camp, believed that he might, without entering into battle, surprise them all while they were exhausted, and besiege them, tearing down the bridges before and behind them, so they could not receive provisions. And once this was done, he returned to Padua with all his knights. But when God means to do someone ill, he takes away their wisdom and judgment, and gives his enemy courage and the means to use it. And so it went for our very fortunate army. Without delay, the villate of Pieve di Sacco and nearby were plundered of every substance. And from there, they left, with great difficulty, making many bridges from woven branches, and in some places from wood, so that they managed to pass safely over many rivers and canals. And on the 5th of November, they arrived at the town and villata of Bovolenta, about seven miles from Padua and on the great canal of the River Adige that runs towards Chioggia, so they could receive from Venice and Chioggia a continual supply of food and have freedom of movement. They surrounded and fortified Bovolenta with trenches and palisades, and they made many houses of wood so as to be able to winter there. The fortress and town of Bovolenta caused the decline of the Della Scala, and their loss of the city of Padua, as one will discover reading on. We will leave off telling of this our war in Lombardy and speak of a great war that began between the King of France and the King of England.

LV Of a great war that began between the King of France and the King of England. In the said year, 1336, a great war began between Philip of Valois, King of France and Edward III, King of England.⁴⁸⁵ The causes of the war were many old matters

 Villani is describing the beginning of the Hundred Years War, a series of intermittent clashes between England and France over a wide range of issues, at the core of which was the legitimacy of Philip VI’s succession to the throne of France. Villani’s chronicle furnishes rich information on developments, not only in France and England, but also in Scotland and Flanders, as he

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of their fathers and ancestors, and some new ones, among which was the fact that the said Edward, the young king of England, demanded that the King of France return the County of Agenais in Aquitaine, known as Gascony, which Messer Charles of Valois, father of the said King Philip and brother of the King Philip the Fair, had taken by force and by trickery from Edward II, father of the said Edward the Younger. Messer Charles had argued that the county had fallen to the King of France as a penalty for the King of England’s failure to do homage to the King of France for Gascony. But it was mostly because of the greed of the house of France, which wanted to occupy the Duchy of Gascony and force it into submission and remove it from the house of England. From the time of Charles the Younger, King of France, the French royal house had promised to hand the County of Agenais over to the King of England. Later, when he was not able to get it back, Edward the Younger was preparing to let it go, and to give it into the care of his sister,⁴⁸⁶ who would marry the son of the said King Philip of Valois, but Philip refused to agree to this, and instead he married his son⁴⁸⁷ to the daughter of King John of Bohemia,⁴⁸⁸ which increased the anger between King Edward and King Philip. This anger grew even greater because the said King of France had harbored Edward’s enemy David, King of Scotland, and had given him help and favor in the form of troops and money for the war in Scotland against the said King Edward,⁴⁸⁹ and for this reason the said King Edward retained at his court Messer Robert of Artois⁴⁹⁰ of the House of France who was a rebel and enemy of the said King of France.⁴⁹¹ Whence the ire of the King of France grew, causing him to set aside his vow and promise to make a holy crusade to Outremer, as we earlier mentioned, and begin a

recounts most of the important battles from Cadzand to La Roche-Derrien. The war forms one of the central threads of Book Thirteen of the Nuova Cronica.  Eleanor of Woodstock (1318 – 1355), daughter of Edward II of England and Isabella of France. She married Reginald “the Black” of Guelders, becoming Duchess of Guelders.  John II of France (1319 – 1364) was Duke of Normandy (after 1332) and King of France (after 1350).  Bonne of Luxembourg, known also as Jutta of Luxembourg (1315–1349). She was the daughter of King John of Bohemia and Elizabeth of Bohemia. Her marriage to the future King John II of France was celebrated 28 July 1332.  King Philip was supporting David II of Scotland against Edward Balliol who had been recognized by Edward III. Philip brought David II to France in May of 1334 (Nuova Cronica, XII: 38).  Robert III of Artois (1287–1342) was brother-in-law of Philip VI. After falling out of favor with the French king, he fled France, eventually finding refuge in England.  King Philip VI declared that his confiscation of Aquitaine, held by the English king as a fief, was justified because Edward had breached his obligations as a vassal by protecting his “mortal enemy” Robert. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 184.

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great war against the said King of England in Gascony, making him face renewed war in Scotland and also at sea, since he paid for Genoese galleys to come and rob every Englishman and Gascon and all people coming and going from England. The King of France was much reproached and blamed for these things by all Christians, the pope, and the Church of Rome, for having abandoned the great and lofty venture that he had promised, the holy crusade, to instead wrongly start a war against his Christian neighbors. For this reason, the pope revoked and took back from him the tithes from all Christendom, which had been granted to him, except those from the Kingdom of France, which the French king had within his authority. The valiant Edward, however, was not dismayed but bravely acted to defend himself, allying himself with the King of Germany, called the Bavarian, who at that time had sent his ambassadors to the pope in order to make amends and gain the mercy of the Church, and to have her peace. This had already been conceded by the Church, since the Bavarian was going on the crusade overseas, and was releasing his claim on the lands of the Church—that is, Sicily, the Regno, the Patrimony, the Marca, Romagna, and, as a favor to Florence, all its distretto. The King of France, by his letters and ambassadors to the pope and to the cardinals, upset this accord, because he wanted the Kingdom of Arles and Vienne for his brother, and for this reason the Bavarian angrily allied himself with the King of England against the King of France, with the Duke of Brabant his cousin,⁴⁹² and with the Count of Hainaut⁴⁹³ and with Messer John Lord of Beaumont who was an uncle of the count, and with the Duke of Guelders⁴⁹⁴ and the Marquess of Juliers,⁴⁹⁵ all his relatives by marriage, and the Lord of Valkenburg, and many other barons of Germany. Edward continued to ask Philip of Valois for the Kingdom of France, which he said should have passed to him through his mother, who was daughter of Philip the Fair King of France, who had no other descendants in his royal line. And thus it was he, Edward, who should inherit the kingdom, since, after all, Philip had judged that Artois should belong to the countess, daughter of the Count of Artois,⁴⁹⁶ so that it might pass to  Duke John III of Brabant (1300 – 1355) had only recently abandoned his alliance with the King of France.  Count William II of Hainaut (1307– 1345) was related to King Edward III, who was his brother-in-law.  Count Reginald II of Guelders (ca. 1295 – 1343) was related to King Edward III, who was his brother-in-law.  Marquess William V of Juliers (ca. 1299 – 1361) was married to the daughter of William I of Hainaut who was the sister of the Queen of England.  Mahaut, Countess of Artois (ca. 1268 – 1329) was daughter of Robert II of Artois and Amica de Courtenay. Her brother Philip predeceased their father in 1298 and so she became countess when her father died in 1302. She was preferred to the count’s grandson Robert of Artois, giving

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the crown of France through the line of the daughters of the said countess who were married with royals, and took it away from the aforementioned Messer Robert, who was the son of the son of the Count of Artois—that is, the countess’ brother, Philip of Artois. And because his father the count died before him, Philip deprived Messer Robert, his son, of the title. The King of France was outraged by the said request, and his anger and the war grew. King Edward with his allies thereafter started a bitter war at sea and on land against the King of France, as one may discover reading ahead. Let us leave the matters of foreigners beyond the mountains and return to our war with Mastino of Verona.

LVI How Messer Mastino captured the castello di Pontremoli from the Rossi of Parma. In the said year, the castello di Pontremoli, which was held by the Rossi of Parma, was under tight siege by the people of Lucca and the Marquesses Malaspina with the forces of Messer Mastino. On the 17th of November, Rolando Rossi, with his cavalry and soldiers of Florence numbering one thousand three hundred knights and three thousand foot soldiers, whose captain was …, left Florence and rode upon Lucca to bring aid and help lift the siege of Pontremoli. But it was too late and the defenders of Pontremoli, suffering from many shortages, surrendered on terms which safeguarded the people and their possessions. And thus, this raiding force returned to Fucecchio on the 25th of November, having done little damage to the Luccans. And all the family members and the women of the Rossi departed from Pontremoli and came to Florence, where they were received graciously.

LVII How the Venetians took the salt pans of Padua from Messer Mastino della Scala.

rise to conflict between them, conflict which played into his eventual alienation from King Philip VI. She married Otho IV, Count of Burgundy, and her daughters both married kings of France, Joan to Philip V, and Blanche to Charles IV.

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This year, our army and that of the Venetians, which were encamped at the fortification and new town of Bovolenta, had grown to a number of more than three thousand knights, most of them Germans in the pay of the two communes, and more than five thousand foot soldiers. And the Venetians sent their army with a great fleet including river boats⁴⁹⁷ and many war machines from Chioggia to the salt pans of Padua (these were held by Messer Mastino, and he had built there two fortresses with fortifications, almost like two castles of wood, with much equipment and soldiers to defend them). ⁴⁹⁸ Hearing this, Messer Mastino and Messer Alberto, who were in Padua with more than three thousand knights and a very large popolo, left the city to come to the defense of the said salt pans. Messer Pietro Rossi with all our army and that of the Venetians, went to meet him in battle formation, and it was believed for certain that there would be battle, and for three days in Florence and in Venice there were solemn processions with great pledges and prayers to God, that He might give us victory. Mastino, however, refused to give battle, and so the Venetians, who were most affected by the matter of the salt pans—indeed this was the principal reason for their endeavor—vigorously attacked the said fortifications, and took them by force on the 22nd of November of the said year, which greatly reduced the pride of Mastino and his armies. And then on the 16th of the next December, four hundred knights of Mastino’s army that were going to Monselice were routed and defeated by our men, who had gone out from Bovolenta to meet them.

LVIII More about the war we made on Messer Mastino. In the said year, on the 29th of January, Messer Pietro Rossi left Bovolenta with two thousand knights and many foot soldiers and went to Padua, where he at-

 Villani uses the word imbarbottate. A barbotta is most likely a small galley, a low boat with sails and oars, partially covered. Romanoni, “Guerra e navi sui fiumi dell’Italia settentrionale.” Treccani describes a barbotta as a medieval armored boat, with leather-covered panels to protect it from Greek fire, used during the crusades especially against coastal fortresses.  A salt pan is a set of pools in which seawater is left to evaporate to make salt. In medieval Padua, the salt pans were accessed near the Porta Altinate, one of the city gates, facing northeast, whose road led to Venice and Treviso. Hyde writes, “Just outside the walls, the Via Altinate served the port of Ognissanti which was connected by canal to the lower part of the Brenta and Venice, while nearby was the salt port from which it was possible to navigate to the salt pans near Chioggia by way of the lower Bacchiglione.” Hyde, Padua in the Age of Dante, 31.

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tacked the gate of the Borgo Ognissanti—he intended to take this borgo so he could station his army there. After he set fire to the gate, a part of his men was able to enter. The men of Messer Alberto, who was in Padua, realized this, and they set fire to the borgo. For this reason, Messer Pietro, seeing that he could not capture it, left and returned to Bovolenta. But shortly after, on the 7th of February, the said Messer Pietro left the encampment at Bovolenta by night with three hundred chosen knights and a number of foot soldiers, and he ordered that one thousand two hundred chosen knights follow him. Messer Pietro arrived by night at the Borgo San Marco of Padua and after this was surrendered to him, as had been arranged, he entered with his men. However, the one thousand two hundred knights and foot soldiers who were following after him lost their way in the night. And because of the excessive cold, and the streams and the canals to be crossed, they did not manage to reach Padua. Rather, after having gone in circles for a while, they returned to Bovolenta (some said that they were led astray by deceit). Messer Pietro stayed in the said borgo until the hour of nones, when, seeing that his men were not arriving, he became afraid to remain there, and indeed had Alberto della Scala and his men known their position, Messer Pietro and his company would have all been killed or captured, since there were more than two thousand knights and a large popolo in Padua. The brave Messer Pietro, seeing himself in such straits, like a wise and prudent captain, pretended to assail the gate of the city with all his men, attacking it and making it appear that his missing reinforcements were near. Messer Alberto, fearing for the city, had its gates closed and the drawbridges raised. Messer Pietro and his men retreated and left the borgo, setting one end of it on fire as they left so that the enemy could not follow after his troops. He returned to the encampment at Bovolenta with all his men in the evening, safe and sound. And note that Messer Pietro went often to Padua, since he was continually in negotiations with Marsilio da Carrara his uncle, and with his relatives, who, as we said a while back, had given the lordship of Padua to Messer Cane della Scala,⁴⁹⁹ because of the strife between their neighbors and citizens; and Messer Alberto and Mastino had treated them badly—especially when they deceived and betrayed their nephews the Rossi of Parma, who were under their protection, making them give up Parma, as we mentioned before.⁵⁰⁰ On the 20th of February it happened that around five hundred fifty knights, who had left the encampment at Bovolenta to sack the territory around Padua and who had taken much plunder, were ambushed by men of Padua—numbering eight hundred

 Nuova Cronica, XI: 102.  Nuova Cronica, XII: 30.

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knights—who appeared before them to block their passage and fought them. Our men were defeated and around one hundred were killed or captured, and more than half the plunder they had taken was lost. For this reason, on the 23rd of February, Messer Pietro rode with one thousand five hundred knights as far as the gates of Padua and he captured one borgo and set it afire, and more than four hundred houses burned there. While Messer Pietro’s raid was underway, Messer Mastino had some ragtag soliders given to pillaging set a fire at the camp of Bovolenta, and a good quarter of it was burned, including all the army treasury; if not for the prompt response of those who had remained on watch, everything would have burned. And this is how the fortunes of war punish the sins of peoples. Once Messer Pietro had returned to the encampment, the burnt parts of the camp were restored and rebuilt in only a few days, for the Venetians immediately sent all the supplies needed for the repair of the fort. And just a few days later, at the beginning of March, three towns rebelled against Messer Mastino, and these were Conegliano in the territory of Treviso, Cittadella, and Campo San Pietro in the territory of Padua. We will now leave for a time the war against Mastino and return to our affairs in Tuscany and other places.

LIX How the Perugians wanted to take Arezzo by means of an accord with the Aretines, and how they then took Lucignano. In the said year, at the beginning of the month of February, our commune, despite the great venture of Lombardy, did not cease attacking the cities of Lucca and Arezzo. The city of Arezzo was much beleaguered by the Perugians and by the Florentines, since it could not receive any aid from Messer Mastino, because he himself was besieged in the city of Padua, as was said previously. Nor could the Aretines receive any help from any other Ghibellines of Italy, and alone they were hardly able to defend themselves against the said two communes. A number of peace negotiations took place between the Aretines and the said communes, but they talked more with the Perugians, who were pressing them more closely, and who had some Aretine prisoners. In the end, the Perugians were demanding such generous terms both in castelli and in the lordship of the city of Arezzo, that the Tarlati, who were its lords, were in no way willing to come to an agreement with nor trust the Perugians. And especially because at the very time that they were in the midst of these negotiations, the very same Perugians came by night with a great force of men on foot and on horse all the way to the walls of Arezzo. And someone from the town taught them how

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to enter by an underground channel, in other words to pass through the sluice gate of a millstream that runs through Arezzo. Some of them entered there, but once this became known in the town the people ran armed to defend the city and killed those who had gotten in, and so in the morning the Perugians left and returned to Cortona. And for this reason, the negotiations between the Aretines and the Perugians fell apart. Rather, the Tarlati of Arezzo insisted upon trusting the Florentines, and giving them guardianship of the city, since Messer Piero Saccone and Messer Tarlato were both related to the Frescobaldi family of Florence through their mothers, and they had in Florence many individual friends and relatives, and they considered themselves less troubled by the Florentines than by the Perugians. And so, the negotiations failed because of the Perugians, and the war began again against the Aretines, even though in secret the Aretines still remained in negotiations with the Florentines. And once the said negotiations had failed with the Perugians, the people of Lucignano d’Arezzo, who were very oppressed by the Perugians, by their armies that were in Monte Sansavino, sent their ambassadors and syndics to Florence with a full mandate to cede Lucignano to the Commune of Florence. The Florentines refused to accept their offer so as not to displease the Perugians, and so as not to break the pacts of the league. Because among the other pacts, there was one which stated that any conquest of a city or a castello from the Commune of Arezzo had to be shared between the said two communes. And furthermore, there was a pact, here appended, that during the duration of the league the comembers of the league could not and should not, neither for themselves nor for others, make a peace or a truce or indeed any other agreement or even undertake any negotiations with the common enemies of the allies, without the express desire and consent of the said allies, even though at that time the period of the said league had already expired. For this reason, the said syndics and ambassadors of Lucignano went to Perugia, and offered their town freely to the Perugians, and the Perugians accepted their offer without conferring with the Commune of Florence. And similarly, the Bishop of Arezzo, one of the co-members of the league, took for himself Montefocappio, a strong castello belonging to the Aretines. Whence the Florentines grew very angry, and thereafter pursued a secret treaty with the Tarlati of Arezzo, and put it into action, as we will soon tell in the next chapter.

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LX How the Florentines acquired the city of Arezzo and its contado on terms of surrender.⁵⁰¹ In the said year, on the 7th of March 1336, a treaty and accord was achieved between the Commune of Florence and the Tarlati, Lords of Arezzo, as follows, that they, the Tarlati, would receive twenty five thousand gold florins from the Commune of Florence in return for surrendering the city and renouncing their lordship of Arezzo; and fourteen thousand gold florins for the rights and the part that Messer Piero and Messer Tarlato had in the Viscounty, bought by their brother the Bishop of Arezzo from the Counts Guidi. As we said before, this had been yielded earlier to the Commune of Florence, and Count Guido Alberti had received three thousand eight hundred gold florins for his quarter part of the Viscounty, but it was necessary that this be sold officially to the Commune of Florence. This was a fine and noble acquisition for Florence, even though these were lands of the empire. And in addition, the Commune of Arezzo received a loan of eighteen thousand florins from the Commune of Florence to pay their soldiers on horse and on foot, who had not been paid for almost six months. And by means of solemn syndics, with the agreement of almost all the Aretines who were in Arezzo, they gave the lordship and guardianship of the city of Arezzo and of the contado to the commune and popolo of Florence for the time and term of ten years into the future with mero e misto imperio. The Tarlati retained all of their possessions and castelli, but they gave up all lordship, and became simple citizens of Arezzo under the protection of the Commune of Florence, and the Florentines made them citizens and popolani of Florence, giving them other advantages for their protection. And on the 10th of the said March, at the hour of nones, the Florentines took possession of the city of Arezzo in the way we will tell next. Twelve of the most worthy citizens of Florence, both grandi and popolani, went to take possession of the city, with legal authority and full mandate to do so, and in their company were five hundred armed knights, and more than

 The Tarlati had recently suffered a number of serious military setbacks at the hands of their enemies. The menace posed by Ranieri della Faggiuola, the Perugians, and the Florentines induced Piero Saccone Tarlati to yield his city in return for considerable concessions in the contado and the security of his family in Arezzo. Despite this agreement, in 1341 he and other members of his family were imprisoned by the Florentines and Pier Saccone was taken to Florence. Later released by the Duke of Athens, Piero Saccone returned to the defense of his family’s interests. The Tarlati, however, never recovered their lordship of Arezzo. Scharf, “Pier Saccone Tarlati.”

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three thousand foot soldiers from Valdarno di Sopra. The Aretines came to meet them about two miles from the city—men and women, great and small—in a solemn procession and with great happiness and good will, carrying olive branches in their hands, shouting “Peace, peace, and long live the commune and popolo of Florence!” And having arrived at the city, the Florentines were received by Messer Piero Saccone—who had been lord there—with great honor and magnificence. The gonfalone of the popolo of Arezzo and the keys to the gates were given to the syndic of the Comune of Florence, along with a noble speech full of great authority, exalting the popolo and Commune of Florence. And then these twelve citizens of ours gave the city a government led by a podestà according to the following pacts: for the first six months the podestà was to be Messer Currado Panciatichi of Pistoia, who was from the Guelph side, and for the next six months, the podestà was to be his brother Messer Giovanni Panciatichi; from the next year onwards, the podestà were to be Florentines elected by the Commune of Florence. They also reformed the city government of Arezzo by installing a new council of anziani made up of citizens of Arezzo, those they liked, Guelph and Ghibelline. And the captain of the guard and conservatore of the peace was to be Bonifazio de’ Peruzzi, the great popolano; he was to be the first, with a term of six months and twenty-five knights and soldiers; and then after that every six months the said office was to be held by a Guelph popolano of Florence elected by the said Commune of Florence; and they remade the popolo in Arezzo and distributed the gonfaloni of the citizen militia companies. And the Aretines received perpetual peace from the Commune of Florence, each commune setting aside and pardoning all insults and all losses and damages it had received from the other; and the Guelphs were allowed to return to Arezzo along with any other exile who was able to return—each commune canceled every ban and every reprisal and prohibition it had placed on the other or on specific individuals and their followers. And then on the 10th of the following April, Messer Piero Saccone came to Florence with certain of his relatives and other good men of Arezzo, and more than one hundred horsemen. He was received honorably by the Florentines, as a great lord, and he stayed in Florence for six days, and after having received many banquets from the priors, and having been treated to many lunches and dinners by the citizens, for his part at his departure he held a very noble banquet in Santa Croce, where there were one thousand or more good citizens at the first seating, with four courses of fish, very honorably served by Florentine pages, and all the court was furnished with very noble French tapestries. And while they were there, on the 16th of April, the Marquesses of Monte Santa Maria, assisted by the castellans and with the support of the Perugians and their soldiers, took the castello di Monterchi by treason; they were not able to take the citadel, however, because one of the Tarlati was there. For this reason, Messer

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Piero and his men left Florence right away; but once the captain of the guard of Arezzo heard the news, without delay he sent three hundred and fifty knights from the Florentine troops that were stationed in Arezzo, along with a large popolo of volunteers under the banners of the Commune of Florence to Monterchi. When they arrived at Monterchi on Good Friday, they found that some of the enemy were encamped outside and some were inside the castello; many pleas were made to the said marquesses and to the castellans and the captains who were there for the Commune of Perugia, that for the love of the Commune of Florence they should depart and leave the castello that was under their protection. They excused themselves with many words, saying that they were not acting against the Commune of Florence, but against the Tarlati, their enemies. However, they were dragging things out, as they awaited the Perugian cavalry, which was coming to assist them. Those who were there for the Commune of Florence, hearing of this through their spies, attacked the camp where the castellans and marquesses had drawn up for battle, and fighting strongly, in a short time, defeated them, and then they entered the city fighting and by force of arms recaptured it with great damage to the castellans and to their followers; and there would have been even more deaths, if it had not been for the sacredness of the day. Because of this reacquisition of Monterchi, the Tarlati and all the Aretines were very pleased with the Florentines, and began to trust them more. And shortly thereafter, the Florentines ordered the creation of a council in Florence of twelve popolani, two per sesto, with terms of three months, who had great authority together with the priors to continually provide for the peaceful state and protection of Arezzo. And right away, to bring this about, they ordered, began, and completed a big and strong fortress above the Piazza di Perci of the city of Arezzo, which cost more than twelve thousand gold florins, paid by the Florentines; and they named two castellans for this fortress with one hundred soldiers for its guard, and furnished it continually for six months with food and arms and a great quantity of defensive equipment; and the Florentines kept at all times at least three hundred knights from their armies on guard in Arezzo, and more as necessary. Some of the Aretines were happy about this fortress, especially the Tarlati and their followers, for their own safety, since after they gave up their lordship almost all the popolo hated them—the Guelphs because these were their enemies, and the Ghibellines because they were unhappy that the Tarlati had surrendered the city—although in truth most of the Aretines were unhappy about it. But then the Florentines had another small fortress built there in Arezzo, above the gate facing the plain that goes toward Laterino, with a more secure entry, with a large exterior passage between the wall and the parapet for the knights, and passages upon the walls which allowed the foot soldiers to run from one fortress to the other. In sum, in one year, the Florentines put into

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Arezzo, between this and gifts, more than one hundred thousand gold florins, not counting the money they spent later. And this was a great achievement, when one considers the expenses of Lombardy and the other expenses that the Commune of Florence was making to keep up its war against Lucca. Even though this acquisition of Arezzo cost the Florentines a lot of money, it grew and increased the magnificence of the Commune of Florence, and it won Florence great fame among all Christians who heard of it abroad; while nearby, the city was more honored and feared by the neighboring communes. The said acquisition was made by spending money, and was brought about by the industry of those of our citizens who negotiated it (citizens who were not any more corrupt than other citizens). Nonetheless, it is certain that if it had not been for the noble and lofty enterprise of Lombardy, and the resistance made against Messer Mastino by the Communes of Florence and Venice, the acquisition would not have been made, because the signori Tarlati would never have consented to it; but they did consent, for the reasons we have described—they were unable to do otherwise, since they had lost all hope of aid. And note that for more than sixty years, the city of Arezzo had been governed by the Ghibelline and imperial faction and was almost in a state of war with the Commune of Florence.

LXI More on the consequences of the events in Arezzo which took place between us and the Perugians. After the Florentines took the city of Arezzo, in the way recounted in the last chapter, the Perugians were quite angry with them, thinking that they had been tricked and betrayed by the Florentines regarding the pacts they had made with them as part of the league with King Robert and with the Bolognese, and they sent their ambassadors to Florence to complain about this in a public council meeting, in which the Florentines wisely responded to each of their points, stating that according to law, and the treaty, they had not failed in a single article, since the league did not contain anything stating that if the city of Arezzo gave itself to one of the said communes, either the two communes would be obligated to one another, or the league would be broken, and at any rate the term of the league had already expired. The Florentines also explained to the Perugians that the Aretines in no way wanted to reach an accord with them, for they had no trust in the Perugians because of their Ghibelline allies: the Bishop of Arezzo, the Pazzi, the Ubertini, the Counts of Montefeltro, Neri da Faggiuola, the Counts of Montedoglio, and the sons of Tano da Castello,

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and the Lord of Cortona, and all their exiled persons, who were the chief enemies of the Tarlati. And if the Florentines had not taken Arezzo without hesitation, in the way they had, this would surely have had bad consequences for the Guelph party, and for both communes. They further alleged that it was the Perugians who had been the first to err, breaking the treaty, when they seized Lucignano d’Arezzo in the way we described three chapters before this one.⁵⁰² But, among good and benevolent friends, it was not entirely lawful for the Florentines to do what they had done, since, as the Provençal poet says in his cobla, “a wise man ought not err because of another man’s error.”⁵⁰³ Indeed, the law states in one part: “Let faith be broken with the man who himself has broken faith,”⁵⁰⁴ but this is not enough for the magnificence of our commune. However it may be, whether one commune or the other, or both, were right or wrong, the Perugians were unhappy. In the end, after the ambassadors of both communes had debated the question, an agreement was reached, whereby the Perugians would maintain in Arezzo a judge of appeals for a period of five years, who would hold the title conservatore of the peace. He would receive a salary of five hundred gold florins every six months along with expenses for his family and household. This office was more in name than in fact, since the offices and leadership of Arezzo were in the hands of the Florentines. And at the end of five years, the castelli of Anghiari, Lucignano, and Monte Sansavino were to remain to the Perugians, since they had captured them and held them. And the Perugians were to make peace with the Aretines, releasing Messer Ridolfo Tarlati and his sons and other prisoners from Arezzo, who were in prison in Perugia, as they had been taken in Città di Castello when they captured that city, as we recounted earlier. Let us leave for a while events in Florence, Arezzo, and Perugia, as enough has been said about them, and let us return to our narration of the war in Lombardy against Messer Mastino.

LXII How Messer Mastino gave the order to kill Messer Pietro Rossi at Bovolenta in order to defeat our army.

 In reality this occurs two chapters before, in Chapter 59.  A cobla is a stanza in Provençal verse.  The original in Latin: “Qui frangit fidem, fides frangatur eidem.” Maurice Keen writes that in medieval negotiations, agreements were binding even with an enemy, unless they had broken their word, citing a similar phrase from Baldus de Ubaldi, an important medieval jurist: “Fides etiam firmata servanda est qui frangit fidem.” Keen, Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 212.

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At the end of March, at the beginning of the year 1337, Messer Pietro Rossi, captain of the Florentine and Venetian forces who were besieging Padua at Bovolenta, was nearly betrayed and assassinated by certain German captains who were among the troops with a following of one thousand knights. But as God willed, the plot was discovered and they were not able to carry it out, and so they left and set fire to the encampment and burned most of it. This incident caused great confusion among our troops, but the valiant Messer Pietro, despite the setback that had occurred, was hardly moved by the assaults of fortune, and did not lose confidence. On the contrary, the following 5th of April he rode quickly with three thousand knights up to the walls of Treviso, and did great damage there, plundering and burning, leaving one thousand knights to guard the camp at Bovolenta. And it should be noted that in those days, for the siege of Padua, the Florentines and Venetians had five thousand horsemen with barbute ⁵⁰⁵ in their pay and this number does not include the foot soldiers, who were there in great quantities. And this was in addition to the army that the Commune of Florence was using to attack the city of Lucca, as we will tell in the next chapter. So, considering the conditions prevailing in Italy, the city of Florence showed its great power. In those days, on the 14th of May, the league between us and the Venetians and the other Lombards against Messer Mastino was renewed; and the Avvogaro of Treviso, because of offenses he had suffered, rebelled against Messer Mastino from his strong castello Nuovo, and came in person to Venice to join our league.

LXIII How the Florentines led an army against Lucca.

On the 16th of May of the said year 1337, when it became known in Lombardy that the Florentines were planning to attack Lucca, Messer Azzo da Correggio went to the city as Messer Mastino’s vicar with three hundred knights to guard it. Because he was coming, the Florentines, to observe the pacts of the league— which called for their army to attack Lucca and for the League of Lombardy to attack Verona—took up their banners and moved the army; this took place on the 30th of May. The Florentines were there, with their soldiers—eight hundred

 A war helmet having a T or Y shape over the face; it is called barbuta since the beard of the wearer would show. The word is often used metonymously to refer to soldiers.

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knights and a very large popolo. Rolando de’ Rossi da Parma was their captain; although he was an ignorant and coarse man, he was honored with that position out of love for Messer Pietro and Messer Marsilio Rossi, who were in Lombardy in the service of the Florentines and Venetians. And from Bologna, in service to the Florentines, there were one hundred fifty knights; and from Messer Malatesta da Rimini, there were one hundred; from Ravenna thirty; from Perugia one hundred knights; from Arezzo came Messer Saccone de’ Tarlati with sixty knights and one hundred foot soldiers; and from the Commune of Arezzo there were three hundred foot soldiers; from Orvieto sixty knights; from King Robert one hundred eighty knights; from the Città di Castello thirty five knights; from Cortona one hundred foot soldiers; from Siena there were one hundred knights, but they did not want to engage in battle with Lucca—they stayed to guard San Miniato, since they had chosen not to join the league. And then, once the army had set forth, the Florentines paid for three hundred forty knights from the Company of the Dove, who had been with the Perugians, and sent them along with the said army. So the army had in all two thousand knights and a large popolo and they plundered Pescia and Buggiano and the other castelli of Valdinievole and they went as far as Lucca and then beyond the Serchio without meeting any opposition and doing great damage. The said army returned to Florence on the 30th of July in disarray, since it was lacking in order and badly led.

LXIV How the forces of the league rode upon the city of Verona, and then departed with little honor. We will now return to our description of the war between us and Messer Mastino. While our own army was attacking the city of Lucca, as we have said, Messer Marsilio Rossi,⁵⁰⁶ a man of great intelligence and worth, following the orders of the league, left the army at Bovolenta on the 9th of June in the same year, taking with him two thousand four hundred Florentine and Venetian knights, while Messer Pietro Rossi remained in the field at Bovolenta with one thousand six hundred knights and a large popolo; and Messer Marsilio went to Mantua in order to raid Verona. And on the 20th of that June, Messer Luchino Visconti of  Marsilio de’ Rossi (1287– 1337) was brother to Pietro and Rolando. An able condottiere, he had sided with Louis of Bavaria, by whom he was named imperial vicar in Lombardy, and later with John of Bohemia, by whom he was knighted. Pagnoni, “Marsilio Rossi” and Damiani, “Marsilio de’ Rossi.”

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Milan reached Mantua with the other allies from Lombardy, with the Marquesses Este and with the Gonzagas of Mantua. Altogether, with our knights and those of the Venetians, they numbered more than four thousand. The aforementioned Messer Luchino was made captain general of all these troops. And immediately they rode right up to the city of Verona. And Messer Charles, son of King John, who was part of our League of Lombards against Messer Mastino, came with his army from Carinthia. And in those days, it happened that the cities of Belluno, and then Feltre, cities held by Messer Mastino, surrendered to Messer Charles. The tyrant Messer Mastino, seeing himself so hounded from so many sides by the forces of the league, was desperate, but he bravely rode out from Verona with three thousand knights and a great popolo and challenged Messer Luchino and the other allies to battle. When Messer Luchino saw that Messer Mastino had come to the field to do battle, either because of his cowardice, as people said, or because of his fear of treachery, or because as a tyrant he did not wish to entirely defeat another tyrant, whatever the reason, on the night of the 27th of June he disbanded our army and that of the league, which dispersed in a cowardly manner—some people going in one direction and some in another. Messer Luchino was much criticized for this. Messer Mastino, having won that fight, gained strength, and, leaving Verona well provisioned, he departed with two thousand five hundred knights and rode to within seven miles of Mantua without encountering any resistance. And then on the first of July, after he heard that the Paduans were in negotiations with Messer Pietro Rossi, so that he might prevent Messer Marsilio Rossi and his cavalry from returning to Bovolenta, he moved out rapidly and in two days was positioned on the canal between Bovolenta and Chioggia. He did this to prevent the arrival of foodstuffs or other provisions from Venice or Chioggia to the army at Bovolenta, and to impede Messer Marsilio, who was only five miles away with his troops and knights—because of the sudden arrival of Messer Mastino, he could not go further without great danger to himself and his army. And Messer Mastino would have succeeded in routing that army, were it not for the foresight of Messer Pietro Rossi, who was with his army at Bovolenta. Messer Pietro, knowing that Messer Mastino was in a place where he could not obtain water for his army except from the canal, ordered that all the waste from the army at Bovolenta should continually be thrown into the canal; moreover, since in that region there was a lot of the plant called hemlock, from which one can make a poisonous juice, he had his raiders pick, cut, crush, and throw this into the canal. For this reason, the water of the canal arrived so tainted to the army of Messer Mastino—which was three miles from there—that neither men nor beasts could drink it nor wanted to do so, and those men and beasts that did drink it were at risk of dying. For this reason, Messer Mastino and his army were forced to break camp and leave, returning

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to Verona on the 13th of July. The next day Messer Marsilio Rossi crossed over with his cavalry and came to Bovolenta. And note, reader, the various chance occurrences that determine one’s fortune in earthly life, especially in wars, for, as we have mentioned, in just a few days our war with Messer Mastino was close to being won or lost by both sides.

LXV How the city of Padua surrendered to Messer Pietro Rossi, and how Alberto della Scala was captured there. Messer Mastino had departed, having failed to bring his enemies to battle, and Messer Marsilio Rossi had returned with his knights to the camp at Bovolenta, as we have mentioned, where our army was feeling very reinvigorated, when all of a sudden Messer Pietro and all the army left the camp at Bovolenta, where he had stayed for so long, and set up camp near the walls of Padua. On the 22nd of July of the said year, the Paduans felt that they were faring badly under the tyranny of the Della Scala, especially Ubertino da Carrara and his family who had ceded the town to Messer Mastino, while he, in everything, treated them as servants or slaves, especially the mad and wicked Messer Alberto della Scala who was guarding Padua. Hearing that Messer Mastino had left with his forces, and that our troops and those of the Venetians were gathered in such strength at the edge of the city, of which Ubertino’s relatives Messer Pietro and Messer Marsilio de’ Rossi were captains, the Paduans planned the betrayal and capture of Messer Alberto della Scala with all of his counsellors, chiefs, and captains who were in Padua—this was exactly what was done to them. There was an uprising in the city and at the same time the troops in the field, according to plan, attacked Padua from different sides. The Da Carrara and the popolo ran furiously towards the palace, and they seized Messer Alberto and all his followers, and they opened the gate facing our army’s encampment, and brought Messer Pietro and Messer Marsilio Rossi into the city with all the cavalry. They entered the city with more than four thousand knights, not counting the foot soldiers, on the 3rd of August 1337. And they took over the city, without doing any harm or robbery, except to the soldiers and men who were there with Messer Alberto della Scala. And the said Messer Alberto and his captains were sent as prisoners to Venice. And the said Messer Ubertino da Carrara was made Lord of Padua, and included

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in the league, with four thousand knights already hired by the commune.⁵⁰⁷ There was much rejoicing in Venice and Florence and in all the Guelph cities in Tuscany about the taking of Padua.

LXVI How the valiant captain Messer Pietro Rossi died, and shortly thereafter his brother Messer Marsilio. The loss of Padua and the capture of Messer Alberto della Scala and his followers and counsellors, caused the power and standing of Messer Mastino and his followers to decline greatly; and at the same time the power of the Florentines and the Venetians and of the other allies of Lombardy grew, and this was most true for the Rossi of Parma, who had carried out this great vendetta on Messer Mastino and Messer Alberto della Scala, with the hope that their victory and power would allow them to reconquer the lordship of their city of Parma and that they would be able to achieve this rather quickly with the assistance of the forces of the Florentines, Venetians, and the other members of the league. But false fortune in earthly things, after she grants great happiness and vain contentment, is usually quick to bring miserable and painful results. This occurred very shortly afterwards, for right after taking Padua, Messer Pietro, with a great army on horse and on foot, rode to the strong and well-supplied castello di Monselice, which was held by Messer Mastino, and made continual and determined assaults and attacks upon the borghi at the foot of the walls from several sides. Messer Pietro, having almost overcome a part of the moats and palisades opposite the borghi, to encourage his men to fight, dismounted from his horse, and fought on foot with several other knights—this sort of leadership was not in that moment praised, but criticized. And as Messer Pietro was attacking the outer doors to the city gate, someone threw a short lance at him, which struck him at the joint of his cuirass, and pierced his side. The valiant captain, however, did not lose heart, but pulled the shaft from his side, and threw himself into the moat that ran alongside the gate to pass into the town, thinking in this way to conquer it. And thus it happened that the water entered into his wound, and the wound was worsened for the much blood lost, and the valiant and virtuous  Lordship was given first to Marsilio da Carrara, who fell ill shortly thereafter (March 1338) and at that time succession was secured for Ubertino. Ubertino’s rule, however, having been granted by Venice and Florence, was “una sorta di protettorato.” Billanovich, “Ubertino da Carrara.”

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duke was overcome by pain, and was by his own men pulled from the ditch, and thus wounded was brought by barge to Padua, where he passed from this life on the 7th of August of the said year 1337. His death was a great loss to the whole league, since he was the most skillful captain, the wisest in war and most stalwart in body—more than any other man of his time, not only in Lombardy, but in all of Italy. He was buried in the Church of San Francesco in Padua with great weeping, and his body was honored, as was proper for a great lord. When the news was heard in Florence and in Venice, people expressed great sorrow. After the funeral rites for his soul had been done with great solemnity, his brother Messer Marsilio died; he had endured excessive fatigue during the fierce raids —as we said before—and had fallen ill in Padua before the death of Messer Pietro; his spirit was harshly afflicted by the added pain of the death of Messer Pietro and, as pleased God, he passed from this life on the 14th of that month of August and was buried with great honor alongside his brother in Padua. This Messer Marsilio was among the most wise and worthy knights of Lombardy, and of excellent judgment. And thus, in only a few days, the house of the Rossi of Parma was almost wiped out, just when they were about to regain their position. Let us leave for a moment these events in Lombardy, to tell of other things that happened in those days.

LXVII Events which took place in Florence in these days, including a great abundance of foodstuffs. Turning back somewhat to follow the order of events in our treatise, at the end of June of the said year 1337, six baby lions were born of the old lioness and of the two younger lions her daughters.⁵⁰⁸ According to the augury of the ancient pagans, this was a sign of great magnificence for our city of Florence, and certainly in this time and shortly after our city was at its most prosperous and powerful, as one will find reading ahead a little. When they had grown somewhat, the Com-

 The keeping of lions in a public enclosure in Florence is documented since the end of the thirteenth century, especially related to the office of the podestà, as a sign of power. After the construction of the Palazzo Vecchio, the enclosure was established permanently behind that building, in a street still known as Via dei Leoni. The lion keeper appeared on the city payroll from 1290 onward and Villani even mentions the cost of feeding the lions in Nuova Cronica XII: 93. The birth of lion cubs is seen to augur the power and prosperity of Florence. See Loisel, Histoire des Ménageries, 149 – 53.

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mune of Florence gave some of these little lions as presents to various communes and lords who were its allies. And in the said year, on the 29th of July, they began to erect the first pilasters of the loggia of Orsanmichele,⁵⁰⁹ of squared columns, thick and well-formed, which previously had been thin, and made of bricks, and badly constructed. Present at the founding of this loggia were the priors and podestà and captain of the popolo with all the officials of Florence in great solemnity; and they ordered that above this loggia there would be a great and magnificent building with two vaults, where the grain supply would be administered and guarded every year for the said popolo. And the said project and construction was placed under the supervision of the Guild of Porta Santa Maria⁵¹⁰ and the gabella of the grain market along with other smaller gabelle with lesser incomes were assigned to fund this undertaking, since they wanted to complete it quickly. And it was ordered that each guild of Florence take charge of its own pilaster, and on it they should fashion the image of the patron saint of their guild; and each year, for the feast of the said saint, the consuls of the said guild should make, together with their artisans, an offering that the Confraternity of Santa Maria dell’Orto San Michele would distribute to God’s poor; this was a beautiful and devout plan that brought honor to all of the city. In those days, on the night of the 30th of July, the day the army returned from Lucca, a fire broke out in Oltrarno, on Via Quattro Leoni, and three houses burned there causing great damage. And on the same night, fire broke out in the women’s monastery of the Trinity in Campo Corbolino, and burned down their dormitory. In this year in Florence and throughout Tuscany there was a great bounty and abundance of food, and in Florence, the value of a staio of grain, filled to heaping, was eight soldi at sixty-two soldi per gold florin, which was an extremely low price when compared to the normal price, causing losses to those who had prop-

 Orsanmichele was conceived as a granary on plans by Arnolfo da Cambio in 1284, but miracles attributed to an image of the Virgin Mary brought crowds, religious observances, and charitable activities; a fire in 1304 brought about the need for reconstruction. Villani treats Orsanmichele in VIII: 155 and IX: 71. Philip Gavitt writes “In 1337– 8 … the Silk Guild assumed patronage of a new construction project that would combine administrative offices, a grain warehouse on the upper floors, and an oratory on the ground floor. The express purpose of this renovation was the provision of a grander setting for the increasingly venerated Madonna of Orsanmichele, a miracle-working panel painting that had been in a small oratory in the grain-market stall. In this matter Orsanmichele melded its religious, charitable, and civic functions very tightly together … Orsanmichele … [was] … the center of the city’s most popular devotional and intercessory cult during the Trecento.” Gavitt, “Corporate Beneficence,” 143. See also Zervas, Orsanmichele a Firenze.  This was the Silk Guild.

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erties, and even to the workers on those; but shortly afterwards, a great famine took its revenge for this bounty, as we will mention further on.

LXVIII How two comets appeared in the sky this year. In the said year, at the beginning of June, the comet called Ascone appeared with a great tail in the night sky. In the beginning it was just barely visible in the north almost in the vicinity of Taurus; it lasted more than four months, crossing the hemisphere to the south, and there it ended. And afterwards, before the first disappeared, another comet, called Rosa, appeared in the vicinity of Cancer, and lasted for around two months.⁵¹¹ These comets are not fixed stars, although they appear to be stars with rays, or crests, or clouds around them; the philosophers and astrologers say that these are dry vapors, sometimes mixed, that form within the fiery air beneath the sphere of the moon, due to great conjunctions of heavenly bodies, those being the planets. There are nine kinds of comets, some arising from the power of Saturn, or from Jupiter or Mars, or likewise from others, and some from the combined powers of two planets or more. But however they arise, each one is a sign of future events on earth, mostly bad, and sometimes a sign of the death of great kings and lords, or the transmutation of kingdoms and peoples, and with the greatest possible influence in the regions subject to the influence of the planet that created it. But most comets foretell illfortune, that is famine and death, and other great events, and changes in earthly affairs. And indeed these two comets also signified great things and great events, as anyone with good understanding and discretion will see, reading a little further on.

 The names “Ascone” and “Rosa” given to these two comets (and “Nigra” for the comet of August 1347, noted in Nuova Cronica, XIII: 98) derive from astrological sources, specifically an Italian tradition of a “nine-types classification [of comets], linking each type to certain effects according to traditional authoritative sources, which span from Aristotle and Ptolemy to Albumasar, and to their medieval interpreters.” Tessicini, “The Comet of 1577 in Italy,” 67– 68. See also Thorndyke, ed., Latin Treatises on Comets, 21– 25 for one of the earliest medieval texts on cometary theory, written in the first half of the thirteenth century, which describes the nine types, which are: 1) Veru, 2) Tenacolo, 3) Pertica, 4) Milite, 5) Ascone, 6) Matuta, 7) Argento, 8) Rosa, and 9) Nigra.

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LXIX Of battles at sea between the Genoese and the Venetians. In the said year and month of June, ten galleys of the exiled Guelphs of Genoa, which had been prepared for war at Monaco, finding themselves in Romania, encountered another ten galleys of the Commune of Venice; they engaged each other in battle and the Venetians were defeated and most were captured with great damage to goods and persons; however, the Venetians were not eager to start an open war with the Genoese or with their exiles.

LXX How the city of Bologna came under the lordship of Messer Taddeo de’ Pepoli, its citizen.⁵¹² In the said year the Bolognese people were in disarray, and badly disposed toward one another; they were divided into sects and parties, since, after they emerged from the lordship of the Church and the legate, each house that had helped chase the legate away wished to rule. On the 7th of July the Pepoli, with their popolo followers, took up arms and chased from Bologna Messer Brandaligi Gozzadini, who himself had been the leader in chasing out the legate and his relations and followers. And then later, on the 28th of August, Messer Taddeo, son of the late Romeo de’ Pepoli, with the aid of the Marquesses of Ferrara—his relations—had himself made captain of the popolo and Lord of Bologna. And then later on the 2nd of January, the pope, in Avignon, took harsh measures against the said Messer Taddeo and against the Commune of Bologna, because they did not wish to obey the Church, nor make amends for the harm suffered by the legate, when they chased him from Bologna. And then near the end of the following month of March, treason and conspiracy were discov-

 Taddeo de’ Pepoli (ca. 1290 – 1347), son of Romeo de’ Pepoli, was a powerful banker whose family exercised great power in early fourteenth-century Bologna. Taddeo was a member of the Moneychangers’ Guild and received a degree in law from the Bolognese Studio (a laurea which was richly celebrated by his father). His family endured a period of exile starting in 1321, during which Romeo de’ Pepoli died, leaving Taddeo as head of the family. They were readmitted in 1328 and after a period of “ambiguo” collaboration with Bertrand du Pouget, they took part in the conspiracy that resulted in his expulsion. Giansante, “Taddeo Pepoli.” See also Antonioli, Conservator pacis et iusitie.

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ered in Bologna: the conspirators had planned to kill the captain and take away his lordship. And the leader of this conspiracy was Macerello of the Counts Panigo—a close relation of the said captain, someone he most trusted—with his followers and some of the Ghisilieri and some other people from Bologna. When this plot was discovered, some of the conspirators were seized and beheaded. But Macerello and many others left Bologna as rebels. And so Messer Taddeo was left entirely in power, and he strengthened himself in power and in menat-arms, since he kept eight hundred mercenaries at the expense of the commune and allied himself with the Florentines. And observe, reader, that the comet, which we mentioned earlier, and which appeared in Taurus, which affects Bologna—among other cities and other lands—revealed in very short order its influence through such a dramatic change in the lordship of the city of Bologna. And as we mentioned a while back, shortly before the cardinal legate was chased out, the moon was darkened in Taurus, and according to many experts in that science this foretold the rising of the city against the legate. We were among those who understood this sign, although his deeds, and those of his people and officials, set the stage for the influence of this constellation—and hence this outcome was expected. We have said much about matters in Bologna, but it seemed necessary, since it is a nearby city, and an ally of Florence; and also, when one considers the ancient unity and liberty and estate and power of the good popolo of Bologna, now transformed by discord and by the tyrannical lordship of an individual citizen, it provides an example to our city and to the popolo of Florence, teaching our citizens to guard the liberty of our republic, and not to fall under the tyranny of a lord.⁵¹³ And this causes me to fear for our city of Florence, given its discord and poor government—let this suffice for those who understand well.

LXXI Of the death of King Frederick of Sicily, and the changes which followed on that island. In the said year, on the 24th of June, Don Frederick, King, who held the Island of Sicily, died of his illness. He left many sons, but during his lifetime he had

 An excellent example of the admonitory purpose of the chronicle, made all the more potent by the two cities’ similarity in political institutions and ideologies—not to mention their close alliance.

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crowned as king his eldest Don Peter, who, as we mentioned at an earlier point, was almost a fool. And for this reason, after the death of the father, there were many changes on the island. For, because of abuses he had received from the said Frederick [Peter], who had taken his brother-in-law the Count Chiaramonte’s side against him, Count Francesco di Ventimiglia, one of the greatest barons of the island, rebelled and brought all his castelli into rebellion and sought an accord with King Robert of Puglia, to whom the island belonged by right, and sent one of his sons to Naples.⁵¹⁴ But because of his poor judgment, or in truth because of his sin, he rushed too quickly into action, before he had received aid from the Regno. Thus, evil befell him: the host of King Peter rode against him and in the first skirmish they captured his two sons, and likewise he and another of his sons were killed in the fighting against their enemies. And so that lineage was almost destroyed, and they lost all their castelli, which had been many and strong. Nonetheless, the island remained in great tribulation and suspicion, as we mentioned earlier. We will leave this matter and speak somewhat of the war of the King of France against the King of England.

LXXII How the King of France arrested Italians, and debased his coinage, and how the fleet of the King of England came to Flanders. In that year 1337, Philip de Valois, King of France, having put aside his good and sworn intention to undertake the holy journey to Outremer, as we earlier mentioned, in order to pursue the war he had begun with the King of England, began to pursue evil upon evil because of his avarice. For one day, the 10th of April, he suddenly had all the Italians in his entire realm seized—the merchants and the companies of Florence and other cities—accusing them of practicing usury; and he made them all pay to free themselves, imposing on each one a great ransom to be paid in coin, and all were required to pay. And he had new gold coins minted, which were called écus, debasing the alloy of the good

 Francesco I Ventimiglia, Count of Geraci (d. 1338). One of the most powerful lords of Sicily, Francesco had repudiated Costanza Chiaramonte and this was a cause of bitter enmity between him and her brother Giovanni Chiaramonte. On his assumption of power, Peter II favored Francesco’s opponents, and this led the count to revolt. Declared a traitor, along with his supporters, Francesco was attacked and killed while defending Geraci. On the roots of this division, see Backman, The Decline and Fall, 78 – 79. See also Walter, “Giovanni Chiaramonte, Il Giovane” and Cancila, I Ventimiglia.

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coin by twenty-five percent, and the silver coin to the same degree. And then he made another gold coin, which he called lions, and then another which he called pavillons, debasing each both in alloy and in circulation, so that while our gold florin, which is a stable and honest coin of fine gold, was worth, in the good money which circulated in France, ten soldi parigini before 1339, the gold florin was now worth twenty-four and one half soldi parigini and one quarter more in tournois. And then in the year 1340, he minted another new gold coin called anges and greatly debased it and he did the same with the silver coin and the piccioli so that our gold florin was worth in those coins thirty soldi parigini. We will now leave off speaking of the corrupt coinage of the King of France and continue our description of the said war. On the Feast of Mary Magdalene in the month of July, the Bavarian, who styled himself emperor, came to Cologne, as had been planned by the league in their oath against the King of France. The King of England was supposed to be there, but he was absent that day because of his many affairs in England and because of his war in Gascony. Present, however, were the Duke of Brabant, the Duke of Guelders, the Duke of Juliers, the Count of Hainaut, and other allied lords, and the ambassadors of the King of England. At this assembly the league was reaffirmed, and the ambassadors of England promised wages and pay to the Germans and to the other allies and promised that the king would come in person in autumn. And so the Bavarian and his allies sent a challenge to the King of France, saying that they would come as far as the city of Cambrai on the frontier of the Kingdom of France, that they would encamp in his realm, and that they would give battle. The King of France was greatly offended and humiliated by this challenge, and immediately secured treasure and knights and men-at-arms to supply his war. As it turned out, however, the King of England could not cross to this side of the sea, as he had promised to his allies, because of his many affairs at home and because winter was coming. But since he wished to supply the promised wages, he sent three hundred cogships and one hundred twenty war galleys. In this fleet were the Bishop of Lincoln, and the Earl of Salisbury, and the Earl of Suffolk, and Messer John Darcy, lords of great valor with many other good men-at-arms, and much money and twelve thousand sacks of wool from the king—between money and wool there were six hundred thousand gold florins or more. And they arrived at the Zwin in Flanders at the beginning of November, and landed on the Island of Cadzand at the mouth of the port of the Zwin, called Sluys, and part of their men landed on the island, and fought with the Flemings who were there for the Count of Flanders, who obeyed the King of France. The English who first landed had no supplies and were killed. The bastard brother of the Count of Flanders was on the Island of Cadzand with a defense force of men-at-arms. Hearing this, the men of the landing

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party fell upon them in great numbers and killed as many Flemings as they found. They captured the brother of the count, and put the entire island to fire and flame.⁵¹⁵ Then, since the fleet was not able to land at Sluys, because the Flemings obeyed their count and the King of France, it landed at Dordrecht in Holland. Its men disembarked and then went to Brabant, and held a council with their allies, and made plans for war. When Pope Benedict and his cardinals heard that this war had begun, he sent two cardinal legates to the king in France to reconcile him with the King of England.⁵¹⁶ After long parleys with him in Paris, they headed for England, crossing the sea on the 27th of November, but they accomplished nothing. We will leave off speaking of this war for a while because very soon there will be greater things to tell about it. We will now return to recounting our war with Mastino.

LXXIII How the city of Brescia rebelled against Messer Mastino, and how it gave itself and other castelli to our league. In the said year, at the beginning of September, the castelli of Mestre and Orzinuovi and Canneto in the territory of Brescia surrendered to our league. And then on the 8th of October, the Brescians, who were under the tyranny of Messer Mastino, and who felt that they were in a bad state, seeing that Messer Mastino’s power and influence had greatly diminished and that he had lost the said castelli, plotted with our league to cause an uprising in their city, and brought into rebellion the part called the Old City of Brescia.⁵¹⁷ Messer Mastino’s captain in Brescia was one Messer Bonetto, who led five hundred German knights, and he withdrew to the part of the New City which was closest to Verona, sending a request for assistance to Messer Mastino. And the citizens acted on a plan

 This was the Battle of Cadzand (1337), an important attack by Edward III on his enemy Philip VI, although the prize won, a sparsely populated island, was not a great one. At the very least the victory, won by a force led by Walter Manny, may have reassured the King of England’s allies (as Villani points out, the king had not yet come to the continent). Sumption, Hundred Years War, 215 – 16.  The unsuccessful cardinal legates were Bertrand de Montfavence and Pedro Gomez de Barroso.  Mastino della Scala had possessed Brescia since 1332 when he took it as a part of his wars against John of Bohemia and acting on the strength of a secret pact with the Gonzaga, the Este, and the Visconti.

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they had made the very day they had stirred their city to revolt: certain of the most powerful gentlemen of Brescia, who were serving as hostages in Verona, suddenly left that city and traveled by different paths toward Brescia. And so the Brescians, finding themselves in those circumstances, and fearing the coming of Messer Mastino’s forces, sent for the men of our league. Around one thousand five hundred knights soon arrived in the city, as had been planned, and the Porta di San Giovanni was opened for them. They entered the city and right away, they set fire to the Porta di San Giustino, so as to attack Messer Mastino’s men in the New City. Messer Bonetto and his men, finding themselves in danger and fearing that they would be surprised by the forces of our cavalry in the city, left Brescia by the Porta Torre Alta and went to Verona.⁵¹⁸ And then the allies of the league, following the will and the recommendation of the blind Florentines, who were leaders of the league, gave the lordship of Brescia to Messer Azzone Visconti, Lord of Milan (there had been great disagreement among the Lombards, as each of those signori wanted Brescia.) O, it was certainly necessary to give the city to Messer Azzone, for love of one who stood with Castruccio at our defeat at Altopascio, and then at the very gates of Florence! When Messer Mastino saw that he had lost Padua, where his brother was captured, and then Brescia and many other cities he had held, as we have mentioned, and when he saw that his treasury was reduced and was failing him, he became greatly frightened, and sent his ambassadors to Venice as arranged by Messer Alberto, who had been imprisoned there since the month of December. And they sought an accord with the Venetians, without the knowledge of the rest of the league. This caused the Florentines and the other allies to grow very suspicious, but the Venetians made excuses, saying that what they were doing was for the honor of the league, and that at any rate they wanted and were demanding such excessive terms that Messer Mastino was refusing to observe them; and so, the war began again—this time even harsher than before. Soon thereafter, at the beginning of March, our men raided the territory of Verona without meeting any resistance, and crossed the River Adige, wrecking sixteen large ville and doing great harm to the surrounding lands.

 This abandonment of Brescia was one of the more dramatic events in the disintegration of Mastino della Scala’s state, which began in 1336 (with the opening of hostilities against Venice) and ended in 1339 (with the signing of a peace accord).

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LXXIV Of certain things that were done in Florence. In the said year 1337, after peace was made in casa Malatesta of Rimini, the Florentines elected as their war captain Messer Malatesta the Younger, a very worthy man. And he was welcomed to Florence with much honor on the 13th of October and lived very honorably, not favoring any party or sect in the city or making himself our bargello but loving us as a commune. But during his time no army and no raid was sent against Lucca, because the Florentines were ever hopeful of acquiring it by negotiation, hopeful that the Venetians might come to an agreement with Messer Alberto and with Messer Mastino. This turned out to be a vain hope, because of the disloyalty and betrayal of the Venetians, as we will mention further ahead. In this year, on the 8th of January, Messer Benedetto Maccaioni di Lanfranchi, a rebel from Pisa who had secretly hired three hundred mounted soldiers in Florence, began all at once to raid the Maremma by day and by night. Castiglione della Pescaia was supposed to be given to him through betrayal, and indeed a gate was opened to him, but the men of the town immediately ran to its defense and chased him out. The Pisans complained greatly of the Florentines’ role in this raid and were very afraid of losing Castiglione or Piombino. The truth was that certain of the rulers of Florence learned of the said plot and gave it their aid and favor—the priors, however, heard nothing of it. But fearing worse things the Pisans were more courteous toward the Florentines; before, they constantly quibbled with our merchants in Pisa, trying to take away our exemptions by sneaky sophistry. At this time, at the beginning of February, the Florentines assumed guard on behalf of the Bishop of Arezzo, who was of the Ubertini, of the strong citadel of his castello di Civitella and Castiglione degli Ubertini in Valdarno. They made peace between the bishop and his followers and the Tarlati of Arezzo to strengthen the power the Florentines had acquired over the city of Arezzo. And a law and decree was made in Florence on the 14th of March, that no citizen might buy any castello on the borders of the distretto of Florence. And this was done because the Bardi, in their great power and wealth, had in those days bought the castello di Vernio and the castello di Mangona from Messer Benuccio Salimbeni da Siena, and the castello di Pozzo da Dicomano from the counts. The popolo of Florence feared that they and the other grandi might rise in power and in pride and seek to bring low the power of the popolo, which they did not so long after, as will later be described. In those days fire broke out in the popolo of San Brocolo in the tower house of the Riccomanni near the Badia, and it burned all afternoon above the vaults— it could not be put out. And after the office of Messer Malatesta had expired,

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and after he had left, those who ruled Florence summoned as their war captain, or in truth as their bargello, Messer Giacomo Gabrielli da Gubbio, who took office on the first of February 1338 and remained for two years with great authority. In his harshness, Messer Giacomo did shameful things in Florence and in the contado, and issued judgments without a sense of justice, and this gave rise to shameful episodes in the city, as we will mention further ahead.

LXXV How a government of the popolo was made in the city of Orvieto, and how the same thing occurred in the city of Fabriano. At the end of that year 1337, on the 24th of March, the city of Orvieto rose in rebellion and took up arms because of the abuses perpetrated by the Monaldeschi, who ruled the city as tyrants.⁵¹⁹ The citizens created a government of the popolo and chased the Monaldeschi and their followers from the city. And in those days and in the same manner a government of the popolo was created in the city of Fabriano in the Marca, and the citizens chased out their tyrants and the powerful men who had ruled their town.

LXXVI How troops from Lucca were defeated by the Guelph Marquesses Malaspina. In the year 1338, on the 26th of March, two hundred mounted soldiers from the city of Lucca and a large popolo of foot soldiers were raiding in the neighborhood of Lunigiana, attacking the Marquesses Malaspina da Villafranca, and these forces were defeated by the said marquesses and their men, and they suffered great harm in prisoners taken and in men killed, given their numbers, since few of these men of Messer Mastino returned to Lucca. We will leave for a time these events in Florence and Tuscany and other places and go back to speaking about our war against Messer Mastino, since there is more to tell.

 Ermanno Monaldeschi had seized lordship of the city in 1334. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XII: 10.

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LXXVII How our host in Lombardy went all the way to the gates of Verona, and ran a palio there, and took Montecchio. On the 18th of April that year, after all negotiations between us and the Venetians and Messer Mastino had failed, our people—around three thousand knights—rode upon the city of Verona. And they took by force of arms the town of Soave near Verona, which had been garrisoned by Messer Mastino, and more than four hundred of his troops were killed there. And then on the 21st of April our troops closed in to within a crossbow shot of the gates of Verona, and the captains of our host, who always included a knight of the nobles and a popolano from one of the greatest families of Florence (the same was true for Venice), had a palio of samite run before the gates of Verona—they did this to show contempt for and to shame Messer Mastino. It was proclaimed that any Veronese who wished could safely come out to watch the games and to race the palio. Few, however, came out. After our host left Verona, on the 3rd of May, the great and strong castello di Montecchio, which guards the pass between Verona and Vicenza, surrendered to it, and once the castello was supplied with food and with men-at-arms, our host returned to the castello di Longare, which stood on those borders and was well prepared to make war on Mastino. Observe, o reader, how fortune works in worldly affairs, and especially in wars, because only a short time before Messer Mastino was in so much power and lordship, that he ruled Verona, Padua, Treviso, Vicenza, Parma, Lucca and the city of Feltre, and Belluno, and many great and strong castelli, and he had gathered great treasure, and always had in his hire more than five thousand German knights, at the expense of the said eight cities, and he was a great and powerful tyrant—the greatest in all Italy, or the greatest in a century. And in fact, a short while before he had threatened the Florentines, saying that he would come to see them at the gates of Florence leading five thousand iron helmets, and he had a very rich crown made, of gold and precious stones, to crown himself King of Tuscany and Lombardy. And then he intended to go to the Kingdom of Puglia and take it by force of arms from King Robert. And he would have done these things, had not the judgment of God chastened his pride and had not the power of the Communes of Florence and Venice, through their actions and their money, repelled him and reduced him to little power and low estate in the manner you have understood by reading. And as you will learn, they reduced him to even more dire straits, so that he found it necessary to pawn his crown and all his jewels to have the money to continue his war. Because to guard his cities and holdings it was necessary to spend a great deal on each of them, with the

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exception of Lucca and of Verona, from which he drew some income by tyrannizing them with great extortions. And therefore no lord or tyrant or commune should trust in their own power, since all human power is vain and false. And Omnipotent Lord God Sabaot gives victory and defeat to those whom He pleases, according to their merits and their sins.⁵²⁰ We will leave for a while our war against Messer Mastino to speak of other events which occurred in Italy and in the lands beyond the mountains in those days.

LXXVIII How the Duke of Brabant and his allies sent a great host against the Bishop of Liège, and how they later made peace. In the said year 1338, on the 9th of April, the Duke of Brabant, with the other allies and sworn enemies of the King of France, and with the son of the Bavarian, moved against the Bishop of Liège with eight thousand knights and more than sixty thousand foot soldiers from Brabant and neighboring lands, armored with cuirasses and helms like knights. The cause was the duke’s dispute with him over the city of Mechlen, but a greater reason was that the said bishop was an ally of the King of France. The duke meant to take away his lands so that the King of France might not have the power to offer resistance in the military campaign they had just begun. When the bishop saw himself so suddenly attacked by so great an army, when he saw that he was poorly prepared to defend himself against the said host, and when he failed to receive aid from the King of France, he came to an agreement with the duke and the other allies, an agreement whose terms were stipulated by them, swearing to them that he would no longer be an ally of the King of France.

LXXIX Of a great fleet which King Robert sent against the Island of Sicily, which captured little.

 This lengthy peroration on fortune and divine judgment is one of many in the Nuova Cronica and presents the familiar argument that God pilots human affairs so as to reward virtue and punish sin—compare with the lengthy discussion of disaster as divine correction in the first three chapters of Book Twelve.

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In the said year King Robert had heard that the Island of Sicily was unsettled because of the accession of King Peter and because of the rebellion of Count Francesco di Ventimiglia and his followers, and so he prepared a great fleet to cross to Sicily; and the said fleet departed Naples on the 5th of May—it had eighty galleys and transports and twelve hundred knights. They arrived on the 7th of May in the contrada of Tremole, immediately taking three castelli in the surrounding area, and laid siege to Tremole. And then on the 10th of June, the second fleet left Naples, with even more ships, and with many troops sent by the barons of the Regno and by the Provençals; its captains were Charles Duke of Durazzo, nephew of the king, son of his brother Messer John,⁵²¹ and the Count Novello of the De Baux. They joined the siege of Tremole and, after many battles and much destruction of buildings, they took the whole city, except for the citadel, through negotiations at the end of August—then they burned the entire city. And Count Ruggiero da Lentino, with all his castelli, rebelled against King Peter. He was one of the greatest barons of the island, and among the descendants of the principal barons who brought the island into rebellion against the first King Charles—thus, the world comes full circle. Later, the said fleet was forced to depart because of sickness and returned to Naples with little profit or honor. Since they had more than two thousand five hundred knights, they could have raided the entire island without resistance, and yet they never moved from Tremole, and so the host was corrupted and this corruption generated a pestilence of sickness and mortality.

LXXX How many cities in the Kingdom of Puglia experienced discord and division among their citizens. In the said year, the curse of great discord broke out in the Kingdom of Puglia, which was ruled by King Robert, in the city of Sulmona, and in the city of L’Aquila, and in Gaeta, and in Salerno, and in Barletta. In each of these cities, factions were formed which fell to fighting one another—one side would chase out the other, and the said cities were almost destroyed along with their territories. And because of this discord, the land filled up with ruffians and bandits, who  Charles of Durazzo (ca. 1323 – 1348) was son of John of Durazzo and Agnes de Périgord. He was involved in the political maneuvering that followed the assassination of Andrew in 1345 and lost his life at Aversa on the orders of Louis of Hungary in 1348—an event described by our chronicler in Book Thirteen of his Nuova Cronica. Coniglio, “Carlo d’Angio.”

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plundered everywhere. Many of the barons of the Regno had a hand in this discord, some on one side and some on the other. And the greatest of these struggles was in Barletta, since it lasted the longest and had the greatest battles. The head of one faction was casa Marra, and with them stood the Count of Sanseverino and all his followers. The head of the other faction was casa Gatti, and with them were the Count of Minervino, who was called Il Paladino, and his followers.⁵²² These men did much evil, devastating the city and all its territory. The king was much blamed for this discord, since he was so wise a lord, so intelligent by nature and by study; but because of his own greed for fines and for the payments that exonerated the misdeeds of his subjects he tolerated the devastation of his kingdom, although he could have corrected it and saved it by administering justice. He did not call to mind the words of the wise King Solomon: “Diligite iustitiam, qui judicatis terram.”⁵²³ It is true, however, that after the said cities were quite devastated, the king sent his forces to besiege Minervino and the count. The count’s brothers came to Naples and placed themselves at the mercy of the king and all their goods were confiscated and sold and bartered by the crown; and they were imprisoned in Naples and destroyed, brought to a terrible end and ruined. These Counts of Minervino were men of low birth, for they were sons of a son of Messer Gianni Pipino, who was born of a unimportant and lowly notary of Barletta. But his industriousness made him very powerful during the time of King Charles II, and he led the whole realm, profiting from everything, and he grew so rich that he left his sons as counts. And these sons, because of their pride and their presumption, as we have mentioned, soon came to a bad end. And observe that on rare occasions, a sudden rise to great power leads quickly to painful ends, but most often ill-gotten gains do not pass to the third generation—and this is just what happened to the Count of Minervino. We will leave matters of the Regno and of Sicily and speak somewhat of things that occurred that year in Florence.

 On the roots of the conflict between these two factions see Magos, “Della Marra e De Gattis,” 108 – 20.  “Love justice, you who govern on Earth.” The words of King Solomon in Wisd. 1:1. Dante Alighieri quotes this in Paradiso, Canto 18. Villani’s reference to the wise King Solomon is ironic, since elsewhere he upholds King Robert as a paragon of wisdom. The reference to King Robert’s avarice (which reappears elsewhere, even in Villani’s eulogy at his death), is one of a number of criticisms the chronicler makes of this rather difficult ally of Florence.

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LXXXI How the Colligiani gave themselves to the Commune of Florence, and of events in Florence in the said year. In the said year 1338, on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist in June, four detachments of troops, each with a hundred of our soldiers on horseback, were riding toward Buggiano in search of booty. An ambush was laid for them, and they were defeated, and two captains and the majority of their men were captured. And in the said year, on the 12th of July, the Colligiani were in great division, and were at the point of devastating their city and exiling a part of its citizens, and so by common agreement they gave their city and their distretto into the guardianship of the Commune of Florence for fifteen years, during which time they would summon only citizens of Florence to serve as podestà and as captain and would pay the expenses of the citadel guard. And so, they resolved their disagreements beneath the rod of the commune and the popolo of Florence, and they were left in peace and in good conditions. And in the said year, on the 15th of December, fire broke out in Oltrarno in Via dei Quattro Pavoni, and two houses burned there. And then on the 7th of February at midday, fire broke out at the house of the Cerretani at the Porta del Vescovo and burned their palace as well as more than ten houses on one street and the other, causing great damage, as it was impossible to contain this fire. And observe that fifty years ago fire broke out and burned the palace of the Cerretani, as will be found earlier in this chronicle, which was a great curse for that family, but not without cause.

LXXXII More on our war against Messer Mastino. In the said year 1338, after the Florentine host and the Venetian host had returned from the castello di Longare, as we earlier mentioned, Messer Mastino and his allies came with their host to retake the castello di Montecchio. He reckoned that it was not well supplied because of its sudden rebellion, and he feared that if our men held Montecchio, he would lose the city of Vicenza. On the 15th of June our men left Longare to aid and supply Montecchio—they had two thousand knights and a great popolo and many supplies. They came with their forces drawn up to fight with Messer Mastino and his men, who numbered one thousand two hundred knights. His people did not wait for our men, since they

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did not wish to engage in battle, but shamefully left their camp, suffering harm from those in the castello. They withdrew so suddenly as our men approached, that they left their whole camp full of supplies, and so when our men arrived, they richly supplied Montecchio. As soon as Messer Mastino and his men left Montecchio, they went straight to Longare. They arrived on the 17th of June, and believed they could take it in battle, presuming that it was ungarrisoned because of the sally our men had made toward Montecchio. But five hundred Florentine and Venetian knights had remained inside to guard it, and these defended the city and caused harm to some of Messer Mastino’s men. After leaving Longare and returning to Verona with little honor, Messer Mastino sent back part of the cavalry that he still possessed to guard and garrison his cities, and he remained in Verona with a few men on horse. Then, three hundred of our knights sallied from Longare all the way to Verona, to its gates, without any resistance, so reduced was the power of Mastino. And in this same period, on the 19th of August, the castello di Monselice surrendered to the Paduans, everything except the citadel, which surrendered for lack of provisions on the following 25th of November—the people were allowed to surrender without loss of life. In those days, Messer Mastino agreed to a plot, according to which the castello of Montagnana was to be betrayed to him. This plot was set in motion by Marquess Spinetta and two of his retinue in Montagnana. These two, however, were in our pay and they revealed the plot to Messer Ubertino da Carrara, who revealed it to our host in Longare, which was ordered to stand ready to assist Montagnaga. On the 29th of September, Messer Mastino, carrying out his part of the plot, made Marquess Spinetta ride to Montagnana with five hundred knights and one thousand five hundred foot soldiers. Our people, who were prepared to foil this plot, left camp at Longare with five hundred knights, and rode swiftly to Montagnana, along with two hundred knights of Padua. As Messer Mastino’s troops were going to Montagnana, they fell into an ambush set by our people and were attacked and defeated. As many as three hundred knights and foot soldiers were drowned and killed, and twenty-two captains, on horse and on foot, were captured; among them were some of the best of the twelve Italian captains in the pay of Messer Mastino. Men of the da Correggio and da Fogliano families, other Lombards and gentlemen with them, and many men on horse and on foot were also captured—and so this was a great defeat for Messer Mastino’s state, showing its decline. We will leave for a time the events of our war against Mastino, for soon we will return to it to describe its end. We now turn back somewhat to speak of the King of France’s venture of war against the King of England and his allies and the Flemings.

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LXXXIII How the Flemings chased away their count and rebelled against the King of France. The County of Flanders was furiously boiling because of the new war of the King of France against the King of England, the Duke of Brabant, and the other allies, since part of the Flemings would have been content to rebel against the Count of Flanders and the King of France, and part held with the Count.⁵²⁴ And so, the Flemings had many conflicts with the count their lord, because he held with the King of France. They sent him a number of times into cordial exile and then called for him again—in the manner of an unsteady and indecisive popolo. ⁵²⁵ In the end, there arose in Ghent a low tradesman, one who made and sold melichino, that is, a beer made with apples, whose name was Jacob van Artevelde, who made himself master of the Commune of Ghent.⁵²⁶ This was the year 1337. And because he spoke beautifully and with sincerity he rose so rapidly in power and in lordship, with the favor of the Commune of Ghent, that he completely chased the count and all his followers from Flanders—from Ghent, from Bruges, from Ypres, and from the other cities of Flanders which had once loved the count. Whenever anyone resisted, he left Ghent with six thousand or more people from the commune and moved against them, to attack them and send them into exile. And so, in a short time he became entirely the Lord of Flanders. It was said, in truth, that the Bishop of Lincoln, who was in Brabant serving the King of England, with the favor and counsel of the Brabanters, and by spending much money from the King of England in Flanders, had induced Jacob van Artevelde to undertake this revolt.⁵²⁷ These events greatly profited the King of England shortly thereafter, as one will find by reading ahead.

 As a result of this revolution, Flanders, which had been suffering under an English embargo, adopted a posture of neutrality in the conflict between England and France. Edward III, however, continued a diplomatic campaign to bring the Flemings to his side as allies. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 228 – 233 and 296 – 97.  Villani takes this as an opportunity to reflect on the costs of disunity and of inconsistency to popular government.  Jacob van Artevelde (1290/1295) was a member of a prominent family of Ghent, a city with interests in the wool trade with England. A leader of the revolt against Count Louis I, in 1340 he would recognize Edward III’s claim to the throne of France.  Henry of Burghersh (1292– 1340), Bishop of Lincoln, was Edward III’s diplomatic envoy in the effort to build alliances on the Continent.

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LXXXIV How the King of England crossed to Brabant. Flanders had nearly rebelled against the King of France and against the count, as we have said, when King Edward the Younger arrived at Antwerp in Brabant with more than three hundred ships and many barons and men-at-arms from his country; he also brought with him a great deal of wool and money and was accompanied by his wife and two of his daughters; this was on the 22nd of July in the year 1338. He made Antwerp his fixed abode until the end of September, although during this time he went to take council with his allies in many cities of the land, including one journey to the County of Loon on the borders of Germany where he met with ambassadors from the Bavarian. At that council, on the strength of imperial privileges, it was proclaimed that the King of England was a vicar of the empire, except in Italy.⁵²⁸ He then went to Brussels, where he resolved to create a family bond with the Duke of Brabant, between the duke’s daughter and the eldest son of the King of England.⁵²⁹ The duke then once again swore his adherence to the league and his opposition to the King of France, and he sent a message to him renouncing every homage he held from him in the Kingdom of France; he sent his challenge all the way to Paris by a bold and courageous and well-spoken knight of Brabant who acquitted himself well in this service.

LXXXV How the King of England and his allies led their host into the Kingdom of France. After this act of defiance, the King of England and the Duke of Brabant moved out from Brussels with their host, and went to Valenciennes in Hainaut. And there, acting as a vicar of the empire, the king had the Bishop of Cambrai summoned, and ordered him to yield his city of Cambrai, which was part of the empire—but the bishop did not appear. For this reason, on the 20th of September, Messer John of Hainaut, the count’s uncle, advanced from Valenciennes with two  After seeking to impress the emperor through lavish spending of mostly borrowed money, Edward III was proclaimed imperial vicar in a magnificent ritual at the Diet of Coblenz. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 243 – 44.  This bond was intended to shore up an alliance that had been open for a rather short period of time—prior to 1337 John III had been an ally of Philip VI.

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thousand knights in his pay—men from Hainaut and from Germany—along with the Lord of Valkenburg and his five hundred knights and they set themselves before the city of Cambrai at the Ville d’Haspres.⁵³⁰ Even though Cambrai is a city of the empire and held by the archbishop, the King of France had garrisoned it with his men, for the Constable of France was inside with three thousand men in armor. The King of England arrived to join this host with his troops, with two thousand five hundred knights—Englishmen and other allies. The Duke of Brabant had four thousand knights in his pay, men from Brabant and Liège and Germany, and a popolo from Brabant and Hainaut—a great many men serving with their communes. And the Count or rather the Duke of Guelders also came with two thousand knights, and that of Juliers with fifteen hundred knights. All these men or the greater part of them were in the pay of and provisioned by the King of England. Also present was the Marquess of Brandenburg, son of the Bavarian, with two hundred men in armor who followed him without pay; and more than one thousand five hundred German knights followed him of their own free will, and not at his request. And so, the host of the allies was more than fourteen thousand knights and more than sixty thousand men on foot—most of these were armored with cuirasses and helmets. The host stayed next to Cambrai for around nine days, and raided as far as Douai, destroying and plundering.⁵³¹ And the Lord of Valkenburg rode all the way to Bapaume and to Roisel in the Vermandois, because the King of France was still at Compiègne. The host then departed from that place and the men settled at Mont Saint-Martin two leagues from Saint-Quentin; then on the 14th day of October they moved camp, crossing the River Oise and changing camp three times on their way up the banks of the river; then they laid camp three leagues from Origny in France. And then, hearing that the King of France was coming, they retreated behind La Capelle and then went to La Flemengrie in Thiérache. And from these camps they raided all the way to the vicinity of Laon and Arras in France, doing infinite damage, plundering and burning, because the said land is absolutely full of many rich and good cities. And since the time that the Romans left this land, when they ruled it of old, the inhabitants had not even heard tell of war.

 This marked the beginning of the campaign, which actually took place the following year in 1339. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 278 – 79.  Sumption sees these raids as attempts by Edward III to provoke Philip VI to move out from Compiègne and meet him in battle. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 281.

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LXXXVI How the King of France came with his host against the King of England. The King of France, hearing how King Edward had crossed to Brabant and hearing of the great preparations the said king and the other allies had made at Cambrai, immediately took action. The first thing he did was to call on all his barons in the kingdom, and the King of Navarre, his cousin, and King John of Bohemia, and the Count of Savoy, and the Dauphin of Viennois—each came to his aid with many men-at-arms on horse and on foot. When he heard that his enemies had crossed into his kingdom, he immediately departed from Paris, because he did not expect that his enemies would be so bold as to enter his realm—and in this he was in error. Without waiting for his whole host, he went quickly to Compiègne, and then from there he went to Péronne in Vermandois. And there he found himself with twenty-five thousand good men-at-arms on horse and an infinite popolo on foot, between soldiers of his kingdom and those of the aforesaid lords and allies. And he departed from Péronne and encamped alongside the Oise River, facing the King of England’s host at a distance of one and a half leagues, with the Oise River in between the said hosts—and they faced one another in that manner for many days.

LXXXVII How the hosts of the King of France and the King of England faced off and then left the field without fighting. The two armies were close together and there were so many people, horses, beasts of burden, and wagons that the smaller of the two hosts occupied more than a league and a half, encompassing the entire territory. The King of England and his allies challenged the King of France, because they could no longer stay there—they had destroyed and plundered the entire territory and could only bring provisions to their host from a long way off and under guard (bread was being sold for one grosso tournois of silver in that host).⁵³² The King of France accepted the challenge and took the gage; the day of the battle was to be Saturday, the 23rd of October 1338 [1339]. Each host readied itself and drew up in for-

 In fact, it was the King of France who challenged Edward III, on the 21st of October. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 285.

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mation. The King of England came to the chosen place with his men in formation and stayed on the field until vespers.⁵³³ The King of France readied himself and his host but did not move with his men from the camp, believing he could defeat his enemies with trickery and strategy. He sent around three thousand knights and sergeants on foot and many crossbowmen to block a certain ford of the river, from which provisions were being carried to the King of England’s host. The King of England and his allies had already foreseen this move, and had guarded the ford; however, realizing that he was extremely low on provisions and seeing that the King of France was not giving battle, despite being summoned again and again by trumpet, the King of England left the field in formation and went off to Avesnes in Thiérache, and then to Maubeuge in Hainaut, and thereafter to Brussels. The King and his allies took council there and resolved to return with their forces to Brabant in the spring. And they gave leave to all the Germans, who departed rich with the wages of the King of England and with the plunder taken from the French. The King of France returned safe and sound, but with little honor, to Paris. And he also gave leave to his men, and called on them to return in the spring. We have written such a long account of these hosts which did not fight, because it has been a long time since such great barons as these gathered so closely to do battle—indeed one can truly say that they were the flower and the strength of Christian chivalry. Indeed, it is certain that it was the grace and the work of God, even though it was attributed to the cowardice of the King of France and of the French that there was no battle between them, and that so much Christian blood was not shed. King Robert, the King of France’s uncle, sent him many letters and messages from Naples comforting him and saying that it was for the best that he did not give battle to Brabanters, Germans, and Flemings, desperate and cruel peoples. Some people said that the King of France feared treason, and this was why he did not give battle. But whatever the reason, he chose what was best and safest for him. We will leave for a while the war between these two kings, for soon we will need to recount how they gathered as many troops, or even more. Now we will return to describing the events and the conclusion of our war against Mastino, and other news of Florence and Italy and elsewhere in those days.

 Edward III’s position and the order of his battle lines were exceptionally strong, a fact which undoubtedly led to Philip VI’s decision to avoid battle.

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LXXXVIII Of the bad state of the Company of the Bardi and the Company of the Peruzzi because of this war, and the bad state of all our city of Florence.⁵³⁴ In the time of this war between the King of France and the King of England, the Bardi and Peruzzi companies of Florence were the merchants of the King of England, and to their hands came all his income, wool, and merchandise, and they furnished all his household expenses, military expenses, and other needs; and the expenses and the needs of the king rose so excessively, beyond the income and the things received by him, that the Bardi found that—between capital, and provisions they had supplied to him, and interest on his loans—upon the return of the said army, the king owed them more than one hundred eighty thousand marks sterling, and the Peruzzi were owed more than one hundred thirty-five thousand marks, and every mark was worth four and one-third florins, so that this amounted to more than one million three hundred sixty-five thousand gold florins—the value of a kingdom. Of course, included in this sum were provisions that they had provided the king in the past, but be that as it may, it was great folly on their part to lend so much of their own money and that of others to one lord—out of a lust for profit or to recover what they had foolishly lent. And note that the said money did not belong mostly to the said companies; rather, they had it from many citizens and foreigners who had deposited or placed it in their care. Indeed, from this arose the great danger to them and to our city, as one will find reading a little onward. And so it happened that as a result, not being able to satisfy their creditors in England and in Florence, and in other places where they did business, their credit was ruined and they defaulted on their debts, especially the Peruzzi, though they did not cease their activities altogether because of the great possessions they had in Florence and in the contado, and because of the great power and status that they had in the commune. But because of their default, and due to the commune’s expenses in Lombardy, the power and standing of the merchants in Florence was greatly diminished; and the commune and the Merchants’ Guild and indeed every guild was brought low, and they came to a most terrible state, as will be described further on. Because once these two pillars failed, whose strength, when they were in good condition, enriched with trade the greater part of Christendom, indeed sustained the

 A close analysis of the difficulties of the Bardi and the Peruzzi is offered in Hunt, Medieval Super-Companies.

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trade of Christians,⁵³⁵ every other merchant was suspect and distrusted. And for these reasons and others, as we will soon tell, not long after our city of Florence suffered a huge collapse and fell into an overall bad state. And in addition to the bad state of these companies, the King of France seized, in Paris and throughout the kingdom, their representatives, their goods, and their merchandise—and those of many other Florentines, for the said reasons. What is more, the commune had taken much money through forced loans from citizens and spent it in the campaigns in Lombardy and in Lucca. The consequences of these things and the general lack of credit soon led to the failure of many smaller companies in Florence, as will be mentioned later.⁵³⁶ We will now leave this matter and return to following the narrative of our war with Messer Mastino.

LXXXIX How our troops and those of the Venetians entered the borghi of Vicenza. We now return to the subject of our war against Messer Mastino, whose forces were much weakened. It happened that on the 16th of October 1338, Messer Mastino, having heard that the city of Vicenza was much beleaguered and in bad condition, sent one hundred fifty knights to aid it and support it. As these men were passing by, they were attacked and defeated by our men who were in Montecchio, and five captains and the majority of the soldiers were captured. And then right away, as had been planned, our host and cavalry entered the three borghi of Vicenza. This occurred on the 18th of October of the said year, and they took almost the entire city, except for the part with the castello; and this last part would be able to hold out only for a short time, since it had lost every hope of aid.

XC How the Venetians betrayed the Florentines and made peace with Messer Mastino and how our commune also had to make this peace.  The original phrases for “enriched with trade” and “sustained the trade” turn on food imagery, with the words condire (to season), and alimento (sustenance).  This chapter prepares the way for the famous overview of Florence’s stato and adds piquancy to the conclusion of Nuova Cronica XII: 92, where Villani urges the ruling elites of the city to moderate their excessive fiscal demands.

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Messer Mastino saw that he was about to lose the city of Vicenza, and knew that if that city were lost, he would be besieged in Verona.⁵³⁷ And so he secretly began peace negotiations with the Venetians, without the knowledge of the Florentines. He had his ambassadors spend abundantly in Venice, paying money to certain great men, who had status and power in the commune, and he entrusted himself entirely to them, begging them not to completely undo him, because by doing so they would ruin and abase the imperial and Ghibelline party in Italy—the Venetians in times past had been by their nature Ghibellines. And acting for their own advantage, with the encouragement of those citizens who stood to profit, and also at the request of the Pisans and of those Ghibellines who were holding Lucca, who sent secret ambassadors and letters begging them with great insistence in the name of God and for love of party that they not assent that the Florentines have the city of Lucca, the Venetians reached an accord with Messer Mastino.⁵³⁸ In doing so, the Venetians tricked and betrayed the Florentines and their other allies, because they had promised and sworn never to make any accord without the agreement of all the allies, and that the Florentines might freely possess the city of Lucca and its distretto. They did not observe this but made the accord at their pleasure. And they wanted and took the city of Treviso on the 2nd of December of the said year, and also Castelfranco and Bassano, and those places that had been taken by our people and by their people. Once they had done this, they sent their ambassadors to Florence on the 19th of December, and gave a report to the Florentines in open council, declaring that if we wanted to share in the peace they had made with Messer Mastino, they would have us confirm in this peace the cession to Messer Mastino and the Commune of Lucca of the cities and castelli that we had taken from the people of Lucca; these were Fucecchio, Castelfranco, Santa Croce, Santa Maria a Monte, Montopoli in Valdarno, Montecatini, Monsummano, Montevettolini, Massa, Cozzile, Uzzano in Valdinievole, Vellano, Sovrano, and castello Vecchio in Valdilima. For making the said peace the Florentines would have the castello di Pescia and the castello di Buggiano and its distretto, and Altopascio. If the Florentines refused to accept this, well, the people of Venice had made their peace, and they would observe it—the Florentines could choose to take up the matter or not with Messer Mastino. This offer seemed a very poor one to the Florentines, because they had believed that they could trust the Venetians as themselves, and that the Venetians had loyally observed this alliance, because they firmly be The narration continues across the rubric, not marked by Villani’s typical concluding or opening phrases.  The sense here is that since the Venetians have accomplished their aims, prudence would argue that they not pursue a war that would, from that moment on, benefit the Florentines.

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lieved that they would have Lucca according to the pacts sworn by the Venetians, while the other Lombards of the league were to have Parma. Many secret councils were held in Florence regarding this offer, whether to accept or to reject the peace. And there were those who were “for” and those who were “against.” Many citizens, in their contempt for the betrayal perpetrated by the Venetians, refused to accept this peace, alleging that it was a danger for the city to make peace with an enemy tyrant, who would remain nearby with the troops and the defenses of Lucca, and also pointing out what had been learned from his betrayals. They argued that it was a better and a more certain course to remain in a state of open war with him. Others advised that, considering the great amount of money spent by the commune in this war—the commune was indebted to its citizens and to others to the tune of four hundred fifty thousand gold florins or more on the gabelle and the revenues of the commune, which were assigned to these debts for more than six years to come—the lesser evil would be to send solemn ambassadors to Venice to ask the commune to observe the sworn terms of the league, or to do what they could to improve the terms that had been offered. Or, if nothing better could be had (and this was secretly committed to them), they should not cease negotiating for the best possible deal for our commune, so that the said accord might allow the commune to regain its strength, get out of debt, and preserve the said castelli—which are in the heart of Lucca—so as to be able to defend itself and to make war against the tyrant if necessary. On the 11th of January, this side won out and so there departed for Venice Messer Francesco di Messer Pazzino de’ Pazzi, Messer Alessio de’ Rinucci (a judge), Iacopo degli Alberti, and a syndic with full mandate from the commune. And they remained in Venice for some days to get a better deal from the Venetians. But these perfidious Venetians, sprung from the blood of Antenor, betrayer of his city of Troy, persisted stubbornly in their offer and refused to be moved, unless it was to give up Asciano and Colle, which was above Buggiano (since we hold Buggiano they could not hold Asciano and Colle). And so this forced and unwanted peace between the Commune of Venice and the Commune of Florence and Messer Mastino was signed on the 24th of January 1338. Messer Alberto della Scala was released from prison along with the others who had been captive with him in Venice. The fine for the violation of this peace was set at one hundred thousand gold florins, and that was the only security. The Guelph rebels of Lucca were allowed to return to Lucca and retake their possessions, except for thirty leaders who were to stay in exile, although few Guelphs felt safe enough to return to Lucca because of this peace. And then, after our ambassadors had returned to Florence, on the 7th of February of the said year, the said castelli were given to the Florentines. And then on the 11th of February the peace was pronounced, but no one was allowed to go to Lucca without permission. Ob-

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serve, and let it be forever remembered by you Florentines who will read this, the base betrayal of our commune by the Venetians, after we had done so much, at such great expense—we find that we spent over thirty-one and a half months, more than six hundred thousand gold florins—and after we worked faithfully and fervently to make them great, and to cast down the pride of the tyrant, their neighbor and their enemy. Moreover, to add to their failure toward us, they should have received from our commune at the end of the war around twenty-five thousand gold florins, or indeed a lesser sum, by our reckoning, for the remaining payments for our knights and for the equipment sent to the host, which they advanced, because the money for our pay was sometimes a bit delayed in going to Venice; but the Venetians were demanding thirty-six thousand gold florins, since they had advanced a quarter of all the expenses they made in the said war for our knights and their knights and foot soldiers by means of gabelle, taxes, and impositions on the supplies that were being sent to the host; and they did not want to deduct our part in the conquest of Mestre and the Ponte di Praga, which were and are places yielding a great profit in tolls. Our commune wished to settle our accounts with them and to pay them what they were owed, and so sent ambassadors and bookkeepers, but they never agreed to show their accounts, nor would they commit the question to mutual allies outside Venice but responded only “ego voleo, ego giubeo”—that is, these are the commands of the Doge and the Commune of Venice. And because of this, they took reprisals against Florentines, with strong and harsh laws, whence all Florentines departed from Venice at the end of January 1339. And the Florentines made similar laws, even stronger ones, against the Venetians, or against any Florentine who might be in Venice, or might have business there. Such was the conclusion of the disloyal alliance of the Commune of Venice against our Commune of Florence.

XCI Of the power and the revenues of the Commune of Florence in these days. So that our descendants might understand the state of our Commune of Florence in these days, and how it furnished the expenses of the said war with Mastino, for which at least twenty-five thousand gold florins were paid every month to Venice, not counting the necessary expenses that our commune had to pay here (since at most times, leaving aside the men of Lombardy, it had one thousand knights in its pay, not including the guards of the cities and the castelli it held), we will briefly narrate here the power of our commune, both its revenues

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and its expenses, and the spending of the commune for the year 1336 to 1338, the years of our war with Messer Mastino. In these years the Commune of Florence ruled the city of Arezzo and its contado, Pistoia and its contado, Colle di Valdelsa and its corte, and in each of these cities Florence had had a castello built, and it held nineteen walled castelli in the distretto and contado of Lucca, and in our contado and distretto it held forty-six strong and walled castelli, not counting those belonging to its citizens, and many towns and villate without walls, which were very great in number.

XCII The revenues of the Commune of Florence. The Commune of Florence earns little from its tax revenues, as one will see, but supported itself in those days with its revenues from gabelle. And when necessary, as we described before at the beginning of the war with Mastino, it provided for its needs through loans and through imposts on the merchants, on the rich, and on other individuals, assigning them payments from the gabelle. The following were the gabelle in those days, which we drew faithfully from the registers of the commune, and which, as you will see, amounted to around three hundred thousand gold florins per year, sometimes more, sometimes less, according to the times. This would be a great sum for a kingdom, and King Robert has no more in revenue, nor does the King of Sicily have as much, nor the King of Aragon. The gabella of the gates on merchandise, provisions, and goods that entered and exited the city was sold every year for ninety thousand two hundred florins; the gabella on wine was sold by thirds for fifty-nine thousand three hundred florins. The estimo of the contadini, which has them pay ten soldi per libra of their assessment every year, was sold for thirty thousand one hundred gold florins; the gabella on salt sold to citizens charged forty soldi piccioli per staio and salt sold to contadini charged twenty soldi, and this gabella was sold for fourteen thousand four hundred fifty gold florins. These four gabelle were allocated for the expenses of the war in Lombardy. The possessions of banned and condemned rebels were worth seven thousand gold florins per year. The gabella on usurious lenders was worth three thousand gold florins. The nobles of the contado paid two thousand gold florins every year. The gabella on contracts paid eleven thousand gold florins every year. The gabella on the butchering of animals in the city paid fifteen thousand gold florins. The gabella on the butchering of animals in the contado paid four thousand four hundred gold florins. The gabella on rents paid four thousand one hundred fifty gold florins. The ga-

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bella on flour and milling paid four thousand two hundred fifty gold florins. The gabella on citizens who leave the city to serve as officials was worth three thousand five hundred gold florins per year. The gabella on accusations and appeals was worth fourteen hundred gold florins. The profits on gold coinage, once the costs to produce it had been paid, were worth twenty-three hundred gold florins. The revenue from the profits on quattrini and piccioli, once the production costs were paid, were fifteen hundred gold florins. The goods of the commune and transit duties were worth sixteen hundred gold florins. The markets of the city that sold live animals were worth two thousand one hundred fifty gold florins. The gabella on the recording of weights and measures and peace arrangements and goods offered in payment was worth six hundred gold florins per year. The sweeping of Orsanmichele and the lending of containers were worth seven hundred fifty gold florins. The gabella on rents in the contado was worth five hundred fifty gold florins. The gabella on markets in the contado was worth two thousand gold florins. The fines received by the commune are estimated at twenty thousand gold florins per year (and most years it is much more). The revenue from fines for the defaults of soldiers on horse and on foot, not counting those who were in Lombardy, was seven thousand gold florins. The gabella on house overhangs was worth five thousand five hundred fifty gold florins per year. The gabella on greengrocers, male and female, was worth four hundred fifty gold florins. The gabella of bonds, that is to say for bearing defensive arms, at twenty soldi piccioli per lira apiece, was worth thirteen hundred gold florins. The revenue of the prisoners was one thousand gold florins. The gabella on the messengers was worth one hundred gold florins. The gabella of wood rafts on the Arno was worth fifty gold florins. The gabella of the approvers of bonds made to the commune … gold florins. For the gabella of appeals to the consuls of the guilds, the commune’s portion was worth … gold florins. The gabella on possessions in the contado was worth … gold florins. The gabella of fist fights was worth … gold florins. The gabella from Firenzuola was worth … gold florins. The gabella of those who have no house in Florence, but whose house is worth more than one thousand florins was worth … gold florins. The gabella of the mills, the profits and the fish weirs was worth … gold florins. The sum was around three hundred thousand florins, and more. O rulers of Florence, what bad judgment you show, increasing the income of the commune through excessive gabelle on both rich and poor citizens, only to fund your mad ventures! Do you not realize that a swollen sea produces a great tempest and that if revenues grow, this prepares the way for foolish spending? Temper, o dearest ones, your ungoverned desires, and you will be pleasing to God, and will not burden the innocent popolo.

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XCIII The expenses of the Commune of Florence in those days. These were the fixed and necessary expenses of the Commune of Florence every year, with the gold florin worth three lire two soldi. The salary of the podestà and his servants was fifteen thousand two hundred forty lire di piccioli per year. The salary of the captain of the popolo and his servants was five thousand eight hundred eighty lire di piccioli per year. The salary of the executor of the Ordinances of Justice against the grandi, for himself and his servants, was four thousand eight hundred lire di piccioli. The salary of the conservatore of the popolo, who is also in charge of exiles, with his fifty knights and hundred foot soldiers was eight thousand four hundred gold florins—this office is not permanent but exists only in times of need. The judge of appeals on matters related to the rights of the commune was one thousand one hundred lire di piccioli. The official in charge of overseeing the adornments of women and other prohibitions was one thousand lire di piccioli. The official in charge of the grain market at Orsanmichele was one thousand three hundred lire di piccioli. The officials, notaries, and messengers in charge of hiring soldiers was one thousand lire di piccioli. The officials, notaries, and messengers in charge of the defaults of the soldiers was two hundred fifty lire di piccioli. The treasurers of the camera of the commune, and their officials and guards, and their notaries and the friars, who guard the acts of the commune, was one thousand four hundred lire di piccioli. The officials in charge of the revenues of the commune was two hundred lire di piccioli. The overseers and the guards of the prisons was eight hundred lire di piccioli. The expenses for the food and the drink of the lord priors and their households was three thousand six hundred lire di piccioli per year. The salaries of the pages and the servants of the commune, and the bell ringers of the two towers, that is of the priors and the podestà, was five hundred fifty lire di piccioli. The captain of the sixty guards that serve and guard the priors was five thousand two hundred lire di piccioli. The foreign notary in charge of legislation and his companion was four hundred fifty lire di piccioli. The chancellor and reader of letters and his companion was four hundred fifty lire di piccioli. The food for the lions, and torches, and candles and luminaria for the priors was two thousand four hundred lire di piccioli. The notary who registers the acts of the commune in the Palace of the Priors was one hundred lire di piccioli. The servants who serve all the officers, receive for their salary fifteen hundred lire di piccioli. The trumpeters and the criers of the commune—there are six criers and ten musicians, players of large trumpets, drums, the vielle, the cenamella, and the small trumpets, with large and small trumpets of silver—for their salary receive one

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thousand lire di piccioli per year. Alms to the religious and to hospitals were two thousand lire di piccioli per year. Six hundred guards who are posted on night watch throughout the city received ten thousand eight hundred lire di piccioli. The palio of samite for the annual festivities of Saint John the Baptist, and those of heavy fabric used at the festivities of San Bernaba and Santa Reparata cost one hundred gold florins per year. Spies and messengers who go out for the commune cost twelve hundred lire di piccioli. Ambassadors who are abroad for the commune are estimated to cost more than five thousand gold florins per year. Castellans and guards of citadels held by the commune cost four thousand gold florins. Furnishing the armory with crossbows and bolts and pavises cost fifteen hundred gold florins. The sum of these necessary expenses, not including soldiers on horse and on foot, was around forty thousand gold florins or more per year. As for the soldiers on horse and on foot, there was no rule and no stable number, since there were sometimes more and sometimes less according to the needs of the commune. But one might reckon, not counting those needed for the war in Lombardy, nor those which were part of hosts, from seven hundred to one thousand at all times, and the same is true for foot soldiers at all times. And we are not accounting for spending on walls and bridges, and on Santa Reparata, and on many other work projects of the commune, since it is impossible to determine a precise figure.

XCIV More on the magnificence and estate of the city of Florence. Now that we have spoken of the revenue and spending of our Commune of Florence in those years, it seems appropriate to make mention of its estate and condition, and the other great things of the city, so that our descendants in later days might perceive any rise or fall of the estate or power of our city; and so that the wise and worthy citizens governing it in the future, guided by the record we make and the example contained in this chronicle, will take care to advance it in estate and in power. Through careful research we find that in those days there were in Florence around twenty-five thousand men capable of bearing arms, from fifteen to seventy years old, all citizens, among whom were fifteen hundred nobles and powerful men who gave security to the commune as grandi. At that time there were around sixty-five cavalieri di corredo in Florence. In truth we find that before the creation of the Secondo Popolo, which rules at present, there were more than two hundred fifty cavalieri, but after the Secondo Popolo the grandi did not have as much estate and lordship, and so few have themselves

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knighted. It was reckoned that there were around ninety [thousand] mouths— men, women, children—judging from the city’s consumption of bread, as will be understood below. It was reckoned that in the city there were ordinarily around fifteen hundred foreigners, travelers, and soldiers, and the sum of the citizens does not include the religious and friars and female religious and cloistered nuns, whom we will mention below. It was reckoned that in those days there were around eighty thousand men in the contado and distretto of Florence. We learned from the priest who baptized children, who, in order to keep a tally, kept a black bean for every boy and a white bean for every girl that he baptized in San Giovanni, that in those days anywhere from fifty-five hundred to six thousand children were baptized every year. Most years the number of males was greater than the number of females by three hundred to five hundred. We found that at any time, anywhere from eight thousand to ten thousand boys and girls were learning to read. There were anywhere from one thousand to twelve hundred youths who were learning arithmetic and calculation in six schools. And there were anywhere from five hundred fifty to six hundred who were learning grammar and logic in four large schools. We found that the churches which then stood in the city and in the suburbs, counting the abbies and the churches of friars and religious, numbered one hundred ten. These included fifty-seven parish churches with parishioners, five abbeys with two priors and with around eighty monks, twenty-four nunneries with around five hundred women, ten friaries with more than seven hundred friars, thirty hospitals with more than one thousand beds for the poor and the infirm, and anywhere from two hundred fifty to three hundred chaplaincies. There were two hundred or more wool workshops which produced anywhere from seventy thousand to eighty thousand panni,⁵³⁹ worth more than one million two hundred thousand gold florins. A third or more of this remained in the city as wages without profit to the wool manufacturers. More than thirty thousand people lived on this work. We found, it is true, that thirty years ago there were three hundred workshops, or around that number, and that they produced more than one hundred thousand panni every year. But in those days the panni were inferior in quality and worth half as much as those of today, since in those days they did not import nor did they know how to work English wool, as they did later. The Calimala Guild had twenty workshops for French and foreign fabrics, and each year they brought more than ten thousand panni worth more than three hundred thousand gold florins; all were sold in Florence, not counting those that they sent out of the city. As for the moneychangers, there were eighty banks. As for gold coins,

 Panno here signifies a wool cloth, though it later came to mean any kind of cloth.

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every year three hundred fifty thousand and sometimes four hundred thousand gold florins were minted. And more than twenty thousand pounds worth of quattrini were minted every year. The workshops of shoemakers and clog-makers and slipper-makers numbered around three hundred. The college of judges had from eighty to one hundred members; there were around six hundred notaries; there were around sixty physicians and surgeons; there were around one hundred apothecary shops. As for merchants and mercers, there was a great number— the number cannot be easily reckoned because of those who left Florence to do business. And there were many other artisans of many trades, masters of stone and of wood. There were more than one hundred forty-six ovens in Florence at that time, and we found, from the milling gabella and from the bakers, that every day the city needed one hundred forty moggia of wheat—whence one can reckon how much it needed per year. And this does not take into account that the majority of the comfortable, rich, and noble citizens resided with their families for more than four months of the year in their villas in the contado—and some for longer. We find that around 1280, when the city was in a happy and good state, around eight hundred moggie were needed per week. As for wine, we found, from the gate gabella, that every year around fifty-five thousand cogne entered the city, and in years of abundance sometimes ten thousand cogne more. Every year the city needed four thousand cows and calves; sixty thousand wethers and sheep; twenty thousand nanny goats and billy goats; thirty thousand pigs. In the month of July four hundred loads of melons entered the city through the Porta a San Friano every day, which were distributed throughout the city.⁵⁴⁰ The following were the foreign officials in Florence in those days, each of whom heard cases, and could inflict torture: the podestà, the captain of the popolo, the executor of the Ordinances of Justice, the capitano della guardia, or in truth the conservatore of the popolo. All the following officials had the power to administer real and personal punishments: the judge in charge of trial and appeal, the judge in charge of the gabelle, the official in charge of the markets and the food supply, the official in charge of policing women’s ornaments, the official in charge of the Mercanzia, the official in charge of the Wool Guild, the ecclesiastical officials, the court of the Bishop of Florence and the Bishop of Fiesole, and of the Inquisitor of heretical depravity. We must not neglect making

 Starting with his figures on the wool workshops, Villani has mentioned five of the seven major guilds: Judges and Notaries, Wool Finishers, Cloth Merchants and Finishers (Calimala), Bankers and Moneychangers, Doctors and Apothecaries. It is interesting that he leaves out the Silk Guild, which was very profitable, as well as the Furriers. He also mentions products from the lesser guilds: Shoemakers, Masters in Wood and Stone, Bakers and Millers, Winesellers, and Butchers.

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memory of other worthy and magnificent things about our city of Florence, so as to inform those who will come after us. Within the walls the city was well provided with lodgings, with many beautiful palaces and houses; and in those days builders worked constantly, improving buildings to make them comfortable and splendid, taking inspiration from every kind of improvement and beautification from outside Florence. The cathedral churches, the churches of friars of every order, and the monasteries were magnificent and splendid. Moreover, no citizen—popolano or grande—who had a possession in the contado failed to have built or to build with great expense larger buildings than those in the city, indeed overly large; and these citizens sinned in their excessive spending, so that they were considered mad. But it was so magnificent a thing to see, that when foreigners unaccustomed to the city approached from outside, most believed, when they saw the rich buildings surrounding it at a distance of three miles, that everything was part of the city in the manner of Rome—and this is not counting the rich palaces, towers, and courtyards, and the walled gardens further away from the city, which in other parts would be called castelli. In sum, it was reckoned that the six miles surrounding the city had more rich and noble habitations than could be found if you put together two Florences. And this is rather enough said on matters of Florence.

XCV On the ancestry of the Della Scala of Verona. Moreover, it seems appropriate, after having said so much about matters of Florence, to make mention of the origins of the Della Scala of Verona, who have, as we mentioned before, made Lombardy and Tuscany so resound with their wars and tyrannies. Indeed it seems that the Lord God often permits powerful tyrants to be born from humble origins, so as to cast down the pride and the arrogance of popoli and of nobles for their sins. We find that in the days of the great tyrant Ezzelino da Romano, whom we mentioned earlier, who destroyed almost all the nobles of the Marca Trevigiana, Padua, and Verona—around ninety years ago— there was in Verona a man of low birth named Giacomo Fico. Some say that this Giacomo was a builder and seller of ladders, and that it was from this that the Della Scala took their arms and their name, while others say that he was a merchant from Montagnana.⁵⁴¹ This man had two sons—Mastino and Alberto.⁵⁴² This

 Ezzelino III da Romano (1194– 1259) was son of Ezzelino II da Romano and Adelaide degli

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Mastino was a large and strong person, and a brawler and a gambler, but was bold, worthy, and wise in his affairs. In the beginning, he was a captain of ruffians, following Ezzelino on foot during his raids. His bold actions pleased the tyrant, who later made him captain of his foot soldiers. Later, he came into such favor that Ezzelino made him the provisioner and the quartermaster of almost all his soldiers on horse and on foot. On Ezzelino’s death, Mastino found himself in that position with a following of soldiers, and he had himself made captain of Verona and then had himself knighted along with his brother Alberto—a wise, worthy, and decent man. And so fortune lifted them into high estate: Mastino was Lord of Verona while Messer Alberto was podestà of Mantua and Messer Bottisella, the son of the Lord of Mantua, was podestà of Verona for Messer Mastino.⁵⁴³ It happened that certain noble men in Verona felt disgust and envy over the lordship and tyranny of Mastino, since he was of low birth, and had made himself their lord through force and tyranny, and so they conspired to kill him. There were twenty-five of these conspirators, each of whom swore an oath to strike him down. And they carried out their plan in the following manner: one day he was making his way to the palace of the commune, unarmed, in the manner of a lord, and not on his guard; he had just reached the piazza when all the said conspirators, each with his dagger in hand, struck him and killed him without anyone opposing them, and no one was bold enough to remove the body. Messer Bottisella, the podestà, straight away sent word to Messer Alberto in Mantua, who, upon hearing the news, rode secretly through the night, passed into Verona, and entered the palace; he left orders that all the knights of Mantua were to follow him, and so they did. The next morning the podestà

Alberti da Mangona. Ezzelino’s territories were centered on Treviso, but he exercised great influence in the political life of Verona after 1226. He was an ally of Frederick II from the early 1230s and served him until his death in 1250. Villani seems to regard him as a kind of prototypical tyrant, so it is important that he begins his description of the Della Scala with Ezzelino. Simonetti, “Ezzelino da Romano.”  Mastino I della Scala (d. 1277) and Alberto I della Scala (d. 1301) were sons of Iacopino della Scala and founders of the Della Scala. Mastino, a member of a family that was likely far more prominent than suggested by Villani, held the position of podestà in 1259, the year Ezzelino died, and occupied positions of authority throughout the 1260s – by the early 1270s he had acquired control over Verona. Mastino was assassinated in 1277, whereupon his lordship in Verona passed to his brother Alberto I. Varanini, “Mastino I Della Scala.”  Guido Bonacolsi detto Bottisella (d. 1309) was son of Giovannino dei Bonacolsi and grandson of Pinamonte dei Bonacolsi, the founder of Bonacolsi power in Mantua. When Pinamonte fell in 1291, his son Bardellone took control of Mantua and promised that Guido would succeed him. Divisions between the two eventually led to an open conflict, which Guido won in part because of his close relations with the Della Scala. Walter, “Guido Bonacolsi detto Bottisella.”

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summoned all the good men of Verona to a council, including the very ones who had murdered Messer Mastino, declaring that he wished to return the city to a government of the commune and popolo. Once the council was convened, Messer Alberto, unarmed, left his chamber, went to the council chamber, and climbed up to the rostrum, to the great marvel of everyone in the council. And, with a cheerful face, speaking falsely, Messer Alberto began to condemn the tyrannies and the evil deeds of his brother, and praised what had been done with him— and so the members of the council were all content. But as soon as Messer Alberto learned that the forces had arrived from Mantua, he proceeded with the trap he had laid together with the podestà: he had the palace doors locked and had armed men come out from hiding; they killed everyone who had killed Messer Mastino and flung their corpses from the windows of the palace. Messer Alberto then seized the city and made himself lord. He persecuted the families of all those who had murdered Messer Mastino and chased them from Verona. This was the death and the vendetta of the first Mastino. The said Messer Alberto had many sons, all of whom he knighted when they were almost young men. Three remained alive at his death: the first was Messer Bartolomeo, who ruled as Lord of Verona after his father, but who had no son; the second was Messer Checchino, who ruled after him; the third was Messer Cane, who was a worthy tyrant and a decent lord, as we mentioned before, and who was a friend to our commune. No legitimate son survived him. After him ruled his nephews, the sons of Messer Checchino—Messer Alberto and Messer Mastino—two men whom we have described at length. And since enough has been said about the Della Scala, we return to our subject.

XCVI How the Romans made peace among themselves and created a government of the popolo, and how they sent to Florence for laws. In the said year, on the first of November, the Romans, because of certain revelations of holy persons, and almost by divine inspiration, were brought to a general peace—the nobles together with the popolani—leaving aside for love of the Lord God the offenses of one against the other, and this was a miraculous thing. And then the following August they created a government of the popolo and sent their ambassadors to Florence to appeal to our commune, that they might send to them the Ordinances of Justice, which restrain the grandi and the powerful in defense of the popolani and the less powerful, and for other good ordinances that we have. The Commune of Florence sent their ambassadors back to Rome

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with the said ordinances, which were received with honor and welcomed by the Romans. And observe how the conditions and the states of this world change— for the Romans, who of old founded the city of Florence and gave it their laws, now, in our times, send for laws from the Florentines.⁵⁴⁴

XCVII Of many battles and defeats which took place in one day in the contado of Milan.⁵⁴⁵ That year, a large part of the cavalry companies which had been serving us and the Venetians in Lombardy, as we described earlier, remained in the borghi of Vicenza. After peace was made with Mastino, and they had been courteously paid by our communes, they formed themselves into a company, which had as many as two thousand five hundred knights, and they refused to leave Vicenza if they did not receive money from Messer Mastino. Messer Lodrisio Visconti, a relation of Messer Azzone Visconti, Lord of Milan, and a rebel against him, went to Vicenza bringing his own money; he came with the encouragement and money of Messer Mastino, who, in order to remove these people who had been his adversaries from his lands and send them against his enemy Messer Azzone, had the said Messer Lodrisio hire the company.⁵⁴⁶ And at the beginning of the month of February Messer Lodrisio led them into the territory of Milan, crossing the River Adda. They remained for twelve days in the territory of Milan, plun-

 Here is a contrast that our chronicler frequently appeals to: the Old Rome and the New Rome. The Nuova Cronica itself begins with Villani positioning himself in the tradition of Roman historical writing and he elsewhere describes this very kind of reversal—the parent city surpassed by her daughter Florence. See also the banner offered by Cola di Rienzo to the Commune of Florence representing Rome as an old woman and Florence as a young maiden. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XIII: 90.  This is the famous Battle of Parabiago, which took place on 20 February 1339, one of the bloodiest battles of the early fourteenth century, and an excellent example of the employment of mercenaries in the struggles of Italian powers. On the soldiers involved and the battle see Ricotti, Storia delle Compagnie, 237– 43.  Lodrisio Visconti (d. 1364) was the son of Pietro Visconti and a cousin of Matteo Visconti. Although he had always had a somewhat tumultuous relationship with his more powerful relations, the “definitive” break took place in 1336, when he hired two hundred fifty men, with an eye to leading them against Azzone. When this effort failed, he retreated to Verona, sheltering under the protection of Mastino II Della Scala, in whose interests he led these troops of the Company of San Giorgio into Lombardy. Bozzi, “Lodrisio Visconti.”

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dering and causing great devastation but setting no fires. In the end they camped at villa of Legnano, which is twelve miles from Milan. There was great agitation when this became known in Milan, and on the 15th of February an army—popolo and knights—left the city, on the advice of their astrologer, who promised that they would defeat their enemies but who did not foresee the sorrowful victory that followed. The captain of this host was Messer Luchino Visconti, uncle of Messer Azzone, because the said Messer Azzone was sick with gout.⁵⁴⁷ The host numbered around three thousand knights and ten thousand foot soldiers. One part of the army from Milan, around one thousand knights and three thousand foot soldiers—this formation was captained by Giovanello Visconti and Messer Giovanni dal Fiesco and more than twenty noble men from Brescia— was at the villa of Aro and from there they went to the villa of Parabiago; the German marshal of the host and Messer Luchino with the other men camped at the villa of Nervia. When Messer Lodrisio heard this, he rode with his men to the said villa of Parabiago on the night of Saturday the 19th of February and he attacked his enemies there in the early hours of the morning; since these men had just made camp, and were not prepared for a night assault, and since the said villa was unfortified, they were defeated in a short time; a large number were killed, especially the foot soldiers, and among the dead were the captain Messer Giovanni dal Fiesco of Genoa and many other Lombards and Germans. On Sunday morning, on the 20th of the month, after Messer Lodrisio had won this victory, he sent around seven hundred of his knights towards Milan to a ford of the river in order to seize it from the Milanese, and they did great harm to the popolo fleeing toward Milan after the earlier defeat; he left four hundred knights at Parabiago with their prisoners and their plunder, and then with what remained of his host—fifteen hundred knights—he drew up in formation in camp one mile outside the town. When Messer Luchino heard that night of the attack against his people at Parabiago, he departed Nerviano and drew up two formations; he led fourteen hundred German knights and Ettore da Panigo led seven hundred Italian knights—among these were two hundred knights of the Commune of Bologna in the service of Milan—and went to aid his people. He found them defeated. Ettore entered Parabiago, where Messer Lodrisio’s four hundred knights were guarding the plunder, and he attacked them, and after a long battle defeated them. Messer Luchino faced off against Messer Lodrisio on Sunday near  Luchino Visconti (1292– 1349) was the son of Matteo I and Bonacossa Borri. He participated in the Battle of Montecatini and served under arms alongside his brother Marco Visconti. In 1337 his nephew Azzone placed him in command of the league opposing Mastino II Della Scala, although he retreated from this clash. On the death of Azzone in 1339 he ruled Milan jointly with his brother the Archbishop Giovanni until his death in 1349. Covini, “Luchino Visconti.”

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the hour of tierce, and they fought a harsh battle that lasted until after nones. In the end, Messer Luchino was unhorsed, wounded and captured, and his men were routed and pursued. At this moment Ettore da Panigo arrived at the battle with his Italians, who had defeated the four hundred knights that Messer Lodrisio had left in Parabiago, and they fell upon Messer Lodrisio’s men, who, believing they had won the battle, had dispersed to chase after the defeated. And so, they were soon routed and defeated and Messer Luchino and the others who had been captured were rescued. And Messer Lodrisio, and the majority of his men, were captured and sent to Milan. And so almost all of this unlucky company was routed and killed and captured. For while Messer Luchino was returning toward Milan, along the road to the aforementioned ford, Malerba, the German captain of the seven hundred knights that Messer Lodrisio had sent to the ford toward Milan, was defeated. But the Lord of Milan won these victories with great losses to his men, because more than five hundred horsemen and more than three thousand foot soldiers of the popolo of Milan died in them. This chronicle gave so long an account because of the various battles and defeats that took place between these peoples, for in one day there were five defeats, on one side and the other, and this was something which had never before happened in Italy. And we learned the truth of this from many persons worthy of trust who were present there. We will now leave this matter and return to our story.

XCVIII How Messer Mastino came to Lucca. In the year 1339, after we made peace with Messer Mastino, as we mentioned before, Messer Mastino went to Parma, reformed the government of the city, and made his cousins, the sons of Messer … da Correggio, lords there, although he wished to hold sovereign power. But a short time later, as we will presently describe, they took the city entirely from him. Then on the 11th of April he went to Lucca and levied on the people of Lucca an impost of twenty thousand gold florins, of which he had great need. He stayed but a short while in Lucca, because as soon as he had reformed it, he left as his vicar Guglielmo Canacci degli Scannabecchi of Bologna (who was from an old family of Ghibelline exiles from Bologna) and returned to Verona. During his stay in Lucca there was great suspicion in Florence of his plots and his betrayals, and careful watch was kept in Florence and in the castelli along the frontiers. We will leave for a while matters in Italy and speak of how the King of Spain defeated a great host of Saracens in Granada.

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XCIX How the Saracens were defeated by the King of Spain in Granada. In the said year 1339, in the month of June, the son of the Saracen King of Morocco crossed to Granada with many ships and with countless Moors, who are called Saracens, to do battle with the King of Spain.⁵⁴⁸ Hearing this, the King of Spain prepared thirty galleys, twelve corsair ships, and twenty ships, that is to say cogships, to block the said crossing. But he was too late, because the Moors of the Garbo, who are nearby, across from Granada, moved quickly and crossed without any resistance before the arrival of the fleet of the King of Spain. When the King of Spain arrived and landed, he laid siege to the city of Ronda. The Saracens came and gathered together facing the Christians to defend the city. On the 31st of July, the King of Spain, attempting a strategic maneuver to draw the Saracens out, withdrew from the siege, making a pretense of fear and flight. First, however, he set an ambush with some of the best men in his host, on horse and on foot. When the Saracens saw the Christians leaving, almost as if in a rout, they followed them without any order in a great multitude. And when they passed by the ambushers, the Christians fell upon them, and in a short time defeated them—in this defeat more than twenty thousand Moors were killed and captured. And observe that just as when we Christians were accustomed to holding the Holy Land in Syria, and those who went there or those who sent or gave aid received great forgiveness of sins from Holy Church, so the Saracens of the whole world, from as far away as Arabia, support the Kingdom of Granada in Spain, and continually send men and money, and sometimes undertake great and universal invasions. And this is to the shame of the Church of Rome and the King of France and other Christians, since the Kingdom of Granada is surrounded by Christian lands, so near to where the Apostolic See is located today and since it is not necessary to cross the sea to get there. And it is intent only upon gathering treasure, not wishing to spend it in the service and sustenance of Christianity, but rather to feed the wars between Christian kings. But such a sin will hardly pass unpunished.⁵⁴⁹

 Abd Al-Malik Abd Al-Wahid (d. 1339) was son of Abu Al-Hasan Ali Ibn Othman and the leader of the troops who took Gibraltar from Castile in 1333.  The subject here is the Church in Avignon, so close to this front in the conflict between Christianity and Islam, but so much less committed to that conflict than the powers of Islam. Villani often criticizes the Church, its pastors and its cardinals, for the greater concern it shows for its own power than the fate of Christendom.

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C Of certain signs that appeared in Florence and elsewhere, from which, a short while later, much evil followed. In the year 1339, on the 7th of July, between nones and vespers, more than twothirds of the sun was darkened in the Sign of Cancer. Because this occurred after midday during the setting of the sun, it did not become dark as night, but nonetheless it was difficult to see. And observe that according to the writings of the ancient teachers of astrology, every darkening of the sun in Cancer, which comes almost once every hundred years, foretells evils that will befall the world. This is because Cancer is the ascendant of the world, and holds more meaning when it is in that part of the hemisphere which is in shadow—that is when it is afternoon which we call the hour of nones in the common parlance. But the eclipse also foretold hunger and great mortality for Florence and its surroundings, as later occurred and as one will find by reading ahead.⁵⁵⁰ And what is more, on the following first of August there were great and unusual storms of thunder and lightning in Florence, during which many bolts of lightning struck the city and the contado of Florence. One of these hit the tower of the city gate which faces San Gallo and broke off part of a battlement and then struck and burned the entrance of the gate, killing men. Then on the 4th of September there was once again much thunder and lightning, and one bolt struck the tower of the Palace of the Popolo, and cast down part of a battlement. All these things were signs of coming evils to our city, which soon followed. Because that year before harvest time a staio of wheat was worth twenty soldi but before the next harvest rose to fifty soldi per staio. If the commune had not had the foresight to arrange for wheat to be brought by sea, the popolo would have died of hunger. This provision, with interest, cost the commune more than fifty thousand gold florins, although certain city officials committed much fraud together with Messer Giacomo Gabrielli, who was captain of the guard of the popolo, or in truth the tyrant of the ruling popolani, condemning the innocent unjustly, that they might have wheat for their provision and for their families, and leaving the powerful with full granaries—whence great evil soon followed. And that year there was a similar price increase for wine, and at the grape harvest a cogno of common wine was worth six gold florins. And every trade in Florence was in a bad state in terms of profits.

 Villani is referring to coming chapters on a food shortage and the outbreak of an epidemic of disease.

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CI How Messer Azzone Visconti died, and how Messer Luchino was made Lord of Milan. In the said year, on the 16th of August, Messer Azzone Visconti, Lord of Milan, died. The next day the Bishop of Novara, Messer Giovanni, who had been one of the antipope’s cardinals, and Messer Luchino his brother—both sons of Messer Matteo Visconti—were made lords. Lordly power, however, was left to Messer Luchino. Then, twenty-one months later, he came to an accord with Pope Benedict and with the Church for the sin of having sided with the antipope and having favored the Bavarian, for a fine of fifty thousand gold florins and then every year ten thousand gold florins as tribute. And in a similar manner Messer Mastino della Scala came to an accord with the Church for five thousand gold florins per year. O you greedy Church, wheeling and dealing, how your shepherds have led you away from your good and humble and poor and holy beginnings with Christ!⁵⁵¹

CII How the city of Genoa and the city of Savona made a government of the popolo and elected a doge. In the said year 1339, on the 19th of September, the men of the city of Savona made a government of the popolo and seized the two castelli in the city from those who had held them—the Doria and the Spinola of Genoa. Then they chased these men out of Savona. And then three days later the citizens of Genoa rose up and deposed their captains—one was a Spinola and the other was a Doria—and chased them from the city along with their companions and other powerful men.⁵⁵² And they made a government of the popolo and called one Simone Boc-

 Villani’s sense of scandal is not a little partisan—the men were both enemies of Florence— but reflects his broader critique of Church leaders as motivated by their desire for power and money. The comparison between past and present is a common one for our chronicler and recalls Francesco Petrarca’s famous description of Avignon as a “Babylon” on the Rhone River.  This uprising, which Villani presents as the creation of a popolo, took place in a context characterized by great anger against the noble families that dominated the city and by dismay at the return of the Genoese seamen from their abortive service for the King of France. For these events see Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, 202– 205. Rafaello Doria and Galeazzo Spinola,

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canegra, a man of the middling ranks of the popolo, doge in the manner of the Venetians.⁵⁵³ This doge was a brave and worthy man. And then the next year, because of a conspiracy of certain grandi against him, he arrested and decapitated two of the Spinola and many more of their followers. He was harsh in justice, and put an end to the pirates of Genoa and of the Riviera, keeping his government on the side of the Ghibelline party, and keeping many war galleys on the sea for the commune to guard the Riviera.

CIII Of events which took place in Romagna, and the peace that was later made between the Romagnols. In the said year, in the month of September, the captain of Forlì’s men were besieging Calvoli. The captain of Faenza, along with a force of Bolognese, and others of their party, broke this siege and defeated them. And then, the next October, by Florentine arrangement, there was a peace treaty between the lords and the communes of Romagna. On one side were the men of Forlì and Cesena, and Messer Malatesta of Rimini and the Da Polenta of Ravenna—these were Guelphs in league with Ghibellines. On the other side were Faenza, Imola, the Counts Guidi and others of their followers. And the syndics and ambassadors of the two sides committed the resolution of their disputes to the Commune of Florence. And judgment was passed in the Palace of the Priors and the two sides kissed each other on the mouth, making peace.

members of two of the most powerful Ghibelline families of Genoa, had ruled their city as captains of the popolo since the expulsion of Bulgaro da Tolentino, King Robert’s vicar, in 1335. Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, 202.  Simone Boccanegra (d. 1363) was the first doge of Genoa. He was a member of a rich merchant family with an ancestor who had already occupied positions of power in the commune. His nomination came during a period of intense civil strife and conflict over control of the Riviera of Liguria. Consolidating his power meant mastering “feudatari ribelli” as well as establishing control over the Riviera—not to mention looking after the city’s interests overseas. Boccanegra lost power in 1344, an event Villani describes in the thirteenth book of his chronicle. Balbi, “Simone Boccanegra.”

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CIV How the Marquess of Monferrato took the city of Asti from King Robert. In the said year, on the 26th of September, the Marquess of Monferrato captured the city of Asti and brought it into rebellion against King Robert (who held the city). The Solari, who were of the king’s party, and the Guelphs were chased out.⁵⁵⁴ And the Gottineri and the Ghibellines became lords. And the reason was that King Robert, because of his avarice, was not paying the soldiers who were holding the city for him, and so when they were needed, they did not defend or offer any resistance, since they had pawned their arms and their horses.⁵⁵⁵ This loss did great harm to King Robert – to his power in Piedmont and to the entire Guelph party in Lombardy.

CV Of an accord and a league which the Florentines made with the Perugians. In the said year, on the 6th of November, the Florentines made a league and a company with the Perugians through our bishop, ambassadors from Perugia, and our ambassadors at Lucignano di Valdambra. And the Perugians ceded to the Florentines all their rights in the acquisition of Arezzo, while they retained full control of Lucignano d’Arezzo and Monte Sansavino and other castelli of Arezzo which they held.

CVI Of certain ordinances regarding the election of the priors of Florence, which were corrected for the better.

 Giovanni II Paleologo (1321– 1372) was the son of Teodoro I Paleologo and Argentina Spinola. He governed with his father after 1337 and succeeded to the marquessate after his father’s death in 1338. The marquess, who fought at the Battle of Parabiago, sought the expansion of his territories on the battlefield, often taking advantage of “discordie locali.” Settia, “Giovanni II Paleologo.”  Villani often criticizes King Robert’s self-defeating stinginess, rooted in avarice—especially when it impacts the interests of Florence. This passage should be compared to our chronicler’s comments on King Robert’s commitments to the defense of Florence.

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On the 23rd of December of the said year a parlamento was held in Florence, where the manner of electing the priors, their twelve councilors, and the gonfalonieri of the companies was corrected. Earlier, when these men were chosen, their names were written on slips of paper and placed in pouches by sesto. At the times when drawings were held for the said offices, the slips that had been drawn were placed in other pouches, until all slips had been drawn. And then the drawings began again, so that one might say that these offices were for life, which was a disordered and indecent thing, allowing the chosen men to rule the republic without giving a share to others who were as worthy or worthier than they. And so a correction was made, whereby after people were drawn the first time, the slips with their names would be torn up, and the next time the offices were allocated their names would be placed under scrutiny along with all the other names. And this was well done to take away the pride and the tyranny of the ruling citizens.

CVII How the cities of the Marca killed and chased away their tyrants and made governments of the popolo. In this year, in the month of February, almost all the cities of the Marca of Ancona made governments of the popolo, and they killed Mercenario who ruled over Fermo⁵⁵⁶ and Messer Accorimbono da Tolentino, and the Lord of Matelica and the marquess. And the tyrants whom those popoli could not kill, they chased into exile.

CVIII How King Robert’s men took the Island of Lipari and defeated the Messinesi. In the said year, on the 17th of November, after King Robert’s men had taken the little island of Lipari in Sicily and very closely besieged its castello, the Count Chiaramonte of Sicily, with the assistance of the the people of Messina, prepared  Mercenario Monteverde (d. 1340) was a Ghibelline warlord, a former ally of Louis of Bavaria, and Lord of Fermo. Mercenario had benefited from a peace arrangement with the Church that recognized his power over the city, but this arrangement had begun to break down in the mid-1330s. Falcioni, “Mercenario Monteverde.”

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eight galleys and seven transports and forty ships with many men in Sicily and came to its aid. King Robert’s admiral, Messer Goffredo Marzano, Count of Squillace, had his army strategically withdraw from the castello and retreat to his ships on one side of the gulf, and then prepared eighteen galleys and six transports and a cogship that he had there, and gave room to the Sicilians, so that they relieved the castello with great celebration and commotion. The morning after, when the Count Chiaramonte wished to depart to return to Messina, King Robert’s admiral attacked him, and the battle at sea was harsh and hardfought. In the end the Sicilians were defeated and killed, and the Count Chiaramonte was captured with many good men from Messina, for few escaped. And the castello surrendered to King Robert’s troops. But while the admiral was returning to Naples, when he was near the Island of Ischia, he was taken by a strong storm which blew him all the way to Corsica, and four galleys broke apart when they ran aground—they were full of prisoners, the majority of whom escaped. We will leave for a time the matters of Florence, and the other events in Italy, and speak of the war of the King of France against the King of England and his Fleming, Brabanter, and Hainauter allies.

CIX How the war of the King of France against the King of England and his allies began anew. In the said year, on the 9th of December, the Flemings, the Brabanters, and the Hainauters re-established their league against the King of France. And then on the 23rd of January, Edward III King of England came from Hainaut to Ghent, and swore to the said league, calling himself King of France by inheritance from his mother and carrying on his banners and on his seal the impaled arms of France and England. And then on the 20th of February, he left Bruges and went back to England, promising to return very soon with all his forces. Once the King of England had departed, at the beginning of April 1340, the French who were in Tournai raided all the way to Oudenaarde in Flanders, burning and doing great harm to the land. Because of this the troops from Bruges and Ghent, together with the other Flemings, went in their host to Tournai, and stayed there many days devastating its surroundings—for around five days. And in those days the soldiers from Ypres with the Earl of Suffolk and the Earl of Salisbury and other troops of the King of England raided around Lilles, and were defeated in an ambush, and the said counts were captured. Because of this the Flemings, who were in their host at Tournai, departed in confusion.

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And then in those days, in the month of April, the count, and Messer John of Hainaut, and the Lord of Valkenburg raided into the Kingdom of France as far as Reims, carrying out great killing and setting fires, and taking great booty without meeting any resistance. And then on the 4th of May, the Constable of France with many men-at-arms on horse and on foot rode against Valenciennes in Hainaut and stayed there for three weeks doing tremendous harm to the country. And so, a large part of those lands were consumed by warfare, to the harm of each side.

CX How the King of England defeated the fleet of the King of France at sea. In the year of Christ 1340, on the Feast of Saint John, on the 24th of June, the good King Edward III of England arrived in Flanders at the Port of the Zwin with one hundred twenty cogships fitted for war.⁵⁵⁷ In them he had two thousand knights, gentlemen, and an infinite popolo with many English archers. And he found there the fleet of the King of France, which included around two hundred cogships with thirty other ships—between Genoese galleys and oared warboats.⁵⁵⁸ The admiral of this fleet was Barbavara da Portovenere, a great corsair, who had done much harm at sea to the English and the Gascons and the Flemings; he had also attacked their coasts and had taken the Island of Cadzand, which is opposite the said Zwin, plundering it and burning it and killing more than three hundred Flemings. When the people of Bruges heard that the King of England had come, they sent their ambassadors to him at Sluys, asking him for God’s sake and for love of them that he not undertake battle against the King of France’s fleet, whose ships were equal to and indeed more numerous than his, plus the Genoese galleys; they asked him to wait for two days and rest himself and his troops, and said that soon they would prepare one hundred cogships with good men to aid him, and he could be sure of victory. The worthy king did not wish to wait, but made his knights and sergeants arm themselves, and

 Edward departed England on the 22nd of June, after a rapid and intense effort to increase the size of the English fleet, made advisable by the dimensions of the French fleet gathered at Sluys. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 323 – 24.  Philip had been gathering this fleet since January 1340. It was less impressive than it might have been, owing to English diplomatic efforts to deny the French access to Genoese galleys and the English destruction of eighteen French galleys at Boulogne. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 319 – 23.

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once they had joined the sailors on the ships, he boldly began the battle.⁵⁵⁹ The battle was harsh and hard-fought, lasting for the entire day, and it was impossible to know who was winning until nightfall. With fifty cogships, well manned by his barons, who were rested and fresh, the bold king struck in the evening at high tide and with full sails against his enemies, who were dispersed and tired from fighting—he put them to rout and to defeat. All were either captured or killed and none escaped save two galleys and twenty boats and this because it was night. Indeed the Flemings had come from the nearby shores and began to close the two mouths of the Zwin between the Island of Cadzand, which is at the mouth of the port, and the mainland, so that they all remained closed as if in a cage. More than ten thousand men were killed and drowned and an even greater number were captured from the French king’s fleet.⁵⁶⁰ And all his ships, arms, and supplies were taken as plunder by the English and the Flemings.

CXI How part of the Flemings were defeated at Saint-Omer.⁵⁶¹ In the excitement of the aforementioned victory, the troops of Bruges and Ypres, with Messer Robert d’Artois, came against Saint-Omer, which was supposed to be betrayed to them—they numbered around ten thousand foot soldiers. The Duke of Burgundy and the Count of Armagnac were at Saint-Omer with twelve hundred knights. The troops from Bruges attacked a gate, which was to be betrayed to them, but once they had taken it, the troops from Ypres remained behind in bad order, and when the Count of Armagnac rode out with his cavalry through another gate and attacked the men of Ypres, they did not hold their position, but

 The English faced a French fleet which had formed three lines of ships, chained together, blocking the entrance to the river, a decision made against the advice of Pietro Barbavara, who wished instead to sail out of the estuary and engage the English fleet on the open sea. The English waited for the tides and the winds to turn in their favor. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 324– 25. Cushway notes how English tactics at Sluys resemble those recommended by the Roman military author Vegetius. They rode in on the tide and executed a last-minute feint to provoke the French ships into pursuit. Cushway, Edward III and the War at Sea, 96 – 97.  Cushway notes the savagery of the English attack and the absolute lack of quarter given to the French, even to those who surrendered. He declares that the losses—16,000 to 18,000—seriously compromised French sea power for many years. Cushway, Edward III and the War at Sea, 98 – 99.  This was the Battle of Saint-Omer, fought on 26 July 1340. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 339 – 44.

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took flight. The count’s men did not follow and hunt them down, but attacked the troops from Bruges, who offered some resistance, and more than five hundred of them died. And seeing the men of Ypres in flight, and that it was already night, they fled to their camp, not followed by their enemies. And that night they fled in fear toward Cassel, and abandoned their entire camp.⁵⁶² This took place on the 28th of July.

CXII How the King of England and his allies lay siege to the city of Tournai, and how they offered a truce to the King of France. After King Edward won his victory at sea, as we said earlier, he did not rest at ease. He immediately landed with his men and went to Bruges and then to Ghent, and the Flemings did him honor, as to their lord, doing homage to him as the King of France. There he held a council, at which were present the Duke of Brabant, the Count of Hainaut, and all the allies, and at this council they gathered a common host to lead against the city of Tournai. And then, without delay, they rode to the city and made camp around it. There were the King of England, the Duke of Brabant, the Count of Hainaut, the Duke of Juliers, the Duke of Guelders, the Count of Loon, the Lord of Valkenburg, along with many barons from the Rhine Valley in Germany numbering more than eight thousand knights. The cities of Flanders, Brabant, and Hainaut were also present with more than eighty thousand well-armed men, in four camps, the majority with cuirasses and helmets.⁵⁶³ The little defeat they had received at SaintOmer did not cause them to give up; rather, they boldly followed the King of England’s host. There were two camps on the near side and two on the far side of the Scheldt River, and so they built several large bridges on the banks to go from one host to the other and rapidly move the necessary provisions and supplies. The Constable of France was in Tournai with as many as four thousand knights

 The death toll among the Flemish soldiers was very high—around eight thousand. This was a very hard blow to the morale of the Flemish cities. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 343 – 344.  The Siege of Tournai began on 23 July, after Philip had rejected Edward’s offer of single combat. Tournai was entirely surrounded by the English king and his allies, and all the roads toward the city were guarded, but its walls were strong and new and therefore the city was no easy prize. Without any immediate prospect of taking the city, the besieging army contented itself with ravaging the surrounding territory. On the siege, see Sumption, Hundred Years War, 349 – 58.

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and ten thousand sergeants on foot, not counting the citizens, who numbered more than fifteen thousand. And there were many attacks, clashes, and skirmishes on horse and on foot between those outside and those inside. But because of the many people who were in the city, along with their animals, and because the city was not stocked with sufficient food, there were many shortages. And so the citizens began to complain to the Constable, and ask that he lift the siege from them, or they would look for an accord on their own. The Constable sent for aid to the King of France, describing how he was about to lose the city. King Philip of Valois came to its aid in person with more than ten thousand knights and a very large popolo, and camped one league from the city. But the host of the King of England and his other allies did not move, since their camps were very strongly fortified, and since they were free to fight or to avoid battle.⁵⁶⁴ The King of France, not being able to fight with his enemies, nor block the supply of food to their camps, nor supply Tournai without great danger, greatly feared losing the city. And so he immediately sought an accord mediated by the Duke of Brabant, making large payments to the leaders of the Communes of Brabant, who were not as committed to the war as were the Flemings and the Hainauters.⁵⁶⁵ The King of England did not wish to consider an accord, knowing that the city could not be defended nor could it be held, because of the lack of food, and knowing that if he took the city of Tournai, which was strong and powerful and which lay adjacent to Flanders and Hainaut and Brabant and the other lands of the empire, and which was the key to the Kingdom of France, he would have won the war, since the King of France would not be able to hold any city beyond Compiègne. But the Brabanters heard of the accord that their duke was planning, and, corrupted by the King of France’s money, as we mentioned before, they moved as if to take up battle and then suddenly left their camp and returned to their lands. The King of England and the other allies, seeing that they had been tricked and abandoned by the Brabanters, and seeing that the King of England was running out of money, since his officials at home were keeping him on a scanty diet, concluded the negotiations as best they could, stipulating a truce until the next Feast of Saint John the Baptist, and placing peace negotiations in the hands of the pope and the Church of Rome. However, if within the term of the truce no accord was reached, he would return the

 A French relief force under Philip VI arrived near Tournai on 7 September and encamped at Bouvines. Despite the best efforts of the English, they could not be drawn into battle.  Sumption emphasizes the dissensions in the English ranks, particularly among the Brabanters and the Germans, who had not yet received their pay. Weakened by this division, Edward realized that he had no chance, despite the circumstances of the Tournai’s garrison, of taking the city.

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city of Tournai to the state in which it found itself at that moment, that is, people in the city had not been able to find food for eight days.⁵⁶⁶ And so the two kings and the allies swore to the truce and accord, and the host was removed on the 26th of September 1340. The King of France, however, did not keep his word: as soon as he regained control of Tournai, he furnished it with two years’ worth of supplies. There followed truce after truce as well as other changes of fortune in the war, which we will mention at the appropriate times. The King of England stayed in Flanders until the middle of November, when he departed from Sluys and went to England. When he arrived, he immediately arrested the treasurers and the officials who had not supplied him well with coin, and took from them much money.

CXIII How the fleet of the King of Spain was almost lost to a storm. In the said year, in the month of April, the King of Spain was sending his fleet of eighty galleys against the Saracens of Granada, who held Mount Gibraltar, to prevent them from coming to supply the Saracens of Ceuta. However, a great storm at sea surprised them and forced them to the coast, and twenty-four galleys were broken up—to the great harm of Christians. We will leave for a while matters of the peoples beyond the mountains, and turn a bit back to recount some events that occurred in those days in our city of Florence and elsewhere in Italy.

CXIV Of a great mortality and grain shortage which occurred in Florence and its surroundings, and the appearance of a comet. In the said year 1340, at the end of March, there appeared in the air a comet in the east, positioned at the end of Virgo and the beginning of Libra. These are signs related to human events, and they show their power over human bodies, bringing decline and death, as we will soon tell. This comet lasted a short  The Truce of Esplechin was agreed to on 24 September, also owing to the “shuttle diplomacy” of Joan of Valois, who went back and forth between the camps, seeking accord. The truce, which was to last for nine months, was quite favorable to Edward and his allies, although Sumption notes that the English king saw it as a defeat. Sumption, Hundred Years War, 357– 59.

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time, but it foretold much evil which followed for people, and especially for our city of Florence. For immediately there began a great mortality, in which people who fell ill almost never survived. And more than a sixth of our citizens, even the best and the dearest, men and women, died, so that there was no family that did not lose someone, and some families lost two or three people or more. This pestilence lasted until the following winter and more than fifteen thousand bodies of men, women, and children were buried even in the city, whence the city was full of weeping and mourning, and was occupied with little more than burying the dead. And so it was ordered that as soon as a dead man was brought to the church, the people had to leave, whereas before they stayed until the funeral was completed and for some important people this meant a sermon with solemn offices. It was also ordered that the town crier not announce the dead.⁵⁶⁷ The mortality was not as great in the contado, and yet many died even there. This pestilence was followed by a famine and by an increase in prices, on top of that of the previous year, so that even with all the deaths a staio of wheat was worth more than thirty soldi, and would have been worth more, if the commune had not taken measures to import wheat from overseas. And then another sign appeared. On the 16th of May of the said year, at midday, large and heavy hailstones fell in Florence and its surroundings; they covered the roofs, the fields, and the streets as high as a heavy snowfall and they damaged almost all the crops. Because of this mortality, on the 18th of June, on the advice of the bishop and the clergy, a general procession was held in Florence. Almost all the healthy citizens, men and women, were there with the Corpus Christi that is kept at Sant’Ambrogio, and they went with it through the whole city until the hour of nones, with more than one hundred fifty burning torches. And soon there were more evil signs. On the morning of the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, a large and costly ceremonial torch, which had been placed on a wagon by the officials of the mint as an offering to San Giovanni, unexpectedly overturned, along with the entire wagon—it fell onto the steps of the Porta de’ Priori and broke entirely into pieces. And this was a sure sign that Florentine money was going to collapse and ruin those who were guiding it, as happened a short time afterward, to the great harm of Florentines. In San Giovanni that morning a platform, which had been built alongside the choir, collapsed; all the cantor clergy were on this platform, celebrating the offices—many of them suffered injuries. And then evil was piled upon evil, because on the 20th of July, near nightfall, a great fire broke out in Parione and then crossed the large street that leads from San Pancrazio—where the wool

 Villani’s description of the pestilence of 1347 references this earlier outbreak of disease, which he considered far more devastating. Villani, Nuova Cronica, XIII: 84.

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trade was practiced—all the way up to the church. And forty-four houses burned, with a great loss of merchandise, bolts of cloth and wool, and equipment, and houses and palaces. The Florentines were dismayed and terrified by the said signs and losses, and by the fact that the guilds and the merchants had never earned fewer profits. The men who ruled the commune, encouraged by the clergy to perform some act of mercy, declared that certain exiles might have their sentences canceled if they paid a certain tax to the commune and that the possessions of rebels which had been confiscated by the commune would be restored to the widows and to the orphans who stood to inherit them. But this act of grace and mercy, which ought to have pleased God, was not perfect: they should have paid the widows and orphans the amount they had spent to buy the properties back from the commune and this they did not do. And so these pestilences did not abate but because of our sins many more soon followed, as one may discover by reading ahead. Indeed, later, in many cases, the living envied the dead because of the overwhelming tribulations borne by our city. We will leave for a while events in Florence, and speak of other news of surrounding places, although we will return soon enough to follow the adversities that occurred to our city of Florence.

CXV How the Spoletans lifted a siege and defeated the men of Rieti. In the said year, at the end of June, the Count of Triveti of the Kingdom of Puglia, who was vicar in the city of Rieti for King Robert, was with his host together with the citizens of Rieti besieging the castello di Luco. The Spoletans and their allies came to the aid of the castello, and defeated the said count and the people of Rieti, causing great losses in soldiers captured and killed.

CXVI How Messer Ottaviano de’ Belforti made himself Lord of Volterra. In the said year, on the 8th of September, there was an uprising in the city of Volterra—the city was armed for battle and there was fighting between the citizens. The leader of one party was Messer Ottaviano di Belforte, who wanted to

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make himself lord.⁵⁶⁸ And on the other side was the bishop, his nephew in the female line, and certain popolani who wanted to live in liberty. But tyranny, aided by the foreign forces who were invited to the city by Messer Ottaviano, won. The bishop and his followers were chased out and retreated to his castello of Berignone and Messer Ottaviano made himself lord of the city; he later set out to follow them, which gave rise to much evil. The said Messer Ottaviano had two of the bishop’s brothers treacherously killed; he had guaranteed their security, but arrested them in order to have the besieged castello di Berignone. The bishop, who was inside, later endured the sight of their deaths rather than yield the castello.

CXVII How some Genoese galleys defeated the Turks. That year twelve Genoese galleys, which had gone on a trading voyage to Romania, found themselves on the Black Sea, on the other side of Constantinople, faced by one hundred fifty or more warships—small and large—manned by Saracen Turks. The Genoese boldly attacked them and defeated them, causing them great trouble, killing them and drowning them in the sea—more than six thousand were left dead and the Genoese acquired much merchandise and money. But this year six other Genoese galleys on their way to Flanders were captured by the English fleet at Saint-Malo in Brittany, and lost the value of two hundred thousand gold florins. So goes the fortune of war at sea.

CXVIII How a great conspiracy was set in motion in Florence, and how the city was in turmoil and prepared for battle. Returning to our subject, to tell of the adversities which occurred in these days to our city of Florence, owing to its bad government, my mind is greatly troubled, for I fear even worse things will occur in the future. Considering that neither  This episode was the culmination of a long struggle between Ottaviano de’ Belforti and Bishop Rainuccio Allegretti. Except for a brief interlude during the rule of Walter of Brienne in Florence, Belforti remained firmly in control of Volterra until the time of his death sometime between 1348 and 1349. Banti, “Ottaviano Belforti.”

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signs in the heavens, nor the pestilences of flood, disease, and famine appear to make our citizens fear God, nor do they recognize their faults and their sins, but on the contrary have entirely abandoned holy charity, human and civil, and rule the republic solely by fraud and tyranny, with great avarice, I am greatly afraid of the judgment of God. And so that the causes of this discord and these events can be better understood, and so that it may stand as an example to our descendants, so that they might consider carefully and defend against similar things, we will recount briefly the deficiencies of the bad government of Florence in those days and the evil that came of them—let this not, however, excuse those who acted against the commune.⁵⁶⁹ Owing to the defects of bad officials and rulers the city of Florence at that time and for some time thereafter was ruled by two of the greatest and most powerful popolani grassi per sesto. These men wanted neither equals nor companions to have any share of government, nor did they wish to place them in the office of the priorate or in the other important offices—only the people that they favored, those who would do their bidding. They excluded many more worthy than they in wisdom and in ability, and gave no share to the grandi, the mezzani, or the minori, as should have been done in a well-governed commune. And furthermore, since they did not find sufficient the offices of the podestà, the captain of the popolo, and the executor of the Ordinances of Justice against the grandi—even these are many for a well-governed commune—they created the office of the captain of the guard. To this office they elected Messer Giacomo Gabrielli da Gubbio, allowing him to return to Florence; this man was quick and cruel and bloodthirsty and he had one hundred horsemen and two hundred foot soldiers paid by the commune and he himself had a large salary so that he might do the will of these rulers. This man, in the manner of a tyrant, or rather an agent of tyrants, proceeded in civil matters and criminal matters according to his will, as he was commissioned by the said rulers, without following laws or statutes; and so he unjustly condemned many innocents who suffered penalties to their goods or to their persons, and he kept the citizens—grandi and piccoli—in great fear, all except his rulers, who carried out their vendettas and sometimes their aggressions and their fraudulent acts by means of his rod. And we blind Florentines did not remember, or rather we pretended not to remember, the evil that this Messer Giacomo had done in the same office in the year 1335, followed by Messer Accorimbono—for which misdeeds they were banned from office for ten years, a ban which was not observed. Most citizens were unhappy with this unjust office and with the government, es-

 A perfect statement of the didactic function of the Nuova Cronica, as a record of exempla against which future generations of Florentines might measure their actions.

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pecially the grandi and the powerful, and so certain grandi sought to form a conspiracy in the city to cast down the said Messer Giacomo, his office, and those who followed him.⁵⁷⁰ The event that provoked them to act, was the condemnation of Messer Piero de’ Bardi by the said Messer Giacomo to pay six thousand lire because he had injured one of his vassals who came from Vernia; the vassal was not from the distretto of Florence and therefore Messer Piero felt himself wronged. Additionally Messer Andrea de’ Bardi was forced to yield his castello at Mangona, which he had bought, to the commune. These Bardi were among the most powerful citizens of Florence in possessions and in numbers and with their money they had bought Vernia and Mangona from the daughter of Count Alberto and the castello dal Pozzo from the Counts Da Porciano. The popolo of Florence was unhappy with these purchases, because the commune claimed that it had rights to these places, as we mentioned at some earlier point. Because of the Bardi’s wrath and pride and also that of the Frescobaldi —Messer Bardo Frescobaldi had been condemned to pay three thousand seven hundred lire for the pieve at San Vincenzo—it was wrongly said that they were leaders of this plot and this conspiracy although it had been conceived quite a bit earlier, because of the bad government of the city we described before. With the Bardi were the Frescobaldi and the Rossi and many grandi houses and some powerful popolani houses from this side of the Arno. Count Marcovaldo responded to their call along with many of his companions from the Counts Guidi, the Tarlati of Arezzo, the Pazzi of Valdarno, the Ubertini, the Ubaldini, the Guazzalotri of Prato, the Belforti of Volterra and many others, and each of these was to gather men on horse and on foot in great numbers and send them to Florence on the night of All Saints. And the following morning, when people were at the services for the dead, they were to provoke an uprising and seize the city and kill Messer Giacomo Gabrielli and the leaders of the rulers and overthrow the office of the priors and create a new government in Florence—and some said unmake the popolo. And they would most certainly have been successful because of their power and the number of their followers, if not for the fact that the aforementioned Messer Andrea de’ Bardi, either because it seemed to him that he was doing wrong, or for some other reason or disagreement with his companions, revealed this plot to Iacopo degli Alberti, his brother-in-law and one of the leaders of the rulers. Immediately this Iacopo revealed the plot to the priors and to his fellow rulers and they equipped themselves with weapons and men, and the city

 Najemy places this episode in the context of a growing fiscal crisis and the increasing difficulties faced by the great banking families—especially the Bardi and the Peruzzi. On the conspiracy, see Najemy, History of Florence, 134.

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was in a state of great fear and suspicion and each party feared the outbreak of violence. And so, in order that the outside forces might not reach the conspirators, on All Saints’ Day in 1340, around the hour of vespers, the leaders of the rulers went up into the Palace of the Priors, and had the bell of the popolo rung repeatedly; they almost had to use force to do this, as they were strongly contested by several among the priors who were friends of the Bardi, and these were Messer Francesco Salvesi and Taldo Valori, one a prior and the other the gonfaloniere for Porta San Piero—they were greatly criticized for their presumption and for knowing of the plot. As soon as the bell began to ring the whole city was roused into tumult, and everyone came, armed, on horse and on foot, to the piazza of the priors with the gonfaloni of the companies, crying out “Long live the popolo and death to the traitors!” And they immediately barred the gates, so that the allies and supporters of the conspirators might not enter the city, for most of these were on the road and near to the city ready to enter during the night with a great force of men. The conspirators, seeing that their plot had been discovered and that they were receiving no assistance, for almost none of their co-conspirators on this side of the Arno were responding to their appeals or revealing themselves out of fear of the popolo, and seeing that the popolo was moved to fury against them, considered themselves dead men and thought only of their escape and their defense. The said families of Oltrarno defended the heads of the bridges, shooting and killing anyone who wished to cross over from the other side, and they set fire to the heads of two bridges of wood, which were there at that time, one opposite the houses of the Canigiani and the other opposite the houses of the Frescobaldi; they did this so that the popolo might not attack them, believing that they could hold the sesto of Oltrarno until their allies arrived. But they failed at this, because the popolani of Oltrarno boldly repelled them and took the bridges from them with the aid of the popolani on this side of the Arno, who went to their assistance by crossing the Ponte alla Carraia. Messer Giacomo Gabrielli, the captain, stayed under arms on horseback on the piazza with his horsemen, in great fear and suspicion and not taking the measures or defenses one would expect of a wise and worthy captain—he stayed there until nighttime almost as though stupefied, for which he was greatly blamed. But the worthy Messer Maffeo da Ponti Carradi, who was at that time our podestà, with his company, armed and on horseback, boldly crossed the Ponte Rubaconte with great peril and risk to his person and spoke to the conspirators with wise words and courteous threats and led them by night under his safe-conduct and guard out of the city by the Porta da San Giorgio, almost without commotion or shedding of blood, or arson or plunder, for which he was greatly commended, because any other course of action would have put the city in great danger. And as soon as they left, the popolo

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was quieted, and the following day when the conspirators had been condemned the popolani laid down their arms, and everyone went about his business as before. In this manner did God protect our city from great danger, not looking to our sins and to the bad government of the commune. But because the city was not grateful to God for such benevolence, this conspiracy afterwards brought bad consequences and harm to our city, as will be told ahead.

CXIX The names of those conspirators who were condemned. The day after the said conspirators had left Florence, a council was held to decide how to proceed against them. For the good of the commune it was decided not to punish a large group of men, because this would have affected too many citizens, such as those who knew of the said conspiracy and prepared themselves with arms and horses but who did not show themselves during the uprising. Rather, it was decided that the commune would only proceed against those leaders who showed themselves and who were under arms—these men were summoned, were ordered to appear. And people who did not immediately appear in answer to these summons were condemned in their goods and in their persons, as rebels and traitors to their commune. In the first instance there were the following men: Messer Piero di Messer Gualterotto de’ Bardi and Bindo and Aghinolfo, his brothers; Andrea and Gualterotto di Filippozzo and Francesco, their nephew; Messer Piero di Ciapi, his nephew; Messer Gerozzo di Messer Cecchino and Messer Iacopo di Messer Guido and Messere Simone di Gerozzo, although he was certainly not guilty; Simone and Cipriano di Geri, and Bindo di Benghi, all men of casa Bardi; Messer Iacopo, the Prior of San Iacopo, Messer Albano, Messer Agnolo Giramonte and Lapo, his nephews; Messer Bardo Lamberti, Niccolò and Frescobaldo di Guido, Giovanni and Bartolo di Messer Fresco, Iacopo di Bindo and Geri di Bonaguida, Mangeri di Messer Lapo, all of casa Frescobaldi; and Andrea Ubertelli, Giovanni di Nerli, Ser Tomagno degli Angiolieri, chaplain of the aforesaid prior; Salvestrino and Ruberto di Rossi; many of his companions who were involved did not show themselves; on this side of the Arno not one person revealed himself. Their palaces and their goods in the city and in the contado were demolished and ruined by an angry mob. And it was arranged with all the nearby Guelph cities and those of the League of Lombardy that these new rebels would not be given refuge. And this was for the worst, because for this reason most of the said rebels went to Pisa, while the prior went to the court of the pope and all of these men attempted to bring

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about what they could in word and in deed against the Commune of Florence. Pursuant to our city’s deliberation, at the will of the commune, on the 26th day of November a great procession was held and an offering was made to San Giovanni by all the guilds, and it was ordered that this be done every year on the Feast of All Saints. And it was ordered that those who had been exiled should be relieved of their ban for a certain gabella, so as to strengthen the popolo (this was a great evil since it brought into the city many wicked men and malefactors). Another remedy was needed to pacify God—gratitude for Him and charity between fellow citizens—but the city occupied itself with other things. And it was ordered that every popolano with the means should be armed with Flemish-style cuirasses and helmets; six thousand of these were ordered along with many crossbows in order to strengthen the popolo. And in the following month of January, the commune purchased Mangona from Messer Andrea de’ Bardi for seven thousand seven hundred gold florins, subtracting seventeen hundred gold florins that the commune had spent restoring it before it was yielded to Messer Benuccio Salimbeni, husband of the said Countess of Mangona. And the castello di Vernia was surrendered to the Commune of Florence, after four thousand eight hundred sixty gold florins were paid for it to Messer Piero de’ Bardi, who was besieged inside it. And a decree was made by the commune that no citizen could purchase or hold a castello within twenty miles of our contado and distretto. And in the said month of January, nine of the Guidi counts were condemned, since they were involved in the aforesaid conspiracy. This included almost all their leaders, except for Count Simone da Battifolle and Guido, his nephew, who had not agreed to the said conspiracy. Those who governed the city were much criticized for this by wise men, since they condemned our powerful neighbors the Guidi counts and turned them into open enemies, while they failed to condemn our citizens who were guilty and who participated with them in the said conspiracy (although it is true that the Guidi took up arms with their vassals to come to Florence). And then, more than a year later, another plot was discovered involving the said new rebels, and Schiatta de’ Frescobaldi was captured and his head was cut off, and the following people were all condemned as rebels: Paniccia di Bernardo and Iacopo di Frescobaldi, and Biordo di Messer Vieri, and Giovanni Ricchi de’ Bardi, and Antonio degli Adimari, and Bindo di Pazzi. We will leave now for a time these matters of Florence—for we needed to recount a great deal this time—and digress to tell something of other events which took place in the broader world in those times. But we will soon return to speak of Florence, for there are ever more events here to recount.

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CXX How the King of Spain defeated the Saracens in Granada. In the said year, on the first of November, the Saracens of Ceuta and the other pagan lands in Barbary and in the Levant, who had crossed over here by sea in countless numbers to bring aid to Granada, were defeated by the good King of Spain. More than twenty thousand of them were killed and captured, along with much Saracen treasure and goods.⁵⁷¹

CXXI How Portovenere burned. In the said year, on the first day of January, a fire broke out in Portovenere, on the Riviera of Genoa. And the fire was so furious, that there was no house, small or large, that did not burn, except for the two castelli, or fortresses, that the Genoese have in Portovenere. The fire caused infinite damage to goods and to persons, and did not happen without God’s judgment, because the people of Portovenere were all corsairs, and sea pirates and harborers of corsairs.

CXXII How two captains of the guard were created in Florence. In the said year, on the first of February, the tyrant Messer Giacomo Gabrielli da Gubbio left Florence, grown rich on the blood of blind Florentines, for it was said that he took with him in coin more than thirty thousand gold florins. While it is true that his departure enabled the wise rulers of Florence to correct the error they had committed in supporting his tyrannous office and to reduce the spending of the commune, in truth they doubled these expenses because, whereas before they had one bargello to execute their will, they now chose two. One was a  Villani may be describing the Battle of Rio Salado, the culmination of a months-long campaign by the Marinid Sultan Abu al-Hasan Ali Ibn Othman in Iberia in support of the Sultan of Granada. The Christian forces, led by the Kings of Castile and Portugal, were utterly victorious over their enemies, and this marked the last major invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by the Marinids. The battle is treated in O’Callaghan, The Gibraltar Crusade, 180 – 87.

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relative requested by the said Messer Giacomo, and this was Messer Corrado della Bruta, the city’s captain of the guard for enriching poor Marchigiani; the other was Messer Maffeo da Ponti Carradi of Brescia who had been our podestà and who was set to guard the contado against exiles—this last was the more worthy of the two for his virtues and his actions. The one and the other office were an outrage and caused great harm and expense to the commune; but the ruling citizens, to preserve their tyrannies, and some to preserve their fraud, as we said before, supported them to the great harm of the commune and to the hardship of the citizens—so that they might be feared and powerful. But a short time later the Lord God showed them a very clear punishment for their depraved actions, to the great harm and shame and abasement of our commune, as we will mention ahead. But it saddens me that this punishment was not inflicted on their persons, which would have been appropriate, given their deeds, and which did occur to some of them. But while the Lord God may delay, He leaves no evil unpunished, even though this punishment does not occur in the times and at the pleasure of those who long for it. And often He punishes the popolo for the sins of the rulers, and not without justice, because the popolo is quite guilty of supporting the evil deeds of its rulers—let this suffice.

CXXIII How the Pugliesi and their supporters were chased from Prato. In the said year, in the month of February, the Guazzalotri of Prato, with the encouragement and the favor of certain Florentines, brought about an uprising in the city of Prato, for fear of the Pugliesi and the Rinaldeschi, their neighbors—or in truth that they might be lords of Prato. There was a battle in the city, and some people on both sides died. In the end the said Pugliesi and Rinaldeschi were chased from the city along with their followers, and many others were sent into exile, and the Guazzalotri were left as lords of the city.

CXXIV How the city of Lucca was almost taken from Messer Mastino da Verona. In the said year and month of February, Messer Francesco Castracani degli Antelminelli planned, with the assistance of the Pisans, to take the city of Lucca from Messer Mastino: he would come with many men on horse and on foot

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and the city would be betrayed to him by certain people inside the walls. When this plot was discovered, Guglielmo Canacci, vicar for Messer Mastino, captured Ritrilla degli Uberti and thirteen citizens who were involved and then secured and saved the city, since it pleased God to preserve Lucca for the Florentines, so that it might cause them great harm and shame, as one will find a short while ahead. Then the said Guglielmo gathered a host in the Garfagnana, and captured many towns held by the said Messer Francesco Castracani.

CXXV How the castello di San Bavello surrendered to the Florentines. In the year of Christ 1341 the Florentines were laying siege to the castello di San Bavello, which belonged to Guido Alberto of the Counts Guidi. The Florentines had sent their forces there to begin inflicting the punishment to which he and the other counts had been condemned, as we said a short while ago. On the 15th of April, since it was very closely pressed, and since it did not expect aid, the castello surrendered to the Commune of Florence and the lives of its defenders were spared. The Florentines had this castello entirely demolished as a memorial and a vendetta against the said Guido. The reason was that some time before, the Commune of Florence had sent a letter summoning and citing the said Guido for some reason and he, out of contempt for our commune, before many of his followers in San Bavello, forced the commune’s envoy to eat the said letter along with the entire seal and then sent him rudely on his way, saying, out of contempt for the commune, that if he returned again—he or others—he would have the envoy hung by the neck. And so, when this became known in Florence, almost all the citizens were enraged.

CXXVI Of a fire which broke out in Florence. In the said year, the night following the first of May, fire broke out in Terma in a house where Francesco di Messer Rainiero Buondelmonti lived. And four of his male children burned there with everything that they possessed since he could not rescue them. And this was a very piteous thing. But this fire did not occur without divine judgment, because this Francesco had occupied the said house and taken it away from a widow woman whose house it had been. But his sin

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was visited on his innocent sons, whose bodies bore the penalty for the sin of their father.

CXXVII How Messer Azzo da Correggio rebelled, and took Parma from Messer Mastino. In the said year Messer Azzo da Correggio of Parma was returning from King Robert in Naples, where he had discussed with the king and with Messer Luchino’s ambassadors, who were in Naples, forming a league and a company and bringing Parma into rebellion against Messer Mastino. He crossed through Florence secretly, and then stayed at Scarperia in the Mugello for eight days, holding negotiations and discussions with certain of our ruling citizens about seizing the city of Parma, bringing it into rebellion against Messer Mastino, his nephew and benefactor, so as to be its lord. For Messer Mastino had taken Parma from the Rossi and the Gran Quirico and had returned the Da Correggio, his uncles, to power in Parma—although he wished to be lord and sovereign. The Florentines agreed to this accord and favored it, hoping that if Parma were taken from Messer Mastino they could easily take the city of Lucca (although this Messer Azzo later betrayed us, as will be seen when we turn to his deeds). When he arrived in Lombardy, he carried out the plot with the aid of the Gonzaga, Lords of Mantua and of Reggio, enemies of the Della Scala. And on the 22nd day of May, having been admitted to Parma by his supporters inside, he seized the city and treacherously chased out the men of Messer Mastino, who were not on their guard against him, and made himself lord. Because of this change of state in Parma, it was as if the city of Lucca was besieged and was almost lost to Messer Mastino, for he could not supply it without great expense. And so the Florentines celebrated with great rejoicing (although they did not know what the future held for them). When Messer Mastino saw that Parma had been taken from him, the city which was the gate and key allowing him to enter his holdings in Tuscany, and through which he was able to maintain Lucca, he realized that he could not hold Lucca without great expense and danger.⁵⁷² Suddenly, in a wise and clever move, he offered to sell it either to the Pisans or to the Florentines—because each of these peoples wished to compete for its lordship—and opened negotiations with both cities. The Pisans, afraid of having the Florentines so near and

 Parma controlled a key approach to Lucca; thus, friendly control of Parma could block the sending of aid to Lucca over the Apennines.

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close, and with the power of Lucca, feared for their state. And so they sought first to share Lucca with the Florentines, but this was done with the deception and the vice common to Pisans. When he heard of this, Messer Luchino Visconti, Lord of Milan, who had made himself an enemy of Messer Mastino, offered his assistance to the Florentines: if they wished to lay siege to the city of Lucca, to take it from Messer Mastino, he would aid the siege with one thousand of his knights in return for a certain sum of money. He was the best person for this job, since he wished to take revenge for the treachery of Mastino, and would have done so quickly, with little effort and expense, in comparison to what followed. But the Florentines, not trusting their old enemy, refused to agree to this arrangement, or, rather, this was not the destiny or providence reserved to them by God. Rather the Florentines, like great and rich and confident merchants, and better at trading than at war, insisted upon doing things according to their plan—and the same was true of the Pisans. And from this there occurred and there followed much evil for both communes, but more for the Florentines that year and the next, as we shall mention very soon, quickly, before telling of other events which occurred in surrounding lands in these times.

CXXVIII How King Robert took Milazzo in Sicily by siege. Meanwhile, King Robert had taken the Island of Lipari in Sicily, as we mentioned earlier, and when he saw that because of this conquest it was quite possible for him to take Milazzo, which is opposite Lipari, and that once he had taken Milazzo he could more closely surround Messina, he had forty-five ships, galleys and transports, made ready in Naples, along with many other ships, great and small, to carry fodder and other supplies for a host, and six hundred knights and one thousand foot soldiers, not counting the sailors. This fleet left Naples with its admiral on the 11th day of June that year, and the king sent Messer Ruggiero di Sanseverino overland to Calabria with men-at-arms on horse and on foot to reinforce the fleet, once it had taken the town. This fleet reached Sicily on the 15th day of June, and boldly laid siege to the city of Milazzo by land and by sea, closing it on the landward side, where it narrows and becomes almost an island for the space of a mile, with a great trench and palisades furnished with many brattices; and they did the same facing the city of Milazzo, with a trench and palisades, so that no one could enter or leave without great danger and then only secretly. And the ships were all around, guarding the port and the beach. Milazzo was well supplied with both men-at-arms and provisions, enough to last more than one year,

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and so its inhabitants cared little about the siege. But King Robert kept the siege going, with much effort and expense, and ordered that a great wall be constructed inside the trench and palisade, so that the besiegers’ camp was very strongly fortified. And when Don Peter, the lord of the island, saw that indeed the siege was continuing and that the inhabitants of Milazzo were beginning to run short of provisions, he came three times with his whole force of Sicilians to attack the camp, and those in the city did the same from the inside. But these attacks were in vain, rather causing great harm to the Sicilians, owing to the strength of the camp and the supplies that King Robert was continually providing to the host. At the time that the city’s provisions began to fail because of the long siege, Don Peter, who styled himself King of Sicily, sickened and died, exhausted from the fighting. And for this reason Milazzo surrendered to King Robert’s admiral on the 15th day of September 1341—the lives and the goods of both inhabitants and foreigners were protected. This was a good acquisition for King Robert, although it cost him more than fifty thousand ounces of gold. When he left, he made sure that the city was supplied with men-at-arms and provisions.

CXXIX How Messer Alberto della Scala attacked Mantua and returned in defeat. In the said year, on the 11th of June, Messer Alberto della Scala came with his host into the territory of Mantua, with one thousand knights and fifteen hundred foot soldiers, not counting the troops from that country, because of the aid and assistance the Gonzaga Lords of Mantua had given to Messer Azzo da Correggio, when he brought Parma into rebellion against Messer Mastino. These Lords of Mantua, with the aid of the Lords of Milan, faced them with eight hundred knights and a large popolo, challenging them to combat. In the end, Messer Alberto refused battle and left almost in defeat, leaving behind everything he had in his camp, to his great loss and shame.

CXXX How the Florentines came to an agreement to purchase Lucca from Messer Mastino, and for this purpose sent their hostages to Ferrara. Returning to our subject, I must tell of the mad venture undertaken by our Commune of Florence to acquire the city of Lucca, which we began to recount at the

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end of the third chapter back. Once the leading rulers of Florence had taken up negotiations with Messer Mastino della Scala, to buy from him the city of Lucca and its distretto, which he held free and clear—as we mentioned before, he had been negotiating with the Pisans and our commune, promising to give Lucca to the city that paid him the most—an office of twenty popolani citizens was created in Florence to carry out these negotiations. They had full powers to do what was required and to raise money for the commune in any way or manner that they pleased, and also to make war and raise armies, to make peace or a league or a company, in whatever manner and with whomever they pleased, for the term of their office, which was set at one year, and nothing they did was subject to review—this was in the month of July 1341.⁵⁷³ This was a cause of confusion and danger for our commune, as will be shown by their later activities. We will not record the names of these men in this book, because they are not worthy of being remembered because of their virtues or their good work for our commune; rather, they should be remembered for the contrary things, as one can see from their future work, so that our successors take care not to give excessive authority to our citizens for long periods of time. Experience both old and new makes it clear that these grants of power are a cause of death and abasement for our commune, because no faith and no charity remained in the citizens, and especially in the rulers, to preserve the common good.⁵⁷⁴ Rather, each looked after his own private interests or the interests of his friends by many different plans and methods. And so our commune began to decline in the manner of the Romans, when they strove for their own interests and forgot the common good. And this happened for a reason, when the greatest and most powerful popolani of the Commune, charged with this office, were both leaders and executors. True, there were some among them who were innocent, people said. As soon as the councils had approved this office, these people immediately pursued their negotiations with Messer Mastino, and to fool the Pisans—or rather to fool us—they obligated themselves and agreed with Messer Mastino’s procurators to give him two hundred fifty thousand gold florins in a certain number of payments, and this while our commune owed the citizens more than four hundred thousand gold florins for the war with Mastino. And our commune could have had

 John Najemy describes this committee as an “elite of the elite,” “composed of representatives of the banking companies”—the men whose finances were most deeply interwoven with those of the commune. Najemy, History of Florence, 134. Louis Green notes that the decision to purchase Lucca “had already been made in principle,” and that therefore to blame the Twenty was “unfair” but also notes the way the governing elite misread the political situation prevailing in the late 1330s. Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 131– 32.  Villani uses the word republica, a classicism which acquires piquancy in his next lines.

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Lucca from the Germans of the Cerruglio, as we said earlier, for eighty thousand gold florins in the year 1329; this would have demonstrated wise foresight, or rather, for our commune, great folly. And what is more, Lucca’s fate was in question, and bargained over, and the city was almost entirely wrecked and besieged. And on the 9th of August of that year, in order to guarantee the observance of the terms promised to Messer Mastino, they sent to Ferrara, under the protection of the marquesses, as friends and mediators for our commune, fifty hostages: two of the said Twenty in person, and eighteen sons or brothers or nephews of the rest of the Twenty; and thirty other citizens. Among these fifty hostages there were seven knights and ten squires of the greatest families of Florence, and the others were among the greatest and richest popolani and merchants of our city. And we, the author of this work, even though it was not convenient, and even though it was against our will, were among this group and this number from the sesto of Porta San Piero. We stayed in Ferrara for two and a half months with more than one hundred fifty horses, and everyone had servants dressed in livery, and spent abundantly and honorably, hoping to win a great victory in this venture, and receiving great honor from the lord marquesses in continual feasting. And Messer Mastino sent his bastard son to Ferrara with sixty hostages from Verona and Vicenza and its distretto—noble men or their sons. But when they came before the Florentines in Ferrara, they did not appear to be noble or distinguished enough. The said Twenty, during this venture, constantly spent excessive sums, and laid burdens on individual citizens, asking for loans and taxes to supply themselves with money; foreseeing that they would be engaged in harsh war with the Pisans over the said purchase of Lucca, they again hired horsemen and foot soldiers in great numbers; and they spent more than thirty thousand gold florins every month. And they called for assistance from our neighbors and allies. And observe, o reader, how Messer Mastino knew how to take revenge, in a wise and excellent fashion, for the war and the offense he had received from the Florentines because he had kept Lucca—selling it to them for a exorbitant price, and this for a besieged city, at harsh war with the Pisans and with their other neighbors and with his Lombard enemies, as we will mention ahead, returning somewhat back in time.

CXXXI How the Pisans laid siege to the city of Lucca.

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The Pisans kept themselves constantly informed about the negotiations that the Florentines were undertaking with Messer Mastino to have the city of Lucca.⁵⁷⁵ They themselves could not reach an agreement with Messer Mastino, fortune thus preserving the bad deal and the consequences for the Florentines. The Pisans did not rest idle, but for many months before the Florentines completed the mad purchase of Lucca, they acted with foresight and quickly hired knights, so that on their side they had one thousand two hundred knights and three hundred citizen horsemen. And this was easy for them, since their commune had gathered in hand more than one hundred fifty thousand gold florins. And they sent their ambassadors to Milan and created a league and company with Messer Luchino Visconti, Lord of Milan and now enemy of Messer Mastino. And we should not neglect to make note of a cruel betrayal committed by the Pisans to win the friendship of Messer Luchino. A certain Messer Francesco da Posterla, a noble of Milan, from which he had been exiled, had gone to court to complain to the pope. Wishing to return to Tuscany and believing that he was a friend of the Pisans, he sent to them for a ship to take him from Marseilles. The Pisans, to ensure his safe passage, sent him one of their passenger galleys, prepared for war, and a letter of safe-conduct—he boarded this ship. When he arrived in Pisa, as had been arranged with Messer Luchino, this Messer Francesco, a man of great authority and worth, was seized with his two sons and the Pisans sent the three in bonds to Milan; when he arrived there, Messer Luchino had his head cut off. It was by means of this victim that the league and the company was made between Messer Luchino and the Pisans. Shortly afterward great revenge was taken on the Pisans for this act, for this great sin they had committed, as one will find reading ahead in this chronicle. But in addition to this betrayal, the said Messer Luchino wanted the Pisans to promise him fifty thousand gold florins to be paid in certain installments and to send him twelve hostages, sons of their counts and best men and dearest citizens to guarantee their observance of the pacts. And Messer Luchino sent to them one thousand knights under his banner in the pay of the Pisans, captained by Messer Giovanni Visconti, his nephew. And the Lords of Mantua and Reggio sent to them two hundred knights, and the Da Correggio of Parma one hundred fifty knights, and Messer Ubertino da Carrara of Padua two hundred knights to oppose Messer Mastino. And they made a league with all the Counts Guidi except for Count Simone and his neph Louis Green notes the importance of the foreign assistance highlighted in this chapter but emphasizes Pisa’s closer and more clear-sighted engagement with the internal politics of Lucca. He notes the close connections between the Della Gherardesca in Pisa and the elite which had been dominant in Lucca since the rise of Castruccio in 1314, contrasting this with the threat posed to that elite by the Florentines. Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 137.

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ew and with the Ubaldini and with the Lord of Forlì and with the other Ghibellines of Romagna and with the Doge of Genoa—so that all might give them assistance either of knights or of crossbowmen. And these men and their forces launched war and blocked the roads to the Florentines, and this at the behest of and with the agreement of our new rebels. And once the Pisans had done this, as soon as they learned that the Florentines had made their agreement with Messer Mastino, and sent him their hostages, immediately, on the … day of August, they took the castello del Cerruglio, the one at Montechiari for three thousand gold florins paid to the soldiers who were guarding it for Messer Mastino, and they garrisoned it with their men, to prevent the Florentines from coming to the aid of Lucca. And once they did this, they suddenly went to the city of Lucca with all their cavalry and popolo together, on the … day of August of the said year, and they laid siege to it all around, and after a short while they dug trenches and built palisades furnished with brattices from the Guscianella, which goes to Pontetetto, all the way to the River Serchio—a distance of more than six miles. And they also kept the area from the Guscianella all the way to the Upper Serchio garrisoned with fortifications and men, which was an equally large space, or even larger. And then near to the city they dug another trench with a palisade, an astonishing work completed in a short period of time, so that no one could enter or leave Lucca without great peril. And two quartieri of Pisa, and sometimes three quartieri, in rotation, were continually present together at the siege and along with them many contadini and crossbowmen, a fair number of whom were Genoese—this was quite necessary, since the area to cover was so great. And in the middle of the said two enclosures was encamped the army of the Pisans and the Lombards, in three sites with the fields cleared between one camp and the other. And they were able to do this freely, without any opposition, because the Florentines were taken off-guard by the unexpected and sudden movement of the Pisans and they were not yet prepared to resist it, and there were but one hundred fifty knights of Messer Mastino and five hundred mercenaries in Lucca—their captain was Guglielmo Canacci and with him were Frignano da Sesso, Ciupo degli Scolari, and the German Messer Bonetto—and these men had enough to do just guarding the city. The said Guglielmo Canacci, however, was continually seeking to procure Lucca for the Pisans, and so he departed from the city, going to Messer Mastino and leaving the guarding of the city to the other captains. We will leave the Pisans and their siege of Lucca and turn back somewhat to tell of what the Florentines did in response to this war launched by the Pisans.

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CXXXII How the Florentines readied themselves, since the Pisans were besieging Lucca, and raided Pisan territory. When the Florentines heard that the Pisans were gathering their army, before they lay siege to the city of Lucca, they immediately reinforced their cavalry, so that they had two thousand knights in their pay, and they sent for their allies, to be prepared in the event that the Pisans launched war on them. The Sienese sent two hundred knights from the commune and one hundred from the Guelph families of Siena, along with two hundred crossbowmen; the Perugians sent one hundred fifty knights; the people of Gubbio sent Messer Giacomo Gabrielli with fifty knights; the Lord of Bologna sent three hundred knights; the Marquess of Ferrara sent two hundred knights; Messer Mastino sent three hundred knights; from the Guelph towns of Romagna came one hundred fifty knights; the Lord of Volterra sent his son with fifty knights and two hundred foot soldiers; Messer Tarlato of Arezzo came with fifty knights and two hundred foot soldiers; Prato sent twenty-five knights and one hundred fifty foot soldiers; San Miniato sent three hundred foot soldiers; San Gimignano and Colle each sent one hundred fifty foot soldiers. As soon as the Florentines had gathered their men and their allies, they chose as their war captain Messer Maffeo da Ponti Carradi of Brescia, who was their captain of the guard. And this was the second great error of the Florentines, after the first, which was the mad purchase of Lucca. For, although Messer Maffeo was a worthy and good knight, he was not an able enough leader for such a large army, because in our cavalry there were fifty or more captains who were of greater standing than he. But because of their ambition, the Twenty and the other rulers disdained the wise advice of King Robert, who thoroughly disapproved of the enterprise of Lucca. And they did not want as captain any of his royal nephews nor any other great barons, so that they might guide the expedition more to their liking. And once this was done, they had their captain, with the aforementioned cavalry and a very large popolo ride to Fucecchio and to the other towns of the Valdarno. And they sent their ambassadors to Pisa to lodge protests and to demand that the Pisans not interfere in the matter of Lucca, as had been expressly agreed in the terms of the peace between them. The Pisans gave them feigned and false excuses, and then straight away took Cerruglio and Montechiari and laid siege with their entire host to the city of Lucca. When the Florentines became aware of the Pisan actions, of their betrayal, which we described in the last chapter, they immediately had their army, which was in the Lower Valdarno, ride into the contado of Pisa—there were more than three thousand six hundred knights and more than ten thousand

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paid foot soldiers. And right away they took the Ponte ad Era and the Fosso Arnonico and they devastated and burned the entire borgo of Cascina, and the ville of Sansavino and San Casciano, all the way to the borgo of Le Campane two miles away from Pisa. And then they turned back on the road which passes into Valdera and went all the way to Ponte di Sacco, taking great plunder and setting great fires without meeting any resistance. They remained in the contado of Pisa for many days, and they would have stayed longer, if they had not been deluged by a great rainstorm. And so, having burned and devastated the villate, they could no longer remain there or move forward, and so they returned to Fucecchio and the other castelli of the Valdarno. And note that this was the third great error in the campaign for Lucca and an example of bad leadership, from which it was not possible to recover. Because it was very clear, and wise men with understanding said this beforehand, that if it wanted to lift the siege of Lucca and destroy the Pisan army, the Florentine host needed to encamp at Fosso Arnonico, which was a good spot for staying, and fortify it with trenches and fortifications on the side of Pisa; it needed to fortify the Ponte ad Era, and construct a small fortification at the foot of Marti or up on Castel del Bosco, and leave in those places guards and garrisons of men-at-arms to keep the roads for supplies open. And then it should have made continual large raids in the Valdera and raided Vada, Porto Pisano, and Livorno, and finally all the way to the gates of the city of Pisa, building wooden bridges over the Arno. And they could have launched continual raids in the foothills of Pisa and the Valdiserchio, to prevent provisions going from Pisa to the army at Lucca—this would have forced the Pisans to withdraw their army from Lucca. And we heard later from the Pisans, that they were in constant fear of just this, for they would have been forced to battle with the Florentines, and the battle would have been chosen by and to the advantage of the Florentine host. But the destiny ordained by God to punish sins cannot be put off, for it blinds the souls of popoli and their commanders and leaders and prevents them from making the best decision. And it is precisely this which befell our commune.

CXXXIII How the Florentines, after completing their purchase of the city of Lucca from Messer Mastino, took possession of it while it was under siege. Meanwhile, Mastino was not asleep, but wisely took his time and sent his ambassadors to Florence; they requested, indeed demanded, that the commune take possession of the city of Lucca and its castles; for if the Florentines did

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not, he would reach an accord with the Pisans and give Lucca to them. And in order to raise the stakes, and take revenge against the Florentines, as we said before, he was continually negotiating with the Pisans through Guglielmo Canacci, a rebel from Bologna, who had been his captain in Lucca. Many councils were held about this matter in Florence, and the wisest men advised that it would be best to abandon the plan and make war against the contado of Pisa, since it was a great folly to take possession of a besieged city—this might bring much danger and much expense—and at this point the enterprise could still be abandoned legitimately with honor to the commune (because the initial agreement was that for the price of two hundred fifty thousand gold florins Messer Mastino was to deliver the city and the castles free and clear). But the ambition of the Office of the Twenty and their followers, who had first undertaken the enterprise, won out over wise and good counsel; in their desire for the city they claimed that abandoning the enterprise would be too great a shame and humiliation for the Commune of Florence—this was the fourth great error, among the errors of the Office of the Twenty. And they immediately sent two other members of the Office of the Twenty along with other ambassadors and the ambassadors of Messer Mastino to the Marquess of Ferrara, who acted as mediator to improve the terms. And when they arrived in Ferrara, they quickly came to an agreement, reducing the initial sum by seventy thousand gold florins for the siege of Lucca and the loss of Cerruglio and Montechiari, so that the price was left at one hundred eighty thousand gold florins: one hundred thousand were to be paid within the year—twenty-seven new hostages were to stand surety for this—and eighty thousand florins in the coming five years (sixteen thousand gold florins per year). The Marquess of Ferrara and the Lord of Bologna were the guarantors for this arrangement. Messer Mastino was to keep five hundred knights at his expense until the siege of Lucca was lifted. If we had only kept him longer at the negotiations, by the end he would have sold Lucca for one hundred thousand gold florins, since it was a desperately held city which he had effectively lost and since he had absolutely no desire to give it to the Pisans, though he made it seem that way, because he wanted to spite Messer Luchino, who had joined them in besieging it, to his shame. And we knew this with certainty, because we were present during the negotiations, as one of the hostages. But this deal was made because of the haste and the eagerness of those who were charged with the negotiations, or for some other private reason (indeed it was said by many citizens that the negotiators for both sides used fraud during the first round of negotiations, and we heard a great deal about this in Ferrara when the price was brought down to one hundred eighty thousand florins). Indeed, Messer Mastino’s negotiators said that he had never heard that the first price was more than two hundred thousand gold florins. And so, if this was true,

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our wise citizens tricked the host, or rather our blind commune. As soon as the second agreement was made, our ambassadors and Messer Mastino’s syndics immediately returned from Ferrara. And right away, our city leaders had the host which was in Valdarno set forth, and they added two citizens per sesto to serve as war councilors to the captain. And at the commune’s expense, these men went nobly armed for war with their companions to the contado of Lucca. Part of the host went by the Altopascio road and part by the Valdinievole. On the … of September the entire host made camp on the Colle delle Donne and then took possession of Pietrasanta and Barga from Messer Mastino’s procurators. As soon as the Florentine host was encamped, the Pisan host, which had three camps, drew them into one. And since the men of Lucca still held the Fortress of Pontetetto, which greatly impeded the passage of the Pisans, a large part of the Pisan host went there and remained many days besieging it, finally taking it by storm. At that time Messer Mastino’s men arrived with his syndics and our syndics and with the troops to be placed in Lucca, who were three hundred knights and five hundred foot soldiers, with ten thousand gold florins to pay the soldiers who would be leaving the city along with Ciupo degli Scolari and all the Ghibellines, who were serving Messer Mastino in Lucca. At an hour announced by fire signals the soldiers of Lucca rode out of the city and met with our troops at a pre-arranged place and broke through part of the palisade and filled in the trenches and entered Lucca safe and sound without resistance. And in truth, if a great number of soldiers had ridden with them, the Pisans would have been routed, since at that point there remained at guard but five hundred knights of their host. When these men entered Lucca there was much rejoicing. And on the … of September our syndics, who were Giovanni Bernardini di Medici, Naddo di Cenni di Naddo, and Rosso di Ricciardo de’ Ricci, took possession of the castello dell’Augusta and of the city from Messer Mastino’s syndic, who was Arriguccio Pegolotti, an old citizen of ours and a Ghibelline. And the said Giovanni de’ Medici, who had been ordered to serve as captain, had himself knighted, and the said Naddo and Rosso stayed to serve as treasurers for the commune, to receive the money that had been sent—they paid the soldiers on horse and on foot and supplied provisions. And each of these men certainly did his job well, as one will learn by reading ahead.

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CXXXIV How the Florentine host was defeated at Lucca by the Pisan host.⁵⁷⁶ While our host was on the Colle delle Donne and the Colle di Grignano, our people had many skirmishes with their enemies, who were in Segremigno and San Gennaio—suffering losses on one side then the other. They were continually supplying Lucca with money, for the city did not need anything else, since in exchange for money the Germans in the Pisan host were supplying Lucca day and night with what it needed. But because of deceptive fortune, or more accurately because of the poor foresight of the Office of the Twenty and their council of ruling citizens in Florence, and the fact that ambition made each believe it to be a good decision, Messer Alardo di Valleri or the Count Guido da Montefeltro, masters of war, decided that our host should march down to the plain toward Lucca and engage in battle with the Pisans. And they sent this command, harshly ordering that the captains of the host do this. And this was the fifth error, and there was no way to remedy it, because Lucca still had supplies for more than eight months and they knew this for certain, for every day the city was being supplied in the manner we have described. Had the Florentine captains kept the Pisans at bay, and fixed in one place, the Pisan forces would have been weakened, exhausting their resources in a short time. In truth, it was learned that if they had delayed even fifteen days more, Messer Giovanni Visconti would have left with all the cavalry of Milan, because the Pisans were not observing the pacts they had promised him—he openly admitted this when he was later imprisoned in Florence. The other great error, or act of madness really, was to fight in a place advantageous to the enemy, whose camp lay inside the stronghold of the trench and the palisades, and who could join and leave the battle at will and refresh themselves in that advantageous place; what is more, they had not fewer but more men than we on horse and on foot; but this error in war was immediately followed by punishment. The captains of the host obeyed the command of Florence, or rather, in order to punish our sins, God’s providence compelled them to obey. On the first of October they rode down to the plain of Lucca and camped for the night at La Ghiaia and Greti di Serchio, less than a mile from the enemy camp. Both sides cleared the field and the Pisans knocked down the part of the  Louis Green describes the military defeat Villani records here as one of the “great defeats suffered by the Florentines in the early fourteenth century,” noting how “curious” it is that it has not received a name. He offers the explanation that the commune’s forces were left largely intact after the engagement. Villani will draw similar conclusions about the overall impact of the battle. Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 143 – 46.

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palisade that faced the cleared field and challenged us to battle—our men happily accepted this challenge for the next day. And so, on Tuesday the 2nd of October of the said year 1341, the two hosts faced one another across the battlefield. Our men, of whom there remained two thousand eight hundred knights and an enormous popolo, made two formations. The first formation was to lead the assault; it had one thousand two hundred knights as attackers and was led by our captain Messer Maffeo, accompanied by those Florentines who were present and a selection of his best soldiers and also the Sienese—many young men of the Guelph houses of Siena fought boldly and were made knights that day. In this formation were Messer Ghiberto da Fogliano and Frignano da Sesso, and a count from Germany, and Messer Bonetto, the German, along with the men of Messer Mastino, who on that day together with the other attackers performed marvelous feats of arms; these men were flanked by more than three thousand crossbowmen. The larger formation, with all the rest of the men on horse and on foot and with the loaded supply train—the presence of which was madness—was led by the other captains. And Messer Gian della Vallina, a Burgundian, had the royal standard—because of the goodness of our citizens no one had asked to carry it. The Pisans, who had around three thousand knights, made three formations. The attack formation had around eight hundred knights and was led by … surrounded by many Genoese and Pisan crossbowmen, for they had more and better crossbowmen than we. Messer Giovanni Visconti led the other great formation, in which were the knights of the Lord of Milan under the banner of the viper. Another formation of four hundred knights was stationed in the rear, near the opening in their palisades, guarding it, so that our men in Lucca who had left the city might not attack the camp. Messer Ciupo degli Scolari, who was knighted that day, and Messer Francesco Castracani led that third formation of Pisans. Once the two hosts had drawn up their formations, they faced one another around the hour of tierce and those in both front lines began the attack. The battle was harsh and violent, because the attackers on both sides were the flower of the cavalry of each host. The strong assault by the Pisan knights, although they had fewer men than we, pushed our attack formation quite far back. But soon afterward the Pisan attackers were routed and defeated, and, fleeing, part went back inside the palisade and part returned to the large formation. After our attackers won this victory against the Pisans, they boldly attacked their large formation, and this gave rise to a sustained and harsh battle which lasted until after nones, with many horses killed and knights shot down by the many crossbowmen on both sides. The banner of Messer Luchino was knocked down, and among the captured were Messer Giovanni Visconti, captain of his men, and Arrigo di Castruccio, and Messer Bardo Frescobaldi, and many of the best Pisan horsemen and other horsemen, our exiles from

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Florence. This formation was almost routed and broken up, although they lifted up another banner with the viper of Milan and part of them joined the formation commanded by Messer Ciupo degli Scolari, which was standing firm. And yet although our knights fought and chased their enemies, our large formation did not budge, nor did it push ahead to assist our attackers, and this was a great error and the result of poor leadership. It was said that this was the fault of Messer Gianni della Vallina, who had the royal banner and who was unwilling to move against the banner of Messer Luchino because of an oath he made when he was his prisoner in Lombardy. But the greater error was committed by our leaders who gave him the royal banner, who did not provide capable leaders for such a great host, who did not name noble citizens whose heart was in the battle. When the men in our first formation believed they had won their victory, they dispersed here and there looking for prisoners. It was said that Messer Ciupo degli Scolari, who was standing to the side with his formation, watching the battle unfold and gathering back to his formation those who had fled, employed a strategic trick: he sent a great crowd of ruffians toward our large formation and into the midst of our supply train, crying out and yelling that our knights had been defeated; as a result, the supply train began to leave. The soldiers of our large formation were a third of a mile distant from the site of the battle and the chase, and because of this false rumor, and because they saw our men dispersed out of formation hunting for enemies and mixed up with them, and because they saw the supply train fleeing, and the formation of Messer Ciupo increased in size and standing firm with raised banners, they believed for certain that our troops had been defeated, and, without being routed or chased by their enemies, they broke apart and took to flight. The foot soldiers did the same. Messer Ciupo and his rested formation, seeing our large formation in flight, struck at our attackers, who had been victorious in two earlier battles and who were dispersed and gathering prisoners without any order or restraint. They attacked each other and in short order he routed them and defeated them and recovered all their prisoners except for Messer Giovanni Visconti, who had been sent to the large formation, along with many other hostages for whom ransom was later paid to those who captured them (these hostages had not been given to the commune). No more than three hundred of our men—on horse or on foot—died in this battle and no man worthy of naming except Frignano da Sesso and certain captains serving Messer Mastino and the marquesses, who acquitted themselves worthily in the battle. More than two thousand horses died on both sides, because of the many crossbows and because of the manner of the battle, which was almost like a tournament with many repeated charges. Only around eight hundred to one thousand of our men, on horse or on foot, were taken prisoner, because our large formation left safely, in the manner we

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have described, and went to Pescia, and the enemies did not give chase; many of our men also fled into Lucca—among these was Messer Tarlato d’Arezzo. These were the prisoners of note taken from our side. Citizens: Messer Giovanni della Tosa, Messer Francesco Brunelleschi, Messer Barna de’ Rossi, Albertaccio da Ricasoli—for whom ransom was paid. Foreigners: Messer Maffeo, our captain, Messer Bonetto, the German, and six other captains of Messer Mastino, of the marquesses, and of the Lord of Bologna—these men later fled Pisa. And around eight of the knights and the squires of Siena were taken prisoner along with the son of the Lord of Volterra. All these men were captured in the middle of the field, fighting while surrounded by the enemy. And Messer Giacomo Gabrielli was captured while fleeing to Lucca. And even though the Pisans won the field and the honor, by the judgment and the will of the Lord God, and because of our poor planning, many more Pisans died than our people. And the cost to them was incalculable because of the double pay they owed and the cost to replace the lost horses. But nonetheless our poorly led host was defeated, to our harm and shame and dishonor, unluckily, on the 2nd of October 1341.

CXXXV Digression about the said defeat. When this defeat occurred, we, Giovanni Villani, author of this work, were in Ferrara as a hostage of Messer Mastino for our commune, together with the others, as we said before.⁵⁷⁷ Two days after the defeat we received news of the defeat that made it seem worse than it actually had been, and so we assumed that we were all prisoners of Messer Mastino, reckoning that our commune, because of the said defeat, was routed and broken, and that it would need to ransom us with not only the one hundred thousand gold florins promised, but also with ransom for Messer Mastino’s imprisoned men and compensation for his dead horses. As we lamented together bitterly at the danger in which our commune found itself, and at our own personal harm and loss, one of our companions, a knight, almost lamenting before God, questioned me, asking “O you who have made and are making a record of our past deeds, and of the other great events in the world  The remarkable conversation which follows in this chapter, between Villani and the unnamed knight, suggests the public character of the chronicler’s work, that it was known and that it was regarded as a resource in moments of difficulty. Villani is sought out for his historical knowledge, his knowledge of precedents for this disaster, but also for his understanding of what might cause God to inflict such punishments on Florence.

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—what could be the reason that God has permitted this hardship to befall us, since the Pisans are greater sinners than we, as they are traitors and as they have always been enemies and persecutors of Holy Church, while we have been its obedient supporters?” We responded to his question, as God inspired us beyond our small wisdom, saying that in us Florentines there ruled only one sin which displeased God more than those of the Pisans—that of having neither faith nor charity. Disturbed, the gentleman responded, saying “Charity? What do you mean, since more charity is done in one day in Florence than in one month in Pisa?” I said that this was true, and that it is because of that form of charity called alms that the Lord God has protected us and protects us from greater dangers. But true charity has failed in us, first toward the Lord God, not being grateful and thankful toward him for the many good things He has done for us and for the great power and estate into which He has placed our city, and for our presumption in not being content with our boundaries, wanting to unduly occupy not only Lucca, but the other nearby cities and towns. As for our charity toward our neighbors, it is clear to everyone that we insult and betray and abandon one another—neighbors, companions, friends and even blood brothers—and that we engage in the worst usury against the less powerful and the poor. It is also clear that loyalty and charity toward our commune and republic have entirely failed, since a time has come, because of our faults, that a citizen for some small personal gain offends and defrauds and does not care for even the important matters affecting the commune, whatever the danger it might be facing. Whereas the Pisans are the opposite; that is, they are united among themselves, and are faithful and loyal to their commune, although in other things they are equal or greater sinners than we. But as Our Lord Jesus Christ says in the Gospel, “I will punish my enemy with my enemy, etc.” And so this question was settled, because everyone was content with the said explanation, and we recognized our faults and the little charity which exists among us communally and separately. The Marquess of Ferrara, hearing of our dismay, sent for us and brought us all into his presence and the presence of his privy council. First, he complained with us about the adverse and unfortunate events that had occurred to our people and his people. But then, like a good father to his son, he offered comfort and pointed out how slight were the losses, and how it should be considered an accident of war, for which there was no remedy, and how we could recover; he glorified our commune’s great power and declared that he and his allies would take noble and great revenge for this defeat, offering our commune all his power, and offering to come in person—he or his brother—with all his forces; he then prayed that we signify these things to our commune. He immediately sent his ambassadors to Florence with this offer, whence we took great comfort. Messer Mastino and the Lord of Bologna made

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similar offers to our commune. But Messer Ubertino da Carrara, Lord of Padua, who had given one hundred of his knights to the Pisan host to fight against us, celebrated our defeat with a bonfire and great rejoicing, out of contempt for Messer Mastino. His memory, however, was poor, and he was not grateful, indeed he was very ungrateful, for the services he and his ancestors had received from our commune: he who with our power and that of the Venetians, from being the slave of the Della Scala was made Lord of Padua, as we mentioned before when we described the conquest of that city. We have digressed so extensively on our defeat in this chapter, so as to give our successors an example of how our faults were punished, and so that they might have a record and a memorial of those who were our friends and our enemies during our time of hardship. And now we return to our subject.

CXXXVI Of the same matter. When the first, immediate news of this defeat reached Florence, the entire city was moved to great sorrow and fear, and set a close guard by day and by night, believing that the rout and the losses were greater than they were. But the next day the truth was discovered about the small numbers of dead and captured, and that the city of Lucca was not lost, but was resisting boldly, nor was any other castello under our control lost. Everyone put down their arms and returned to their own affairs, as before, as though there had been no battle and no defeat. And in this the citizens showed their great magnificence. Next, it was immediately decided that they would gather a larger host than the first, that they would ask for aid from King Robert and the other allies, and that they would hire men-at-arms on horse and on foot—as many as they could get. And so they might fill the position quickly they chose as war captain Messer Malatesta of Rimini, who was considered wise in war, and he came to Florence on the … day of February with two hundred knights, among whom were some of the best men of Romagna, and the Marca, and from beyond the Alps, and two hundred foot soldiers to guard his person. The Florentines received him in his office with great honor, hoping greatly that he might bring them victory. And also, since they were not able to have as captain one of King Robert’s nephews, something the Florentines requested with much insistence, as will be mentioned ahead, and hearing that the Duke of Athens was coming from France to Naples, certain rulers of our city wrote to the said duke, and had letters written to his friends and to merchants at his arrival in Avignon in Provence, where the court was, asking if it

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would please him to undertake to serve as sovereign captain of our commune. This gentle lord and needy pilgrim, looking for his own advantage, and at the request of these friends and the grandi of Florence, who encouraged him and requested him for another, greater, purpose, as will become clear when we describe his later arrival in Florence, accepted the undertaking and without delay, accompanied by one hundred gentlemen whom he had in his company, came by sea to Naples, because he could not land on the coast of Pisa, nor could he find horses there.⁵⁷⁸ When he arrived in Naples, he went about supplying himself with arms and with horses, without letting King Robert know of his intentions and putting out the word that he was preparing to journey to his lands in Romania. We will leave for a while this undertaking of the Duke of Athens, but very soon we will need to return to it, since there is important and new material to recount about his deeds. We will now speak somewhat of the dealings that King Robert had with our commune on the matter of Lucca.

CXXXVII How King Robert demanded lordship of Lucca from the Florentines, and received it, promising them assistance. King Robert was continually importuned by letters from our commune, and by the men of our companies, and by the merchants who were with him, asking that he send one of his nephews with men-at-arms to aid the host that our commune intended to send against the Pisans to lift the siege of Lucca. Because of his great avarice, he did not wish to take on this venture, but his honor would not allow him to refuse aid to our commune. And so he decided on and carried out a subtle stratagem: he sent a great embassy to Florence in the month of November (he sent a great company that included the Bishop of Grufo, a great master, and Messer Gianni Barili, one of the greatest men of Naples, and Niccola degli Acciaiuoli); he had it request, in a great and lavish council, the possession and lordship of the city of Lucca, as it was his and under his jurisdiction, though it had been taken from him by Uguccione della Faggiuola and the Commune of Pisa, as we mentioned a great while ago. And if the Florentines agreed to this, he  Villani’s sarcasm here, and his reference to the ulterior motives of the grandi in inviting the “needy pilgrim” to the service of Florence, foreshadows Walter of Brienne’s actions in 1343, when he sought to establish himself as lifetime signore of the city. This episode is a watershed in the history of Florence and is recorded at the beginning of the thirteenth book of the New Chronicle.

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promised all his forces by sea and by land to take revenge for us against the Pisans and to lift their host from Lucca. He reckoned as certain that the Florentines, because of their pride and because of the great cost and harm and shame which they had endured because of their venture at Lucca, would deny his request and demand, and in so doing would give him just cause to deny the aid requested by our commune. The Florentines wisely considered this offer, and, having reached a good decision, responded to the ambassadors, and in their presence at that council reaffirmed that they would give to the king, or to them for him, possession of Lucca. And they made syndics to carry this out, and these syndics escorted the ambassadors to Lucca, and by means of sealed documents gave them possession of and dominion over the city. Once they had done this King Robert’s ambassadors went to Pisa, and, in a solemn denunciation, demanded that the Pisans lift the siege of his city of Lucca. It seemed to the Pisans that this demand was a trick of the Florentines, although in truth it was no trick; they considered the matter, and while it seemed to them that it would be a bad thing to bring King Robert to Lucca, they did not want to lift the siege of the city. And so, dissimulating, they declared that they would respond to the king through their ambassadors—and they did respond, dragging the matter out and leading the king on with words while in fact not wishing to do anything. Rather, they continually reinforced their siege of Lucca with the forces of Messer Luchino Visconti, and the forces of the other tyrants of Lombardy of the imperial party. And it was very easy for the Pisans, being so close to Lucca, to receive these reinforcements.

CXXXVIII How the Florentines sent to King Robert for aid, but did not receive it, and what followed. When the Florentines found themselves led along in this manner, they sent ambassadors to Naples to ask King Robert for aid, that he send one of his nephews to serve as their captain, and that he observe what he had made his ambassadors promise when, as we mentioned before, the possession of Lucca was granted to them. These ambassadors carried out their mission with great energy and great care, but this mattered little, since the king was moved by nothing. He offered to send the Duke of Athens with six hundred knights, and to split the cost of their pay with the Commune of Florence. Since our commune could do no better, it accepted this bargain, but the king did not want to observe it. O avarice, enemy of the royal virtue of magnanimity, how you spoil every good and hono-

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rable venture! If King Robert had observed the promise he had his ambassadors make to our commune, and sent one of his nephews with one thousand knights to our host—half at our expense—along with twelve war galleys against the Pisans to seize the entrance to the port (it would have been easy for him to provide these), then, considering the great power and the great numbers of the Florentine host, the Pisans, even with all the aid from Messer Luchino of Milan and from other Lombards, would not have had the power to maintain their camp and their siege at Lucca. This failure by King Robert gave rise to many troubles and dangers and losses, as one will understand by reading ahead, to his shame and that of our commune.⁵⁷⁹ Because the Florentines were compelled to gather a host on their own, to aid Lucca with more than four thousand knights and an infinite popolo, as the following chapter will mention, with little honor and at great expense. But that which carried the greatest risk and the greatest danger, not only to our commune, but to the entire Guelph party and to the Church, and to all Italy, and even to King Robert and his Regno, was that certain of the rulers of our commune, because they were offended by King Robert’s great failure, and because they were then seduced and counseled by Messer Mastino della Scala, secretly sent two popolani from among the greatest of the rulers as ambassadors along with Messer Mastino’s representatives to Trent in Germany. Now the Bavarian, who styled himself emperor, had come to Trent, and these ambassadors treated with him in such a manner that he sent to Florence, and then to our host, many of his barons with around fifty knights, the majority of whom were belted knights. Among the leaders were the Duke of Teck, who brought the Bavarian’s great seal, and his Luffo Mastro and Count Porcaro. The Bavarian promised that if our commune received the Duke of Teck as his vicar under advantageous terms, he would cause all the Germans to leave the Pisan camp, which they would do as soon as they saw his seal, thus breaking apart the Pisan host—they would all then go over to our host. And this would certainly have been done, but our rulers held a secret council about this plan, and certain wise supporters of the Guelph party and the party of the Church, who were more concerned with the state and the party than were those who had put together this plot, argued that following it would be dangerous: it would turn the government of Florence and of all Tuscany very quickly to the Ghibelline party and the party of the empire. They advised that it was better not to agree to this plot, whatever might follow from our venture against the Pisans. And  This is yet another example of Villani’s critique of the self-defeating miserliness of King Robert. Louis Green notes the way the Florentine request for aid complicated the military strategies of the king, who was then planning another campaign to take the city of Milazzo in Sicily. Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 170.

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so it went no further, and the said barons returned to Germany. But the coming of these ambassadors caused King Robert to become so suspicious that he did not know what to do, greatly fearing that Florence would take a turn toward the imperial and Ghibelline party. And many of his barons and prelates and other rich men of the Regno, who had deposited their money with the companies and the merchants of Florence, for the said reason, became so full of apprehension, that each of them wished to withdraw their money, and Florentines’ credit failed everywhere they did business, so that a short time later, because of this, and because of the tax burdens of the commune and the loss of Lucca, soon many good companies in Florence failed: the Peruzzi, the Acciaiuoli (they did not fail right then, because of their great power in the commune, but did a short while later), the Bardi (they suffered a great collapse, and did not pay those to whom they owed money, but still failed), the Buonaccorsi, the Cocchi, the Antellesi, the Da Uzzano, the Corsini, the Castellani, and the Perondoli, and many other individual merchants and many artisans and small companies to the great harm and ruin of the merchants of Florence, and universally of all citizens. This caused greater harm to the commune than the defeat or the loss of Lucca. And observe that because of the failures of these companies, money in coin became scarce in Florence—it could barely be found. And the value of property in the city fell, with people selling at half price, while for possessions in the contado the value fell by a third or more. We will leave off now speaking of these matters, and speak of the great host that the Florentines gathered to free Lucca from the Pisan siege—and which was not successful.

CXXXIX Of a great and noble host that the Florentines then gathered to remove the Pisans from their siege of Lucca. The Florentines still wished to pursue their mad venture of raising a host to remove the Pisans from the siege of Lucca, and hearing that those in the city were about to run out of provisions, they hired more than two thousand good knights from beyond the Alps; there were also forty citizens on horseback and six counsellors to the captain. This was poor foresight, for the rulers of Florence did not recall what Lucan wrote about Caesar when he raised his hosts—he did not say to his soldiers “go!” but rather “come!” and in so doing always had victory and honor. Indeed, the opposite happens to the lords and the rulers of communes, when they do not personally lead their armies, leaving the care and the preparation to mercenaries and foreigners—let these words suffice, since experience

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proves this fact. And to our host, Messer Mastino sent five hundred knights, the Lord of Bologna sent five hundred, the Marquesses of Ferrara sent four hundred knights, two hundred came from the Guelph cities of Romagna, three hundred came from the Sienese, one hundred fifty came from Perugia, one hundred fifty came from other surrounding cities, and the Guelph Counts Guidi came with ten thousand foot soldiers and crossbowmen, not counting the people of the contado and distretto. They took up their standards on Palm Sunday, on the 24th of March and on the following Feast of Our Lady, 1342, the host set forth and went to Valdinievole. And this was the sixth great mistake and error of the Twenty who led the war and the government of the city. Because if they had gone to lay siege to Pisa or stationed their host at Pisa, the war would have been won, and the siege would have been raised from Lucca. But God did not allow this to occur because of our faults and sins and because He wished to add to the castigation and expenses and the abasement of our city; and also to shame us since we had gathered so much military power and so noble a host, which would have sufficed for a kingdom. Even so, much of the fault for this error lay with some of our citizens who were leaders in Lucca, who continually wrote to Florence “Send help, send help, for the city has not enough supplies for one month” when in fact it had enough supplies for three. At any rate, the error of this war was foreseen by wise men. The host left Pescia and Valdinievole on the 27th of March, and stopped and camped on the hill of Grignano and on the Colle delle Donne, where it had been the last time. And our captain, Messer Malatesta, kept the host in those places for a month and a half, engaged in futile plots to corrupt the soldiers in the Pisan host, not making any attempt or doing any act of valor whatsoever, as he could and should have done, since he had so many good troops on horse and on foot. But Messer Malatesta was a rook faced by a knight, because the captain of the Pisan host was Nolfo, son of Count Federigo da Montefeltro, his relation, who knew the Romagnol art of keeping a person in vain negotiations as well as he did. Many citizens began to suspect trickery and betrayal because of this long delay and because they were losing so much good and useful time when they had such a powerful host. Whence Messer Malatesta was greatly criticized, and the city sent word to him, strongly upbraiding him and commanding him to move his host towards the enemies, whatever the outcome. Meanwhile the Pisans and their allies were not sleeping, because the Tarlati of Arezzo were said to be plotting to bring the city of Arezzo into rebellion against our commune. And Guglielmo degli Altoviti, who was serving as captain of the guard in Arezzo, had Messer Piero Saccone, Messer Ridolfo and Messer Luzimborgo and Guido and … Tarlati arrested and sent as captives to Florence. They were imprisoned for a good while on the upper floor of the Palace of the Priors; although some believed them guil-

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ty and some believed them innocent, later events demonstrated that they were guilty; and many council meetings were held to condemn them to death, but the worst choice won out, because of our corrupt citizens. Messer Tarlato was arrested in Lucca and held under courteous guard, but a little later, when he was taking recreation with Messer Giovanni de’ Medici outside of the city, he fled to the Pisan camp. And then he and the other Tarlati brought many of their castelli, and the castelli of the contado of Arezzo, into rebellion against the Aretines, and made war against them. The Ubaldini rebelled against our commune, and with the force of the Ghibellines of Romagna, and with certain detachments of horsemen of Messer Luchino of Milan, they besieged the town of Firenzuola. When some of our people from Mugello, whose leader was one of the Medici, went to relieve Firenzuola, riding in poor formation, they were surprised in an ambush and defeated at Rifredo. Several days later our enemies took Firenzuola through the treason of one of their vassals who lived inside, and they burned and destroyed everything, they rebuilt Montecoloreto, above it, and fortified it. And through treason they took the castello di Tirli, which was not supplied, to the great shame of our commune. And the Ubertini and the Pazzi brought their castello Castiglione into rebellion, and also Campogiallo and Treggiaia, and this caused a great uproar around our contado while our host was stationed in the contado of Lucca.

CXL How the Florentine host pressed in towards Lucca to supply it, how it failed in this mission, and how Lucca surrendered to the Pisans. Messer Malatesta set out with our host on the 9th of May from Grignano. The Germans among our soldiers were poorly disciplined and they plundered all our camp. And when the host had come down to the plain, it made camp at San Piero in Campo next to the Serchio River, about two miles from our enemies. That day the Duke da Teck and Luffo Mastro and the porcaro, barons of the Bavarian, reached our territory by way of Bologna and Pistoia. They had fifty men in armor with twenty-five gold-spurred knights, each riding a great warhorse, very noble men, according to the accord which had been stipulated at Trent in Germany between the Bavero and our ambassadors, which we described earlier. And on the said day the Duke of Athens, and Messer Uguccione de’ Buondelmonti and Messer Manno de’ Donati reached our host from Florence with around one hundred French knights in our pay under his banner. And on the 10th of May, in the morning, the host moved from San Piero in Campo, riding in formation a

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mile and a half toward the enemies and challenging them to battle. They refused to come out of their palisades, and this was wise. Our host, denied its battle, crossed two branches of the Serchio, but the third branch was so swollen with the water held back by the enemies and by the rain which had begun, that it was unable to cross that evening. And so, in great discomfort, deprived of food and supplies, attacked by the enemies, our troops passed that night on the island, building during the night a wood bridge to cross over that branch of the Serchio. And then next day the entire host crossed from there, moving over the hill of San Quirico, where there stood a strong fortification manned by the Pisans to guard the hill and the bridge of San Quirico. When the Pisans saw that our men had crossed the river, they feared losing the fortress of San Quirico, and so they sent many men to its defense; there followed many skirmishes between their soldiers and ours in which the Pisans suffered. It was said for certain, that if our captain had ordered the host to attack in the direction of the fortress, the Pisans would have abandoned it, and the pass would have been taken, for there was no comparison between the force of the enemies and our troops: the ribalds and the youths of our host alone, armed with stones, could have defeated the fortification and the bridge. Messer Malatesta was much criticized for this, but he had our host cross beyond, and camped on a hill next to the meadow outside Lucca, leaving behind the fortification and fortress of San Quirico. If the captain had at least ridden down to the plain opposite the meadow, he would have supplied the city by force and the Pisan host would have left in defeat, because the Pisans had not yet built any blockade or fortress on that side of the meadow. Moreover, our people in Lucca—men, women, children—seeing the power of our host, came out, armed and unarmed, into the meadow without any resistance by the enemies. Yet our captain insisted that the host encamp that day at the hill, where, during the night, a great rain began. But the Pisans did not neglect reinforcing the fortification of San Quirico, and dug ditches and put up palisades in the meadow near the Serchio, so that our men could not cross, and led all the power of their host to the meadow facing our men. And here our host stayed for four days, doing nothing and in great want of food because of the bad weather—indeed sometimes bread was worth three soldi. And then on the 15th of May the weather improved. One Messer Bruschino, a German, with his banner and companions crossed the Serchio around the hour of vespers, and began to skirmish with the enemies, and the Duke of Athens followed him with his men, and the skirmish so grew, that more than fifteen hundred knights and many of our foot soldiers crossed the river, and by force broke through the palisades and put the enemies to flight. If they had been followed by our men, and if it had been earlier in the day, and if our men had remained on the meadow, we would have had the victory. But nightfall forced retreat. That same night

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the Pisans, with great effort and great care, remade the ditches and the palisades, making them stronger than before. And the rain began again, and the Serchio began to rise, so that it became impossible to cross in that place—our host faced so many obstacles and so much want because of its poor leadership. When our captain saw the Pisan camp so reinforced, and that he was unable to supply Lucca, he departed with the host on Sunday the 19th of May, to his great shame, and that of our commune and allies, by fording the branches of the river whence they had come. They recrossed the river and took the Altopascio road, arriving at the Cerruglio on the 21st of May, where they attacked but failed to capture the castello. Then they departed and returned to the Valdarno with dishonor and shame, at great cost to the Florentines. On the 9th of June, two thousand knights and many foot soldiers rode out of Fucecchio and raided the contado of Pisa, doing great harm; and one hundred fifty Pisan knights who were coming to Marti were captured by our men. But afterwards, the good policy of raiding the Pisan contado came to an end. Those who were in Lucca, seeing themselves abandoned by a relief force of such great power, sought an accord with the Pisans, and, on the 6th of July 1342, surrendered the city of Lucca to them—their lives were spared, and they were allowed to leave with what they wished to carry.⁵⁸⁰ And observe that in the beginning, when our host was at Grignano, the Pisans wished to make peace and come to terms by which Lucca would pay our commune one hundred eighty thousand gold florins over six years for the money promised to Messer Mastino; it would also owe, in homage, every year on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, ten thousand gold florins and a palio accompanied by a horse draped in scarlet worth more than two hundred gold florins. Most Florentines agreed, so as to avoid expense and war, but Cenni di Naddo, an arrogant man who was then prior and whose son was in Lucca, refused to accept this peace agreement, but, with his party, argued the opposite—and, as is our habit, we made the worse choice. And so, because of what had happened the standing of the Florentines was greatly lowered, since they had more than four thousand good knights and an enormous popolo, and yet they lost such a contest and venture through poor counsel and poor leadership and generalship. Or rather, through the judgment of God, to lower the pride and greedy ingratitude of the Florentines and their leaders. We will leave for a while these matters, which we have recounted at length this time, and speak of other events which occurred in other places in those days. But we did not wish to neglect recalling the prophecy, or indeed predestined fate, which the wise and worthy Dionigi da Borgo San Sepolcro sent us from Paris about our venture in Lucca,

 On the terms of this peace see Green, Lucca Under Many Masters, 183 – 84.

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as we mentioned before in the other volume in the chapter on the death of Castruccio, since it came entirely true. Because he through whose hands we received the lordship of Lucca was Guglielmo Canacci degli Scannabecchi of Bologna, vicar in Lucca and syndic of Messer Mastino, whose arms, as he said, were black and red—a red field and a black beak. And how great an effort, how many expenses and how much shame these things cost our commune, will be very clear to those who have understood how fortune brought these things to pass—and so we have made an eternal and true record of them here.

CXLI How a fire broke out in Mechelen in Brabant, and burned the two parts of the city. At the beginning of May 1342, disastrously, a fire broke out in the city of Mechlen in Brabant. It burned so rapidly that it escaped any effort to fight it and so it burned more than five thousand houses. People went to the aid of their relatives’ houses, but soon heard news that their own houses were burning. The great church and the Halles Palace burned, along with more than fourteen thousand bolts of cloth; many people died—men, women, children—and there was infinite damage to houses and goods and equipment and other merchandise. For this was a terrible judgment of God.

CXLII How the popolo of Ancona chased their grandi from the city. At the beginning of June that year, because of injuries they had received at the hands of certain grandi, the popolo minuto of Ancona rose up in fury, and they rose up and attacked the nobles and the grandi of their city. They killed and wounded many of them and chased them out of the city, sacking their houses. This was a cruel deed, that because of some excesses committed by certain people, all the nobles, the innocent as well as the guilty, should be so harshly punished.

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CXLIII How the Duke of Brittany died, and the war which followed his death. In the said year, 1342, the Duke of Brittany died of his illness leaving no male heir.⁵⁸¹ The power of this man made him the greatest baron in France and one of the Twelve Peers. He left a daughter who was the wife of the Sieur de Avagour and Viscount of Limoges. This lady had a daughter whom Philip de Valois, King of France, on the death of the said duke, gave in marriage to Charles of Blois, his nephew, son of his sister, and made him Duke of Brittany. This displeased the Bretons, and almost all of them rebelled, and made duke the Count of Monfort, son of the late flesh-and-blood brother of the aforementioned duke, who was heir in the male line. And so the King of France was greatly blamed for injustice, altering the order and the custom of the baronies of France for his nephew and contradicting his own election to the kingdom, which we related in another place, since this succession was through a woman. The Kingdom of France succeeded to King Edward of England through his mother, but lords make and unmake the laws for their own advantage. This gave rise to a great war, because, as we shall later recount, the Count of Monfort and part of the Bretons allied themselves with the King of England and their forces made much war against the King of France. But God soon took revenge for the wrong done against the Count of Monfort by Philip King of France—He took revenge against the king and against Charles of Blois—as one will find in the year 1346 and the year 1347, since no rightful vendetta remains unfulfilled, although it may be delayed. And let this suffice for this matter. We will leave for now these matters from beyond the mountains; we will return to them at the proper time and place; and we will begin the Thirteenth Book, in which we will recount how the Florentines—because of their bad state—elected as their lord the Duke of Athens, and Count of Brienne in France, which was followed by great and perilous changes in our city of Florence, as one can discover by reading onward.

Here ends the Twelfth Book.

 This was John III, whose death in 1341 gave rise to the terrible Breton Civil War, which lasted until 1365. The war pitted his niece Jeanne de Penthievre and her husband Charles of Blois (supported by the French) against his half brother John of Monfort (supported by the English).

Bibliography Villani Editions Two manuscripts and the most important of the published editions of Villani’s Cronica are listed here in chronological order. The list includes the continuations of the Cronica by Giovanni’s brother Matteo and the latter’s son Filippo, and some editions where Villani’s text is presented together with Dino Compagni’s Cronica, as well as English translations. Villani, Giovanni. Nuova Cronica. Manuscript on paper, MS 930. New Haven: Beinecke Rare Book Library. Digital reproduction, https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/10517730. Accessed April 1, 2020. Villani, Giovanni. Cronica, libri II–XI, Manuscript on parchment, MS 931, New Haven: Beinecke Rare Book Library. Digital reproduction, https://collections.library.yale.edu/cata log/11007491. Accessed June 1, 2020. Villani, Giovanni. Croniche di Messer Giovanni Villani cittadino fiorentino, nelle quali si tratta dell’origine di Firenze, e di tutti i fatti e guerre state fatte da fiorentini nella Italia, & nelle quali anchora fa mentione dal principio del mondo infino al tempo dell’Autore, di tutte le guerre state per il mondo, cosi de principi christiani fra loro, come de gli infedeli, & de christiani con gli infedeli. Historia nuoua & utile a’ sapere le cose passate fatte per tutto l’uniuerso. Edited by Giacomo Fasolo. Vinetia (Venice): Bartolomeo Zanetti Casterzagense, 1537. [Contains the first ten books of the New Chronicle] Villani, Giovanni. La Seconda Parte Della Cronica vniversale de suoi tempi di Giovanni Villani cittadin fiorentino, nvovamente vscita in lvce. Fiorenza (Florence): Lorenzo Torrentino, 1554. [Contains only the last two books of the New Chronicle.] Villani, Giovanni. La prima parte delle Historie de suoi tempi di Giouan Villani cittadino fiorentino, nuouamente ristampata con tauole e postille in margine delle cose notabili, fatte per M. Remigio Fiorentino. La seconda parte delle Historie vniversali de suoi tempi di Giouan Villani cittadino fiorentino; Nuouamente ristampata, & con diligentia ricorretta da M. Remigio Fiorentino. Aggiuntoui di nuouo vtilissime dichiarazioni in margine, fatte dal medesimo; con due Tavole, una de’ Capitoli, & l’altra delle cose piu notabili che in quella si contengono. Edited by Remigio Nannini Fiorentino. Venetia (Venice): Eredi di Bernardo Giunti di Fiorenza, 1559. [Two-volume set, containing all twelve books of the New Chronicle.] Villani, Giovanni. Storia di Giovanni Villani cittadino fiorentino, nuouamente corretta, e alla sua vera lezione ridotta col riscontro di testi antichi. Con due tauole, l’vna de’ capitoli, e l’altra delle cose piu’ notabili. Edited by Baccio Valori. Firenze (Florence): Filippo e Iacopo Giunti e fratelli, 1587. [Contains all twelve books of the New Chronicle.] Villani, Giovanni. Johannis Villani Fiorentini Historia universalis a condita Florentia usque MCCCXLVIII italice scripta: in nova hac editione ab innumeris mendis expurgata et plurimis variantibus lectionibus ac supplementis aucta ope Msti codicis clarissimi viri Johannis Baptistae Recanati patritii Veneti. In Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, edited by Ludovico Antonio Muratori, vol. 13, 1–1004. Milan: Typographia Societatis Palatinae, 1728. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514265-005

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Villani, Giovanni, Matteo Villani, and Filippo Villani. Storie di Giovanni, Matteo, e Filippo Villani, in questa nuova edizione confrontate col celebre codice manoscritto del signor abate Gio. Battista Recanati ed altri Fiorentini, con i quali si sono in più luoghi accresciute, e notabilmente corrette. Edited by Filippo Argelati. Milan: n.p., 1729. Villani, Giovanni, Matteo Villani, and Filippo Villani. Istorie fiorentine di Giovanni Villani, cittadino fiorentino, fino all’anno MCCCXLVIII. Edited by Pietro Massai. 8 vols. Milan: Società tipografica de’ classici italiani, 1802–1803. Villani, Giovanni, Matteo Villani, and Filippo Villani. Cronica di Giovanni Villani: A miglior lezione ridotta coll’aiuto de’ testi a penna. Edited by Ignazio Moutier and Pietro Massai. 8 vols. Florence: Magheri, 1823. Villani, Giovanni, Matteo Villani, and Filippo Villani. Cronica di Giovanni Villani: A miglior lezione ridotta coll’aiuto de’ testi a penna. Edited by Ignazio Moutier and Francesco Gherardi Dragomanni. 4 vols. Florence: Sansone Coen, 1844 – 1845. Villani, Giovanni, Matteo Villani, and Filippo Villani. Croniche di Giovanni, Matteo e Filippo Villani, secondo le migliori stampe e corredate di note filologiche e storiche (vite degli uomini illustri fiorentini, di F. Villani, colle appendici ai G. Mazzucchelli). Edited by A. Racheli. 2 vols. Trieste: Sezione letterario-artistica del Lloyd Austriaco, 1857. Villani, Giovanni, Matteo Villani, and Filippo Villani. Selections from the First Nine Books of the Croniche Fiorentine of Giovanni Villani. Translated by Rose Selfe. Westminster: A. Constable, 1896. Villani, Giovanni, Matteo Villani, and Filippo Villani. Villani’s Chronicle; Being Selections from the First Nine Books of the Croniche Fiorentine of Giovanni Villani. Translated by Rose E. Selfe. Edited by Philip H. Wicksteed. 2nd ed. London: Constable, 1906. Villani, Giovanni, Matteo Villani, and Filippo Villani. Passi scelti dalla “cronica”: Con qualche saggio dei continuatori Matteo e Filippo Villani. Milan: C. Signorelli, 1931. Villani, Giovanni, Matteo Villani, Filippo Villani, and Dino Compagni. Cronache [di] Giovanni Villani e Dino Compagni. Edited by Nicola Zingarelli. Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1934. Compagni, Dino, and Giovanni Villani. La Cronica, e passi scelti dalla “Cronaca” di Giovanni Villani. Edited by Fabio Cusin. Milan: Garzanti, 1941. Compagni, Dino, Giovanni Villani, and Matteo Villani. Cronica. Edited by Augusto Vicinelli. Milan: Signorelli, 1974. Compagni, Dino, Giovanni Villani, Matteo Villani, and Filippo Villani. Cronica: Con le continuazioni di Matteo e Filippo. Edited by Giovanni Aquilecchia. Turin: Einaudi, 1979. Villani, Giovanni. Nuova Cronica. Edited by Giuseppe Porta. 3 vols. Parma: Guanda, 1990 – 1991. Villani, Giovanni. The Final Book of Giovanni Villani’s “New Chronicle.” Translated by Rala I. Diakité and Matthew Thomas Sneider. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016.

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Index Aaron, biblical 254 Abati del Malia, family 294, 295 Abd Al-Malik Abd Al-Wahid 377 Abi and Daviron (Dathan and Abiron), biblical 255 Abidus Straits 178 Abraham, biblical 254, 264 Abruzzi 109, 112, 127 Abu Al-Hasan Ali Ibn Othman, Sultan of Morocco 236, 377, 397 Acciaiuoli, family 68, 417, 420 Accord, agreement 46, 48, 50, 55, 63, 65, 75, 76-77, 88, 90, 101, 113-114, 115, 120, 121, 129, 137-138, 159, 160-162, 166167, 167, 172-173, 173-174, 190, 192, 193-194, 197-198, 199-200, 204, 205, 210-211, 235, 236, 240-241, 291-292, 299, 304, 310-311, 315, 322, 326, 328, 331, 343, 346, 350, 353, 362-363, 379, 381, 387, 389, 400, 402, 406, 409-410, 422, 424 Accorimbono da Tolentino 298-300, 382, 392 Accounts, accounting 87, 281-282, 364 Adam, biblical 265 Adamo, Maestro, counterfeiter 100 Adda, river 374 Adige river 320, 346 Adultery, adulterers 50, 99 Agenais 321 Aghinolfo Bardi, conspirator 395 Aghinolfo Guidi 100 Agliana 200 Agnes of Périgord, wife of Duke John of Durazzo 351 Agnolino Granelli de’ Tolomei 202 Agnolo Giramonte de‘ Frescobaldi, conspirator 395 Agnolo Tancredi 202 Al Ciriegio, Borgo (Florence) 225 Alamanno degli Obizzi 185, 193-194, 205 Alardo di Valleri 411

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514265-006

Alberghettino II Manfredi, Lord of Faenza 67, 80, 83, 129, 170, 175-176 Alberigo Manfredi 67 Albertaccio da Ricasoli 414 Alberto I della Scala, Lord of Verona 9, 48, 371, 372, 373 Alberto II della Scala, Lord of Verona 169, 289, 291-292, 303-304, 311, 313, 319, 324, 325, 336, 337, 346, 347, 363, 371, 372, 373, 402 Alberto, Count of Vernia and Mangone 116, 393 Albizzo da Vico, Ambassador of Pisa 75 Albizzo Tancredi, Archpriest and Lord of Colle di Valdelsa 202 Alboino della Scala “Checchino”, Lord of Verona 48, 373 Albumasar 340 Aldobrandino del Garbo, or “Dino”, physician 82 Alesia, classical 182 Alessio de’ Rinucci, Florentine diplomat 363 Alfonso III, King of Aragon 59 Alfonso IV, King of Aragon 83, 141 Alfonso XI, King of Castile 191, 236, 376377, 388, 397 Alidosi, family 80 Alle Capanne, Borgo (Pisa) 249 Alms, charity, charitable giving 12, 13, 14, 154, 191-192, 203, 259, 263, 285, 339, 368, 392, 396, 403, 415 Altafronte, castello 248 Altopascio, castello 4, 43, 57, 77, 158, 168, 192, 193, 222, 258, 316, 318, 346, 362, 410, 424 Ambassadors, embassies 48, 51, 54, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 73, 74, 75, 75, 84, 90, 91, 114, 135, 136, 142, 152, 157, 161, 167, 173, 174, 175, 176, 190, 195, 199, 200, 210, 216, 217, 218, 221, 224, 230, 239, 240, 270, 271, 272, 273, 278, 291, 292, 295, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306,

450

Index

308, 309, 310, 312, 322, 327, 331, 332, 344, 346, 356, 362, 363, 364, 368, 373, 380, 381, 384, 400, 405, 407, 408, 409, 410, 415, 417, 418, 419, 420, 422 Ambush 49, 128, 183, 213, 216, 235, 288, 313, 316, 325, 353, 354, 377, 383, 422 Amelio de Baux 44 Amends, compensation 101, 139, 201, 224, 290, 319, 341, 414 Amerigo de’ Donati 49, 168, 185, 206 Amieri, Family 46 Ampinana, castello 168, 318 Anagni 61, 90, 99, 128 Anatolia 178-179, 220, 279 Ancestors 50, 124, 134, 216, 240, 257, 258, 264, 318, 321, 371-373, 380, 416 Ancona 93, 382, 425 Andrea de’ Bardi, conspirator 393, 396 Andrea Pisano 203, 276 Andrea Ubertelli, conspirator 395 Andrew of Hungary, Duke of Calabria 144, 239, 351 Anger, wrath, rage 11, 14, 16, 78, 102, 114, 115, 117, 127, 129, 140, 153, 176, 180, 198, 199, 204, 211, 222, 228, 235, 258, 259, 264-265, 266, 271-272, 282, 295, 308, 321, 322, 323, 325, 327, 331, 379, 393-395, 399, 425 Anghiari, castello 332 Anibaldeschi, family 64 Anibaldo da Ceccano 89 Antellesi, family 420 Antenor, classical 363 Antichrist, biblical 81 Antigonus, classical 264-265 Antiochus, classical 255, 256 Antiquity 248 Antonio degli Adimari, conspirator and rebel 396 Antonio Pucci 245 Antwerp 356 Anziani (Elders), office 209, 302, 329 Apennine Mountains 48-49, 50, 74, 138, 142, 176, 213, 219, 222, 245-246, 249250, 272, 287-288 Aquitaine 321 Arabia 377

Aragon 43, 59, 83, 141, 365 Archbishop of Cambrai 357 Archbishop of Constantinople 266 Archbishop of Embrun 270 Archbishop of Milan 61, 375 Archbishop of Modena 110 Archbishop of Naples 89 Archbishop of Pisa 196 Archbishop of Toulouse 89 Archbishop of Trier 215 Archipelago 179, 220 Arcidosso, castello 209 Arezzo, Aretines 7, 46, 56, 59, 61, 73, 75, 77, 78, 88, 100, 113, 128, 132, 135, 137, 147, 153, 156-157, 160, 164, 216, 235, 235, 246, 250, 287, 289-290, 297, 301, 304, 308-309, 315, 317, 326-332, 334, 347, 365, 381, 393, 407, 414, 421-422 Argenta 231, 270, 306 Aristotle 340 Ark, biblical 245, 254 Arles and Vienne 216, 238, 322 Armenia 105 Arno, river 4, 13, 40, 47, 68, 75, 245, 246, 247-250, 252, 268-269, 276, 284, 288, 313-314, 366, 393-395, 408 Arnoldo, German captain 199 Arras 357 Arrigo or Valeriano, or sons of Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli 95, 122, 137, 140-141, 157-158, 158, 160, 161, 162, 178, 241-242, 412 Arriguccio Pegolotti, syndic for Mastino II della Scala 410 Art, artists 203, 276 Arta 212 Artiminio, castello 70-71, 132, 162 Artisans 2, 19, 33, 87, 207, 214, 234, 266, 339, 370, 420 Artois 321-323, 385 Asciano, castello 302, 363 Asti, Astigiani 381 Astrology, astrologers 14, 81, 100, 154, 188-189, 220, 225, 251-253, 254, 255, 261, 293, 340, 342, 375, 378 Astura 102, 135

Index

Augusta, castello 4, 161 165, 171, 178, 198, 241, 410 Augustinian Order, Augustinians 60, 91, 104, 109, 123, 161, 203, 243 Avarice, greed 10, 14, 15, 96, 149, 198, 204, 257, 258, 259, 271, 300, 321, 343, 352, 352, 379, 381, 381, 392, 417-418, Avesnes 74, 359 Avignon 48, 61, 79, 88-89, 104, 113, 123, 127, 128, 148, 173, 184, 189, 190-191, 206-207, 216, 218, 227, 242, 271-272, 279, 281-285, 307, 341, 377, 379, 416 Avogadi, family 192 Aymon, Count of Savoy 238 Azzo da Correggio, Lord of Parma 11, 333, 400, 402 Azzone Visconti, Lord of Milan 4, 59, 7273, 73-74, 77, 151, 160, 165, 173, 175, 195, 219, 221, 222, 224-225, 227, 269, 274, 276, 291-292, 304, 346, 374, 379 Badia, Abbey (Florence) 44, 89, 203, 205, 247, 347 Bagno a Macereto 229 Bagno a Petriuolo 294 Bagnoregio 131 Bakeries, bakers 154, 250, 370 Baldaquin 109 Baldo Cecchi, Pistoian exile 94, 95 Bankruptcies, bankrupts 46-47, 360-361, 420 Banners, gonfaloni, standards 40, 66, 68, 69, 79, 92, 95, 96, 119, 122, 126, 137, 139 163, 176, 192, 193 220, 224, 231, 232, 233, 289-290, 316-317, 330, 333, 374, 382, 394, 412-413, 421-423 Banquets, feasts 67, 87, 92, 111, 166, 180, 181, 234, 285, 329, 404 Bapaume 357 Baptisms 64, 369 Barbary 397 Barbischio, Borgo (Chianti) 317 Barcelona 83 Bardi, family 52, 185, 205, 225, 293, 313, 347, 360, 393-394, 395-396, 420 Bardo de’ Frescobaldi, conspirator 393, 395, 412

451

Barduccio, pious Florentine 203 Barga, castello 206, 222-223, 410 Bargello, office 76, 278, 298, 347-348, 397 Barletta 351-352 Barna de’ Rossi, captured at Lucca 414 Bartolo di Messer Fresco de’ Frescobaldi, conspirator 395 Bartolomeo della Scala, Lord of Verona 373 Baschi 209 Bassano, castello 362 Bastia 239 Batino degli Abati, Lord of Grosseto 294295 Battle of Adramyttion 279 Battle of Altopascio 4-5, 6, 43, 46, 59, 77, 141, 168, 222, 258, 316, 318, 346, Battle of Cadzand 321, 344-345 Battle of Campaldino or Certomondo 315 Battle of Cassel 124-127, 238 Battle of Courtrai or Golden Spurs 126-127 Battle of Halidon Hill 237-238, 297 Battle of Halmyros 212 Battle of Lipari 382-383 Battle of Montaperti 318 Battle of Montecatini 2, 3, 43, 59, 94, 187, 258, 375 Battle of Mühldorf 59, 175 Battle of Parabiago 175, 374-376, 381 Battle of Rio Salado 397 Battle of Saint Omer 385-386 Battle of Sluys 384-385 Battle of Stanhope Park 80, 114 Battle of Teba 191 Battle of Zappolino 59 Bavosone da Gubbio, vicar in Pisa for the Bavarian 115 Beatific Vision 243, 279-281, 283, 283, 307-308 Beccadelli, family 270-271, 273 Bede the Venerable 18, 263 Belforti, family 390-391, 393 Bellaspera, castello 95 Bells 14, 27, 44, 64, 91, 145, 197, 203, 225, 233, 245, 246, 275, 276, 367, 394 Belluno 305, 335, 349

452

Index

Benedetto Maccaioni de’ Lanfranchi, rebel of Pisa and ally of Castruccio 57, 301, 347 Benedict XII, Pope 243, 280, 283-284, 284-286, 307-308, 322, 341, 345, 379, 387, 395, 405 Benefices 105, 110, 111, 147, 174, 205, 216, 243, 281-282 Benuccio Salimbeni 115-116, 347, 396 Bergamo 9, 121, 195, 221, 230, 284-285 Berignone, castello 391 Bernardo di Siri Grori d’Aquino 44 Bertoldo di Poncello Orsini, murdered by the Colonna 130, 235-236 Bertrand de Baux, the Conte Novello 57, 69, 128, 133, 143, 149-150, 167, 183, 199, 274, 277, 288, 351 Bertrand de Déaulx, French ecclesiastic and diplomat 270 Bertrand de Montfavence, Cardinal Legate and attempted peacemaker 345 Bertrand du Pouget, Cardinal Legate of Lombardy 8-9, 48, 54, 64-65, 67, 69, 73, 74, 80, 83, 88, 118, 120, 128, 129, 141, 159, 163, 170, 175, 175-177, 183, 184185, 189, 190, 201, 203-204, 205, 206, 211, 217-218, 218-219, 222, 224-225, 226, 228, 230, 231, 232, 232-233, 234235, 240-241, 242, 269, 270-272, 273, 274, 279, 282, 304-305, 341-342 Berwick-upon-Tweed 236-237 Betrayal, treason 4, 53, 57, 63-64, 66, 67, 70, 75, 80, 98, 101, 105, 131, 132, 133, 134, 150, 152, 159, 168, 170, 173, 174, 175, 179, 183, 190, 192, 202, 204, 206, 213, 216, 221, 235-236, 241, 274, 277278, 293, 294, 299, 300-301, 303, 305306, 314-315, 319, 325, 329, 331, 333, 336, 341-342, 347, 354, 359, 361-364, 376, 385, 398-399, 400, 405, 415, 421, 422 Biagio de’ Tornaquinci, Florentine captain 48, 185 Bindo de’ Bardi, conspirator 395 Bindo de’ Pazzi, conspirator and rebel 396 Bindo di Benghi de’ Bardi, conspirator 395

Biordo di Messer Vieri, conspirator and rebel 396 Bisarno 246 Bishop of Albano 110 Bishop of Alèria 91, 92, 217 Bishop of Arezzo 46, 56, 59, 61, 73, 75, 77-78, 287, 317, 327, 328, 331, 347 Bishop of Auxerre 89 Bishop of Aversa 81 Bishop of Brescia 61 Bishop of Cambrai 356 Bishop of Cartagena 89 Bishop of Castello 110 Bishop of Chartres 89 Bishop of Chiusi 152 Bishop of Durham 80 Bishop of Exeter 51, 52 Bishop of Fiesole 165, 196, 370 Bishop of Florence 147, 161, 165, 196, 240, 276, 295, 370, 381, 389 Bishop of Grufo 417 Bishop of Liège 350 Bishop of Lincoln 344, 355 Bishop of Lombez 106-107 Bishop of Luni 3, 303 Bishop of Mirepoix 89 Bishop of Novara 173, 379 Bishop of Pamiers 283 Bishop of Saint Paul 89 Bishop of Sion 99 Bishop of Siponto 89 Bishop of Spoleto 165, 196 Bishop of Todi 131 Bishop of Toulouse 189 Bishop of Venice 92, 109, 110 Bishop of Volterra 391 Black Guelphs 94, 258 Blanche of Anjou, wife of King James II of Aragon 83 Blanche of Burgundy, wife of King Charles IV of France 99, 324 Blindness 16, 266, 346, 392, 397, 408, 410 Boboli 94 Bohemia, Bohemians 8, 10, 48, 177, 189, 195, 197, 201, 204, 205, 215, 240-241, 258, 289, 303, 321, 334, 345, 358

Index

Bolgaro da Tollentino, podestà of Genoa for King Robert 286 Bologna, Bolognese 8, 9, 44, 48, 49, 54, 59, 67, 69, 80, 81, 82, 83, 106, 118, 120, 129, 134, 159, 163, 170, 174-175, 175-177, 183, 185, 188, 190, 201, 204, 211, 217-218, 219, 225, 226, 228, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234-235, 234-235, 269, 270-272, 273, 297, 304-305, 306, 308, 331, 334, 341-342, 375, 376, 380, 407, 409, 414, 415, 421, 422, 425 Bolsena, castello 131 Bonacolsi, family 59, 61, 64-65, 73-74, 133-134, 372 Bonacossa Borri, wife of Matteo I Visconti 59, 72, 151, 375 Bonciani, family 68 Bonetto, German captain for Mastino II della Scala 345-346, 406, 412, 414 Bonfires 65, 416 Boniface VIII, Pope 44, 61, 90, 99, 127, 128 Bonifazio de’ Peruzzi, Captain of the Guard in Arezzo 329 Bonifazio Novello della Gherardesca, or “Fazio”, Count of Donoratico, Lord of Pisa 10, 76, 164, 165, 173, 190-191, 301-302 Bonne of Luxembourg, or “Jutta”, wife of King John II of France 321 Book of Chronicles, biblical 255 Book of Kings, biblical 255 Books 43, 81, 82, 244, 245, 254, 255, 264, 265, 403, 426 Borgo San Donnino 74, 88, 184, 221, 291 Borgo San Sepolcro 123, 156-157, 249, 287, 289, 301, 424 Borra, river 182 Bosone da Gubbio 261 Bosphorus 179 Bovattieri, family 273 Bovolenta 10, 319-320, 324, 324-326, 332333, 334-336 Brabant, Brabanter 51, 124, 181, 237, 322, 344, 345, 350, 355, 356, 356-357, 358, 359, 383, 386-387, 425

453

Branca da Castello, ally of the Marquess of Valliana 296 Brandaligi Gozzadini, Bolognese, conspirator against Bertrand du Pouget 270, 341 Bravery, boldness, courage 7, 9, 45, 83, 88, 95, 106, 125, 126, 133, 150, 166, 178, 200, 226, 297, 299, 306, 313, 316, 317, 319-320, 322, 337, 344, 356, 380 Brescia, Brescians 9, 10, 61, 73, 159, 190, 195, 204, 221, 305, 345-346, 375, 398, 407 Brindisi 211 Brittany, Bretons 391, 426 Brozzi 249 Bruges 124–127, 355, 383, 384, 385–386 Brusceto 185, 206 Bruschino, German captain 423 Brussels 356, 359 Buccio di Proresso, Senator of Rome 92 Bucine in Valdambra, castello 301 Buggiano, castello 166-167, 168, 182, 185, 192, 193, 200, 206, 212-213, 269, 274, 288, 313, 334, 353, 362, 363 Buonaccorsi, family 420 Buondelmonti, family 94, 192, 205, 298, 399, 422 Buonuomini (Good Men), office 145, 146 Bura, river 119 Burgundy, Burgundians 96, 128, 182, 199, 229, 322, 385, 412 Burials, funerals 122, 281-283, 338, 389 Burrazzo of the Counts of Gangalandi 186 Byzantium, Byzantines 178-179, 211-212, 213, 220, 311 Cadzand 321, 344-345, 384-385 Caerphilly, castello 52 Cagli 287 Cahors 89, 104-105, 107, 201, 240, 282283 Calabria, Calabrians 5, 7, 43, 44, 47, 48, 57, 58, 64, 65, 71, 82, 85, 86, 87, 93, 96, 113, 116, 135, 143, 239, 290, 401 Calvoli 380 Camaiore, castello 161, 293 Cambrai 344, 356-358

454

Index

Camp, encampment 48, 49, 68, 70, 80, 85-86, 112-113, 118–120, 125, 182, 185, 193, 199, 233, 294, 319-320, 324-326, 330, 333, 335-336, 344, 354, 357-359, 375, 386–388, 402, 406, 408, 410–412, 419, 421-424 Campagna (Rome) 7, 62, 89, 111, 112-113, 127, 128, 130, 142 Campi 249 Campidoglio, Capitoline (Rome) 64, 91, 92, 93, 102, 130, 152 Campogiallo, castello 422 Camporbiano 224 Camporena, castello 167 Camposanto 229 Cangrande I della Scala, or “Cane”, Lord of Verona 3, 9, 48, 59, 60, 61, 73-74, 82, 129, 133-134, 137-138, 159, 160, 169, 325, 373 Canigiani, family 394 Canneto, castello 345 Canonization 127 Cantone Bretto (Lucca) 157 Cantuccio di Messer Bino de’ Gabrielli da Gubbio, Florentine captain 194, 198199 Capannori 316 Capraia 249 Captain of the Guard and Conservatore of the Peace, office (Florence) 278, 297300, 329, 367, 370, 378, 394-393, 397398, 407 Captain of the Patrimony, office 152 Captain of the Popolo, office (Bologna) 341 Captain of the Popolo, office (Colle) 202 Captain of the Popolo, office (Florence) 145, 367, 370, 380, 392 Captain of the Popolo, office (Rome) 61, 90, 91, 92, 108 Captains of the Guelph Party, office (Florence) 86, 145 Captains of the Twenty-Five, office (Rome) 108 Cardinals 31, 46, 48, 54, 56, 63, 65, 67, 68, 80, 88-89, 92, 104, 107, 110-111, 118, 127, 130, 131, 148, 148-149, 151, 173, 174, 175, 183, 184, 190, 201, 203,

204, 216, 218, 239, 242-244, 270, 272, 274, 279, 281, 283-284, 307, 322, 342, 345, 377, 379 Carinthia 59, 60, 82, 195, 215, 335 Carmelite Order, Carmelites 243 Carmignano, castello 8, 69, 71, 96, 138139, 162 Carrara, family 137, 138, 291, 325, 336337, 354, 405, 416 Carroccio 4, 117 Cascina 120, 408 Casentino 246 Cassel 124-127, 238, 386 Castagno 288 Castel del Bosco 408 Castel Sant’Angelo (Rome) 63, 90, 102 Castelfranco, castello (Tuscany) 132, 194, 249, 362 Castelfranco, castello (Veneto) 362 Castellani, family 420 Castellans 140, 209, 236, 307, 319, 329330, 368 Castiglione Aretino 289 Castiglione degli Ubertini 347, 422 Castiglione della Pescaia 85, 347 Castro 236 Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli, Lord of Lucca 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 56, 58, 59, 65, 65-66, 68-70, 70-71, 73, 7475, 75-77, 77-78, 79-80, 81, 84, 85, 9091, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97-98, 101, 113, 114, 114-115, 116, 116-117, 117-120, 120-123, 129, 132, 134-135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 147, 157-158, 158, 159-160, 163, 168, 178, 192, 193, 197, 202, 213, 222, 241-242, 258, 278, 308, 346, 405, 412, 425 Catalan Company 211-212 Catalonia, Catalonians 44, 135, 201-202, 210-211, 223, 257, 278-279 Catholic faith 91, 92, 107, 144, 244, 280 Catiline, classical 188 Cavignano, castello 48 Celestine V, Pope 127 Cenina, castello 301 Cenni di Naddo, Florentine prior 424

Index

Ceo Maccaioni de’ Gualandi, Pisan conspirator 301 Ceprano 93 Cerreto 148 Cerreto Guidi, Borgo (Tuscany) 200, 313314 Cerruglio, castello or company 9, 70, 141, 141-143, 151, 158, 160-162, 164, 165, 167, 171-172, 172, 193, 198, 222, 223, 304, 314, 316, 404, 406-407, 409, 424 Cesaro, castello 235 Cesena 240, 241, 380 Ceuta 388, 397 Chancellor of Rome 102-103 Charles Artus 44 Charles I “Charles Robert,” King of Hungary 144, 239 Charles I, King of Sicily 30, 57, 318, 351 Charles II, King of Naples 43, 189, 239, 352 Charles II, or “Carlotto”, Count of Alencon 216, 228 Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor 205, 221, 226, 229-230, 335 Charles IV, King of France 50, 51, 98-99, 321, 322, 323 Charles Martel of Anjou 140, 239 Charles of Blois 426 Charles of Gravina, Duke of Durazzo 351 Charles, Count of Valois 43, 64, 99, 123, 228, 258, 321 Charles, Duke of Calabria and Lord of Florence 5, 7, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 55, 56, 57, 58, 64, 65-66, 68-70, 70-71, 76, 81, 82, 83, 84-85, 85-87, 93, 95, 96, 98, 113, 116-117, 133, 143, 143-144, 145, 144-145, 239 Chepstow 53 Chianti 317 Chioggia 309, 320, 324, 324, 335 Chiusi 152 Church of Saint Denis (Paris) 99 Church of San Bernaba 368 Church of San Firenze (Firenzuola) 220 Church of San Fortunato (Todi) 131 Church of San Francesco (Avignon) 190 Church of San Francesco (Lucca) 122

455

Church of San Francesco (Padua) 338 Church of San Giovanni Battista (Florence) 67, 188, 203, 247, 275, 276, 281, 295, 369, 389, 396 Church of San Giovanni Laterano (Rome) 93, 107, 111 Church of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura (Rome) 111 Church of San Marcello (Rome) 106-107 Church of San Piero Bonconsiglio (Florence) 317 Church of San Piero Maggiore (Florence) 203 Church of San Pietro (Rome) 63, 91, 91-93, 103, 104-106, 107, 108-109, 111-112 Church of San Pietro Scheraggio (Florence) 208, 298 Church of Sant’Ambrogio (Florence) 389 Church of Sant’Ambrogio (Milan) 63 Church of Santa Croce (Florence) 46, 64, 68, 118, 144, 163, 247, 275, 329 Church of Santa Maria degli Alamanni (Rome) 105 Church of Santa Maria Maggiore (Florence) 234 Church of Santa Maria Maggiore (Rome) 91, 92, 107 Church of Santa Maria Novella (Florence) 285 Church of Santa Reparata (Florence) 196, 214-215, 225, 247, 276, 368 Church of Santo Spirito (Florence) 203 Cipriano di Geri de’ Bardi, conspirator 395 Cistercian Order, Cistercians 283 Cisterna 112, 113, 142, 296 Citizens 1, 7, 13, 18, 25, 30, 44, 46, 55, 56, 65, 66, 71, 76, 86, 87, 95, 118, 120, 122, 131, 132, 137, 140, 141, 144, 145, 146, 150, 151, 152, 154, 156, 161, 162, 165, 169, 171, 173, 174, 176, 181, 186, 191, 195, 196, 198, 205, 208, 211, 213, 216, 217, 218, 227, 229, 241, 258-259, 265, 269, 271-273, 276, 281-282, 289, 291, 294-295, 297-300, 303-305, 310312, 325, 328-329, 331, 341-342, 345, 347-348, 351, 353, 360-363, 365-366, 368-371, 379, 382, 387, 389-390, 392-

456

Index

393, 395-396, 398-400, 403-405, 409410, 415-416, 420-421 Città di Castello 73, 78, 88, 156, 250, 287, 296-297, 301, 332, 334 Cittadella 326 Ciupo degli Scolari, Pisan war captain 228, 313, 406, 410, 412-413 Civitella, castello 347 Clement VI, pope 284 Clementia of Hungary, wife of King Louis X of France 99, 140 Clergy, clerics 5, 19, 60, 78, 79, 85, 91, 92, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 147, 148, 149, 174, 176, 191, 196, 251, 253, 259, 260, 264, 271, 275, 281, 283, 284, 368, 369, 389-390 Clothing 6, 56, 81, 92, 96, 97, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108-109, 122, 170, 176, 180181, 211, 234, 257, 285, 312, 367, 370 Coats of arms 52, 53, 66, 79, 96, 122, 123, 126, 220, 231, 371, 383, 425 Cocchi, family 420 Cola di Piero Bonconti, Pisan conspirator 301 Colazzo de’ Beccadelli, Bolognese, rebel against Bertrand du Pouget 271 Colle delle Donne 410, 411, 421 Colle di Grignano 411 Colle di San Quirico 423 Colle, castello 57, 118, 166-167, 202, 229, 250, 306-307, 353, 363, 365, 407 Collegonzi 200 Collodi, castello 172-173 Cologne 344 Colomba, Abbey 289 Colonna, family 61, 63, 89–91, 92, 95, 99, 106-107, 108, 130, 153, 235-236, 283 Colorno, castello 276-277, 291-292 Comet 340, 342, 388-389 Como 60, 73, 121, 160 Company (banking) 46–47, 52, 76, 280, 298, 311-312, 343, 360-361, 403, 417, 420 Compiegne 357-358, 387 Conegliano 326 Confession 8, 78, 122, 149, 156, 190, 263, 280, 285

Confiscation or seizure of property 52, 65, 84, 102, 128, 130, 218, 302, 343, 352, 361, 390 Confraternity of Santa Maria dell’Orto San Michele 339 Consandolo 226, 231 Consolation 106, 140, 263, 268, 415 Constable of France 229, 293, 357, 384, 386-387 Constance of Sicily, wife of King Peter III of Aragon 59, 83 Constantinople 178-179, 220, 262, 266, 310, 391 Consuls 108, 145, 146, 339, 366 Contado 44, 45, 47, 49, 56, 62, 66, 68, 70, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 101, 109, 115, 128, 131, 132-133, 137, 139, 141, 147, 149-150, 153, 160, 168, 173, 175, 177, 188, 194, 200-201, 224, 226, 229, 230, 49-250, 258, 270, 274, 277, 289, 293, 298-301, 305, 309, 313-314, 328, 348, 360, 365-366, 369–371, 374, 378, 389, 395-396, 398, 407–410, 420–422, 424 Contrition 78 Corneto 86, 135, 136, 196 Coronation, crowning 5, 6, 54, 59, 60-61, 65, 71, 72, 78, 83, 91–93, 108, 111-112, 123-124, 234, 237, 284, 343, 349 Corrado della Bruta, Captain under Giacomo Gabrielli 398 Correggio, castello 269 Corsica 217, 383 Corsini, family 420 Corso de’ Tintori (Florence) 234, 246 Corso degli Adimari 295 Cortona 216, 287, 289, 327, 332, 334 Costa, castello 200 Council of Ninety, office 146 Council of One Hundred, office 146 Council of the Commune, office 146 Council of the Credenza, office 146 Council of the Popolo, office 146, 330 Council of the Seven Capitudini of the Greater Guilds, office 145 Count Corigliano of Calabria 290 Count of Armagnac 229, 232, 233, 270, 385

Index

Count of Ariano 44 Count of Bar 124, 126 Count of Campagna 111 Count of Collalto 319 Count of Comminges 283 Count of Fondi 44 Count of Forez 229 Count of Loon 386 Count of Montefeltro 287, 331 Count of Namur 124, 126 Count of Oettingen 115, 131, 132 Count of Romagna 111, 218-219 Count of Sanseverino 43, 352 Count of the Lateran Palace 92, 97 Count of Triveti 390 Counts of Mangona 116 Counts of Minervino 44, 352 Counts of Montedoglio 287, 331 Counts of Panigo 175, 267, 342 Counts of Porciano 393 Counts of Santafiore 82-83, 85, 136, 209 Courts of rulers 6, 24, 29, 48, 54, 60, 61, 62, 81, 97, 107, 111, 123, 127, 128, 135136, 148, 163, 173, 181, 184, 190, 206, 217, 218, 228, 234, 242, 243, 244, 272, 274, 279, 280, 281, 284, 285, 321, 329, 395, 405, 416 Cowardice, cowards 66, 80, 83, 86, 101, 132, 149, 185, 201, 259, 335, 359 Cozzile, castello 166-167, 200, 362 Cremona, Cremonese 73, 74, 121, 160, 174, 206, 221, 224, 269, 273-274 Crops 7, 132, 153, 212, 246, 258, 378, 389 Cross of Saint Zenobius 247 Crossbows, crossbowmen 63, 69, 86, 98, 110, 118, 132, 136, 139 176, 182, 193, 238, 290, 349, 359, 368, 396, 406-407, 412-413, 421 Crusades, crusading 3, 189, 215-216, 282, 284, 311, 321-322, 324, 343 Currado della Scala, German captain for the Bavarian 77 Currado Panciatichi of Pistoia, podestà in Arezzo 329 Cyprus 195-196, 279 Da Camaldoli, Borgo (Florence)

247

457

Da Camino, family 82, 313 Da Correggio, family 11, 88, 129, 170, 172, 315, 333, 354, 376, 400, 402, 405 Da Fogliano, family 242, 292, 354, 412 Da Polenta, family 380 Da Uzzano, family 420 Daniel, biblical 263 Dante Alighieri 1, 17, 19, 20, 29, 31, 67, 81, 82, 138, 324, 352 Daughters 43, 51, 64, 74, 95, 99, 116, 123, 124, 129, 140, 156, 169, 182, 184, 191, 239, 254, 321, 322, 323, 338, 356 David II, King of Scotland 114, 237, 297, 321 David, biblical 255, 266 Debts, indebtedness 46, 161, 267, 298, 311-312, 360, 363, 365, 403, 420 Demolition, destruction 14, 49, 63, 102, 114, 115, 118, 126, 130, 131, 132, 139, 167, 187, 198, 218, 250, 254-256, 263, 272, 302, 317, 351, 395, 399 Desso Tancredi 202 Deuteronomy 254-255 Devil, demons 243, 257, 266 Dicomano, river 288 Dino della Rocca, Pisan captain 228 Diogenes, classical 265 Dionigi da Borgo San Sepolcro 122-123, 424 Disease, sickness, illness 4, 7, 13, 45, 47, 54, 78, 83, 98, 100, 121, 140, 143, 169, 186, 203, 258, 279, 293, 338, 342, 351, 375, 378, 388-389, 392, 402, 426 Distretto of Buggiano 362 Distretto of Colle 353 Distretto of Florence 219, 249, 298, 322, 347, 365, 369, 393, 396,421 Distretto of Lucca 79, 362, 365, 403 Distretto of Vicenza 404 Doge of Genoa 379-380, 406 Doge of Venice 312, 364 Dominican Order, Dominicans 29, 30, 60, 145, 238, 284, 285 Domitian, classical 264 Dordrecht 345 Doria, family 210, 286, 379 Drought 251

458

Index

Drowning 85, 129, 196, 214, 233, 254, 257, 267, 269, 279, 314, 354, 385, 391 Drums 95, 139, 296, 367 Ducato 62, 132, 147-149 Duke of Cambenic 142 Duke of Spoleto 111 Duke of Teck 419 Douai 357 Dupplin Moor 237 Durham 80 Earl of Eriforte 237 Earl of Salisbury 344, 383 Earl of Suffolk 344, 383 Earthquakes 15, 16, 147-148, 250, 251, 252, 288 Eclipses 188-189, 251-252, 256, 281, 342, 378 Edmund, Earl of Kent 179 Edward Balliol 237, 297, 321 Edward I, King of England 50, 237 Edward II, King of England 50–54, 114, 179-180, 297, 321, 343-344 Edward III, King England 50-54, 80, 99, 113-114, 179-180, 215, 236-238, 297, 320-323, 343, 344, 345, 354, 355, 356– 359, 360, 383-384, 384-385, 386-388, 426 Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince 237 Edward the Liberal, Count of Savoy 124, 139-140 Egypt, Egyptians 73, 254 Eleanor de Clare, wife of Hugh Le Despenser “the Younger” 50 Eleanor of Anjou, wife of King Frederick III of Sicily 135 Eleanor of Woodstock, daughter of King Edward II of England 321 Elections, electoral reform (Florence) 144147, 278, 381-382 Elizabeth of Poland 239 Emperor Arcadius, classical 262 Empoli 249, 313-314 England, English 15, 47, 50–54, 80, 99, 113-114, 179-180, 215, 237-238, 297,

320–323, 343–345, 354–360, 369, 383385, 386-388, 391, 426 Envy 82, 161, 162, 165, 171, 190, 198, 208, 257, 258, 266, 267, 285, 372, 390 Ermanno Monaldeschi, Lord of Orvieto 275, 348 Ertignano 249 Ettore da Panigo, Bolognese condottiere 175-177, 269, 375-376 Exactions: taxes, gabelle, forced loans, tributes 44, 47, 55, 58, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 79, 85, 98, 102, 131, 133, 141, 142, 147, 171, 188, 194, 211, 214, 229, 234, 235, 270, 290, 304-305, 311-312, 339, 361, 363, 364, 365-366, 368, 370, 376, 390, 396, 404, 420 Excommunication, interdict, or anathema 4, 46, 59, 60, 61, 62, 74, 78-79, 91, 92, 104, 106-107, 113, 119, 121, 130, 147, 148, 155, 173, 184, 205, 206, 243 Executions 52, 53, 66, 81, 100, 103, 112, 126, 131, 150, 151, 156, 175, 179-180, 185, 190, 199, 216, 298, 405 Exile, exiles 2, 7, 45, 48, 57, 58 65, 66, 70, 76, 84-85, 88, 94, 100, 101, 127, 128, 130, 132, 135, 136, 137, 141, 150, 152, 156, 161, 168, 169, 171, 178, 182, 185, 187, 188, 192, 193, 195, 201, 204, 205, 208, 210-211, 217, 219, 224, 228, 232, 240-241, 256-258, 270, 273, 293, 298, 302-303, 329, 341, 353, 355, 363, 367, 376, 382, 390, 396, 398, 405, 412 Exodus, biblical 254 Ezzelino III da Romano, Lord of Treviso 9, 169, 371, 372 Fabius, classical 264, 265 Fabriano 93, 348 Faenza 44, 67, 80, 83, 129, 170, 176, 241, 380 Falterona, mountain 287-288 Feast of All Saints 143, 245, 393-394, 396 Feast of Annunciation 421 Feast of Ascension Day 108, 163 Feast of Candlemas 54 Feast of Christmas 87, 178, 215-216, 285 Feast of Easter 153, 232, 272

Index

Feast of Ember Days 88, 148 Feast of Epiphany 89, 147 Feast of Good Friday 160, 330 Feast of Lent 285 Feast of Pentecost 61, 111-112, 123 Feast of Saint Bartholomew 125 Feast of Saint James 208, 313 Feast of Saint John the Baptist 67, 116, 188, 194, 207, 234, 301, 353, 384, 387, 389, 424 Feast of Saint Martin 79 Feast of Saint Mary in August 131 Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene 169, 344 Feast of Saint Michael 310 Feltre 305, 335, 349 Feo di Messer Odaldo della Tosa 299 Ferdinand IV, King of Castile 236 Fermo 134, 382 Ferrantino Malatesta 128 Ferrara, Ferraresi 9, 12, 59, 214, 218, 221, 222, 226, 231, 232, 232-233, 234, 241, 269, 270, 271, 272, 292, 305-306, 311, 314, 341, 402, 404, 407, 409-410, 414415, 421 Fiesole 165, 188, 196, 370 Fifty-Two of the Popolo, office 61, 90, 92, 104, 105, 107, 108 Filetta 229 Filippo da Caprona 115 Filippo Sangineto, Captain for Charles of Calabria 6, 44, 86-87, 94-97, 116-117, 117-120, 133, 138-139, 227 Filippo Tedici, Lord of Pistoia 4, 97, 158, 162, 212-213 Filungo (Lucca) 157 Firenzuola 219-220, 366, 422 Fires 68, 69, 71 94, 95, 132, 150, 157-158, 199, 200, 207, 225-226, 234, 255, 257, 258, 261, 262, 264, 266, 271, 273-274, 289, 295, 302, 314, 317, 325-326, 333, 339, 345-346, 351, 353, 375, 384, 397, 399, 408, 410, 422, 425 Flanders, Flemings 51, 124, 124-127, 181, 237, 284, 320, 343-345, 354, 355-357, 359, 383-385, 385-386, 387-388, 391

459

Fleets 51, 62, 63, 105, 130, 135-137, 179, 210, 220, 223, 279, 290, 343, 345, 350351, 377, 384-385, 388, 401 Floods 28, 129, 195-196, 214, 234, 234, 234, 245, 245, 251-254, 256, 258-259, 260-269, 276, 276, 392, 284, 314 Florence, Florentines 55, 58, 64, 66, 6667, 68, 68-70, 74, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84-85, 85, 86-87, 88, 89, 94, 94-97, 98, 100, 111, 114, 114-115, 115-116, 116117, 117-120, 121, 122, 123, 129, 132-133, 134-135, 135, 136, 137, 138-139, 140, 141, 142, 143-144, 144-147, 147, 149150, 150-151, 153-154, 155, 156, 157, 161, 162-163, 164-166, 166-167, 167-168, 168, 168-169, 171-172, 172-173, 176, 177, 180-181, 182-183, 184, 185-187, 187188, 190, 191-192, 192, 193-194, 194195, 196-197, 197-200, 200-201, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 207-208, 208209, 210, 211, 212-213, 214-215, 217, 219-220, 221, 222-223, 224, 225-226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232-233, 234, 239, 240-241, 244, 245-250, 252–253, 257259, 260-269, 270-278, 281-282, 284286, 288-293, 295, 296, 297-306, 310– 319, 322–324, 326-334 337–339, 342343, 346–349, 352-354, 359–371, 373374, 378, 380–383, 388-426 Foligno 131-132 Food, food supplies, provisions 7, 11, 13, 49, 62, 63, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 85, 86, 101, 112, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 132, 133, 136, 139, 142, 152-153, 153154, 156, 169, 182, 185, 187, 197, 202, 214-215, 222, 227, 236, 250, 258, 260, 270, 282, 293, 296, 313, 320, 329-330, 335, 338-339, 340, 349, 354, 358, 359, 360, 361, 365, 366, 367, 369-370, 378, 386, 387-388, 401, 402, 408, 410, 420, 423 Foot soldiers 44, 48, 49, 63, 64, 68–70, 80, 85, 93, 94-97, 98, 110, 112, 115, 116-117, 117-120, 131, 138, 139 149, 150, 152, 155, 159, 167, 169, 176, 182, 184185, 185-187, 193, 200, 208, 209, 211212, 212-213, 228, 241, 269, 272, 287,

460

Index

289, 295, 296, 298, 302-303, 307, 310, 312-314, 316, 317, 319, 323–326, 328, 329-330, 333-334, 336, 348, 350, 354, 364, 367-368, 372, 375-376 385, 392, 401-402, 404, 407-408, 410, 413, 416, 421, 423-424 Forcole 228 Forests, woods 52, 53, 235, 297 Forlì 159, 211, 218-219, 240, 308, 380, 406 Formigine, villa 183 Fornoli, castello 93 Fortune, fate 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 30, 59, 98, 119, 121, 122, 126, 139, 156, 183, 194, 200, 205, 208, 241, 242, 244, 250, 252, 263, 264, 272, 283, 296, 304, 319-320, 326, 333, 336-337, 340, 349350, 372, 377, 388, 391, 404, 405, 411, 414, 415, 424, 425 Fosso Arnonico 120, 249, 408 France, French 9, 15, 33, 43, 44, 50, 55, 64, 89, 98-99 105, 118, 123-124, 124, 125, 139, 188, 189, 204, 206, 211-212, 215, 215-216, 220, 227-228, 229, 237238, 242–244, 257, 258, 277–279, 282, 284, 297, 306, 320–323, 343–345, 350, 354–361, 377, 379, 383-384, 386–388, 416, 422, 426 Francesco Brunelleschi, Florentine, imprisoned in battle at Lucca 414 Francesco Castracani degli Antelminelli, Vicar for the Bavarian in Lucca 158, 160, 161, 185, 398-399, 412 Francesco da Posterla, Milanese exile 405 Francesco de‘ Passi 185 Francesco degli Strozzi, captain of Florentine knights at Ferrara 231 Francesco dell’Anguillara, murdered by the Colonna 235-236 Francesco della Mirandola 134 Francesco di Messer Pazzino de’ Pazzi, prominent Florentine 162, 363 Francesco di Messer Rainiero Buondelmonti, Florentine fire victim 399 Francesco di Sinibaldo Ordelaffi, Lord of Forlì 240

Francesco I Ventimiglia, Count of Geraci 290, 343, 351 Francesco Manfredi, Lord of Faenza 67, 170 Francesco Salvesi, Prior during the Bardi conspiracy 394 Francesco Stabili, or “Cecco d’Ascoli”, astrologer 81, 82 Franciscan Order, Franciscans 60, 68, 81, 102, 107, 109, 122, 144, 145, 148, 189, 190, 243, 246, 247 Francolino 233 Franz Hermann, named cardinal by anti-pope 110 Frederick “the Fair”, Duke of Austria 3, 59, 175 Frederick III, King of Sicily 59, 60, 62, 130, 135, 156, 210, 342 Frescobaldi, family 327, 393-395, 396, 412 Frescobaldo di Guido de’ Frescobaldi, conspirator 395 Frignano da Sesso, Lieutenant of Guglielmo Canacci in Lucca 406, 412-413 Frisacca 285 Fucecchio, castello 66, 70, 194-195, 249, 269, 317, 323, 362, 407, 408, 424 Fumone, castello 127 Funeral, obsequy, burial 28, 64, 78, 83, 98-99, 122, 130, 143-144, 190, 203 Gabriele di Isnardo Malaspina 47 Gaeta 135, 351 Galatrona, castello 301 Galeazzo I Visconti, Lord of Milan 59, 72, 73, 120-121, 142, 143 Galeazzo Spinola, Captain of the Popolo in Genoa 379 Galilee 263 Galleno 70, 317 Galliera, castello 217-218, 271-272 Galluzzi, family 175, 176 Gangalandi 47, 186 Ganghereto, Borgo (Chianti) 317-319 Garfagnana 49, 206, 222-223, 241-242, 399 Gascony, Gascons 50, 257, 321-322, 344, 384

Index

Gatti, family 86, 102, 174, 352 Genesis, biblical 245, 253, 254 Genoa, Genoese 10, 58, 59, 63, 69, 75, 86, 100, 101, 121, 127, 130, 135, 136, 137, 172, 201-202, 210-211, 217, 220, 223, 231, 278-279, 286-287, 290, 312, 322, 341, 375, 379-380, 384, 391, 397, 406, 412 Geoffrey de Joinville, one of Charles of Calabria’s entourage 44, 64 Geri di Bonaguida de’ Frescobaldi, conspirator 395 Germany, Germans 2, 9, 33, 43, 48, 58, 59, 65, 72-73, 74, 77, 82, 86, 93, 96, 100, 101-102, 104, 107, 109, 110, 112, 113, 115, 119, 124, 126, 130, 131, 140, 141, 142-143, 151, 158, 160, 160-162, 167, 171-172, 173, 174, 175, 178, 185-187, 193-194, 197, 198, 199, 200, 206, 209, 215, 227, 242, 274, 289, 291, 296, 300, 302, 313, 316, 322, 324, 333, 344, 345, 349, 356-357, 359, 375, 376, 386-387, 404, 406, 411-412, 414, 419-420, 422, 423 Gerozzo di Messer Cecchino de’ Bardi, conspirator 185, 293, 313, 395 Ghent 124, 355, 383, 386 Gherardino Spinoli, Lord of Lucca 10, 172173, 178, 181-183, 185-187, 187-188, 192, 197-200, 304 Gherardo da Camino, Lord of Treviso 82 Gherardo del Pellaio de’ Lanfranchi, Pisan conspirator 190 Gherardo di Viriborgo, German soldier at the Florentine attack on the Cerruglio 316 Ghibellines 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 45, 48, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 73, 75, 77, 86, 88, 90-91 97, 100, 101, 121, 128, 130, 131, 132, 134, 136, 137, 150, 155-156, 157, 158, 162, 163, 166, 168, 170, 172, 177, 187, 190, 195, 196, 198, 206, 208, 210211, 217, 221-222, 222, 228, 235, 240, 286-287, 290, 304, 306, 309, 311, 315, 318, 326, 329-331, 362, 376, 380-381, 382, 406, 410, 418, 419-420, 422 Ghiberto da Fogliano, knight, fought in the Florentine formation at Lucca 412

461

Ghiozzi, family 209 Ghisilieri, family 342 Giacomo Alberti, named cardinal by antipope 110 Giacomo Colonna, daring affixer of condemnation of Bavarian in Rome 106-107, 108 Giacomo di Cantelmo, one of Charles of Calabria’s entourage 44 Giacomo Gabrielli da Gubbio, captain or judge in Florence 297-298, 348, 378, 392-394, 397-398, 407, 414 Gialucola, fishmonger and hero of Cassel 125 Gian di Bovilla 118 Gianni Alfani, popolano imprisoned by Charles of Calabria 84-85 Gianni Barili, Neapolitan, diplomat for King Robert 417 Gianni della Vallina, royal standardbearer for Florence during the battle at Lucca 412-413 Gianni Pipino, ancestor of the Counts of Minerbino 352 Giannozzo Cavalcanti, knight, fought with Charles of Calabria 49, 185, 286 Giberto III da Coreggio, Lord of Parma 88, 129, 170 Gibraltar, castello 236, 377, 388, 397 Gifts, presents 74, 140, 174, 188, 198, 229, 331 Giotto di Bondone, artist 245, 271, 276 Giovanello Visconti, captain at the Battle of Parabiago 375 Giovanni Arlotti, named cardinal by antipope 110 Giovanni Bernardini di Medici, Florentine syndic 410, 422 Giovanni Chiaramonte, Count of Modica 155-156, 290-291, 343, 382-383 Giovanni Colonna, son of Steffano Colonna 89, 283 Giovanni da Campo Sampiero, captain for the Este at San Felice 226 Giovanni da Cività di Rieti, advisor to Filippo Sangineto 87

462

Index

Giovanni da Giovinnazzo, advisor to Filippo Sangineto 87 Giovanni dal Fiesco, captain at the Battle of Parabiago 375 Giovanni del Sega da Carlone, conspirator 150 Giovanni di Messer Fresco de’ Frescobaldi, conspirator 395 Giovanni di Messer Rosso della Tosa, Florentine, captured at Lucca 176, 414 Giovanni di Nerli, conspirator 395 Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, Papal Legate 44, 45, 46, 56, 64, 66-67, 68, 89, 119, 130, 163-164, 174, 203, 205 Giovanni II Paleologo, Marquess of Monferrato 381 Giovanni Panciatichi, podestà in Arezzo 329 Giovanni Ricchi de’ Bardi, conspirator and rebel 396 Giovanni Visconti, Archbishop and Lord of Milan 151, 166, 173 Giovanni Visconti, captain of Milanese troops at Lucca 405, 411-413 Giovanni, pious Florentine 203 Giovannino de’ Bonacolsi, father of Guido and Rainaldo Bonacolsi 59, 372 Giuffrena 318 Gluttony 14, 180, 255, 257, 258 Gobbole, German captain at Montecatini 186, 193-194, 197 God 4–7, 12–16, 52, 54–56, 66, 70, 72, 76, 78, 81, 89, 93, 97, 99, 103, 104, 109, 110, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134, 136, 143, 145, 150, 153, 154, 155, 156, 169, 171-172, 191-192, 196, 198, 200, 203, 217, 220, 225, 236, 242-243, 245-250, 250-260, 260-268, 269, 270, 273, 274, 279-280, 285, 304, 306-307, 319-320, 324, 333, 338-339, 349-350, 359, 362, 366, 371, 373, 384, 390, 392, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 401, 408, 411, 414, 415, 421, 424, 425, 426 Goffredo Marzano, Count of Squillace 383 Gonfaloniere of Justice, office 260

Gonfalonieri of the Militia Companies, office 86, 145, 146, 382, 394 Gonzaga, family 133-134, 160, 221, 225, 232, 292, 345, 335, 372, 400, 402 Goths 257 Gottineri, family 381 Gozzadini, family 270, 273, 341 Granada 184, 191, 236, 376-377, 388, 397 Grandi 2, 11, 27, 45, 46, 61, 86, 115, 132, 137, 156, 157, 160, 161, 168, 173, 174, 175, 176, 185, 202, 268, 273, 298, 301, 303-305, 318, 328, 347, 367-368, 371, 373, 380, 391-395, 417, 425 Granselva, Abbey 233 Greece, Greeks 43, 178-179, 212, 220, 279 Greti 200, 313, 314, 401 Grignano 411, 421, 422, 424 Grosseto 85, 136, 294, 295 Gualandi, family 301-302 Gualdo 143 Gualfreducci, family 158, 162-163, 177, 208 Gualterotto di Filippozzo de’ Bardi, conspirator 395 Guazzalotri, family 393, 398 Gubbio 115, 194, 198, 261, 197, 298-299, 348, 392, 397, 407 Guecellone Tempesta, Avvogaro of Treviso 169 Guelphs 1, 2, 9, 30, 36, 43, 45, 47, 48, 59, 65, 66, 70, 86, 88, 94, 96, 100, 116, 118, 129, 131, 134, 137, 144, 145, 146, 156, 157, 161, 162, 166, 167, 168, 186, 187, 188, 194, 196, 198, 202, 205, 208, 210-211, 221-222, 286-287, 299, 306, 308-309, 311, 313, 315, 318, 318, 329330, 332, 337, 341, 348, 363, 380-381, 395, 407, 412, 419, 421 Guerruccio Quartigiani, conspirator against Castruccio in Lucca 66 Guglielmo Canacci degli Scannabecchi, vicar for Mastino della Scala in Lucca 376, 399, 406, 409, 425 Guglielmo d’Eboli, captain for King Robert in Rome 44, 130, 131, 152-153 Guglielmo da Colonnata, former bargello in Pisa, executed 76

Index

Guglielmo degli Altoviti, Captain of the Guard in Arezzo 421 Guglielmo lo Stendardo, one of Charles of Calabria’s entourage 44 Guglielmo Spadalunga, capturer of the castello di Romena 100 Guidi, family 100, 118, 168, 294, 301, 317318, 328, 380, 393, 396, 399, 405, 421 Guidinello da Montecucchieri, Bolognese, conspirator against Bertrand du Pouget 176 Guido Alberto of the Counts Guidi 399 Guido Bonacolsi, “Bottisella,” Lord of Mantua 59, 372 Guido da Montefeltro, commander during battle at Lucca 411 Guido de’ Tarlati, Bishop and Lord of Arezzo 46, 56, 59, 61 73, 75, 77-78, 137, 287, 296 Guido Guidi, son of Simone 168 Guido Guidi, son of Ugo 317-318 Guido Malatesta, archpriest 128 Guido Sabatini, Bolognese, conspirator against Bertrand du Pouget 175 Guilds 144, 145, 146, 181, 186, 188, 203, 207, 214, 339, 341, 360, 366, 369, 370, 390, 396 Guillaume de Nogaret 99 Guisciana, river 49, 68, 70-71, 114, 120, 200, 314 Guy VIII, Dauphin of Viennois 124, 139140, 238 Hainaut, Hainauters 51, 74, 124, 126, 184, 237, 322, 344, 356-357, 359, 383-384, 386, 387 Halles Palace (Mechelen) 425 Hannibal, classical 264 Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord, Cardinal Perigord 283 Henry de Beaumont 237 Henry III, King of England 50 Henry of Burghersh, Bishop of Lincoln 344, 355 Henry VII of Luxembourg, Holy Roman Emperor 1, 2, 3, 8, 43, 47, 48, 59, 61, 90, 111, 195, 204, 206, 213, 221, 258

463

Henry, Duke of Carinthia 59, 60, 82, 195, 215 Henry, Earl of Lancaster 52, 53 Hereford 53 Heresy, heretics 5, 46, 60, 62, 67, 78, 79, 81, 91, 103, 105, 106, 107, 121, 130, 136, 148, 190, 244, 283, 285, 308, 370 Hermit 127, 257 Herod, biblical 109 Holland 51, 284, 345 Holy Church 5, 12, 54, 60, 62, 67, 74, 78, 79, 86, 89–91, 93, 99, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 122, 130, 131, 147, 148, 156, 165, 174, 191, 206, 230, 244, 264, 269, 273, 286, 311, 377, 379, 415 Holy Spirit 311 Homage 50, 123, 237, 292, 321, 356, 386, 424 Horses 10, 44, 49, 65, 66, 68, 69, 74, 75, 79, 80, 85, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 100, 102, 107, 111, 112, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 128, 132, 134, 139, 140, 142, 149, 150, 152, 155, 158, 161, 163, 167, 168, 169, 178, 182, 183, 184, 187, 193, 197, 199, 206, 207, 209, 213, 233, 236, 241, 254, 269, 274, 288, 293, 302, 303, 305, 308, 309, 310, 316, 326, 328, 329, 333, 337, 353, 354, 358, 366, 368, 372, 376, 377, 381, 384, 387, 392, 393, 394, 395, 398, 401, 404, 405, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 416, 417, 420, 421, 422, 424 Hostage, hostages 12, 151, 160, 165, 167, 171, 241, 312, 314, 346, 402, 404, 405406, 409, 413, 414-416 Hugh Le Despenser “the Elder,” 50-54 Hugh Le Despenser “the Younger,” 50-54 Humbert II, Dauphin of Viennois 238, 358 Hungary, Hungarians 43, 140, 144, 215, 238, 239, 257, 351 Iacopino della Scala, “Giacomo Fico”, ancestor of the Della Scala 372 Iacopo da Calci, Pisan diplomat 75 Iacopo de’ Medici, knight, captured at Montecatini 186

464

Index

Iacopo degli Alberti, Florentine diplomat 363, 393 Iacopo di Bindo de’ Frescobaldi, conspirator 395 Iacopo di Braccio Bandini, Pistoian exile 94, 95 Iacopo di Frescobaldi, conspirator and rebel 395, 396 Iacopo di Messer Guido de’ Bardi, conspirator 395 Iacopo Savelli 90, 92, 130 Iacopo Strozzi, syndic in Pistoia 163 Iesi 93, 155-156 Imbert du Puy of Cahors 89 Imola 80, 131, 380 Imperatore, castello 94 Incisa, castello 132 Indulgences 89, 197, 244 Ingratitude, ungratefulness, gratitude, gratefulness 12, 14, 122, 126, 127, 130, 147, 208, 241, 258, 265, 271, 273, 290, 302, 318, 395, 396, 415, 416, 424 Inquisitor, Inquisition 81, 148, 165, 370 Instructive examples 12, 13, 84, 146, 154, 192, 253, 255, 256, 257, 259, 260, 264, 265, 267, 300, 342, 368, 392, 408, 416 Insult, mockery, humiliation, reviling, rebuking 10, 11, 77-78, 110, 114, 117, 124, 130, 152, 187, 235, 243, 244, 272, 289, 306, 319, 329, 344, 409, 415 Ipswich 51 Ireland, Irish 52-53 Iron crown 5, 61, 71, 72, 78 Isaac, biblical 254, 264 Isabella of France, Queen of England 5054, 99, 179-180, 297, 321 Isaiah, biblical 255 Ischia 135, 383 Iseo, castello 74 Israel, biblical 105, 254-255 Italy, Italians 1–3, 5, 8, 9, 18, 19, 25, 28, 30, 43, 44, 45, 48, 54, 58, 60, 61, 73, 77, 82, 84, 87, 99, 100, 105, 106, 121, 130, 131, 137, 152–154, 156, 174, 180, 181, 189, 195, 201, 204, 206, 210, 213, 215, 216, 222, 228, 241, 244, 257, 261, 267, 302, 306, 311, 326, 333, 338, 343,

349, 350, 354, 356, 359, 362, 376, 383, 388, 419 Jacob van Artevelde 355 Jacob, biblical 264 James Douglas 191 James II, King of Aragon 59, 83 Jean-Raymond de Comminges, Cardinal Porto Santo Rufino 283 Jeanne de Penthievre, wife of Charles of Blois 426 Jerusalem 43, 255-256, 260, 263 Jesus Christ, biblical 13, 16, 60, 73, 76, 81, 91, 99, 103, 105, 108, 109, 111, 130, 178, 191-192, 208, 215, 242, 245, 254, 256, 262, 263- 264, 267, 275, 280, 282, 285, 379, 384, 399, 415 Jewelry, jewels 97, 131, 140, 281, 349 Jews 102, 255-256 Joan I, Queen of Naples 144, 239 Joan I, Queen of Navarre 99, 123-124 Joan II, Countess of Burgundy 323 Joan II, Queen of Navarre 123-124 Joan of Valois 51, 74, 388 Joan, Queen of Scotland 114, 237 Job, biblical 265- 267 John Balliol “Toom Tabard,” King of Scotland 237 John Darcy 344 John I “the Posthumous,” King of France 99, 140 John II, Count of Hainaut 184 John II, King of France 216, 321 John III, Duke of Brabant 322, 344, 350, 355, 356, 357, 386-387 John III, Duke of Brittany 426 John of Beaumont 51, 322, 356 John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall 297 John of Gravina, Duke of Durazzo 43, 62, 63, 64, 239, 351 John of Jandun 136 John of Monfort 426 John of Salisbury, chronicler 264 John XV, Pope 105 John XXII, Pope 5, 8, 45, 48, 54, 56, 59, 60, 61, 65, 68, 68-69, 78, 79, 88-89, 89, 91, 103, 104-106, 106-107, 109, 110,

Index

111, 112, 113, 127, 128, 129, 147, 148, 148-149, 155, 160, 165, 173-174, 184, 189, 190-191, 201, 204, 205, 206-207, 210, 216, 217-218, 218, 220, 227-228, 230, 238, 239, 242-244, 270, 272, 279282, 283, 307 John, biblical 260 John, King of Bohemia 8, 9, 10, 48, 177, 189, 195, 197-200, 200-201, 201, 203204, 205-206, 206, 210, 211, 215, 221222, 222-223, 224-225, 226, 227, 227228, 229-230, 230, 232, 233, 234-235, 234-235, 240-242, 258, 269, 271, 274, 277, 289, 291-293, 303, 305, 321, 321, 334, 335, 345, 346, 358 Jonah, biblical 255, 267 Joshua, biblical 255 Jousting, tournaments, displays of arms 30, 64, 68, 163, 413 Judas Iscariot, biblical 282 Judas Maccabeus, biblical 255 Judges 45, 58, 92, 103, 266, 312, 332, 363, 367, 370 Judith, biblical 264 Julius Caesar, classical 182, 264, 420 Justice, righteousness 14, 45, 77, 78, 117, 121, 130, 138, 144, 147, 198, 203, 218, 253, 254, 256-257, 259, 260, 261, 262, 264, 266, 267, 273, 287, 293, 298-299, 348, 352, 367, 370, 373, 380, 392, 398 Kiss 239 Knights, knighting 2, 6, 10, 11, 12, 44, 45, 47-49, 51, 54, 55, 57, 59, 61, 62, 68-70, 70-71, 74, 75, 75-77, 78, 80, 82, 85–87, 91, 92, 93, 94-97, 97, 98, 100, 101-102, 104, 110, 112, 114, 116, 117-118, 124-127, 128, 128-129, 130, 131, 132-133, 133, 134-135, 136, 138, 139, 143, 135, 138, 141, 142-143, 149-150, 150, 151, 152, 159, 160, 162-163, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 174, 174-175, 176, 181, 183, 184, 182, 184-185, 185-187, 190, 193, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 211-212, 212213, 215, 217, 219, 221, 222-223, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 232, 232-233,

465

235, 8, 239, 241, 257, 271, 273, 277, 279, 287, 288-298, 299, 300, 302, 305, 308, 310, 312–314, 316-317, 319-320, 323–326, 328-330, 333-336, 344-346, 349-351, 353-354, 373, 359, 361, 364, 367, 372, 374–376, 384–387, 401-402, 404-407, 409-410, 412–414, 414, 416, 418–424 L’Aquila 62, 87, 93, 127, 351 La Capelle 357 La Flemengrie 357 La Ghiaia 411 La Magione 186 La Motta, castello 319-320 La Perrière, castello 238 Lanfranchi, family 301, 347 Languedoc 233, 240, 271 Laon 357 Lapo de‘ Frescobaldi, conspirator 395 Last Judgement, Apocalypse 242-243, 280, 307 Laterino, castello 317, 330 Latin Language 18, 19, 20, 29, 62, 84, 104, 105, 109, 138, 259, 259, 260, 268, 280, 340 Laws and ordinances 44, 45, 56, 87, 92, 103, 105, 107, 108, 147, 180-181, 214215, 298, 300, 318, 328, 332, 331, 364, 367, 373-374, 390, 426 Lawyers 103 Laypeople 13, 19, 78, 102, 104, 106, 148, 149, 244, 260 Le Capannelle 119 Le Cave, Borgo (Chianti) 317 Le Conie, Borgo (Chianti) 317 Le Precchie, castello 148 Le Quarantole 186 League against John of Bohemia and Bertrand du Pouget, formation 221-222 League of Florence and Venice against Mastino II della Scala, formation 309-313 Leagues, alliances 9, 10, 11, 45, 48, 59, 60, 129, 137, 141,160, 166, 167, 168, 177, 204, 206, 211, 217, 221-222, 226, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 240, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 277, 279, 287, 290,

466

Index

291, 292, 296, 300, 303, 305, 306, 308, 309-313, 314, 315, 317, 319, 327, 331, 333, 334, 335, 337, 338, 339, 344, 345, 346, 350, 355, 356, 359, 362, 363-364, 375, 380-381, 383, 386-388, 390, 395, 400, 403, 405, 407, 415-416, 421, 424, 426 Learned, literate 19, 32,104, 107, 259, 260, 282, 284-285, 307, 352, 369 Legnaia 249 Lemmo Guinizzelli Sismondi, Pisan diplomat 75 Lerici, castello 217, 269 Lèse majesté 103, 105, 106 Letters, correspondence 27, 35, 51, 73, 76, 79, 85, 90, 114, 122-123, 147, 165, 200, 201, 204, 217, 230, 259, 260-268, 272, 278, 300, 320, 322, 359, 362, 367, 399, 405, 416-417 Leurignano 272 Licinius, classical 264 Liège 350, 357 Lilles 383 Limassol 196 Linen 288 Lions of the Commune 15, 207-208, 338339 Lipari 382-383, 401 Lives of the Caesars, classical 264 Livorno 408 Llantrisant 53 Lodi 121, 292 Lodrisio Visconti 374-376 Loggia of Orsanmichele 339 Loggia of the Buondelmonti 94 Lombardy, Lombards 7, 44, 47, 48, 54, 58, 62, 64, 71, 72-73, 73-74, 88, 90, 111, 118, 128, 132, 141, 142, 151 155, 159160, 164, 165, 166, 169, 175, 178, 182, 183, 185, 189-190, 195, 199, 200, 201, 203-204, 205, 206, 211, 214, 217, 219, 221-222, 222, 224, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 42, 257, 269-270, 273-4, 277, 282, 284, 289-291, 293, 298, 301, 303305, 309, 315, 320, 326, 331–335, 337338, 346, 349, 354, 360-361, 363-366,

368, 371, 374-375, 381, 395, 400, 404, 406, 413, 418-419 London 51-52 Longare, castello 349, 353-354 Loon 356, 386 Lord of Valkenburg 322, 357, 384, 386 Lot, biblical 254 Louis I, Count of Flanders 124, 344-345, 355 Louis I, King of Hungary 144, 351 Louis IV “the Bavarian,” Holy Roman Emperor 5, 6, 7, 8, 43, 48, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 66-67, 70, 71, 72-73, 7374, 74-75, 75-77, 77-78, 78-79, 80-81, 82, 84, 85-86, 86, 87, 88, 89, 89-91, 91-93, 97-98, 100, 101-102, 102, 102103, 103, 104-106, 106-107, 108, 108109, 110, 111-112, 112, 112-113, 113, 115, 121, 123, 128, 129-131, 131-132, 132-133, 135-137, 139, 140-141, 141-143, 143, 147, 148, 148-149, 150-151, 151-152, 155, 156157, 157-158, 158, 159-160, 160-162, 163, 164, 165, 167, 173, 174-175, 175177, 184, 190, 210, 215, 221, 230, 258, 291, 294, 322, 334, 344, 350, 356, 357, 379, 382, 419, 422 Louis X, King of France 99, 124, 140 Lucan, classical 420 Lucca, Luccans 1, 3, 4, 6, 8–12, 15, 45, 47, 49, 56, 65, 68, 70, 74, 77, 79, 85, 90, 93, 95, 97, 101, 113, 115, 120, 121, 122, 136, 137, 140-141, 142, 143, 152, 153, 157-158, 160, 160-162, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167-168, 168, 171-172, 172-173, 174, 177, 178, 181-183, 185-187, 187-188, 189, 192, 193-194, 194, 197-200, 200, 201, 204, 205, 206, 209, 212-213, 217, 222, 222-223, 228, 229, 231, 235, 241242, 269, 274, 277, 288, 290-293, 299301, 302-305, 309–316, 323, 324, 327, 331, 333-334, 339, 347–350, 361–363, 365, 376, 398-425 Luchino Visconti, Lord of Milan 72-73, 7374, 166, 334-335, 375-376, 379, 400401, 405, 409, 412-413, 418-419, 422 Lucignano 326-327, 332, 381 Luco, castello 390

Index

Luigi Gonzaga, Lord of Mantua 133-134, 160, 221-222, 222, 225, 232, 292, 372 Lunata 193 Lundy 53 Luni 75, 79, 113, 122 Lunigiana 3-4, 47, 49, 121, 348 Lust 12, 14, 15, 50, 171, 258, 360 Luzimborgo Tarlati 421 Lys, river 126 Maccabees, biblical 255 Macci, family 44 Macerello Da Panigo, Bolognese, conspirator against Taddeo Pepoli 342 Machiavelli, Niccolò 315 Maffeo da Ponti Carradi, podestà in Florence 394, 398, 407, 412, 414 Maghinardo delli Ubaldini, accused of treason by Accorimbono da Tolentino 299 Magli, family 268 Magliano, castello 82-83 Magra, river 217 Mahaut, Countess of Artois 322, 323 Malatesta II Malatesta “Guastafamiglia,” Lord of Rimini 128, 204, 241, 334, 347-348, 380, 416, 421-423 Malerba, German captain at Parabiago 376 Mallorca 223 Mammiano, castello 48 Manfred, King of Sicily 187 Manfredi de’ Vivaldi, Genoese Ghibelline leader 217 Manfredi, family 44, 67, 80, 83, 156, 170, 175 Manfredonia 239 Mangeri di Messer Lapo de’ Frescobaldi, conspirator 395 Mangona, castello 115-116, 347, 393, 396 Manno de’ Donati, served with the Duke of Athens at Lucca 422 Mantua, Mantuans 59, 61, 64-65, 73, 133134, 160, 214, 221, 222, 225, 232, 269, 292, 334-335, 372-373, 400, 402, 405 Marca, Marche 44, 46, 93, 111, 128, 134, 147, 155-156, 170, 174, 206-207, 219, 225, 287, 322, 348, 371, 382, 416 Marcaria 160

467

Marco Visconti 59, 72, 73-74, 142-143, 151, 158, 159-160, 160-162, 164, 164-166, 167, 171, 375 Marcovaldo of the Counts Guidi 294, 393 Mare Maggiore, Black Sea 391 Maremma 77-78, 82-83, 85-86, 86, 98, 114, 134-135, 137, 153, 173, 209, 228, 250, 294, 347 Margaret II of Avesnes, wife of Emperor Louis IV 74, 76, 92, 93, 115, 136, 184 Maria of Calabria, daughter of Charles of Calabria 239 Maria of Hungary, wife of King Charles II 43 Marie of Valois, wife of Charles of Calabria 43, 56, 64, 87 Marquess of the Marca 111 Marquesses of Ferrara (Rinaldo Este, Obizzo Este, Niccolò Este) 59, 61, 73, 74, 221-222, 226, 231, 233, 269, 270, 273, 292, 306, 335, 341, 345, 404, 413, 414, 421 Marra, family 352 Mars, classical 248 Marseilles 189, 405 Marshals 72, 75, 83, 85, 102, 119, 120, 130, 131, 150, 155, 157, 159, 167, 176, 183, 195, 199, 200, 229, 271, 314, 316, 317, 320, 375 Marshes, bogs 52, 183, 297 Marsilio da Carrara, Lord of Padua 138, 291, 325, 337 Marsilio de’ Rossi, condottiere and Lord of Parma 242, 291, 315, 319-320, 334336, 337, 337-338 Marsilius of Padua 136 Marti 357, 408, 424 Martignano 313 Martino, son of Duke of Calabria 64 Mass 92, 107, 109, 131, 282 Massa Trabaria 235, 287 Massa, castello 166-167, 209, 213, 228, 240, 295, 362 Master of the Teutonic Order 60 Mastino I della Scala, Lord of Verona 9, 371-373

468

Index

Mastino II della Scala, Lord of Verona 812, 138, 169, 175, 221-222, 269-270, 273-274, 276-277, 289, 291-293, 299306, 308-309, 311-312, 313-317, 319320, 323-326, 331-337, 345-350, 353354, 359, 361-365, 371-376, 379, 398410, 412-416, 419, 421, 424-425 Matelica 170, 382 Matteo degli Orsini of Campo di Fiore 89 Matteo I Visconti, Lord of Milan 59, 72, 121, 151, 173, 227, 374, 375, 379 Matthias 282 Maubeuge 359 Mechlen 350, 425 Medicine, physicians 82, 370 Menorca 223 Mercanzia Council, office 145, 370 Mercatello, castello 235 Mercato Nuovo (Florence) 247 Mercato Vecchio (Florence) 247, 317 Mercenario Monteverde, Lord of Fermo 382 Merchants 3, 19, 25, 36, 52, 77, 101, 171, 181, 203, 278, 279, 281, 290, 309, 311312, 343, 347, 360-361, 365, 370-371, 380, 390, 401, 404, 416-417, 420 Mercy, clemency 14, 71, 78, 133, 140, 153, 165, 173, 190, 224, 228, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258, 259, 261, 285, 322, 352, 390 Messina 137, 382-383, 401 Mestre 319, 345, 364 Michael Scotus 138, 169 Michele di Cesena, Minister General of the Friars Minor 148, 149 Milan, Milanese 4, 8, 10, 35, 59, 60, 61, 65, 71, 72-73, 78, 87, 88 110, 120, 121, 142, 151, 159-160, 164–166, 171, 173174, 195, 206-207, 221-222, 224, 227, 230, 231, 232, 269, 274, 276, 291, 304, 309, 335, 346, 374-376, 379, 401-402, 405, 411-413, 419, 422 Milazzo 401-402, 419 Mills, milling 57, 246, 249, 250, 366, 370 Minervino 352 Miracles 13, 16, 126, 127, 155, 196, 203, 247, 253, 255-256, 283, 339 Modena, Modenese 34, 59, 64-65, 134, 160, 163, 170, 175, 176, 183, 184-185,

190, 201, 204, 205, 219, 222, 225, 226, 242, 269, 274 277, 292, 305-306 Monaco, castello 58, 286, 341 Monaldeschi, family 277, 348 Moncione, Borgo 317 Money, coins (florins, lire, soldi, denari) 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 41, 44, 46, 47, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 58, 60, 65, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 85, 87, 88, 89, 100, 101, 102, 113, 115, 116-117, 118, 128, 130, 131, 132, 136, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 147, 151, 153-154, 158, 161, 162163, 165, 167, 171-172, 172, 191, 193, 195, 198, 200, 201, 212, 214-215, 223, 224, 229, 232, 235, 236, 240, 241, 242, 249, 272, 274, 276, 277, 281-282, 284, 289, 290, 291, 293, 294, 295, 298-299, 303-304, 305, 310-312, 318-319, 321, 326, 328, 330, 331, 332, 339, 343-344, 349, 355-356, 360-361, 363-364, 365371, 374, 376, 377, 378, 379, 387-389, 391, 393, 396, 397, 401, 403-404, 405, 406, 409, 410, 414, 420, 424 Monks 29, 89, 256, 275, 283, 369 Monselice, castello 324, 337, 354 Monsummano, castello 166-167, 362 Montagnana, castello 354, 371 Montalcino 298 Montale, castello 49 Montalto 136 Monte Albano 71 Monte Sammartino 148 Monte Sansavino, castello 120, 301, 327, 332, 381, 408 Monte Santa Maria 78, 296, 329-330 Montecalvoli, castello 84 Montecatini, castello 1, 2, 3, 43, 166-167, 168-169, 173, 177, 178, 181-183, 185187, 187-188, 193, 206, 213, 258, 362 Montecchio, castello 349, 353-354, 361 Montechiari, castello 70, 142, 193, 222, 406-407, 409 Montecoloreto, castello 422 Montefalcone, castello 49 Montefocappio, castello 327 Montegabbro 202 Monteggiori, castello 161

Index

Montelupo, Borgo (Tuscany) 68, 249, 314 Montemassi, castello 114, 134-135, 174 Montemurlo 32, 96, 98, 162 Montenero, castello 78 Montepulciano 152 Monterchi, castello 296, 329-330 Montesanto, castello 148 Montevarchi 132, 319 Montevettolini, castello 166-167, 168, 200, 362 Monticelli Oltrarno 94 Montopoli in Valdarno, castello 98, 167, 217, 249, 302, 362 Monza 73, 160 Morocco 236, 377 Morrone 127 Moses, biblical 254, 264 Mugello 132, 168, 246, 271, 288, 318, 400, 422 Muhammad IV, King of Granada 191, 236 Mulara, castello 112 Muli, family 158, 162-163, 177, 208 Music, musical instruments 53, 70, 90, 95, 120, 125, 139, 233, 234, 242, 296, 317, 359, 367-368 Naddo di Cenni di Naddo, Florentine syndic 410 Nanni de’ Dotti, Bolognese, conspirator against Bertrand du Pouget 176 Naples, Neapolitans 1, 24, 29, 43, 44, 55, 61, 62, 87, 89, 90, 123, 143, 144 189, 210, 238, 239, 268, 290, 343, 351-352, 359, 383, 400-401, 416-418 Napoleone Orsini 61, 63, 130, 153 Napoleuccio Monaldeschi, Lord of Orvieto 275 Narni 112 Nature 121, 154, 188, 196, 208, 250, 253257, 320, 352, 362 Navarre 99, 123-124, 358 Neath 52, 53 Nebuchadnezzar, biblical 73, 255, 263 Necromancy 81 Negotiations 10, 45, 46, 50, 53, 62, 65, 75, 76, 90, 114, 121, 142, 160, 162–167, 171-172, 190, 198, 199, 200, 221, 235,

469

240, 241, 291-293, 299-300, 303-304, 308-309, 312, 325-327, 331, 332, 335, 347, 349, 351, 362, 363, 387, 400, 403, 405, 409, 421 Negroponte 220 Nehemiah, biblical 254 Neri Saggina, guardian of Castruccio’s sons 141 Nerone da Vernia, Count 116 Nerviano 375 Niccola da Fabriano, orator, named cardinal by anti-pope 104, 109, 110 Niccola degli Acciaiuoli 417 Niccola della Serra da Gubbio, podestà in Florence 299 Niccolaio de’ Pogginghi, betrayer of Pietrasanta 293 Niccolò di Guido de’ Frescobaldi, conspirator 395 Nicholas V, Pietro da Corvara, Pope (antipope) 108-109, 111-112, 129-131, 135136, 148-149, 151-152, 155, 173, 190-191, 379 Nicosia 196 Nievole, river 182, 186 Nineveh, biblical 255, 262-263 Noah, biblical 245, 254 Nola 44, 239 Nolfo di Federico da Montefeltro, Captain of the Pisan army at Lucca 421 Norcia 62, 147-148 Notaries, notarized documents 40, 78, 103, 302, 352, 367, 370 Novara 121, 173, 379 Numbers, biblical 254 Oaths, swearing oaths 53-54, 60, 72, 78, 141, 165, 174, 188, 204, 211, 221, 281, 300, 344, 350, 356, 372, 383, 388, 413 Obizzi, family 182 Octavius Augustus, classical 264 Oedenburg 126 Office of the Twenty, office 403, 404, 407, 409, 411, 421 Ognissanti, Borgo (Florence) 150, 247, 324, 325 Oise, river 357-358

470

Index

Oltrarno 40, 94, 150, 225, 247, 278, 339, 353, 394 Ombrone, river 68, 85, 119 On Anger, classical 264-265 Onesti, family 140 Onigo, castello 313 Orbetello 135 Ordinances of Justice 45, 299, 367, 370, 373-374, 392 Origny 357 Ormanno Tedici, abbot and Lord of Pistoia 158, 213 Ormannoro 249 Orphans 92, 390 Orsanmichele (Florence) 44, 153, 207, 225, 247, 339, 366-367 Orte 64 Orvieto 44, 101-102, 131, 152, 209, 250, 275, 334, 348 Orwell, river 52 Orzinuovi, castello 73, 345 Oseri, river 197, 249 Ostia 63, 109-110, 113, 272 Ottaviano de Belforti, Lord of Volterra 390391 Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor 105 Oudenaarde 383 Outremer 189, 215-216, 282, 321, 343 Pacts or terms of an agreement 45, 46, 48, 50, 55, 57, 60, 63, 65, 71, 75, 76, 77, 83, 88, 90, 101, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 122, 127, 129, 131, 133, 135, 136, 138, 139, 142, 143, 145, 157, 159-160, 160, 161, 162, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171-174, 190, 192, 193, 195, 197, 198, 204, 205, 210, 211, 217, 221, 235, 236, 240, 241, 274, 283, 286, 291, 292, 294, 295, 296, 299, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305-307, 309-310, 312, 315, 322, 323, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 331, 332, 333, 343, 345, 346, 347, 350, 353, 362, 363, 379, 380, 381, 387-388, 400, 402, 404, 405- 406, 407, 409, 410, 411, 419, 422, 424 Padua, Paduans 10, 48, 59, 82, 137-138, 169, 226, 291, 305, 309, 319-320, 323-

324, 324-326, 333, 335, 336–338, 346, 349, 354, 371, 405, 416 Pagano Quartigiani, conspirator against Gherardino Spinola 192 Pagans 256, 261, 264, 267, 338 Palace of Bologna (Bologna) 271 Palace of the Commune (Florence) 44, 86, 207, 247 Palace of the Giotti (Florence) 68 Palace of the Giugni (Florence) 225 Palace of the Popolo (Florence) 219, 247, 378 Palace of the Priors (Florence) 165, 367, 380, 394, 421 Palestrina, Palestrinesi 107 Palio, race 10, 193, 349 Pancechieschi, family 82 Panciatichi, family 158, 162-163, 177, 208, 329 Pandolfo I Malatesta, Lord of Rimini 128, 204 Paniccia di Bernardo de’ Frescobaldi, conspirator and rebel 396 Papal Conclave 283-284 Papal Court 48, 60, 61, 62, 107, 127, 128129, 148, 163, 173, 184, 190, 217-218, 228, 242-244, 272, 274, 279-282, 284, 285, 395, 405, 416 54, 89, 108, 161-162, 172, 224, 244, 254, 285 Parione (Florence) 234, 289 Paris, Parisians 123, 215, 243-244, 277278, 345, 356, 358-359, 361, 424 Parlamento 86-87, 91, 103, 104-106, 146, 148, 155, 174, 269-270, 291, 310, 382. Parma, Parmigiani 8, 10, 11, 39, 48, 49, 54, 74, 88, 129, 160, 163, 170, 174, 175, 176, 184-185, 199, 201, 205, 217, 221, 223, 226, 227, 228, 229, 231, 232, 235, 241-242, 269-270, 274, 276-277, 289, 291-292, 300, 303, 305, 310, 314-315, 323, 325, 334, 337-338, 349, 363, 376, 400, 402, 405 Patience 263-265, 267 Patriarchs 264 Patrimony 174, 322 Pavanico, castello 135

Index

Pavia, Pavesi 121, 128, 160, 174, 176, 227, 230 Pazzi, family 331, 393, 396, 422 Peace, truce 11, 45, 50, 59-60, 64, 74, 7677, 83, 89, 113, 114, 135, 139, 140, 152, 159, 162-163, 163, 166-167, 167-168, 170, 172, 173-174, 177, 197, 199, 201, 205, 210-211, 217, 229, 235-237, 238, 240, 266, 269, 270, 285, 286, 291, 295, 297, 308, 310-313, 322, 326-328, 329, 331-332, 346-347, 350, 353, 361–363, 366, 373-374, 376, 380, 382, 386-388, 389, 403, 407, 424 Pedro Gomez de Barroso, Cardinal Legate and attempted peacemaker 345 Penitence 78, 127, 225, 251, 255, 257, 262263, 267, 284-285 Pepoli, family 341 Peraldo, castello 210 Peretola 77, 249 Perondoli, family 420 Péronne 359 Perugia, Perugians 44, 55, 87, 88, 112, 153, 193, 197, 250, 287, 289-290, 296297, 301, 306, 308, 326-327, 328, 329332, 334, 381, 407, 421 Peruzzi, family 280, 360, 393, 420 Pesa, river 314 Peschiera 270 Pescia, castello 121, 161, 166-167, 182, 186, 212, 274, 277, 288, 334, 362, 414, 421 Pescia, river 182 Peteccio 188 Peter II, King of Sicily 60, 135-137, 342343, 351, 402 Peter, biblical 109 Petrarch 235, 272 Petri, family 46, 298 Pharaoh, biblical 73, 254 Philip I, Prince of Taranto 43 Philip III “the Noble,” King of Navarre 123124 Philip IV “the Fair,” King of France 3, 99, 123-124, 322 Philip of Artois 322-323 Philip V, King of France 99, 140

471

Philip VI “the Fortunate,” King of France 99, 123-124, 124-127, 139-140, 189, 204, 206, 215-216, 220, 228, 229, 237-238, 238, 242, 243, 244, 277-278, 279, 297, 306, 320-323, 343-345, 350, 354, 355, 356, 356-357, 358, 358-359, 360, 361, 377, 379, 383-384, 384-385, 386-388, 426 Philip, Despot of Romania 43, 128 Philippa of Hainaut, wife of King Edward III 51, 356 Philosophy, philosophers 82, 123, 251, 259, 264-265, 340 Piacenza, Piacentini 8, 118, 227, 269, 291, 292 Pian di Marte 249 Piazza del Campidoglio (Rome) 130 Piazza di Perci (Arezzo) 330 Piazza Maggiore (Bologna) 176, 271 Piazza of Colle, unnamed 202 Piazza of Forlì, unnamed 240 Piazza of Imola, unnamed 80 Piazza of Mantua, unnamed 133 Piazza of Pisa, unnamed 76 Piazza of Pistoia, unnamed 95 Piazza of the Priors (Florence) 146, 299, 394 Piazza of Verona, unnamed 372 Piazza of Viterbo, unnamed 152 Piazza San Giovanni Battista (Florence) 67, 247, 276, 295 Piazza San Marcello (Rome) 106 Piazza San Pietro (Rome) 63, 64, 103, 104 Piazza San Sisto (Pisa) 302 Piazza Santa Croce (Florence) 46, 68, 119, 144, 163 Piazza Santa Maria in Aracoeli (Rome) 92 Picchiena 202 Piceno 188 Pidiglioso, Borgo (Florence) 247 Piedmont 43, 213, 381 Piero de’ Bardi 393, 396 Piero di Ciapi de’ Bardi, conspirator 395 Piero di Messer Gualterotto de’ Bardi, conspirator 395 Piero Orrighi, named cardinal by anti-pope 110

472

Index

Piero Saccone de’ Tarlati da Pietramala, Lord of Arezzo 78, 113, 137, 216, 287, 289290, 308, 327, 328-331, 421-422 Pietracassia, castello 84 Pietrasanta, castello 74, 293, 410 Pietro Barbavara da Portoveneri, admiral 384, 385 Pietro de’ Rossi, condottiere and Lord of Parma 242, 291, 292, 293, 300, 302, 314-317, 319-320, 324, 324-326, 332333, 334, 334-336, 336-337, 337-338 Pietro di Montenero, knight of Rome 92 Pieve di Sacco 319-320 Pigli, family 242 Pilgrimage 184, 189, 284-285, 417 Pinamonte de’ Bonacolsi, Lord of Mantua 133, 372 Pino della Tosa 94, 161-162, 165, 299, 313 Piombino 85, 347 Piracy, pirates 101, 201, 286, 380, 377, 384, 397 Pisa, Pisans 1–3, 6, 10–12, 14, 28, 45, 56, 57, 59, 60, 65, 74-75, 75-77, 77, 79, 83, 84, 85, 86, 98, 114, 115, 117, 120, 121, 122, 135, 136-137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 148, 148-149, 149-150, 150, 152, 155, 157, 157, 159-160, 160, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167-168, 173-174, 177, 185, 187, 190-191, 197, 199, 208-209, 217, 228229, 240-241, 249, 252-253, 272, 288, 294-295, 301-304, 314, 347, 362, 395, 398, 401, 403–412, 414–424 Pistoia, Pistoians 1, 4, 6, 7, 48-49, 57, 66, 68, 70, 79, 85, 86, 94-97, 97-98, 116117, 117-120, 120-123, 132, 139, 147, 150, 153, 158, 162-163, 166, 177, 187, 193, 198, 206, 208-209, 212-213, 222-223, 250, 274, 313, 329, 365, 422 Piumazzo, castello 204 Plundering, plunder, looting, loot, robbery 2, 3, 9, 11, 47, 52, 57, 63, 66, 69, 76, 80, 90, 96, 97, 99, 110, 112-113, 115, 117, 120, 134-135, 139, 142, 149, 152, 157, 158, 159, 161, 164, 167, 168, 171, 176, 179, 182, 1932, 199, 200, 217, 220, 223, 224, 229-230, 233, 239, 257, 238, 269, 277, 279, 289, 294, 296, 301, 305,

313, 314, 316, 319-320, 323, 325-326, 333-334, 338, 346-348, 352-353, 357, 372, 374-375, 383, 384, 385, 394, 386, 407-408, 422, 424-425, 257, 274, 277, 279, 289, 294, 296, 298, 301, 305, 309, 313, 314, 316, 319-320, 323, 325-326, 333-334, 338, 346-348, 351-353, 357, 358, 372, 374-375, 383, 384, 386, 394, 407-408, 422, 423, 424-425 Po, river 8, 74, 128, 214, 231, 232, 233 Podestà 44, 88, 94, 146, 186, 192, 199, 202, 207, 209, 224, 247, 278, 286, 295, 297, 298-299, 302, 315, 329, 338, 339, 353, 367, 370, 372-373, 392, 394, 398 Poggibonsi 250 Pogginghi, family 157, 192, 293 Poisoning, poison 335 Policraticus, classical 264 Ponte a San Quirico 316 Ponte a San Ruffillo 272 Ponte ad Era 120, 249, 408 Ponte Agliana 119 Ponte alla Bura 119 Ponte alla Gora 186 Ponte alla Spina (Pisa) 164, 302 Ponte alle Grazie 248 Ponte Carraia (Florence) 247, 248, 250, 276, 284, 394 Ponte da San Giorgio (Ferrara) 233 Ponte di Praga 364 Ponte di Sacco 149, 408 Ponte Nuovo (Pisa) 164 Ponte Rubaconte (Florence) 234, 248, 250, 394 Ponte San Piero, Borgo (Lucca) 197 Ponte Santa Trinita (Florence) 247, 248, 284 Ponte Vecchio (Florence 207, 248, 284 Ponte Vecchio (Pisa) 164 Pontecorvo 93 Pontetetto 197, 406, 410 Ponthieu 50 Pontorme 97, 249, 314 Pontremoli, castello 71, 74, 141, 291, 300, 315-316, 323 Poperinghe 126 Popiglio, castello 213

Index

Popolo minuto 65, 76, 77, 290, 299, 304, 425 Popolo, popolani 4, 11, 13, 27, 45, 46, 49, 52, 61, 62, 63, 64-65, 69, 72, 75-76, 80, 84-85, 86, 90-93, 96, 102-103, 103, 104-107, 108, 108-109, 110, 112, 115, 116, 117, 120, 122, 124-127, 130, 132, 133, 137, 138, 141, 145, 146, 152-153, 153-154, 156, 157, 158, 161-164, 168, 169, 170, 172, 175, 176, 182, 183, 185, 190, 194, 196, 197, 198, 202, 205, 208, 209, 211, 217, 219-220, 221, 222-223, 224, 226, 227, 228, 231, 239, 240, 247, 268, 270-273, 275, 276, 277-278, 285, 295, 297-299, 301-305, 309, 313, 316, 318, 324-325, 328-330, 334–336, 339, 341-342, 347-349, 353, 355, 357-358, 366–368, 370, 371, 373-374, 375-376, 378, 379–380, 382, 384, 387, 390-391, 392-395, 396, 398, 402-404, 406-407, 412, 419, 424-425 Porcari, castello 193 Porta Croce a Gorgo (Florence) 246 Porta da San Friano or Porta da Verzaia (Florence) 234, 370 Porta da San Giorgio (Florence) 394 Porta de le Mulina (Florence) 150 Porta de’ Priori (Florence) 389 Porta del Leone (Ferrara) 233 Porta del Prato (Florence) 150 Porta del Vescovo (Florence) 353 Porta dell’Alloro (Florence) 234 Porta delle Piagge (Pisa) 302 Porta di San Giovanni (Brescia) 346 Porta di San Giustino (Brescia) 346 Porta Duomo, sesto 247 Porta Legatia (Pisa) 75 Porta Lucchese (Pistoia) 96 Porta Renaio (Florence) 246 Porta San Donnino (Pisa) 75 Porta San Francesco 246 Porta San Marco (Pistoia) 95 Porta San Piero, sesto 247, 394, 404 Porta Torre Alta (Brescia) 346 Porto Pisano 75, 408 Portovenere 384, 397

473

Poverty, poor people 13, 60, 105, 109, 111, 113, 121, 142, 153-154, 191, 192, 247, 271, 339, 366, 369, 379, 415 Pozzo da Dicomano, castello 347 Pozzo, castello 114-115 Pratiglione, castello 167 Prato di Ognissanti (Florence) 150, 151, 248 Prato, Pratesi 7, 48, 49, 57, 92, 95, 96, 110, 118, 119, 120, 132, 138, 249-250, 393, 398, 407 Prayer, prayers 14, 89, 218, 244, 254-255, 257, 259, 262-263, 271, 324 Prefect of Rome, office 92 Pride, arrogance, vainglory 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 50, 56, 72, 81, 93, 105, 122, 124, 126, 127, 166, 172, 199, 234, 255, 257, 258, 266, 271, 273, 285, 286, 287, 304, 305, 311, 324, 347, 349, 352, 364, 371, 382, 393, 418, 424 Priors, office 45, 55, 86, 123, 138, 145-147, 165, 209, 219, 223, 247, 260, 275, 276, 278, 299, 318, 329-330, 339, 347, 367, 381–382, 392-393, 421 Prison, prisoners, captivity, captives 3, 4, 53, 54, 59, 70, 72, 73, 83, 84, 96, 102, 109, 120, 124, 127, 128, 129, 140, 141, 142, 151, 167, 168, 170, 173, 175, 176, 186, 190, 191, 199, 200, 202, 204, 207, 213, 216, 233, 270, 293, 294, 296, 299, 302, 316, 326, 328, 332, 336, 346, 348, 352, 363, 366, 367, 375, 383, 396, 411, 413-414, 421 Processions 43-44, 89, 91-93, 96, 149, 272, 275, 276, 284-286, 324, 329, 389, 396 Profit, profits 58, 77, 103, 171, 181, 198, 205, 218, 223, 257, 273, 298, 304, 352, 355, 360, 362, 364, 366, 369, 378, 390 Prophet, prophecy 99, 122-123, 138, 169, 255, 263, 267, 284-285, 424 Provence, Provençals 44, 55, 61, 69, 87, 88-89, 105, 127, 128, 184, 189, 190, 227, 279, 283, 351, 416 Proverbs 267 Psalms, biblical 253, 263 Ptolemy 253, 340

474

Index

Puglia, Pugliesi 7, 55, 61, 93, 132, 143, 144, 212, 239, 343, 349, 351, 390 Pugliesi, family 398 Punishments or judgments of God 55, 66, 70, 72-73, 76, 97, 99, 120, 120-123, 126127, 130, 134, 155, 156, 169, 171-172, 198, 204-205, 218, 243, 245, 250-251, 253-258, 261, 263, 265, 267, 269, 273, 279, 349, 392, 397-399, 411, 416, 421, 424-425 Quartigiani, family 65-66, 192 Quinzica (Pisa) 164, 302 Raffaelo Doria, Captain of the Popolo in Genoa 379 Raimondo de Baux 183 Raimondo di Cardona, Florentine commander 4, 141, 316 Rainaldo Bonacolsi “Passerino,” Lord of Mantua 59, 61, 64-65, 73-74, 133-134 Rainuccio Allegretti, Bishop of Volterra 391 Ranieri “Neri” della Faggiuola 3, 112, 287, 296, 328, 331 Ranieri Casali, Lord of Cortona 216, 287, 289, 332 Ransom 73, 141, 142, 198, 241, 270, 343, 413-414 Ravenna 159, 334, 380 Reader (direct address) 5, 30, 71, 91, 93, 98, 108, 120, 154, 169, 182, 188, 204, 215, 222, 223, 225, 241, 243, 248, 250, 252, 253, 257, 271, 273, 277, 278, 280, 281, 297, 304, 310, 325, 331, 336, 342, 349, 352-353, 360, 363-364, 366, 367, 374, 404, 408, 420, 424 Rebellions, revolutions 3, 9, 10-11, 13, 48, 49, 52, 59, 61-62, 64-66, 67, 78, 83, 90, 91, 101-102, 102-103, 114, 124-127, 129, 132, 133-134, 141-143, 144, 154, 156, 160-161, 162, 163, 163-164, 164165, 167, 168-169, 170, 172-173, 175-177, 179, 180, 188-189, 192, 195, 196, 202, 209, 217, 218-219, 222, 236, 240-241, 255, 271, 278, 289, 292, 294-295, 301302, 303-304, 306, 310, 313, 317-318, 319, 326, 333, 342-343, 345-346, 348,

351, 353, 355, 356, 381, 390-391, 393, 398, 400, 402, 421-422, 426 Reggio, Reggiani 129, 159, 160, 163, 170, 175, 183, 184-185, 201, 205, 222, 242, 269, 275, 277, 291-292, 400, 405 Reginald II, Duke of Guelders 321, 322, 344, 357, 386 Regno or Kingdom of Puglia 7, 43, 44, 55, 57, 62, 86-87, 98, 112-113, 117, 121, 135, 136 143-144, 152, 239, 322, 343, 351352, 390, 419-420 Relics 196, 275 Republic 18, 32, 230, 342, 382, 392, 415 Revenge, vendetta 9, 72, 117, 126, 138, 171, 172, 187, 193, 223, 255-256, 262, 272, 314, 337, 340, 373, 392, 399, 401, 404-405, 409, 415, 418, 426 Rheims 123 Rhone, river 128-129, 227, 229, 379 Ribaldo da Montedoglio, conspirator against Piero Saccone de’ Tarlati 287 Ricciardo Manfredi, Lord of Faenza 67, 80, 83, 170 Riccomanni, family 347 Ridolfo Tarlati, Lord of Città di Castello 296, 332, 421 Rieti 62, 87, 93, 390 Rifredo (Firenzuola) 422 Rimini, Riminesi 128, 204-205, 240, 241, 334, 347, 380, 416 Rinaldeschi, family 398 Ripafratta 75, 197 Ripalta 119 Ritrilla degli Uberti, conspirator against Mastino II della Scala 399 Riviera 75, 121, 210 Ricciardo IV da Camino, Lord of Treviso 82 Robert Baldock, Lord Chancellor of England 52, 53 Robert I “the Bruce,” King of Scotland 80, 113-114, 191, 237, 297 Robert I “the Wise,” King of Naples 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 43, 55, 57, 61, 62-63, 63-64, 65, 74, 82, 84, 85-86, 90, 96, 98, 102, 105, 109-110, 111, 112, 113, 128-129, 130-131, 132-133, 135-136, 140, 141, 143144, 149, 152, 155, 156, 167, 183, 189,

Index

193, 195, 197, 199, 204, 210-211, 213, 215, 221, 222, 227, 230, 231, 232-233, 238, 239, 244, 259, 260-268, 268, 278, 286, 290, 292-293, 299, 306, 308, 331, 334, 343, 349, 350-351, 351-352, 359, 365, 381, 390, 400, 401-402, 407, 416419, 420 Robert III of Artois 321, 323, 385 Rodaldi, family 273 Roger de Flor 212 Roger Mortimer, Earl of March 51, 179-180 Rolando de’ Rossi, condottiere and Lord of Parma 129, 170, 175, 199, 201, 242, 291, 300, 303, 315, 317, 323, 334 Romagna, Romagnols 7, 48, 67, 111, 120, 128, 131, 132, 153, 175, 176, 204-205, 211, 218-219, 225, 231, 233, 235, 240, 241, 249, 271, 304, 306, 308, 313, 322, 380, 406, 407, 416, 421-422 Romania 43, 101, 128, 211-212, 311, 341, 391, 417 Romano Orsini, Count of Nola 44 Rome, Romans 5–7, 18, 23, 30, 43, 54, 58, 59–64, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 77, 79, 83, 85-86, 89, 89-92, 92-93, 94, 97, 98, 101-102, 102, 103, 104-106, 106-107, 108, 108-109, 110, 111-112, 112, 112-113, 115, 121, 123, 128-131, 135, 137, 152-153, 163-164, 173, 188, 203, 217, 235-236, 244, 250, 256-257, 261-262, 263, 275, 279-280, 283-285, 322, 357, 371, 373374, 377, 385, 387, 403 Romena 100 Romeo de’ Pepoli, Bolognese banker and statesman 273, 341 Rondine, castello 301 Rosso di Gherarduccio de’ Buondelmonti 298 Rosso di Ricciardo de Ricci, syndic 410 Rotina, castello 84 Ruberto di Rossi, conspirator 395 Ruggiero da Lentino, Sicilian rebel against King Peter II 351 Ruggiero di Sanseverino 401 Sabatini, family

273

475

Sadness, Sorrow 87, 141, 143, 169, 259, 272, 338, 375, 398, 416 Saint Alessio 275 Saint Augustine 261, 262, 263, 265 Saint Fortunatus of Todi 131-132 Saint Gregory (Pope Gregory I) 260, 261 Saint James 208, 275, 313 Saint John Chrysostom 266 Saint John the Baptist 244 Saint Louis of Toulouse 189 Saint Mark 313 Saint Paul 244 Saint Peter 111, 244, 266, 282 Saint Zenobius of Florence 196-197, 247 Saint-Malo 391 Saint-Omer 385-386 Saint-Quentin 357 Salaries, wages 41, 55, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 87, 118, 121, 128, 133, 141-142, 143, 149, 151, 160-161, 165, 170, 172, 176, 193, 199, 200-201, 211, 212, 232, 235, 276, 298, 302, 312, 324, 328, 332, 333, 339, 344, 354, 357, 359, 364, 367-368, 369, 381, 387, 392, 405, 407, 410, 414, 418, 422 Salerno 351 Salò, castello 159 Salt mines, salt pans 398, 324 Salvatici, family 286 Salvestrino di Rossi, conspirator 395 Salvestro Manetti de’ Baroncelli, syndic 64 Sammoro 249 San Bavello, castello 399 San Felice, castello 226, 231, 247 San Friano, Borgo (Florence) 247 San Gallo 378 San Gennaio 411 San Germano 93 San Gimignano 57, 118, 152, 224, 407 San Giorgio, island 231, 233 San Giovanni, castello 132 San Iacopo, Borgo (Florence) 248 San Lorenzo, Borgo (Florence) 225 San Lupidio, castello 134 San Marco, Borgo (Padua) 325 San Marco, Borgo (Pisa) 75, 120, 167, 302 San Martino in Colle, castello 193

476

Index

San Miniato 57, 138, 149, 167, 249, 313314, 334, 407 San Niccolò (Florence) 247 San Paolo, Borgo (Florence) 150 San Piero in Campo 422 San Piero Scheraggio 40, 150, 208, 247, 298 San Salvi 246 Santa Chiara (Naples), Abbey 143 Santa Croce, castello 194-195, 249, 269, 362 Santa Fiore, Borgo (San Miniato) 313 Santa Gonda, Borgo (San Miniato) 314 Santa Maria a Monte, castello 68–70, 71, 114, 116, 117, 118, 362 Santa Maria di Valverde 189 Santa Maria, castello 317-319 Santerno, river 219 Santi Apostoli, Borgo (Florence) 68 Santo Gemini, castello 112 Santo Remedio, Abbey 85 Saracens 24, 105, 184, 191, 236, 257, 376377, 388, 391, 397 Sarah, biblical 254 Sardinia, Sardinians 77, 83, 210, 279 Sarzana 3, 84, 217, 302-303 Savona 101, 127, 130, 135, 178, 201, 210211, 286, 379 Savoy 124, 139-140, 238, 358 Scali, family 46-47, 298 Scarperia 400 Scheldt, river 386 Schiatta de‘ Frescobaldi, conspirator 396 Schisms, schismatics 5, 46, 60, 91, 92, 110, 111 Sciarra Colonna 61, 90- 92, 95, 99, 130 Scoltenna, river 204 Scotland, Scots 51, 80, 113-114, 191, 236237, 297, 320-322 Scotti, family 292 Sea, seas 44, 51, 52, 63, 85, 97, 101, 127, 136, 137, 153, 179, 201-202, 208, 220, 231, 236, 249, 251, 254, 261, 267, 279, 284, 286, 315, 322-323, 341, 344-345, 366, 377-378, 380, 383-384, 385, 508386, 388, 391, 397, 401, 417-418

Seasons: spring, summer, fall, winter 86, 125, 193, 209, 215, 237, 251, 293, 297, 308, 320, 344, 359, 389 Segremigno 411 Senators of Rome 91, 92, 93, 97, 105, 107, 108, 130, 152-153 Seneca 264-265 Seneschals 184, 227, 283 Serchio, river 75, 249, 334, 406, 422-424 Sermon, preaching 16, 28, 84, 104, 107, 109, 110, 145, 148, 149, 242, 243, 244, 251, 255, 257, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 266, 280, 284, 285, 389 Serravalle, castello 96, 119, 177, 182, 186, 209 Serrazzano, castello 87 Serzati Sagina, Lord of Altopascio 158 Sestri 58 Settimo 145, 249 Seville 196, 236/// Ships, cogships, galleys, boats 51, 52, 62, 63, 75, 85, 97, 101, 105, 109, 110, 135, 137, 159, 179, 190, 201-202, 210, 220, 223, 231, 233, 236, 265, 269, 279, 286, 290, 322, 324, 341, 344, 351, 356, 374375, 377, 380, 383–385, 388, 391, 401, 405, 419 Shipwrecks 137, 256-257 Shops 248, 370 Shroud of Christ 91, 275 Sicily, Sicilians 43, 59, 60-61, 62, 63, 83, 105, 130, 135, 137, 153, 155, 156, 210, 239, 260, 279, 290, 322, 342-343, 350– 352, 365, 382-383, 401-402, 419 Sickness, disease 4, 47, 83, 100, 121-122, 143, 255, 256, 258, 279, 293-294, 351, 378, 388-390, 392 Sieges, siege engines 24, 48, 52, 65-66, 68-70, 70-71, 74-75, 75-77, 78, 82-83, 93, 94, 104, 112, 114, 116, 117-120, 121, 131-132, 134-135, 136, 138-139, 156, 156-157, 168-169, 169-170, 172-173, 177, 178-179, 181-183, 185-187, 189, 191, 193-194, 197-200, 206, 209, 210, 211, 218,221-223, 226, 227, 228, 231, 232233, 235, 236, 238, 241, 258, 270-271, 274, 277, 304, 315-316, 320, 323, 324,

Index

326, 333, 351, 377, 379, 380, 382, 386387, 390-391, 396, 399, 400-401, 401402, 404-406, 407-408, 408-410, 417418, 418-420, 420-421, 422 Siena, Sienese 44, 45, 55, 82, 85, 87, 94, 114, 115-116, 116-117, 118, 134-135, 136, 153, 193, 197, 209, 224, 228-229, 240, 250, 294-295, 297-298, 306, 334, 347, 351-352, 407, 412, 414, 421 Sieur de Avagour 426 Sieve River 246, 288 Signa 47, 68, 132, 249 Siloam 263 Silvestro de’ Gatti, Lord of Viterbo 86, 102, 174 Simon of Reading 53 Simone Boccanegra, Doge of Genoa 379380, 406 Simone di Geri de’ Bardi, conspirator 395 Simone di Gerozzo de’ Bardi, conspirator 395 Simone di Rosso della Tosa 64, 94, 96, 120, 161-162, 165 Simone Filippi, vicar in Lucca for King John 206, 223 Simone the Elder, Count of Battifolle 318 Simone the Younger, Count of Battifolle 396, 405-406 Simony 281 Sin, sins 4, 8, 12, 13, 14, 46, 54, 56, 66, 67, 70, 76, 99, 102, 103, 105, 121, 127, 129, 149, 154, 156, 171-172, 179, 180181, 198, 205, 206, 234, 236, 250, 253254, 255-259, 260, 262-264, 266-267, 285, 304, 326, 343, 350, 371, 377, 379, 390, 392, 395, 398-400, 405, 408, 411, 415, 421 Slaves 179, 220, 279, 336, 416 Sloth 258 Sluys 344-345, 384-385, 388 Smyrna 284 Soave 349 Socrates 265 Sodom and Gomorrah, biblical 254 Solari, family 381 Soldanieri, family 207 Solomon, biblical 262, 266-267, 352

477

Soncino 291 Soul 98, 127, 192, 242-243, 260, 264, 279280, 307, 338, 408 Sovrano, castello 362 Spain, Spaniards 89, 191, 195-196, 236, 257, 376-377, 388, 397 Speeches 84, 86, 87, 91, 103, 104-106, 106-107, 146, 155, 190, 270, 329 Spells 81 Spina degli Streghi, Wife of Castruccio Castracani 140 Spinetta Malaspina, Lord of Fosdinovo 47, 49, 182, 222-223, 232, 291, 302-304, 323, 354 Spinola, family 210, 286-287, 290, 379– 381 Spoleto, Spoletans 111, 112, 165, 196, 309, 390 Statue of Mars 248 Statues 15 Stefano Colonna “the Elder” 61, 63, 89, 90, 106, 130, 153, 235 Stefanuccio di Sciarra della Colonna 235 Stinche (prison) 83 Storms, snow, rain, hail 48-49, 52, 86, 128, 137, 155, 196, 236, 245-246, 250252, 260, 261, 265, 267-269, 284, 366, 378, 383, 388, 389, 408, 423-424 Suetonius 264 Sulmona 351 Sumptuary legislation 56, 180-181, 370 Surrender of castle or city 7, 12, 15, 69, 70, 71, 83, 88, 97, 112, 115-116, 120, 127, 135, 139, 153, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161-162, 163, 169, 170, 172-173, 177, 187, 193-194, 194-195, 195, 197-198, 202, 209, 211, 221, 223, 235, 236, 237, 241, 270, 274, 277, 287, 289, 291292, 292-293, 294, 296, 301, 323, 325, 328, 330, 335, 336, 345, 349, 354, 383, 385, 396, 399, 402, 422, 424 Syndics 64, 104-105, 106-107, 162-163, 167, 199, 209, 218, 221, 299, 303-304, 310, 327-329, 363, 380, 410, 418, 425 Syria 377

478

Index

Taddeo Pepoli, Lord of Bologna 270, 341342, 407, 409, 414, 415, 421 Talamone 136, 153 Taldo Valori, Gonfaloniere during the Bardi conspiracy 394 Talento Bucelli, Florentine officer at siege of Montecatini 185 Tancredi, family 202 Tano Baligani, Lord of Iesi 93, 155-156 Tano da Castello, ally of the Marquess of Valliana 296 Tano degli Ubaldini 88 Tarlatino de’ Tarlati, Lord of Arezzo 137, 160, 164, 327-328, 414, 422 Tartary, Tartars 178-179 Teaching 25, 81-82, 259, 280, 342 Tears, crying, weeping 78, 138, 190, 234, 262, 338, 389 Tebaldo di Ciantiglio 186 Tegghia di Messer Bindo Buondelmonti, Florentine podestà 192, 295 Teodoro I Paleologo, Marquess of Monferrato 213, 381 Terma 399 Terraio, castello 317 Testa Tornaquinci, Florentine captain 134135 Teutonic Order 60 Teutons 257 Theft, robbery, thieves, robbers 70, 96, 161, 208, 223, 272, 286, 290, 322, 337 Thiérache 357, 359 Thirteen Buoni Uomini of Rome, office 108 Thomas Aquinas 258 Tibaldo di Sant’Eustachio, Roman baron 90, 92 Tiber, river 63, 91, 110, 130, 135, 249 Tirli, castello 422 Tithes 216, 322 Titus, classical 256, 263 Tivoli 109, 111, 113 Tizzano 71, 96, 162 Tobias, biblical 264 Todi, Todini 7, 112, 131-132, 132-133, 135, 250 Tolomei, family 116, 298 Tomagno degli Angiolieri, conspirator 395

Tommaso Marzano, Count of Squillace 43, 49 Torre del Cancelliere (Rome) 102 Torricella, castello 301 Tortona 213 Torture, interrogation by torture 102, 112, 122, 150, 299, 370 Toschi, family 317 Totila, Flagellum Dei 14, 250 Toulouse 89, 283 Tournai 383, 386-388 Towers 47, 70, 76, 95, 102, 117-118, 133, 138, 139, 147, 178, 203, 225, 302, 348, 367, 371, 378 Trade 2, 41, 101, 125, 287, 309, 355, 360361, 370, 378, 389-390, 401 Treason, traitors, betrayal, betrayers 12, 57, 66, 67, 70, 74, 75, 77, 96, 98, 101, 105, 126, 131, 133, 134, 141, 150, 151, 159, 166, 168, 170, 173, 174, 175, 176, 178, 179-180, 183, 190, 192, 200, 202, 204, 206, 213, 224, 236, 241-242, 274, 277, 278, 293-296, 229, 293, 299-301, 303-306, 315, 319, 325, 329, 331, 333, 336, 341, 347, 354, 359, 361-364, 372, 376, 385, 391, 394, 398-399, 400-401, 405, 407, 415, 421-422 Treasure 21, 102, 128, 131, 211, 212, 216, 281-282, 344, 349, 377, 388, 397 Treatise on the Spheres 81 Treggiaia 422 Tremole 351 Trent 59, 60, 72, 175, 419, 422 Treviso, Trevisans 48, 82, 169, 232, 305, 309, 310, 313, 317, 319, 324, 326, 333, 349, 362, 372 Turin, Turinese 229 Turkey, Turks 178-179, 212, 220, 279, 282, 391 Tuscania 86 Tuscany, Tuscans 2, 4, 7, 10, 19, 43, 44, 55, 57, 58, 64, 67, 70, 71, 73-74, 74-75, 75-77, 78, 85-86, 88, 89, 90, 97, 112, 113, 121-123, 129, 132, 134, 136, 149, 153, 155, 157, 160, 163-164, 164, 174, 181, 183, 187, 191-192, 203, 204, 205, 211-212, 228, 242, 245, 249, 252, 273,

Index

284-285, 301, 304, 306, 313, 315, 326, 337, 339, 348-349, 371, 400, 405, 419 Twelve Buonuomini, office 145, 146 Tyranny, Tyrant 7, 9, 15, 27, 44, 56, 58, 60, 73, 77-78, 86, 102, 121-122, 132-133, 133-134, 137, 156, 157, 160, 164, 169, 175, 196, 202, 204, 208, 222, 230, 257, 273-274, 282, 287, 294, 300, 303-306, 309, 311, 315, 335, 336, 342, 345, 348350, 363-364, 371-373, 378, 382, 391392, 397-398, 418 Ubaldini, family 7, 88, 132, 150, 151, 219220, 393, 406, 422 Ubertini, family 56, 287, 331, 347, 393, 422 Ubertino I da Carrara, Lord of Padua 336337, 337, 354, 405, 416 Ugo degli Scali, Florentine captain at Ferrara 231, 277 Ugo, Guidi Count of Battifolle 44, 168, 317-318 Ugolino de’ Rossi, podestà and combatant at Campaldino 315 Ugolino di Tano degli Ubaldini 150, 151 Ugolinuccio da Baschio, captain for the Bavarian 85 Uguccio Casali 216 Uguccione da Faggiuola, Lord of Pisa 1-3, 59, 77, 112, 187, 278, 287, 417 Usury 172, 257, 343, 365, 415 Uzzano, castello 166, 182, 206, 277, 288, 362 Valdarno 66, 68, 70, 77, 120, 132, 138, 194, 217, 246, 249, 305, 313-314, 317318, 329, 347, 362, 393, 407-408, 410, 424 Valdera 149, 167, 228, 408 Valdichiana 289 Valdinievole 142, 160-161, 166-167, 168, 172-173, 177, 193, 201, 206, 212-213, 269, 277, 288, 305, 313, 334, 362, 410, 421 Valdiserchio 249, 408 Valenciennes 356, 384 Valentinois 55

479

Valerius Maximus 84, 258 Valkenburg 322, 357, 384, 386 Valle di Bura 57 Valle di Strova 229 Vallombrosa, Abbey 257, 275 Vanni di Banduccio Bonconti 76 Vecchio in Valdilima, castello 362 Vellano, castello 362 Velletri 110, 112, 113 Venice, Venetians 10, 11, 31–33, 92, 101, 109, 110, 201-202, 203, 208, 220, 279, 304, 309–314, 317, 319-320, 323-324, 326, 331, 333-334, 335–337, 338, 341, 346-347, 349, 353, 361-364, 374, 380, 416 Venturino of Bergamo, Friar 284-286 Vercelli, Vercellesi 121 Vercingetorix 182 Vergellesi, family 158, 162, 177 Vergi di Landa, condottiere 69, 118 Vermandois 357-358 Vernacular 17–19, 22, 24, 29–31, 34, 36, 38, 114, 122, 188, 255, 259, 260, 280 Vernia, castello 116, 393, 396 Verona, Veronese 9, 10, 48, 59, 60, 61, 82, 129, 133, 137-138, 159, 169, 190, 195, 221, 231, 269, 292, 300, 303, 305306, 309-310, 323, 333, 334-336, 345346, 349-350, 354, 362, 371-373, 374, 376, 398, 404 Verrucola Bosi, castello 48 Versilia 84 Vespasian, classical 256 Via di Balla 225 Via di Porta Rossa 207 Via di Signa 120 Via Ghibellina 234 Via Maggio 247 Via Quattro Pavoni 353 Via Vacchereccia 247 Vicar, vicariate 3, 9, 30, 59, 72, 87, 99, 112, 115, 133, 137, 138, 158, 160, 164, 174, 206, 210, 211, 223, 271, 300, 333334, 356, 376, 380, 390, 399, 419, 425 Vicenza, Vicentini 305, 349, 353, 361-362, 374, 404 Vicopisano, castello 56, 57

480

Index

Viesca in Valdarno 318 Villa da Nervia 375 Villa of Aro 375 Villa of Castagno 288 Villa of Cattaiuola 197 Villa of Cierie 226 Villa of Consandolo 226 Villa of Formigine 183 Villa of Legnano 375 Villa of Martignano 313 Villa of Nervia 375 Villa of Parabiago 375 Ville d’Haspres 357 Virgin Mary, biblical 242, 256, 311, 339 Virtue, Virtues 12, 13, 18, 203, 243, 258259, 263, 267, 350, 398, 403, 418 Viscount of Limoges 426 Visso, castello 148 Viterbo, Viterbese 7, 62, 86, 89-91, 101, 102, 129-131, 131, 136, 152, 163-164, 174 Vitolino 162 Vivinaia, castello 70, 42 186, 193, 199, 222 Voghera 72 Volterra 79, 118, 152, 390-391, 393, 407, 414 Voltri 100, 127 Wales 52-53 Walls 10, 39-40, 47, 63, 68, 69, 70, 75, 76, 94, 95, 97, 118, 133, 136, 147, 157, 178, 187, 193, 196, 216, 217, 218, 219, 235, 238, 241, 246-250, 276, 277, 289, 294, 296, 303, 305, 311, 314, 316, 319, 325, 330, 336, 347, 349, 354, 365, 368, 370, 378, 385, 399, 408 Walter of Brienne, Duke of Athens 15, 2627, 40, 44, 62, 211-212, 328, 391, 416418, 422-423, 426 Walter Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter 51-52 War 47-50, 50-54, 56-57, 57, 58, 59, 62-63, 63-64, 68-70, 70-71, 75-77, 80, 82, 8283, 83, 93, 94-97, 100, 101, 101-102, 102-103, 109-110, 112, 112-113, 114, 114115, 116-117, 117-120, 124-127, 127, 128, 128-129, 131-132, 134, 134-135, 135-137, 138-139, 149-150, 152, 155-156, 156-157,

158, 159, 159-160, 160-162, 163, 163164, 167-168, 168-169, 169, 178-179, 181-183, 183, 184-185, 185-187, 189-190, 191, 192, 193-194, 197-200, 200-201, 201-202, 204-205, 206, 209, 210-211, 211-212, 212-213, 215, 217, 220, 221-222, 222-223, 223, 226, 227, 228-229, 231, 232-233, 236-238, 238, 240-242, 258, 265-266, 269, 270, 273-274, 276-277, 277, 278-279, 279, 286-287, 287, 288, 289-290, 290-291, 293, 294, 295, 296297, 297, 302-303, 305, 305-306, 308309, 310-313, 313-314, 314-317, 317-319, 319-320, 320-323, 323, 323-324, 324326, 326-327, 332-333, 333-334, 334336, 336-337, 337-338, 341, 343, 344345, 345-346, 347, 348, 349-350, 350, 350-351, 353-354, 355, 356-359, 361, 374-376, 377, 380, 381, 382-383, 383388, 388, 389, 391, 397, 401, 402, 404406, 407-408, 411-425, 426 Weirs 246-247, 250, 252, 282, 366 White Guelphs 258 Widows 54, 92, 390, 399 William I, Count of Hainaut 51, 74, 124-127, 184, 322 William II, Count of Hainaut 322, 344, 386 William V, Marquess of Juliers 322, 344, 357, 386 Wine, vineyards 40, 41, 197, 249, 257, 316, 365, 370, 378 Wisdom 8, 9, 11, 12, 46, 48, 53, 55, 56, 65, 79, 81, 83, 86, 87, 96, 98, 104, 106, 107, 109, 119–121, 122, 124, 125, 134, 140, 144-145, 149, 153, 166, 171, 187, 189, 190, 199, 212, 215, 250, 251, 253, 260, 262, 267, 273, 281, 283, 304, 309, 311-312, 316, 320, 325, 331-332, 338, 352, 368, 372, 392, 394, 396-397, 400, 404, 407-410, 415-419, 421, 423-424 Women of Florence 56, 89, 144, 180-181, 191, 196, 249, 257-258, 275, 285, 293, 339, 367, 369-370, 389, 394, 399, 423 Wood 40, 75, 94, 117, 138, 178, 182, 193, 207, 269, 284, 320, 324, 366, 370, 394, 408, 423 Woodstock, castello 53

Index

Woolen cloth, wool workshops, wool workers 40, 193, 208, 214, 246, 249, 288, 288, 344, 356, 360, 369, 389-390 Yolanda of Aragon, wife of King Robert of Naples 43 Ypres 126, 355, 383, 385-386

Zampaglione dei’ Tornaquinci, Florentine captain 295 Zeeland 284 Zwin, river 344, 384-385

481