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He then withdrew to his engagement under the Venetians; but the Siennese, although delivered from such imminent peril by the Florentines, were still very indignant against them; considering themselves under no obligation to those who had delivered them from an evil to which they had first exposed them.
Accordingly, dearest ladies, I say that Elisa's story of Fra Rinaldo and his gossip and eke the simplicity of the Siennese have such efficacy that they induce me, letting be the cheats put upon foolish husbands by their wily wives, to tell you a slight story of them, which though it have in it no little of that which must not be believed, will natheless in part, at least, be pleasing to hear.
"Is he afraid we shall steal his chest, or his picture, that no soul in all Rome is weak enough to buy?" "Nay, sweet hostess; see you not 'tis his poverty he would screen from view?" "And the more fool he! Are all our hearts as ill as his? A might give us a trial first, anyway." "How you speak of him. Why, his case is mine; and your countryman to boot." "Oh, we Siennese love strangers.
"Why," said she, "your good work might put out the eyes of that they are selling." Gerard sighed. "Alas! dame, you read folk on the ill side, and you so kind and frank yourself." "My dear little heart, these Romans are a subtle race. Me? I am a Siennese, thanks to the Virgin." "My mistake was leaving Augsburg," said Gerard. "Augsburg?" said she haughtily: "is that a place to even to Rome?
By this arrangement the Florentines, Lucchese, and Siennese, who had each occupied many fortresses belonging to the others, gave them all up, and each party resumed its original possessions.
But their city, which went clad in silk and cloth-of-gold, was ever ready to slip betwixt their fingers, like a lascivious, false-hearted wanton; and fear and anxiety made them implacable. In the year 1370 they discovered that a nobleman of Perugia, Ser Niccola Tuldo, had been sent by the Pope to stir up the Siennese, in connivance with the Kaiser, to deliver up the city to the Holy Father.
Carlo consequently came into Tuscany, but found more difficulties in his attempt upon Perugia than he had anticipated, on account of its being allied with the Florentines; and desirous of doing something worthy of memory, he made war upon the Siennese, alleging them to be indebted to him for services performed by his father in the affairs of that republic, and attacked them with such impetuosity as to threaten the total overthrow of their dominion.
This made it evident that Jacopo's movement had been made by order of Alfonso, and the latter, as if palpably detected, to conciliate his allies, after having almost alienated them with this unimportant war, ordered Jacopo to restore to the Siennese the places he had taken, and they gave him twenty thousand florins by way of ransom, after which he and his forces were received into the kingdom of Naples.
Fortunately, he was sent to preach Lenten sermons at San Gimignano, the "City of the Grey Towers" in the Siennese hills. Here he found his true vocation. His words flowed freely and were eloquent and effective. Next he was sent to Brescia, where his predictions of coming terrors and his exhortations to repentance produced a profound impression.
The fears which restrained the pope and the Venetians being thus removed, everyone became apprehensive of new troubles. On the one hand, was the league of the pope and the Venetians, and with them the Genoese, Siennese, and other minor powers; on the other, the Florentines, the king, and the duke, with whom were the Bolognese and many princes.
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