CASTRUCCIO ADDS INSULT TO INJURY
Florence was during this time in a painful state of suspicion and dismay; all the prisoners’ kinsmen were regarded with distrust and deprived of office both within and without the city; half the Contado was a desert, its starving inhabitants huddled together in the capital where a wide-spreading mortality was the natural consequence. Deaths were so frequent that the public crier, whose business it was to proclaim the decease of a citizen according to ancient custom, was prohibited from exercising his calling during the continuance of the malady. Every precaution was adopted to secure the city; the walls were strengthened, San Miniato a Monte was fortified, and even the citadel of Fiesole repaired from mere apprehension of Castruccio, who threatened to restore it and beleaguer Florence; and this he probably would have done had not the bishop of Arezzo and the Ubaldini from incipient jealousy refused to lend their assistance. Fearful of internal war, all exiles but the regular Escettati of 1311 were restored to their country on payment of a trifling impost; assistance was demanded from King Robert and the allies, but with little success, for through terror of Castruccio only Colle and San Miniato Tedesco answered the call. King Robert afterwards sent some trifling aid; but still Florence did not despair, and a bold attempt was made to cut off Castruccio’s whole army in a pass of the Val di Marina near Calenzano. New taxes were imposed to the annual amount of 180,000 florins beyond the ordinary revenue; levies were made in Mantua and in Germany; Monte Buoni and other important posts were fortified to protect the district; yet in the middle of all this danger two hundred cavalry were magnanimously despatched to Bologna, which was sorely pressed, and its army soon after defeated at Monteveglio by Passerino lord of Mantua, with the assistance of Azzo Visconti and his followers, fresh from their Tuscan victories.
But this Milanese chief, ere he finally quitted Tuscany, offered a parting insult to Florence by holding public games in the very bed of the Arno. He then returned with 25,000 florins as his share of the general plunder, while Castruccio, loaded with prisoners and booty, resolved to enter his capital in triumph like a Roman conqueror.
The fame of this event attracted a crowd of spectators from all parts of Italy, eager to witness the revival of an ancient ceremony but more eager to behold a hero whose reputation had already become familiar to the world. On the 10th of November, being the festival of St. Martin, Castruccio made this triumphal entry into Lucca; not in a car, but on a magnificent courser, and at some distance from the gates a solemn procession of the clergy, nobility, and almost all the women of exalted rank in the city received him like a royal personage. At the head of his procession were the prisoners of least note with uncovered heads, and arms crossed upon the breast, stooping as it were in humble supplication for the mercy of their emperor; next came the Florentine carroccio rolling heavily along, drawn by the same oxen and decked with the same trappings they had borne in the field, and overhung by the reversed and now degraded standard of that republic. Then followed other Florentine banners, those of the Guelf party and the kings of Naples, with flags and pennons of inferior note, and various communities, all trailing in the dirt and as it were sweeping the path of the conqueror. Immediately after this mortifying spectacle walked the same chiefs who had so often borne these flags to victory. Here Raymond of Cardona also had full leisure to contemplate the effects of his own dishonesty; and the gallant Urlimbach, a German knight who had unhorsed Castruccio, could also muse on the instability of fortune, as despoiled of arms and spurs he swelled the train of the victor. A multitude of noble captives followed in this insulting procession, which was closed by Castruccio and his legions in all the pride and insolence of victory. But nothing mortified the prisoners so much as being compelled to bear large waxen torches as offerings to St. Martin, the tutelar saint of Lucca and dear to her troops because of the Bacchanalian license usual at his festival on pretence of tasting the various flavours of the new-made wines, and because the saint himself had once been a soldier.