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He was lord there at the time that your once proud but now loathsome Florence had such a lesson given to its frenzy at the battle of Arbia." "And what is his name?" inquired Dante. "Salvani," returned the limner. "He is here, because he had the presumption to think that he could hold Sienna in the hollow of his hand. Fifty years has he paced in this manner. Such is the punishment for audacity."
After the victory of Arbia, which placed Florence itself for a time in such imminent danger, a picture was dedicated by Siena to the Virgin della Vittoria. She is enthroned and crowned, and the infant Christ, standing on her knee, holds in his hand the deed of gift. 2dly. For deliverance from plague and pestilence, those scourges of the middle ages.
He wedded, to further his projects of aggrandizement, the daughter of the Lord Farinata degli Uberti, the same who one time reddened the Arbia with the blood of the Florentines. He threw himself into the quarrels of the citizens with all the pride and impetuosity of his nature.
During the Civil Wars that stained the Arbia red and fertilized the olive-yards with the blood of nobles, these loathsome insects had two names in Tuscany: the Florentines called them Siennese, and the Siennese Florentines. "Shell" is an utterly unsuitable word not in the least fitting.
They then asked assistance of Manfred king of Naples, and by the able conduct of Farinata degli Uberti, the Guelphs were routed by the king's forces upon the river Arbia, with so great slaughter, that those who escaped, thinking Florence lost, did not return thither, but sought refuge at Lucca. Manfred sent the Count Giordano, a man of considerable reputation in arms, to command his forces.
For, when, after the battle of the Arbia, the Ghibellines had again their own way in Florence, though Ottobuoni had been then dead three years, they beat down his tomb, pulled the dead body out of it, dragged it by such tenure as it might still possess through the city, and threw the fragments of it into ditches.
The Lucchese being threatened with the anger of the count, for affording refuge to the Guelphs after the battle of the Arbia, could allow them to remain no longer; so leaving Lucca, they went to Bologna, from whence they were called by the Guelphs of Parma against the Ghibellines of that city, where, having overcome the enemy, the possessions of the latter were assigned to them; so that having increased in honors and riches, and learning that Pope Clement had invited Charles of Anjou to take the kingdom from Manfred, they sent ambassadors to the pope to offer him their services.
So she lived once a life as stately-ordered as old dance-music, in the airy corridors of a great marble palace, swept hourly by the thin, clear air of the Lucchesan plain; and her lord, went out to war with Pisa or Pescia, or even further afield, following Emperor or Pope to that Monteaperti which made Arbia run colour of wine, or shrill Benevento, or Altopasdo which cost the Florentines so dear.
And in the revolution of July, 1258, the successful Guelphs throw down all the Ghibelline palaces. Meantime the trades, as against the Knights Castellans, have thrown down the tops of all the towers above seventy-five feet high. And we shall presently have a proposal, after the battle of the Arbia, to throw down Florence altogether.
The war was not actually ended until the battle of Tagliacozzo, fought in August, 1268; but you need not recollect that irregular date, or remember it only as three years after the great battle of Welcome, Benevento; which was the decisive one. Recollect, therefore, securely: 1250. The First Trades Revolt in Florence. 1260. Battle of the Arbia. 1265. Battle of Welcome.
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