BOOK THE FIRST. CHAPTER V.
FROM A.D. 1010 TO A.D. 1085.
We now come to the first great event in early
Florentine history, but are not yet sufficiently advanced to see our way
clearly out of the obscurity that involves it; for amongst many contradictory
accounts of these misty times the choice is difficult, and nothing has been
more disputed than the capture of Fiesole. Malespini, who could hardly have
been born later than 1220, is our earliest Florentine guide for the
transactions in and near his own times; the recollection of some must have
still lingered amongst the aged, and even tradition could not have been greatly
disfigured as to the main fact in its transmission through three or four
generations. We may fairly suppose that he could not have been very much
mistaken in his belief of the true date and circumstances of this transaction;
for the remembrance of such a conquest was unlikely to fade, and some record
would assuredly have been preserved in both public and private archives at
Florence as well as by oral tradition, of an event so important in her early
history. “I have written”, says Malespini, “many things which I saw with mine
own eyes in the said city of Florence, and of Fiesole; and in Rome I dwelt from
the second day of August of the year 1200 until the eleventh day of April in
the year---. And when I returned to our said city of Florence, I searched out
many writings of the past events of this same matter, and I found many writings
and chronicles; and in the manner that I did find them so have I written them
and mentioned them; and for the time to come I will write more at large and of
my own nation.”
The above date is uncertain, most probably erroneous,
and the manuscripts vary; but his nephew, who continued the history, adds:—“And
I Giachetto Malespini continue to write the chronicle
begun by the said Ricordano my uncle, of which he had
a part from Rome, as already has been told, and a part from the Abbey of
Florence: that is to say, ancient writings of those times from the said Abbey
that were in the said Abbey, in which are contained many past events of the cities
of Florence and of Fiesole.”
We can hardly refuse credit to this plain statement as
regards the main fact, an event comparatively so recent and momentous, and
which he so simply relates, although disgraceful to his country, followed too
as he is by all the principal Florentine historians.
We learn from this author that under the Emperor Henry
II, Florence had by favour of the Saxon dynasty been steadily increasing in
power and population, and Fiesole proportionably decreasing from a constant
emigration to the plain; but that Florence, thinking such a neighbour dangerous
and convinced of the impossibility of openly reducing the Fiesolines,
resolved to do so by stratagem.
For this purpose a truce was concluded which by
successive renewals inspired reciprocal confidence and apparent friendship :
the gates of either city ceased to be any longer guarded, and the most familiar
intercourse existed between them; but whether from previous design or sudden
temptation, a plan was finally arranged to get possession of Fiesole on the
festival of Saint Romulus. A body of young Florentines was placed in
concealment round the town while the remaining force stood ready in the plain
to act at a given signal. Thus posted after nightfall, they continued quiet all
the eve of Saint Romulus, and when the Fiesolines hailed the morning festival of their patron Saint a number of the enemy with
concealed arms passed through the gates as they had been accustomed, without
awakening any suspicion. Groups of treacherous neighbours thus crowded the Fiesoline gateways, assembled in various quarters of the
town, spread over the walls and towers, and thence made signals to the plain.
The citizens were quietly enjoying their forenoon repast when a sudden movement
amongst the rocks and thickets without, followed by some noise at the gates
began to alarm them, although mistaken at first for an accidental affray of the
peasantry who crowded every street in Fiesole. Ere long the shouts of
Florentine soldiers, the quick trampling of steeds and cries of wounded men,
told a different tale and at once laid bare the treason and its successful
issue: defence was unavailing; a small body of citizens threw themselves into the
citadel while the Florentines scoured the streets with shouts and menaces, but
committed no outrage nor harmed any who offered no resistance. The citadel made
a long and brave defence, but Fiesole was lost: the victors spread over all the
surrounding district and reduced every stronghold but the “Rocca” or citadel,
which still held out when the town was evacuated.
This fortress was afterwards partly destroyed by
mutual agreement; and the cathedral, and some other churches, perhaps the
Bishop’s Palace with the ecclesiastical residences, alone remained of all the
superior buildings: a capitulation followed by which Fiesoline citizens were either admitted to the freedom of Florence or allowed to retire
elsewhere with their property. Numbers in consequence became Florentines;
others withdrew to their country residences; many probably remained amongst
their native ruins; but multitudes sullenly retired to Pistoia and were
welcomed as a valuable accession to its growing power and population.
Nevertheless most of the Fiesolines settled in
Florence and, according to Ammirato, a senate and consuls were then first
created, and chosen indiscriminately from both nations. Columns, sculptures and
other valuables were removed to Florence; amongst them a celebrated rostrum or
pulpit of carved marble called the “Ambona”, with the
“Ruota” or Wheel, probably some piece of antique
marble sculpture, which was attached to the front of San Piero Scheraggio and remained there until the church itself was
demolished by the ducal Medici to make room for the present gallery and public
offices. The Ambona served for ages as the pulpit and
rostrum of that edifice, which was long used as a place of public assembly both
for the vindication of general liberty, and the voice of faction.
The union of two nations in such circumstances,
although it augmented the common population was also a source of discord:
cordiality could scarcely exist: the Fiesolines were
too numerous for oppression; too angry to forgive; and too ambitious to remain
inactive spectators of public events. Wherefore the first seeds of Florentino
troubles are said to have sprung from this unnatural infusion, and the poet’s
exclamation may be fairly echoed by history :
“ Sempre la confusion delle
persone
Principio fu del mal della Citade”.
In order more effectually to amalgamate the two races
a new national standard was formed of the united arms of Florence and Fiesole:
those of the latter were an azure crescent on an argent field: the former,
which the Florentines prided themselves on having borne since the times of
ancient Rome, was a white lily on a field of red; but now both lily and
crescent were removed, and the fields alone, divided vertically, remained as
the union standard of the new republic. This influx of fresh citizens rendered
an extension of the city necessary, wherefore a stockade was driven round the
line of recent dwellings beyond the walls, which sixty-eight years afterwards
was changed into ramparts of solid masonry and called the “second circuit”. A
few more words are now necessary on the much disputed point of this capture of
Fiesole.
Muratori is very suspicious of any documents that
would exhibit Florence as a free city so early as the eleventh century, and leaving it to his readers to believe what they please of the tale is
himself doubtful of such boldness in times when the Italian cities had neither
the habit nor the power of making war on their own account or of thus
destroying each other.
Few authorities on Italian antiquities and history
should be received with more deference than Muratori, yet this opinion is in
direct opposition to his own account of the Pisan expedition against the
Saracens of Calabria in 1006, and the battle of Acqualunga in 1004, which last he cites as the first example of a private war between two
Italian cities; and also to the war between these states in 1002, of which the
above battle was a consequence according to most of the ancient chroniclers,
supported by such antiquarians as Cosimo della Rena
and especially Fiorentini, on whom Muratori himself bestows the epithet of “accuratissimo”.
But besides these examples Milan and Pavia were about
the same period engaged in hostilities arising from their own local disputes;
though nominally for the rival princes whose cause became an excuse for many
republics to exercise their incipient liberty in private war. Both cities and
nobles indeed used this self-assumed privilege until the Diet of Roncaglia in
1158, when they were deprived of it by Frederic Barbarossa, who thus aimed a
sharp blow at civic independence; but the many evils that sprang from private
war amongst the nobility prevented a single Lombard voice being raised against
the ordinance. With respect to Fiesole it has been urged that no sovereign
prince would allow two cities under his dominion to make war for mutual
destruction; but it has also been shown in the example of Lucca and Pisa that
this custom not only did exist but was sanctioned, no matter whether from
policy, necessity, or law : and if suffered at Lucca, the ducal residence and
probably the provincial capital, how much more likely in places further removed
from the seat of government.
It has been already remarked that no notice exists
about any permanent Marquis or Duke of Tuscany from the death of Hugo the Great
in 1001 until the appointment of Ranieri in 1014, for during this epoch there
was no steady government; and precisely at this time the above mentioned wars
took place. The tide of fortune ebbed and flowed; the province was convulsed
and alternately possessed by each contending monarch : the vicissitudes of war
were continual; dukes and marquises were rapidly appointed and as rapidly
expelled; the people avoided both the contending princes, and neither the names
of Henry nor Ardoino are mentioned, as we are told, in any act of the time.
Hence the young communities, like suckers from a severed trunk, sprouted with
freshening vigour and offered peace, war, or obedience, according as their
passions or interest dictated: nor were the rival lungs much displeased at their
quarrels or neutrality, for each feared to see them in the hostile ranks, and
it was precisely during this disturbed epoch that Florence attacked and
captured Fiesole. Neither could the city have then been far from independence
if, as Borghini thinks, she had previously exercised the sovereign right of
coinage; but like other Tuscan states her lords paramount were Boniface,
Beatrice, Godfrey of Lorraine, and the Countess Matilda : like them too she was
internally free and in diurnal progress towards complete emancipation.
It would be useless to enter into a discussion of
other trifling antiquarian objections to the authenticity of this expedition;
they are fully discussed by Lami; but Salvi (who cites the historians Pandolfo Arferoli and Giovanni Niccolo Dolieni) asserts that the Florentines having greatly
increased in force did with the aid of Pistoia attack Fiesole in 1004, this was
probably what convinced Florence of the impossibility of taking that city by
open siege, and occasioned the truce recorded by Malespini. But in the year
1010, he adds, “the city of Pistoia was much augmented in population by the
many fugitives from Fiesole which the Florentines had nearly destroyed the year
before.” This slight disagreement of dates does not annul but rather confirms
the main fact of Florentine independence, which is the only real point for
decision.
It is clear that Fiesole was not entirely desolated in
the year 1010: the citadel remained uninjured; the walls were partially
destroyed; the greater houses ruined: and their materials removed to Florence;
but the inferior classes who were not feared, and to whom the honours of
citizenship were probably never offered, were permitted to remain and along
with the clergy still preserved that city’s ancient denomination. Marchionne di
Coppo Stefani says that the belligerents agreed by treaty to destroy all but the
churches, to remove the materials necessary for reconstructing each citizen’s
dwelling in Florence at the public charge, and to give a premium of ten per
cent, to all who settled in this city or its suburbs.
After such a blow the Fiesoline population would naturally decline, but it needs many days to tear a whole
people from their fathers’ graves, their ancient temples, and the earlier
scenes of childhood; wherefore we find on record another attack of this city in
1125; not as would appear by a public decree of the Florentines in which the Fiesoline population must have concurred; but the private
aggression of a part only, and probably the Florentine portion of the republic;
for this the citizens were not only reprimanded but punished by Pope Honorius
the Second. Atto Abbot of Vallombrosa intercedes for them in a letter quoted by
Lami, assuring the pontiff that it was the “sudden, capricious, and
inconsiderate resolution of a few,” who nevertheless (according to an old
chronicle cited by the same author) scoured the whole country and managed to
besiege the citadel of Fiesole for three months. It was ultimately taken by
famine; and this long siege proves either secret connivance at the act or
extreme weakness in the government.
According to Malespini the citadel was occupied by
certain Cattani or chiefs of Fiesoline race, who
trusting to its strength plundered the whole neighbourhood; they had probably
repaired it, for a law was immediately passed to forbid the reestablishment of
any ruined fortress without public leave. After this the town gradually melted
away, and the removal of Bishop Hildebrand to Florence in 1228 left only the
name and shadow of a city with probably about its present population.
The importance of this event may not justify so long a
discussion; yet where an author’s account of disputed points can be fairly reconciled with facts his
authority is strengthened in other matters, and the value of his narration
proportionally increased. Those who doubt have taken no notice of the important
circumstance before mentioned, namely that Tuscany was without a general
governor and in a state of complete municipal independence for thirteen years :
Lami nevertheless asserts that a certain Duke Boniface (not Matilda’s father)
governed during this period; but there is strong ground for believing that no
Boniface regularly or permanently ruled Tuscany from the ninth century until
the year 1027 when Countess Matilda’s father became Duke.
After every research we still find Malespini’s details
of this expedition sufficiently perplexing; he may have exaggerated its
consequences by confusing them with subsequent events and the wasting influence
of time, seen only in its effects; but modern writers reject the whole without
sufficient reason. Many authorities have been here cited to confirm it, not to
accumulate evidence; for except Salvi almost all must have drawn from the same
source, namely the chronicle of Malespini: merely to show how generally the
story has been received.
That Florence was a town of comparative importance in
the eleventh century (about the year 1055) is evident not only from its having
been the favourite place of residence and election of several Pontiffs, but
also because a General Council was then held there by Pope Victor the Second
and Henry III of Germany; the latter at the same time exercising some acts of
high authority against Godfrey of Lorraine and his wife Beatrice, who was a
hostage at his court; and the former unfrocking many Bishops for simony and
unchastity.
In 1063 a quarrel arose between Bishop Pietro
supported by Godfrey and Beatrice; and the monks of Florence under the auspices
of Giovanni Gualberto founder of the Vallambrosan convent, in which the whole population took a part and filled the city with
tumult. This prelate charged with the crime of simony, fell in the public
estimation and was finally overcome by a furious adverse faction and more
furious monks. Pope Alexander II then residing at Lucca displeased with this
violence endeavoured to restore tranquillity but in vain; the citizens became
still more disorderly; swarms of turbulent friars poured from the cloisters and
by accumulated evidence so clearly proved the crime that they not only accused
the Bishop before the Roman Council, but bold in superstition or in cunning,
offered to substantiate their charge by the fiery ordeal. The Pope and Council
wisely declined this tribunal, but the Florentines with truer faith instantly
accepted the trial and shouted for faggots. The monks unable or unwilling to
retreat chose Peter a Vallambrosan of exemplary
virtue as their champion: he fearlessly advanced and passed uninjured through
the flames.
The Pontiff received immediate notice of this by “a
special letter of the Florentine people” and the Bishop thus convicted was at
once deposed; while the bold and lucky friar (ever afterwards known as Pietro Igneo) became successively Abbot of Fucecchio, a Bishop, and Cardinal of Albano.
Besides this example of priestly arts and influence on
superstitious credulity, the incident strengthens our notions of Florentine
independence both as regards the direct communication with Pope Alexander in
free community, and the Duke of Tuscany’s feeble power, which even with the Pontiff’s
aid could neither preserve order amongst the citizens; protect the faction
which he favoured; nor save the Bishop from persecution. Yet with so early an
independence as respected both external relations and internal government
Florence still acknowledged the imperial supremacy and nominally that of the
provincial chief as its legitimate representative.
The crime of simony which bore so dark a character in
tills age became more hateful from the fact that ecclesiastical benefices were
conferred by temporal sovereigns, and thus interfered too much with church
patronage to be tamely endured: it was not so much the crime itself as the
recipients of its offerings that was condemned, and the practice was
accordingly denounced with far more virulence in proportion to its distance
from the great treasury of Christian piety and devotion. When therefore the
monk Hildebrand under the name of Gregory VII assumed the Popedom a council was
convened at Rome from whence denunciations issued against all that should be
convicted of this sin as well as against married priests, who were degraded
without mercy; and this was accompanied by a politic, sagacious, and
long-sighted decree forbidding the future admission of any person to Holy
Orders that would not make a vow of chastity. These blows were particularly
aimed at the Emperor, Henry IV, and the German priesthood, who sinned openly in
both points, and their publication carried dismay and confusion throughout the
imperial states. An absolute prohibition of priestly marriages was well calculated
to strengthen ecclesiastical power; yet the priests rose in a mass, refused to
abandon their wives, and would not even allow the papal decrees to be
promulgated. Gregory nevertheless repeated his anathemas in the following spring
against all recusants, and accompanied by new decrees prohibiting under pain of
excommunication the investiture of Abbacies and Bishoprics to all those
ecclesiastics whom the King of Germany had nominated by his own authority, and
condemning the practice as a novelty and a source of simony and disunion.
The ancient custom of electing Bishops by the united suffrages
of clergy and people had not fallen completely into disuse during the minority
of Henry IV, but his tutors nevertheless took advantage of their power to
nominate incumbents to the richest Abbeys and Bishoprics. Henry on coming of
age continued this lucrative practice; because in presenting the prelates with
the Staff and Crosier, which was called the “Investiture” valuable presents
were expected according to the worth of the benefice; but the Pope who
participated in these elections without sharing the spoil branded such
proceedings, perhaps justly, with the epithet of Simony, notwithstanding that
the ceremonial part was of long standing in Germany.
Another cause of dispute between these two potentates
was the election of Pope Alexander II by means of Hildebrand, without reference
either to the Empress Regent or the young King of Germany whose predecessors
from the times of the Othos had always interfered in
papal elections; yet as Gregory applied for the Emperor’s consent to his own
election no opportunity for an open rupture presented itself until the year
1076 when the above decrees were followed by haughty letters with threatenings of church censure in case of disobedience. His
orders, his menaces, and his Legates were treated with equal scorn, and the
indignant monarch at once convoked a Diet at Worms where with the concurrence
of all his discontented prelates; he met the papal denunciations by a decree
that declared Gregory illegitimate and excommunicate. This was accompanied by
an order from the angry monarch as Patrician of Rome commanding that Pontiff’s
instant abdication of the papal dignity and its delivery into the hands of a
holier man; Rowland a priest of Parma was despatched on this perilous embassy
and delivered his message boldly nay even audaciously to the Pope in full
council at the Lateran; he first called with a loud voice on Gregory to descend from the pontifical chair; then
turning to the astonished prelates summoned them to appear before the Emperor
and receive a true pontiff at his hands for he before whom they then stood was
nothing but a wolf. Gregory had the good nature to save this audacious
messenger from the weapons of his guard, and sure of Beatrice and Matilda’s aid
with the favour of many German princes, he calmly rose and with all the
decision of his character pronounced in a stern voice the long-menaced
anathema; he declared Henry to be excommunicated and deposed, and his subjects
absolved from every oath they had taken in his service.
The assembly were awed and even astounded by this act
for it was the first instance of a pope’s having exercised so tremendous a
power, and Gregory himself, bold and resolute as he was, only attempted to
justify it by the perilous conjuncture; he nevertheless felt secure in his
position, which the Emperor did not; the malediction proved omnipotent; its
effects instantaneous, loyalty shrank trembling from the cursed king; chiefs
and princes abandoned him, and he was stript like a
lofty oak by the winter’s blast.
Amongst the first who left him was Guelph Duke of
Bavaria, son of Albert Marquis of Este, a prince strongly attached to the Holy
See, and Henry was forced unaided to bend before the storm: his pride soon
yielded to expediency, he had rashly seized a position that he could not
maintain, and in the depth of one of the severest winters ever known in Italy
crossed the Alps with his wife and child and appeared as a suppliant under the
treble-walled castle of Cannosa. Matilda was already
there as a mediatrix; Gregory as an implacable priest to trample on the pride
of disobedient royalty.
A train of penitent ecclesiastics followed their king
and wandered like spirits round the frowning towers: the Pontiff was long
inflexible; but finally yielding to their prayers vouchsafed an ungracious and
tardy absolution. Not so with the Emperor. All the unbending rigour of Gregory
was now sternly manifested: neither Matilda’s influence nor the earnest
entreaties of all those princes who had flocked around him were of any avail:
the haughty monk still frowned on the degraded king, and when he at last
vouchsafed to pardon, the terms were so humiliating that the imagination can
scarcely conceive a man of Henry’s character ever deigning under any
circumstances to accept them as the price of his reconciliation. Yet when he
thus acted who shall justly accuse Matilda of superstitious weakness, for
devotion to that church which had ever protected her, even in the moments of
its greatest necessity. To merit this disgraceful pardon, all manly spirit, and
royalty even to its very robes, were sacrificed; then, but not until then, the
Emperor was contemptuously received within the second circuit of the castle
walls where covered only by a woollen shirt, shivering with bare extremities in
the cold of a rigorous winter and the ground black with frost, did this humbled
image of the Roman Caesars remain for three successive days, and denied all
sustenance until the evening shades periodically released him from his
sufferings.
On the fourth day prostrate at the Pontiff’s feet he
implored a wretched pardon for his imputed sins; while the haughty priest took
off the malediction and then proudly gathering up his robes moved on to Reggio
leaving Henry’s restoration to the judgment of a German Diet!
Such was the ominous commencement of fierce disputes
between Church and Empire: born of avarice and ambition, nourished by scorn and
defiance and matured by solid acts of shame and injury; they generated a long
succession of misfortunes and retarded human civilisation. There were indeed
some casual intervals of repose; and though the particular dispute about
investitures was terminated in 1121 by mutual concessions from Henry V and
Calistus II, causes of quarrel still smouldered with many outbursts until a general
conflagration blazed wildly forth between the mighty frictions of Guelph and Ghibeline.
Florence imbued with Matilda’s politics became
essentially attached to her cause and followed all her fortunes; the citizens
did not for a moment suppose that Henry would passively submit to such
contumely; wherefore, comparing the prospect of immediate war with the
unguarded position of their suburbs, they determined to inclose the whole town with new walls and in 1078 began the “second circuit.” The city
was divided into six parts called “Sesti”, five of which occupied the
north or right bank of the Arno, each named after its own particular gate;
three small suburbs on the left bank formed the sixth division, both these
portions being linked together by the “Ponte Vecchio” then the only bridge of
Florence.
Though many years were expended in perfecting these
defences yet so extensive a work, originating entirely with the citizens,
proves the independence and prosperity of Florence and its confidence in native
energy and resources alone for safety: they were, as the Florentines
anticipated, soon destined to be proved; for the Emperor ashamed of his late
humiliation became again the Pontiff’s declared enemy and was moreover
compelled to defend his own crown against Rodolph Duke of Swabia who had been
elected king by a new Diet of the discontented princes. A war of three years
which began in 1077 and a battle lost by Henry in 1080 determined the Pope to
acknowledge Rodolph, redouble his curses on the king, and anathematise the
Archbishops of Milan and Ravenna who had steadily adhered to his cause. A
golden diadem with the legend “Petra dedit Petro,
Petrus Diadema Rodulpho”,
was on this occasion sent to Henry’s antagonist, which so moved the Emperor
that he assembled about thirty schismatic prelates besides a numerous following
of German and Italian barons, and at Brixen in the Tyrol was again rash enough
to declare Gregory deposed, and to elect the manytimes excommunicated Archbishop of Ravenna in his place under the name of Clement III,
a man, say his enemies “whose first thought was ambition, and his last the fear
of God.”
This event, which occurred in June 1080, was followed
after a few months by a fourth pitched battle in which Rodolph was killed and
his army totally defeated, while on the same day at a place called Volta in the
Mantuan States, Matilda’s army was routed in attempting to expel the Antipope,
and all Lombardy declared for the Emperor.
Henry elated by this success marched to Ravenna and
with words of Peace 0n his lips determined to crown the Antipope at Rome: but
neither Gregory nor Matilda were disheartened; he relied on Robert Guiscard the
Norman, who had been freed from ecclesiastical censure for the occasion and
ruled the Neapolitan States; and she, confident of her own courage and
resources, was true to the cause in which both her heart and conscience were
engaged.
Florence attached by habit to the Church was steady
and determined, for while the Emperor marched in triumph through northern Italy
she seems to have stood forward almost alone, and resolutely closed her gates
against the conqueror. According to her own writers, who however are not too
impartial, the Emperor indignant at such resistance from a single town had no
choice but arms, and with Senese assistance began the siege believing that
nothing could withstand him. Approaching Florence from the northward he encamped
at a place then called Cafaggio (now occupied
principally by the Church and Convent of the Santissima Annunziata) and
extending his left wing to the Arno, commenced operations in the month of April
1081.
“There is no wall,” says Ammirato, “however strong it
may be, so difficult to surmount as Union”; and the Florentines moved by this
spirit not only dared the imperialists but harassed them so sharply by repeated
sallies that after a while Henry being fearful of Matilda’s daily increasing
numbers, raised the siege and made a disorderly retreat with considerable loss
of baggage.
Authors disagree about the precise date of this siege:
Ammirato, apparently after Malespini, continues it from the beginning of April
to the twenty-first of June; but Villani in asserting that it finished on the
twenty-first of April agrees better with Munitori’s statement that Henry and the Antipope were before Rome in May of the same year,
where meeting with unexpected resistance and no friends, he retired without
accomplishing his purpose; nor was it until after a succession of annual sieges
that by dint of bribery he mastered that capital in 1084. Clement was then
crowned and Henry received the imperial diadem in return, while Gregory was
closely besieged in the castle of Saint Angelo. Guiscard soon advanced to the
rescue with a powerful army augmented by a body of Saracens who either drove or
frightened the Emperor away and restored the Christian Pontiff to liberty.
Some authors aver that he retreated three days before
Guiscard’s appearance although favoured by the citizens whose support he had
bought with the golden byzants of Alexius the father of Anna Commena: it is certain that the Romans rose tumultuously,
attacked the Pope’s deliverers, and fought with vigour until the Norman calling
fiercely for torches Rome was straightway in flames from the Coliseum to the
Lateran. Soon after this barbarous feat Guiscard and his myrmidons quitted the
scene of desolation with multitudes of prisoners, and accompanied by Gregory
who under that rough protector retired to Salerno where he expired the
following year; still invoking Heaven’s vengeance on the schismatic emperor and
his wicked adherents.
This conflagration was the real and phoenix-like death
of ancient Rome and the birth of the moderm city on
the Campus Mortius, for before this her antique
splendour had been scarcely injured. The Emperor’s attempt on Florence too, as
Villani avers, kindled a flame amongst the citizens which produced those fatal
quarrels between the church and imperial factions which, thus early engendered,
soon found in this stormy region a congenial habitation and a name.
Florence being angry with Siena for assisting Henry,
moved with all her force against it and carrying devastation to the very gates;
but the Sienese suddenly issuing with six thousand men defeated them at Leceto on the Florentine road; and on this occasion, to
recompense the services of the Incontrati family, a lofty tower was erected at the public expense near their houses as a
mark of honour : these buildings were at first uninhabitable like the round
towers of Ireland, but many were afterwards adapted to and used for defence, as
in Florence, Pisa, and other parts of Italy.
CHAPTER VI.
FROM A.D. 1085 TO A.D. 1170.
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