United States or Morocco ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In the meantime Niccolo Piccinino arrived at Lucca, and the Florentines, being doubtful what course to adopt, ordered Neri di Gino to lead their forces into the Pisan territory, induced the pontiff to allow Count Francesco to join him, and with their forces they halted at San Gonda.
The olive-trees which I saw in the court of the convent of San Felipe de Neri, were large and fine; but the luxuriance of their vegetation prevented them from bearing fruit.
Both parties remained in Florence, and equally discontented; the Neri from seeing their enemies at hand, and apprehending the loss of their power, and the Bianchi from finding themselves without either honor or authority; and to these natural causes of animosity new injuries were added.
"I am indeed full of sympathy," said Neri. "It is no wonder you could not return to Sicily as soon as you had planned." "Everything conspired to hold me back. There were many things that needed attention, for her affairs had become badly mixed and required a strong hand to straighten them out. Yet all the time I knew I was needed here; I knew the Countess was in want of some one to lean upon.
The Donati and their followers, being the least powerful, were in the greatest fear, and to provide for their safety they called together Corso, the Captains of the Parts, and the other leaders of the Neri, and resolved to apply to the pope to appoint some personage of royal blood, that he might reform Florence; thinking by this means to overcome the Bianchi.
The Florentines, aided by the season, used the most active exertions to provide themselves troops, whose captains were Federigo, lord of Urbino, and Gismondo Malatesti da Rimino, who, though mutual foes, were kept so united by the prudence of the commissaries, Neri di Gino and Bernardetto de' Medici, that they broke up their quarters while the weather was still very severe and recovered not only the places that had been taken in the territory of Pisa, but also the Pomerancie in the neighborhood of Volterra, and so checked the king's troops, which at first had overrun the Maremma, that they could scarcely retain the places they had been left to garrison.
"He's not in our calendar," Brother George argued. "If we're going to keep St. Joseph, why not keep St. Alo what's his name and Philip Neri and Anthony of Padua and Bernardine of Sienna and half-a-dozen other Italian saints?" "Why not?" asked Brother Raymond. "At any rate we have to keep my patron, who was a dear, even if he was a Spaniard."
Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Saint Patrick, Saint Theresa, Saint Philip Neri, Saint Francis Xavier: such names as these come first to our minds when we think of "a saint." Yet the fact is that the greater number of saints are men and women who never did anything that the world would consider great or striking. Saint Joseph was of that sort.
He now set himself first to make Lucca secure, and for this he built a fortress in the city; and then to possess himself of Pistoja for he even thought thereby to gain a foothold in Florence herself and for this he entered into correspondence secretly with both the Neri and the Bianchi there.
And I meditated for some minutes on this strange affair If, indeed and I saw no reason to doubt it I had chanced to find some of the spoils of the redoubtable Neri, this great chest must have been brought over by sea from Palermo. Probably four stout rascals had carried the supposed coffin in a mock solemn procession, under the pretense of its containing the body of a comrade.
Word Of The Day