they sang in high, shrill voices below the windows of His Holiness. The insult stung and rankled.
“Papa Martino non val un quattrino,” muttered the Pope in a miserable voice as he paced up and down, complaining to his secretary.
In 1423 Braccio had reached the height of his power, but his ambition soared still higher, and at this turn in his life his character seems to have undergone a change. His vast plans for conquering Italy had unhinged him, and he became cruel where formerly he had been kind, and deaf to the counsels of his friends. The simplest and the quietest of his days had been spent at Perugia, where his memory still lingers like the aureole around some conquering saint. But looking out across the plains and mountains of Umbria and towards the Marches which were already his, Braccio dreamed his mighty dream: that of becoming king of a united Italy. Aquila alone resisted his power, and in the year 1423, he set out for his last venture. It is said that before he started he left to the care of his wife, Nicolina da Varano, a little casket, with the injunction that she should not open it until after his death, or his return home. When Braccio died Nicolina opened the casket and she found inside a black veil and a sceptre. It was thus the dead man told his wife that the battle of Aquila decided whether she should be a powerful queen or an unhappy widow.
The siege of Aquila lasted for a whole year, and finally, in May 1424, a decisive battle took place in the plain below the town, between Braccio and Caldora, who came to fight him in the name of Martin V. It was a great fight, and it ended in a tragic manner: Braccio, the beloved of the Perugians, got his death-wound at the hands of a Perugian citizen, a Raspante, who had never forgiven the return of the nobles to Perugia.
Caldora tended Braccio during his last hours with every possible care. The doctors hoped to save him, they said that the wounds in his head and throat were curable, but Braccio wished to die; he was determined not to survive his defeat. He refused all nourishment and during the three days that he lingered, he never spoke a single word. His dream had faded, and his courage gone.[20]
In the papal circle there was great rejoicing at the news of Braccio’s death, for Martin V. knew well that Umbria was once again his own. The Pope indeed was small-minded enough to harbour his enmity to the very last. Instead of allowing the fallen captain to be quietly buried, he had him placed in unconsecrated ground outside the walls of Rome. The bones of the great Braccio had but a troubled career. They were brought to Perugia by Niccolò Fortebraccio, and deposited for a while in the Church of S. Costanzo, where they were met by the municipality and the whole city and then carried in triumphal procession to the Church of S. Francesco al Prato. All the shops were closed as the bones passed up the streets, no bells were rung, horses and men were draped in black. In this century, by a piece of rather questionable taste the bones of the hero were once more taken from their Church, and may now be stared at, like the bones of the Etruscan ladies, under a bit of glass in the museum of the University. Under them are written in Latin the following lines: “O you who pass by, stay and weep. I, born in Perugia, was received in Montone as an exile. Mars subjected to me my native land of Umbria, and Capua too. Rome obeyed me, the world was the spectator and Italy the stage. But Aquila mocked my fall, wherefore my weeping country locked me into this small urn. Ah! Mars raised me up, Mors brought me low. Therefore pass on.”
The news of Braccio’s death caused the utmost consternation in Perugia. If the great captain had saved the town at a critical point, he may also be said to have created a situation which was perhaps a still more critical one for her citizens. Braccio was a noble. With his advent in Perugia the party of the nobles had returned. Terrible things were in store for the city. For a little while, and partly through the efforts of a rather complicated personality, they were postponed, but the time of terror was at hand.
When Braccio died at Aquila, the Perugians prepared to defend themselves they knew not well from what. “Each man,” says Graziani, “furnished himself with flour, the ditches and walls were repaired both of the city and the territory around it, and every one left the open country and took refuge in fortresses and city palaces.” Two courses lay open to them, and of the two they selected that which seemed least evil. They submitted themselves once more to the power of the Pope; and on July 29th, 1424, the delighted Martin entered Perugia as its acknowledged lord and ruler.
Like many famous people of that day Martin had studied at the Perugian University, and perhaps he had preserved an affection for the city which he had known in his youth. Anyhow, the terms of peace which he concluded with the citizens were very mild, and as usual, all the privileges obtained from Innocent III. were preserved. But this time it was through the nobles that the Pope had been called into the city. The thin end of the wedge was surely and irretrievably driven in, and the power of the nobles was as a matter of fact secure. The Pope himself fostered the growing power, and amongst others, who on the occasion of his advent received rich possessions from him, was Malatesta Baglioni. Martin handed Spello over to his rule, and thus helped to enrich a family whose members were for a period to wrest the power from the Church itself, and to set the town ablaze with crime and bloodshed.
The nobles remained at the head of affairs, but, as we have said, there was one strong personality—a Perugian citizen, Niccolò Piccinino—who made a last effort, as Braccio Fortebraccio and Michelotti had done before him, to become that strange creation of the day: a condottiere despot.