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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part IX}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{pisa
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book III: The History Of Italy
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part IX

     It is sufficiently manifest, from this sketch of the domestic history of
Florence, how far that famous republic was from affording a perfect security
for civil rights or general tranquility.  They who hate the name of free
constitutions may exult in her internal dissensions, as in those of Athens or
Rome.  But the calm philosopher will not take his standard of comparison from
ideal excellence, nor even from that practical good which has been reached in
our own unequalled constitution, and in some of the republics of modern
Europe.  The men and the institutions of the fourteenth century are to be
measured by their contemporaries.  Who would not rather have been a citizen of
Florence than a subject of the Visconti?  In a superficial review of history
we are sometimes apt to exaggerate the vices of free states, and to lose sight
of those inherent in tyrannical power. The bold censoriousness of republican
historians, and the cautious servility of writers under an absolute monarchy,
conspire to mislead us as to the relative prosperity of nations.  Acts of
outrage and tumultuous excesses in a free state are blazoned in minute detail,
and descend to posterity; the deeds of tyranny are studiously and perpetually
suppressed. Even those historians who have no particular motives for
concealment turn away from the monotonous and disgusting crimes of tyrants.
"Deeds of cruelty," it is well observed by Matteo Villani, after relating an
action of Bernabo Visconti, "are little worthy of remembrance; yet let me be
excused for having recounted one out of many, as an example of the peril to
which men are exposed under the yoke of an unbounded tyranny." ^z The reign of
Bernabo afforded abundant instances of a like kind.  Second only to Eccelin
among the tyrants of Italy, he rested the security of his dominion upon
tortures and death, and his laws themselves enact the protraction of capital
punishment through forty days of suffering. ^a His nephew, Giovanni Maria, is
said, with a madness like that of Nero or Commodus, to have coursed the
streets of Milan by night with blood-hounds, ready to chase and tear any
unlucky passenger. ^b Nor were other Italian principalities free from similar
tyrants, though none, perhaps, upon the whole, so odious as the Visconti.  The
private history of many families, such, for instance, as the Scala and the
Gonzaga, is but a series of assassinations.  The ordinary vices of mankind
assumed a tint of portentous guilt in the palaces of Italian princes.  Their
revenge was fratricide, and their lust was incest.

[Footnote z: P. 434.]

[Footnote a: Sismondi, t. vi. p. 316; Corio, Ist. di Milano, p. 486.]

[Footnote b: Corio, p. 595.]

     Though fertile and populous, the proper district of Florence was by no
means extensive.  An independent nobility occupied the Tuscan Appennines with
their castles.  Of these the most conspicuous were the counts of Guidi, a
numerous and powerful family, who possessed a material influence in the
affairs of Florence and of all Tuscany till the middle of the fourteenth
century, and some of whom preserved their independence much longer. ^c To the
south, the republics of Arezzo, Perugia, and Siena; to the west, those of
Volterra, Pisa, and Lucca; Prato and Pistoja to the north, limited the
Florentine territory.  It was late before these boundaries were removed.
During the usurpations of Uguccione at Pisa, and of Castruccio at Lucca, the
republic of Florence was always unsuccessful in the field.  After the death of
Castruccio she began to act more vigorously, and engaged in several
confederacies with the powers of Lombardy, especially in a league with Venice
against Mastino della Scala.  But the republic made no acquisition of
territory till 1351, when she annexed the small city of Prato, not ten miles
from her walls. ^d Pistoja, though still nominally independent, received a
Florentine garrison about the same time. Several additions were made to the
district by fair purchase from the nobility of the Apennines, and a few by
main force.  The territory was still very little proportioned to the fame and
power of Florence.  The latter was founded upon her vast commercial opulence.
Every Italian state employed mercenary troops, and the richest was, of course,
the most powerful.  In the war against Mastino della Scala in 1336 the
revenues of Florence are reckoned by Villani at three hundred thousand
florins, which, as he observes, is more than the king of Naples or of Aragon
possesses. ^e The expenditure went at that time very much beyond the receipt,
and was defrayed by loans from the principal mercantile firms, which were
secured by public funds, the earliest instance, I believe, of that financial
resource. ^f Her population was computed at ninety thousand souls.  Villani
reckons the district at eighty thousand men, I suppose those only of military
age; but this calculation must have been too large, even though he included,
as we may presume, the city in his estimate. ^g Tuscany, though well
cultivated and flourishing, does not contain by any means so great a number of
inhabitants in that space at present.

[Footnote c: G. Villani, l. v. c. 37, 41, et alibi.  The last of the counts
Guidi, having unwisely embarked in a confederacy against Florence, was obliged
to give up his ancient patrimony in 1440.]

[Footnote d: M. Villani, p. 72.  This was rather a measure of usurpation; but
the republic had some reason to apprehend that Prato might fall into the hands
of the Visconti.  Their conduct towards Pistoja was influenced by the same
motive; but it was still further removed from absolute justice; p. 91.]

[Footnote e: G. Villani, l. ix. c. 90-93.  These chapters contain a very full
and interesting statement of the revenues, expenses, population, and internal
condition of Florence at that time.  Part of them is extracted by M. Sismondi,
t. v. p. 365.  The gold florin was worth about ten shillings of our money.
The district of Florence was not then much larger than Middlesex.]

[Footnote f: G. Villani, l. xi. c. 49.]

[Footnote g: C. 93.  Troviamo diligentemente, che in questi tempi avea in
Firenze circa a 25 mila uomini da portare arme da 15 in 70 anni - Stimavasi
avere in Firenze da 90 mila bocche tra uomini e femine e fanciulli, per l'
avviso del pane bisognava al continuo alla citta.  These proportions of 25,000
men between fifteen and seventy, and of 90,000 souls, are as nearly as
possible consonant to modern calculation, of which Villani knew nothing, which
confirms his accuracy; though M. Sismondi asserts, p. 369, that the city
contained 150,000 inhabitants, on no better authority, as far as appears, than
that of Boccaccio, who says that 100,000 perished in the great plague of 1348,
which was generally supposed to destroy two out of three.  But surely two
vague suppositions are not to be combined, in order to overthrow such
testimony as that of Villani, who seems to have consulted all registers and
other authentic documents in his reach.

     What Villani says of the population of the district may lead us to reckon
it, perhaps, at about 180,000 souls, allowing the baptisms to be one in thirty
of the population.  Ragionavasi in questi tempi avere nel contado e distretto
di Firenze de 80 mila uomini.  Troviamo del piovano, che battezzava i
fanciulli, imperoche per ogni maschio, che battezzava in San Giovanni, per
avere il novero, metea una fava nera, e per ogni femina una bianca, trovo, ch'
erano l' anno in questi tempi dalle 5,800 in sei mila, avanzando le piu volte
il sesso masculino da 300 in 500 per anno.  Baptisms could only be performed
in one public font, at Florence, Pisa, and some other cities.  The building
that contained this font was called the Baptistery.  The baptisteries of
Florence and Pisa still remain, and are well known.  Du Cange, v.
Baptisterium.  But there were fifty-seven parishes and one hundred and ten
churches within the city.  Villani, ibid. Mr. Roscoe has published a
manuscript, evidently written after the taking of Pisa in 1406, though, as I
should guess, not long after that event, containing a proposition for an
income-tax of ten per cent. throughout the Florentine dominions.  Among its
other calculations, the population is reckoned at 400,000; assuming that to be
the proportion to 80,000 men of military age, though certainly beyond the
mark.  It is singular that the district of Florence in 1343 is estimated by
Villani to contain as great a number before Pisa, Volterra, or even Prato and
Pistoja, had been annexed to it. - Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo.  Appendix, No.
16.]

     The first eminent conquest made by Florence was that of Pisa, early in
the fifteenth century.  Pisa had been distinguished as a commercial city ever
since the age of the Othos.  From her ports, and those of Genoa, the earliest
naval armaments of the western nations were fitted out against the Saracen
corsairs who infested the Mediterranean coasts.  In the eleventh century she
undertook, and, after a pretty long struggle, completed, the important, or at
least the splendid, conquest of Sardinia, an island long subject to a Moorish
chieftain.  Several noble families of Pisa, who had defrayed the chief cost of
this expedition, shared the island in districts, which they held in fief of
the republic. ^h At a later period the Balearic isles were subjected, but not
long retained, by Pisa.  Her naval prowess was supported by her commerce.  A
writer of the twelfth century reproaches her with the Jews, the Arabians, and
other "monsters of the sea," who thronged in her streets. ^i The crusades
poured fresh wealth into the lap of the maritime Italian cities.  In some of
those expeditions a great portion of the armament was conveyed by sea to
Palestine, and freighted the vessels of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice.  When the
Christians had bought with their blood the sea-coast of Syria, these republics
procured the most extensive privileges in the new states that were formed out
of their slender conquests, and became the conduits through which the produce
of the East flowed in upon the ruder nations of Europe.  Pisa maintained a
large share of this commerce, as well as of maritime greatness, till near the
end of the thirteenth century.  In 1282, we are told by Villani, she was in
great power, possessing Sardinia, Corsica, and Elba, from whence the republic,
as well as private persons, derived large revenues, and almost ruled the sea
with their ships and merchandises, and beyond sea were very powerful in the
city of Acre, and much connected with its principal citizens. ^j The
prosperous era of Pisa is marked by her public edifices. She was the first
Italian city that took a pride in architectural magnificence.  Her cathedral
is of the eleventh century; the baptistery, the famous inclined tower, or
belfry, the arcades that surround the Campo Santo, or cemetery of Pisa, are of
the twelfth, or, at latest, of the thirteenth. ^k

[Footnote h: Sismondi, t. i. pp. 345, 372.]

[Footnote i: Qui pergit Pisas, videt illic monstra marina; Haec urbs, Paganis,
Turchis, Libycis quoque, Parthis, Sordida; Chaldaei sua lustrant moenia tetri.
Donizo, Vita Comitissae Mathildis apud Muratori, Dissert. 31.]

[Footnote j: Villani, l. vi. c. 83.]

[Footnote k: Sismondi, t. iv. p. 178; Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 406.]

     It would have been no slight anomaly in the annals of Italy, or, we might
say, of mankind, if two neighboring cities, competitors in every mercantile
occupation and every naval enterprise, had not been perpetual enemies to each
other.  One is more surprised, if the fact be true, that no war broke out
between Pisa and Genoa till 1119. ^l From this time at least they continually
recurred.  An equality of forces and of courage kept the conflict uncertain
for the greater part of two centuries.  Their battles were numerous, and
sometimes, taken separately, decisive; but the public spirit and resources of
each city were called out by defeat, and we generally find a new armament
replacing the losses of an unsuccessful combat.  In this respect the naval
contest between Pisa and Genoa, though much longer protracted, resembles that
of Rome and Carthage in the first Punic war.  But Pisa was reserved for her
Aegades.  In one fatal battle, off the little isle of Meloria, in 1284, her
whole navy was destroyed. Several unfortunate and expensive armaments had
almost exhausted the state, and this was the last effort, by private
sacrifices, to equip one more fleet.  After this defeat it was in vain to
contend for empire.  Eleven thousand Pisans languished for many years in
prison; it was a current saying that whoever would see Pisa should seek her at
Genoa.  A treacherous chief, that Count Ugolino whose guilt was so terribly
avenged, is said to have purposely lost the battle, and prevented the ransom
of the captives, to secure his power: accusations that obtain easy credit with
an unsuccessful people.

[Footnote l: Muratori, ad ann. 1119.]

     From the epoch of the battle of Meloria, Pisa ceased to be a maritime
power.  Forty years afterwards she was stripped of her ancient colony, the
island of Sardinia.  The four Pisan families who had been invested with that
conquest had been apt to consider it as their absolute property; their
appellation of judge seemed to indicated deputed power, but they sometimes
assumed that of king, and several attempts had been made to establish an
immediate dependence on the empire, or even on the pope.  A new potentate had
now come forward on the stage.  The malcontent feudatories of Sardinia made
overtures to the king of Aragon, who had no scruples about attacking the
indisputable possession of a declining republic.  Pisa made a few unavailing
efforts to defend Sardinia; but the nominal superiority was hardly worth a
contest, and she surrendered her rights to the crown of Aragon.  Her commerce
now dwindled with her greatness.  During the fourteenth century Pisa almost
renounced the ocean and directed her main attention to the politics of
Tuscany.  Ghibelin by invariable predilection, she was in constant opposition
to the Guelf cities which looked up to Florence.  But in the fourteenth
century the names of freeman and Ghibelin were not easily united; and a city
in that interest stood insulated between the republics of an opposite faction
and the tyrants of her own.  Pisa fell several times under the yoke of
usurpers; she was included in the wide-spreading acquisitions of Gian
Galeazzo Visconti.  At his death one of his family seized the dominion, and
finally the Florentines purchased for 400,000 florins a rival and once equal
city.  The Pisans made a resistance more according to what they had been than
what they were.

     The early history of Genoa, in all her foreign relations, is involved in
that of Pisa.  As allies against the Saracens of Africa, Spain, and the
Mediterranean islands, as corrivals in commerce with these very Saracens or
with the Christians of the East, as co-operators in the great expeditions
under the banner of the cross, or as engaged in deadly warfare with each
other, the two republics stand in continual parallel.  From the beginning of
the thirteenth century Genoa was, I think, the more prominent and flourishing
of the two.  She had conquered the island of Corsica at the same time that
Pisa reduced Sardinia; and her acquisition, though less considerable, was
longer preserved.  Her territory at home, the ancient Liguria, was much more
extensive, and, what was most important, contained a greater range of
sea-coast than that of Pisa.  But the commercial and maritime prosperity of
Genoa may be dated from the recovery of Constantinople by the Greeks in 1261.
Jealous of the Venetians, by whose arms the Latin emperors had been placed,
and were still maintained, on their throne, the Genoese assisted Palaeologus
in overturning that usurpation.  They obtained in consequence the suburb of
Pera or Galata, over against Constantinople, as an exclusive settlement, where
their colony was ruled by a magistrate sent from home, and frequently defied
the Greek capital with its armed galleys and intrepid seamen.  From this
convenient station Genoa extended her commerce into the Black Sea, and
established her principal factory at Caffa, in the Crimean peninsula.  This
commercial monopoly, for such she endeavored to render it, aggravated the
animosity of Venice.  As Pisa retired from the field of waters, a new enemy
appeared upon the horizon to dispute the maritime dominion of Genoa.  Her
first war with Venice was in 1258.  The second was not till after the victory
of Meloria had crushed her more ancient enemy.  It broke out in 1293, and was
prosecuted with determined fury and a great display of naval strength on both
sides.  One Genoese armament, as we are assured by an historian, consisted of
one hundred and fifty-five galleys, each manned with from two hundred and
twenty to three hundred sailors; ^m a force astonishing to those who know the
more slender resources of Italy in modern times, but which is rendered
credible by several analogous facts of good authority. Genoa was, however,
beyond any other exertion.  The usual fleets of Genoa and Venice were of
seventy to ninety galleys.

[Footnote m: Muratori, A. D. 1295.]

     Perhaps the naval exploits of these two republics may afford a more
interesting spectacle to some minds than any other part of Italian history.
Compared with military transactions of the same age, they are more sanguinary,
more brilliant, and exhibit full as much skill and intrepidity. But maritime
warfare is scanty in circumstances, and the indefiniteness of its locality
prevents it from resting in the memory.  And though the wars of Genoa and
Venice were not always so unconnected with territorial politics as those of
the former city with Pisa, yet, from the alternation of success and equality
of forces, they did not often produce any decisive effect.  One memorable
encounter in the Sea of Marmora, where the Genoese fought and conquered
single-handed against the Venetians, the Catalans, and the Greeks, hardly
belongs to Italian history. ^n

[Footnote n: Gibbon, c. 63.]

     But the most remarkable war, and that productive of the greatest
consequences, was one that commenced in 1378, after several acts of hostility
in the Levant, wherein the Venetians appear to have been the principal
aggressors.  Genoa did not stand alone in this war.  A formidable confederacy
was raised against Venice, who had given provocation to many enemies.  Of this
Francis Carrara, signior of Padua, and the king of Hungary were the leaders.
But the principal struggle was, as usual, upon the waves.  During the winter
of 1378 a Genoese fleet kept the sea, and ravaged the shores of Dalmatia.  The
Venetian armament had been weakened by an epidemic disease, and when Vittor
Pisani, their admiral, gave battle to the enemy, he was compelled to fight
with a hasty conscription of landsmen against the best sailors in the world.
Entirely defeated, and taking refuge at Venice with only seven galleys, Pisani
was cast into prison, as if his ill fortune had been his crime.  Meanwhile the
Genoese fleet, augmented by a strong reinforcement, rode before the long
natural ramparts that separate the lagunes of Venice from the Adriatic.  Six
passages intersect the islands which constitute this barrier, besides the
broader outlets of Brondolo and Fossone, through which the waters of the
Brenta and the Adige are discharged.  The lagune itself, as is well known,
consists of extremely shallow water, unnavigable for any vessel except along
the course of artificial and intricate passages.  Notwithstanding the apparent
difficulties of such an enterprise, Pietro Doria, the Genoese admiral,
determined to reduce the city.  His first successes gave him reason to hope.
He forced the passage, and stormed the little town of Chioggia, ^o built upon
the inside of the isle bearing that name, about twenty-five miles south of
Venice.  Nearly four thousand prisoners fell here into his hands: an augury,
as it seemed, of a more splendid triumph.  In the consternation this
misfortune inspired at Venice the first impulse was to ask for peace.  The
ambassadors carried with them seven Genoese prisoners, as a sort of
peace-offering to the admiral, and were empowered to make large and
humiliating concessions, reserving nothing but the liberty of Venice.  Francis
Carrara strongly urged his allies to treat for peace.  But the Genoese were
stimulated by long hatred, and intoxicated by this unexpected opportunity of
revenge.  Doria, calling the ambassadors into council, thus addressed them:
"Ye shall obtain no peace from us, I swear to you, nor from the lord of Padua,
till first we have put a curb in the mouths of those wild horses that stand
upon the place of St. Mark.  When they are bridled you shall have enough of
peace.  Take back with you your Genoese captives, for I am coming within a few
days to release both them and their companions from your prisons." When this
answer was reported to the senate, they prepared to defend themselves with the
characteristic firmness of their government.  Every eye was turned towards a
great man unjustly punished, their Admiral Vittor Pisani.  He was called out
of prison to defend his country amidst general acclamations; but, equal in
magnanimity and simple republican patriotism to the noblest characters of
antiquity, Pisani repressed the favoring voices of the multitude, and bade
them reserve their enthusiasm for St. Mark, the symbol and war-cry of Venice.
Under the vigorous command of Pisani the canals were fortified or occupied by
large vessels armed with artillery; thirty-four galleys were equipped; every
citizen contributed according to his power; in the entire want of commercial
resources (for Venice had not a merchant-ship during this war) private plate
was melted; and the senate held out the promise of ennobling thirty families
who should be most forward in this strife of patriotism.

[Footnote o: Chioggia, known at Venice by the name of Chioza, according to the
usage of the Venetian dialect, which changes the g into z.]

     The new fleet was so ill provided with seamen that for some months the
admiral employed them only in manoeuvring along the canals.  From some
unaccountable supineness, or more probably from the insuperable difficulties
of the undertaking, the Genoese made no assault upon the city. They had,
indeed, fair grounds to hope its reduction by famine or despair. Every access
to the continent was cut off by the troops of Padua; and the king of Hungary
had mastered almost all the Venetian towns in Istria and along the Dalmatian
coast.  The Doge Contarini, taking the chief command, appeared at length with
his fleet near Chioggia, before the Genoese were aware.  They were still less
aware of his secret design.  He pushed one of the large round vessels, then
called cocche, into the narrow passage of Chioggia which connects the lagune
with the sea, and, mooring her athwart the channel, interrupted that
communication.  Attacked with fury by the enemy, this vessel went down on the
spot, and the doge improved his advantage by sinking loads of stones until the
passage became absolutely unnavigable.  It was still possible for the Genoese
fleet to follow the principal canal of the lagune towards Venice and the
northern passages, or to sail out of it by the harbor of Brondolo; but,
whether from confusion or from miscalculating the dangers of their position,
they suffered the Venetians to close the canal upon them by the same means
they had used at Chioggia, and even to place their fleet in the entrance of
Brondolo so near to the lagune that the Genoese could not form their ships in
line of battle.  The circumstances of the two combatants were thus entirely
changed.  But the Genoese fleet, though besieged in Chioggia, was impregnable,
and their command of the land secured them from famine. Venice,
notwithstanding her unexpected success, was still very far from secure; it was
difficult for the doge to keep his position through the winter; and if the
enemy could appear in open sea, the risks of combat were extremely hazardous.
It is said that the senate deliberated upon transporting the seat of their
liberty to Candia, and that the doge had announced his intention to raise the
siege of Chioggia, if expected succors did not arrive by the 1st of January,
1380.  On that very day Carlo Zeno, an admiral who, ignorant of the dangers of
his country, had been supporting the honor of her flag in the Levant and on
the coast of Liguria, appeared with a reinforcement of eighteen galleys and a
store of provisions.  From that moment the confidence of Venice revived.  The
fleet, now superior in strength to the enemy, began to attack them with
vivacity.  After several months of obstinate resistance the Genoese, whom
their republic had ineffectually attempted to relieve by a fresh armament,
blocked up in the town of Chioggia, and pressed by hunger, were obliged to
surrender. Nineteen galleys only out of forty-eight were in good condition;
and the crews were equally diminished in the ten months of their occupation of
Chioggia.  The pride of Genoa was deemed to be justly humbled; and even her
own historian confesses that God would not suffer so noble a city as Venice to
become the spoil of a conqueror. ^p

[Footnote p: G. Stella, Annales Genuenses; Gataro, Istoria Padovana.  Both
these contemporary works, of which the latter gives the best relation, are in
the seventeenth volume of Muratori's collection.  Sismondi's narrative is very
clear and spirited. - Hist. des Republ. Ital. t. vii. pp. 205-232.]

     Each of the two republics had sufficient reason to lament their mutual
prejudices, and the selfish cupidity of their merchants, which usurps in all
maritime countries the name of patriotism.  Though the capture of Chioggia did
not terminate the war, both parties were exhausted, and willing, next year, to
accept the mediation of the Duke of Savoy.  By the peace of Turin, Venice
surrendered most of her territorial possessions to the king of Hungary.  That
prince and Francis Carrara were the only gainers.  Genoa obtained the isle of
Tenedos, one of the original subjects of dispute; a poor indemnity for her
losses.  Though, upon a hasty view, the result of this war appears more
unfavorable to Venice, yet in fact it is the epoch of the decline of Genoa.
From this time she never commanded the ocean with such navies as before; her
commerce gradually went into decay; and the fifteenth century, the most
splendid in the annals of Venice, is, till recent times, the most ignominious
in those of Genoa.  But this was partly owing to internal dissensions, by
which her liberty, as well as glory, was for a while suspended.

     At Genoa, as in other cities of Lombardy, the principal magistrates of
the republic were originally styled consuls.  A chronicle drawn up under the
inspection of the senate perpetuates the names of these early magistrates.  It
appears that their number varied from four to six, annually elected by the
people in their full parliament.  These consuls presided over the republic and
commanded the forces by land and sea; while another class of magistrates,
bearing the same title, were annually elected by the several companies into
which the people were divided, for the administration of civil justice. ^q
This was the regimen of the twelfth century; but in the next Genoa fell into
the fashion of intrusting the executive power to a foreign podesta.  The
podesta was assisted by a council of eight, chosen by the eight companies of
nobility.  This institution, if indeed it were anything more than a custom or
usurpation, originated probably not much later than the beginning of the
thirteenth century.  It gave not only an aristocratic, but almost an
oligarchical character to the constitution, since many of the nobility were
not members of these eight societies.  Of the senate or councils we hardly
know more than their existence; they are very little mentioned by historians.
Everything of a general nature, everything that required the expression of
public will, was reserved for the entire and unrepresented sovereignty of the
people.  In no city was the parliament so often convened; for war, for peace,
for alliance, for change of government. ^r These very dissonant elements were
not likely to harmonize.  The people, sufficiently accustomed to the forms of
democracy to imbibe its spirit, repined at the practical influence which was
thrown into the scale of the nobles.  Nor did some of the latter class scruple
to enter that path of ambition which leads to power by flattery of the
populace.  Two or three times within the thirteenth century a high-born
demagogue had nearly overturned the general liberty, like the Torriani at
Milan, through the pretence of defending that of individuals. ^s Among the
nobility themselves four houses were distinguished beyond all the rest - the
Grimaldi, the Fieschi, the Doria, the Spinola; the two former of Guelf
politics, the latter adherents of the empire. ^t Perhaps their equality of
forces, and a jealousy which even the families of the same faction entertained
of each other, prevented any one from usurping the siniory at Genoa.  Neither
the Guelf nor Ghibelin party obtaining a decided preponderance, continual
revolutions occurred in the city.  The most celebrated was the expulsion of
the Ghibelins under the Doria and Spinola in 1318.  They had recourse to the
Visconti of Milan, and their own resources were not unequal to cope with their
country.  The Guelfs thought it necessary to call in Robert King of Naples,
always ready to give assistance as the price of dominion, and conferred upon
him the temporary sovereignty of Genoa.  A siege of several years' duration,
if we believe an historian of that age, produced as many remarkable exploits
as that of Troy.  They have not proved so interesting to posterity.  The
Ghibelins continued for a length of time excluded from the city, but in
possession of the seaport of Savona, whence they traded and equipped fleets,
as a rival republic, and even entered into a separate war with Venice. ^u
Experience of the uselessness of hostility, and the loss to which they exposed
their common country, produced a reconciliation, or rather a compromise, in
1331, when the Ghibelins returned to Genoa.  But the people felt that many
years of misfortune had been owing to the private enmities of four overbearing
families.  An opportunity soon offered of reducing their influence within very
narrow bounds.

[Footnote q: Sismondi, t. i. p. 353.]

[Footnote r: Id. p. 324.]

[Footnote s: Id. t. iii. p. 319.]

[Footnote t: Id. t. iii. p. 328.]

[Footnote u: Villani, l. ix. passim.]