ingly in his way, did not scruple to break his engagement, and to do it with insult. He wedded his new love, who was of the Donati family, on Easter Day, and on that same day he was slain by the Amidei, whose house he had so grossly affronted. "The assassins retired to their fortress houses, and left the bridal party to form itself as it might into a funeral procession. 'Great was the uproar in the city. He was placed on a bier; and his wife took her station on the bier also, and held his head in her lap, violently weeping; and in that manner they carried him through the whole of the city; and on that day began the ruin of Florence.' The last phrase of the above citation marks the significance which the Tuscan historians have attributed to this incident, and the important place that has always been assigned to it in Florentine history. We are told by all the earliest historians, especially by Malispini, in whose childhood these events must have happened, and whom Villani copies almost word for word, that from this quarrel began the great, fatal, and world-famous division of Florence into the parties of Guelph and Ghibelline. Dante goes so far as to consider the conduct of Buondelmonte in this affair so entirely the cause of the evils that arose from the Guelph and Ghibelline wars, that, had that cause not existed, no such misfortunes would have arisen. . . . Yet the historians admit that the party names of Guelph and Ghibelline were known in Florence long before; but they say that not till then did the city divide itself into two hostile camps under those rallying cries. It is curiously clear, from the accounts of Malispini and Villani, that, as usual in such matters, the Florentines had but a very hazy notion as to the meaning and origin of the two names [see GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES] for the sake of which they were prepared to cut each other's throats. Any name or watchword is good enough for a party rallying cry, when once passions have been connected with it; but the Florentines understood that Ghibelline meant attachment to the Empire in opposition to the Church, and Guelph attachment to the Church in opposition to the Empire. . . . But the quarrel of Guelph with Ghibelline in Florence was the expression of a still wider spread and more perennial conflict. . . . The Ghibellines were the old Imperial nobles, who, whether more anciently or more recently incorporated into the body of Florentine citizens, formed the aristocracy of the social body, and were naturally Imperialist in their sympathies. These Ghibellines were the high Tories of the Florentine community. The body of the people were Guelphs, naming themselves after the party professing attachment to the Church only because the Papacy was in opposition to the Empire. The Guelphs were the Whigs of Florence. The Radicals appeared on the scene in due time and normal sequence." From Florence, as its center, the strife of the two factions spread throughout Italy. "Ghibellinism was nearly universal in the north of Italy, divided among a number of more or less well known great families, of whom the principal were the Visconti at Milan, and the Della Scala at Verona. Naples and the States of the Church were Guelph; the former, as need hardly be suggested, from political circumstances, from opposition to the Empire, and from connection, rather than from principle. Tuscany and the whole of Central Italy were divided between the two, although the real strength and stronghold of genuine Guelphism was there. Without Florence, there would have been no Guelph party. Had those stout sandalled and leather-jerkined Florentine

burghers of the 13th century not undertaken and persevered in that crusade against the feudal nobles and the Ghibelline principle, which . . . was the leading occupation and idea of the Commonwealth during all that century, Ghibellinism and Imperialism would have long since possessed and ruled Italy from the Alps to the toe of the boot." -T. A. Trollope, History of the commonwealth of Florence, v. 1, bk. 1, ch. 3, and bk. 3, ch. 1.-See also GERMANY: 1138-1197.-"One party called themselves the Emperor's liegemen, and their watchword was authority and law; the other side were the liegemen of Holy Church, and their cry was liberty; and the distinction as a broad one is true. But a democracy would become Ghibelline, without scruple, if its neighbour town was Guelf; and among the Guelf liegemen of the Church and liberty, the pride of blood and love of power were not a whit inferior to that of their opponents. Yet . . . it is not impossible to trace in the two factions differences of temper, of moral and political inclinations, which, though visible only on a large scale and in the mass, were quite sufficient to give meaning and reality to their mutual opposition. . . . The Ghibellines as a body reflected the worldliness, the license, the irreligion, the reckless selfishness, the daring insolence, and at the same time the gaiety and pomp, the princely magnificence and generosity and largeness of mind of the House of Swabia [the Hohenstaufen]; they were the men of the court and camp. . . . The Guelfs, on the other hand, were the party of the middle classes; they rose out of and held to the people; they were strong by their compactness, their organisation in cities, their commercial relations and interests, their command of money. Further, they were professedly the party of strictness and religion. . . The genuine Guelf spirit was austere, frugal, independent, earnest, religious, fond of its home and Church, and of those celebrations which bound together Church and home; . . . in its higher form intolerant of evil, but intolerant always of whatever displeased it. Yet there was a grave and noble manliness about it which long kept it alive in Florence."-R. W. Church, Dante and other essays, pp. 15-18.-See also FLORENCE: 1215-1250.

1236-1259.-Tyranny of Eccelino da Romano in Veronese or Trevisan Marches, and crusade against him. See VERONA: 1236-1259.

1248-1278.-Wars of a generation of Guelfs and Ghibellines in Tuscany. See FLORENCE: 1248-1278.

The

(Southern): 1250-1268.-Invasion and conquest of Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Charles of Anjou, on invitation of pope.-"The death of the Emperor Frederic II., in 1250, had been followed in less than four years by that of his son and successor Conrad IV., from whose son Conradin, at that time an infant, the Crown of the Two Sicilies was usurped by his uncle Manfred, a natural child of the deceased Frederic. hatred of the See of Rome, notwithstanding the frequent changes which had occurred in the Papal Chair, still pursued the Line of Hohenstauffen, even in this illegitimate branch, and it was transmitted as an hereditary possession from Innocent IV. through Alexander IV. and Urban IV., to the IVth Clement. Interference in Germany itself was forbidden by the independence of the Electoral Princes; and when it was found impossible to obtain the nomination of an Emperor decidedly in the Guelph interest, Alexander contented himself by endeavouring to separate the Throne of the Two Sicilies from that of Germany, and to establisk

upon the former a Feudatory, and therefore a Champion, of the Church. Various alliances for this purpose were projected by Alexander, and by his successors who adopted a similar policy; and the Crown, which was in truth to be conquered from Manfred, was offered as an investiture which Rome had a full right to bestow." After long negotiations with Henry III of England, who coveted the Sicilian prize for his second son, Edmund, and who paid large sums to the papal treasury by way of earnest money, but who showed little ability to oust the possessor, Pope Urban, at length, closed a bargain with that ambitious speculator in royal claims and titles, Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis, king of France. The honesty of Louis was somewhat troubled by the unscrupulous transaction; but his conscience submitted itself to the instructions of the Holy Father, and he permitted his brother to embark in the evil enterprise. "Charles, accordingly, having first accepted the Senatorship of Rome, with which high magistracy he was invested by her citizens, negociated with the Holy See, most ably and much to his advantage, for the loftier dignity of Kingship. In little more than a month after he had received his Crown from the hands of Clement IV., who had become Pope, he totally defeated and killed his opponent Manfred, in the battle of Grandella [near Benevento, February, 1266]. Conradin, who had now arrived at years of discretion, was still his rival; but the capture of the young Prince at Tagliacozzo [1268], and his speedy committal to the executioner, confirmed Charles of Anjou in his Kingdom, at the everlasting expense of his good name. Few incidents in History are more calcuated to awaken just indignation than the untimely end of the brave, wronged, and gallant Conradin. Charles of Anjou thus founded the first dynasty of his House which reigned over the Sicilies. The pretensions which Aragon afterwards advanced to the Crown of that Kingdom rested on a marriage between Pedro, the eldest son of King James, and Constance, a daughter of Manfred."-E. Smedley, History of France, pt. 1, ch. 6.

ITALY, 1250-1520

still acknowledged at least the nominal superiority of the Emperor, others were now held to stand in the same relation of vassalage to the Pope."E. A. Freeman, Historical geography of Europe, ch. 8, sect. 3.-"While the Valley of the Po was being slowly but surely carved into a series of strong and pugnacious principalities, the isolated but evervigilant Republic of Venice on the one hand, and the communes of Tuscany and the western coast on the other, were following out lines of more or less divergent tendency. In Venice the ever-increasing wealth and power of her own native-born nobles a far more truly patriotic caste than the feudal nobility imported into the cities of the mainland-produced an oligarchic type of government which was for centuries the admiration of Europe, while Florence, with her more complex population and interests, only attained a stable government through the clash of many revolutions. In the year 1297 Venice, under the guidance of Doge Pietro Gradenigo, assented to the famous measure known as the Closing of the Great Council, by which the privilege of belonging to that body (the sole fount of office in the State) was practically restricted to the existing members and their descendants for ever. The powers of the Doge were at the same time jealously hedged in, for despotism was of all things the most abhorrent to the people of the lagoons; and when after a disastrous war on the mainland the need for a stronger executive was felt, the Council, in 1310, supplied it by naming a Committee of Ten, which, armed with the most formidable powers, became in after years a name of mystery and terror to Europe. Very different from the well-ordered egotism of the Venetian Republic was the fate of the brilliant but distracted communes of Tuscany and the Mediterranean coast. Faction at home and intercommunal jealousy were there the order of the day longer even than in Lombardy. Pisa and Sienna maintained their Ghibelline traditions unimpaired throughout Frederick's reign, profited by the brief glory of Manfred, suffered from the advent of Charles and from their championship of Conradin, and received unwonted favours at the hands of the 'Ghibelline' Pope, Gregory X. Genoa, on the other hand, remained more aloof from mainland politics owing to her position behind her mountain barrier, but even there the great divisions crept in, and the common people, headed by the noble houses of Doria and Spinola, held mainly for the Ghibellines, while the Grimaldi and Fieschi, with a strong party among the bourgeoisie, held for the Guelfs. Whatever her internal politics, however, the hostility of Genoa towards Pisa was inveterate and unsleeping; and after the restoration of the Greek Empire of Constantinople in 1261, which profited Genoa at the expense of Venice and Pisa, a death struggle between the two naval powers of the West became altogether inevitable."-J. P. Trevelyan, Short history of the Italian people, pp. 174-176.-See also GENOA: 12611299. "During the 14th and 15th centuries we find, roughly speaking, six sorts of despots in Italian cities. Of these the First class, which is a very small one, had a dynastic or hereditary right accruing from long seignorial possession, of their several districts. The most eminent are the house; of Montferrat and Savoy, the Marquises of Ferrara the Princes of Urbino. . . . The Second class com prise those nobles who obtained the title of Vicars of the Empire, and built an illegal power upon the basis of imperial right in Lombardy. Of these, the Della Scala and Visconti families are illustrious instances.... The Third class is important. Nobles charged with military or judicial power, as

ALSO IN: J. Michelet, History of France, bk. 4, ch. 8.-H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, v. 5, bk. 11, ch. 3.-Mrs. W. Busk, Mediaval popes, emperors, kings, and crusaders, v. 4, bk. 5.

1250-1293.-Development of popular constitution of Florentine commonwealth. See FLORENCE: 1250-1293.

1250-1520.-Age of despots.-Rise of principalities. "From the death of Frederick the Second [1250]. . . all practical power of an imperial kingdom in Italy may be said to have passed away. Presently begins the gradual change of the commonwealths into tyrannies, and the grouping together of many of them into larger states. We also see the beginning of more definite claims of temporal dominion on behalf of the Popes. In the course of the 300 years between Frederick the Second and Charles the Fifth, these processes gradually changed the face of the Italian kingdom. It became in the end a collection of principalities, broken only by the survival of a few oligarchic commonwealths and by the anomalous dominion of Venice on the mainland. Between Frederick the Second and Charles the Fifth, we may look on the Empire as practically in abeyance in Italy. The coming of an Emperor always caused a great stir for the time, but it was only for the time. After the grant of Rudolf of Habsburg to the Popes, a distinction was drawn between Imperial and papal territory in Italy. While certain princes and commonwealths

Capitani or Podestas, by the free burghs, used their authority to enslave the cities they were chosen to administer. It was thus that almost all the numerous tyrants of Lombardy, Carraresi at Padua, Gonzaghi at Mantua, Rossi and Correggi at Parma, Torrensi and Visconti at Milan, Scotti at Piacenza, and so forth, erected their despotic dynasties. . . . In the Fourth class we find the principle of force still more openly at work. To it may be assigned those Condottieri who made a prey of cities at their pleasure. The illustrious Uguccione della Faggiuola, who neglected to follow up his victory over the Guelfs at Monte Catini, in order that he might cement his power in Lucca and Pisa, is an early instance of this kind of tyrant. His successor, Castruccio Castracane, the hero of Machiavelli's romance, is another. But it was not until the first

most of these cases great wealth was the original source of despotic ascendancy. It was not uncommon to buy cities together with their Signory.

But personal qualities and nobility of blood might also produce despots of the Sixth class."J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: Age of the despots, ch. 2.

1261-1264.-Supplanting of the Venetians by Genoese at Constantinople and in the Black sea. -War between republics. See GENOA: 12611299.

1273-1291.-Indifference of Rudolf of Hapsburg to his Italian dominions.-His neglect to claim imperial crown. See GERMANY: 1273-1308. 1277-1447.-Tyranny of the Visconti at Milan. -Their domination in Lombardy and their fall. See MILAN: 1277-1447.

half of the 15th century that professional Condottieri became powerful enough to found such kingdoms as that, for example, of Francesco Sforza at Milan. The Fifth class includes the nephews or sons of Popes. The Riario principality of Forli, the Della Rovere of Urbino, the Borgia of Romagna, the Farnese of Parma, form a distinct species of despotisms; but all these are of a comparatively late origin. Until the papacy of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. the Popes had not bethought them of providing in this way for their relatives.... There remains the Sixth and last class of despots to be mentioned. This again is large and of the first importance. Citizens of eminence, like the Medici at Florence, the Bentivogli at Bologna, the Baglioni of Perugia, the Gambacorti of Pisa, like Pandolfo Petrucci in Siena (1502), Romeo Pepoli, the usurer of Bologna (1323), the plebeian Alticlinio and Agolanti of Padua (1313), acquired more than their due weight in the conduct of affairs, and gradually tended to tyranny. In

1282-1293.-War between Genoa and Pisa.Battle of Meloria.-War of Florence and Lucca against Pisa. See PISA: 1063-1293.

(Southern): 1282-1300.-Sicilian Vespers.Severance of the Two Sicilies.-End of House of Anjou in insular kingdom.-"Peter, King of Aragon, had married Constance, the daughter of Manfred, and laid claim to the kingdom of Sicily in her right. He sent for help to Michael Palaiologos, the restorer of the Eastern Empire. The Emperor agreed to his proposals, for his Empire was threatened by Charles of Anjou. These negotiations were, it is said, carried on through Giovanni di Procida, a Sicilian exile, who, as the story goes, had suffered cruel wrongs from the French. Charles knew something of the plans of the allies, and both parties were preparing for war, but affairs were brought to a crisis by a chance occurrence. On March 30, 1282, a brutal insult was offered by a French soldier to a bride in the presence of her friends and neighbours outside the walls

of Palermo, and the smothered hatred of the people broke out into open violence. The cry 'Death to the French' was raised, and all who belonged to that nation in Palermo were slain without mercy. This massacre, which is called 'The Sicilian Vespers,' spread through the whole island; the yoke of the oppressor was broken and the land was delivered. Charles laid siege to Messina, but he was forced to retire by Peter of Aragon, who landed and was received as King. Pope Martin in vain excommunicated the rebels and their allies, and, in 1284, Charles received a great blow, for his son was defeated and taken prisoner by Roger of Loria, the Admiral of the Catalan fleet. Charles of Anjou died in 1286, and two years later his son, also called Charles, ransomed himself from prison."-W. Hunt, History of Italy, ch. 4.-Charles of Anjou "died of grief, leaving his son, the prince of Salerno, a prisoner, and Martin followed him, before he could proclaim a general crusade against the invader of the apostolic fief. Pedro, having enjoyed his two crowns to the day of his death, left them to his sons, Alphonso and James respectively, and both were excommunicated by Honorius IV. for their accession. The prince of Salerno, obtaining his release by the mediation of Edward of England, was absolved by Nicholas IV. from the conditions to which he had sworn, and crowned at Rome king of Apulia (i. e., Naples) and Sicily, 1289. His hopes of regaining the island were constantly disappointed. James, having succeeded to the crown of Arragon by the death of Alphonso, was persuaded to resign Sicily to Charles on condition of receiving his daughter in marriage, with an ample dowry. Boniface VIII. also graciously gave him leave to conquer the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, from the republics of Pisa and Genoa. The Sicilians, however, declining to be so bartered, bestowed their crown on James's brother Frederic [1295]; and though James contributed his fleet to reduce him, he retained the island throne [1300], while Charles and the pope were obliged to rest content with the continental kingdom. Their only satisfaction was to persist in calling Naples by the name of Sicily, and to stigmatise their rival as king of Trinacria.'"— G. Trevor, Rome: From the fall of the Western empire, p. 240.

ALSO IN: S. A. Dunham, History of Spain and Portugal, bk. 3, sect. 2, ch. 4.

1294-1299.-War between Venice and Genoa. See GENOA: 1261-1299.

ITALY, 1310-1313

tiquity took a different form in Italy from that which it assumed in the North. The wave of barbarism had scarcely gone by before the people, in whom the former life was but half effaced, showed a consciousness of its past and a wish to reproduce it. Elsewhere in Europe men deliberately and with reflection borrowed this or the other ele ment of classical civilisation; in Italy the sympathies both of the learned and of the people were naturally engaged on the side of antiquity as a whole, which stood to them as a symbol of past greatness. The Latin language, too, was easy to an Italian, and the numerous monuments and documents in which the country abounded facilitated a return to the past. With this tendency other elements-the popular character which time had now greatly modified, the political institutions imported by the Lombards from Germany, chivalry and other northern forms of civilisation, and the influence of religion and the Church-combined to produce the modern Italian spirit, which was destined to serve as a model and ideal for the whole western world. How antiquity began to work in plastic art, as soon as the flood of barbarism had subsided, is clearly shown in the Tuscan buildings of the twelfth and in the sculptures of the thirteenth centuries. . . . But the great and general enthusiasm of the Italians for classical antiquity did not display itself before the fourteenth century For this a development of civic life was required, which took place only in Italy, and there not till then. It was needful that noble and burgher should first learn to dwell together on equal terms, and that a social world should arise which felt the want of culture, and had the leisure and the means to obtain it. But culture, as soon as it freed itself from the fantastic bonds of the Middle Ages, could not at once and without help find its way to the understanding of the physical and intellectual world. It needed a guide, and found one in the ancient civilisation, with its wealth of truth and knowledge in every spiritual interest. Both the form and the substance of this civilisation were adopted with admiring gratitude; it became the chief part of the culture of the age."-J. Burckhardt, Renaissance in Italy, pt. 3, ch. 1.-See also EUROPE: Renaissance and Reformation: Renaissance from various points of view; ARCHITECTURE: Renaissance: Italy; LIBRARIES: Renaissance: Italy.

1305-1309.-Removal of papal court to Lyons and then to Avignon.-"Babylonian Captivity." See PAPACY: 1294-1348.

1310-1313.-Visitation of the Emperor Henry VII.-Hostility of Florence and siege of city.Repulse from Rome.-Emperor's death.-"No Emperor had come into Italy since the death of Frederic II. [1250]. Neither Rudolf nor his two successors [see GERMANY: 1273-1308] had been crowned Emperor, but on the death of Albert of Austria, the King of the Romans, in 1308, the electors chose Henry, Count of Luxemburg [Henry VIIJ. In 1310 he entered Italy with a small German army. Unlike most of these Imperial expeditions, this was approved of by the Pope. The French King Philip IV. was really master of Pope Clement V., who did not live in Italy, but sometimes within the French kingdom, or in the English territory of Bordeaux, or in Avignon, a city of the Empire. But Clement did not like bearing the French yoke, and was fearful lest some one of greater talents than Charles of Valois should make an attempt on Italy, and make it impossible for the Pope to get free from the power of the French. He therefore favoured the expedition of

14th century.-Renaissance in its beginning.Contributing influences.-"It was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people, which achieved the conquest of the Western world. . . . The civilisation of Greece and Rome, which, ever since the fourteenth century, obtained so powerful a hold on Italian life, as the source and basis of culture, as the object and ideal of existence, partly also as an avowed reaction against preceding tendencies-this civilisation had long been exerting a partial influence on mediæval Europe, even beyond the boundaries of Italy. The culture of which Charles the Great was a representative was, in face of the barbarism of the seventh and eighth centuries, essentially a Renaissance, and could appear under no other form. . . . But the resuscitation of an

ITALY, 1310-1313

King Henry, and hoped that it would revive the Ghibelin party and counteract the influence of the Guelfs, who were on the side of France. Dante tells us the feelings which were roused by the coming of the King. He seemed to come as God's vicegerent, to change the fortunes of men and Bring the exiled home; by the majesty of his presence to bring the peace for which the banished poet longed, and to administer to all men justice, judgment and equity. Henry was worthy of these high hopes; for he was wise, just, and gracious, courageous in fight and honourable in council: but the task was too hard for him. At first all seemed to go well with him. The Ghibelins were ready to receive him as their natural lord; the Guelfs were inclined towards him by the Pope. In Milan the chief power was in the hands of Guido della Torre, the descendant of Pagano della Torre, who had done good service to the city after the battle of Corte Nuova. He was a strong Guelf, and was at the head of a large number of troops; for he was very rich. His great enemy was the Ghibelin Matteo Visconti, who continually struggled with Guido for the mastery. The king was willingly received by the Milanese, and Guido was not behindhand in bidding him welcome. While he was at Milan, on Christmas Day, 1310, he was crowned with the iron crown of the Italian kingdom, which was made of steel in the shape of laurel leaves, and studded with gems. He made both parties enter into an outward reconciliation, and the chiefs of both vied with one another in making him large presents. The King's need of money soon tired out the Milanese, and an insurrection was made in which both Matteo and Guido joined; but Matteo betrayed his rival, and Guido and all the Guelfs were driven out of Milan, which henceforth remained in the power of the Ghibelin Visconti. [See MILAN: 1277-1447.] The King's demands for money made him unpopular, and each city, as he left it, rose against him. Pisa, and the other Tuscan enemies of Florence, received him with joy. But the great Guelfic city shut her gates against him, and made alliance with Robert, the Angevin King of Naples, the grandson of Charles of Anjou, and afterwards gave him [Robert] the signoria. Rome received a garrison from Naples, and the Imperial coronation had to be performed in the Church of St. John Lateran," Henry being repulsed in an attempt to force his entrance to the quarter of the Vatican. -W. Hunt, History of Italy, ch. 4.-"The city [of Rome] was divided in feeling, and the emperor's position so precarious that he retired to Tivoli at the end of August, and moved towards Tuscany, ravaging the Perugian territory on his way, being determined to bring Florence and all her allies to submission." By rapid movements he reached Florence and invested the city before his intentions were understood. "A sudden assault would probably have carried the city, for the inhabitants were taken by surprise, were in a state of consternation, and could scarcely believe that the emperor was there in person: their natural energy soon returned, the Gonfaloniers assembled their companies, the whole population armed themselves, even to the bishop and clergy; a camp was formed within the walls, the outer ditch palisaded, the gates closed, and thus for two days they remained hourly expecting an assault. At last their cavalry [which had been cut off by the emperor's movement] were seen returning by various ways and in small detachments; succours also poured in from Lucca, Prato, Pistoia, Volterra, Colle, and San Gimignano; and even Bologna, Rimini, Ravenna,

ITALY, 1310-1313

Faenza, Cesina, Agobbio, Città di Castello with several other places rendered their assistance: indeed so great and extensive was Florentine influence and so rapid the communication, that within eight days after the investment 4,000 men at arms and innumerable infantry were assembled at Florence! As this was about double the imperial cavalry and four times its infantry, the city gates were thrown open and business proceeded as usual, except through that entrance immediately opposite to the enemy. For two and forty days did the emperor remain within a mile of Florence, ravaging all the country, but making no impression on the town; after which he raised the siege and moved to San Casciano, eight miles south." Later, the Imperialist army was withdrawn to Poggibonzi, and in March, 1313, it was moved to Pisa, to prepare for a new campaign. "The Florentines had thus from the first, without much military skill or enterprise, proved themselves the boldest and bitterest enemies of Henry; their opposition had never ceased; by letters, promises, and money, they corrupted all Lombardy. . . . Yet party quarrels did not cease. . . . The emperor now turned all his energies to the conquest of Naples, as the first step towards that of Italy itself. For this he formed a league with Sicily and Genoa; assembled troops from Germany and Lombardy; filled his treasury in various ways, and soon found himself at the head of 2,500 German cavalry and 1,500 Italian men-at-arms, besides a Genoese fleet of 70 galleys under Lamba Doria and 50 more supplied by the King of Sicily, who with 1,000 menat-arms had already invaded Calabria by capturing Reggio and other places." On the 5th of August, the emperor left Pisa upon his expedition against Naples; on the 24th of the same month he died at Buonconvento-not without suspicions of poison, although his illness began before his departure from Pisa. "The intelligence of this event spread joy and consternation amongst his friends and enemies; the army soon separated, and his own immediate followers with the Pisan auxiliaries carried his body back to Pisa where it was magnificently interred."-H. E. Napier, Florentine history, v. 1, bk. 1, ch. 15.

1310-1313.-Dante.-His political ideas.-"De Monarchia."-"The career of Henry the Seventh in Italy is the most remarkable illustration of the Emperor's position: and imperialistic doctrines are set forth most strikingly in the treatise which the greatest spirit of the age wrote to herald or commemorate the advent of that hero, the De Monarchia of Dante [1265-1321]. . . . With Henry the Seventh ends the history of the Empire in Italy, and Dante's book is an epitaph instead of a prophecy. . . .. Weary of the endless strife of princes and cities, of the factions which within every city strove against each other, seeing municipal freedom, the only mitigation of turbulence, Ivanish with the rise of domestic tyrants, Dante raises a passionate cry for some power. to still the tempest, not to quench liberty or supersede local self-government, but to correct and moderate them, to restore unity and peace to hapless Italy. His reasoning is throughout closely syllogistic: he is alternately the jurist, the theologian, the scholastic metaphysician: the poet of the Divina Commedia is betrayed only by the compressed energy of diction, by his clear vision of the unseen, rarely by a glowing metaphor."-J. Bryce, Holy Roman empire, pp. 278, 280.-"Historically, he [Dante] came at the climax of the thirteenth century,that wonderful century, only to be matched in importance by the fifteenth and the nineteenth. It