§ 92.—How the exiles from Genoa took the suburbs of Prea.
1318 a.d.
In the said year, at the end of May, the said exiles had besieged the city of Co' di Fare for two months, and it was bravely held by them within by means of a cunning device of ropes which kept the tower in communication with a vessel in the port of Genoa, and by this means they were supplied and provisioned in spite of all the host; wherefore the said exiles took counsel how they might dig and cut away the ground under the said tower. They within, fearing that it might fall, surrendered it on condition that their lives should be spared, and some said for money; and when they had returned into Genoa, they were condemned to death, and were cast down from a height. While the refugees were busied with the said siege, they continually attacked the suburbs of Prea, which are without the Oxen Gate; and fighting manfully, they took the place on the 25th day of June in the said year, whereby they advanced greatly, and the inhabitants of Genoa lost in like measure; for the host without increased, and gathered in the suburbs, and took the mountain of Peraldo and of S. Bernardo above Genoa, and surrounded the city; and above Bisagno they pitched another camp, so that the city was all besieged by land, and by sea it suffered great persecution from the galleys of Saona, and from the exiles, which had the lordship over the sea.
§ 93.—How King Robert came by sea to succour Genoa.
1318 a.d.
In the said year 1318, the Guelf party being thus besieged in Genoa by sea and by land, they sent their ambassadors to Naples to King Robert, who had been the cause of the whole disturbance in Genoa, that he should succour them and aid them without delay; and if he did not do this, they could not hold out, so straitened were they by the siege and by want of victuals. For the which thing King Robert straightway raised a great fleet of forty-seven transport vessels and twenty-five light galleys, and many other boats and craft laden with provisions; and he in person, with the prince of Taranto, and with M. John, prince of the Morea, his brothers, and with other barons and with horsemen to the number of 1,200, departed from Naples on the 10th day of July, and came by sea, and entered into Genoa on the 21st day of July, 1318, and was honourably received by the citizens as their lord, and heartened the city, which could scarce hold out for lack of victuals. Immediately when the king was come to Genoa, the exiles broke up the camp which they had in Bisagno, and withdrew to the mountains of San Bernardo and of Peraldo, and to the suburbs of Prea towards the west.
§ 94.—How the Genoese gave the lordship of Genoa to King Robert.
1318 a.d.
In the said year, on the 27th day of July, the captains of Genoa and the Abao of the people, and the Podestà, in full parliament, renounced their jurisdiction and lordship, and with the consent of the people gave the lordship and care of the city and of the Riviera to Pope John and to King Robert for ten years, according to the constitutions of Genoa; and King Robert took it for the Pope and for himself, as one who had long desired it, thinking when he should have got the lordship of Genoa quietly in his hands, to be able to recover the island of Sicily, and overcome all his enemies; and it was for this purpose that, long ere this, he had stirred up revolution in the city, so as to drive thence the Spinoli and the d'Oria, forasmuch as ofttimes whilst they were lords of Genoa, they had opposed King Robert and King Charles, his father, and had helped them of Aragon which held the island of Sicily, as before we have made mention.
§ 95.—Of the active war which the exiles of Genoa with the Lombards made against King Robert.