In 749 Ratchis, King of the Lombards, laid siege to the city, and her fall seemed inevitable. Then, in the moment of her great need, with the Lombard army beating in her very doors, the reigning Pope, S. Zacharias the Greek, accompanied by all his clergy, and by many of the Roman nobles, arrived at her gates, and in words of extraordinary sweetness pleaded her cause with Ratchis. We do not hear what phrases the old man may have used to check a man on the verge of a great victory. We only hear that the Lombard king knelt down and kissed the feet of the Pope. “Thou hast conquered me,” he said, very simply, and then he withdrew from the battle, and S. Zacharias passed into the city, and was received with universal joy by her citizens. And not only did Ratchis abandon the siege of a town which he so greatly coveted, but, his whole soul being moved by this new power, he renounced his kingdom and his crown and retired to the monastery Monte Cassino, where he became a monk, living there until he died.
Thus closes another chapter of Perugian history. Within a space of three hundred years, roughly speaking, she had changed the nationality of her rulers four successive times, whilst she herself may be said never to have changed. Her internal history, her internal government, had all along continued pretty much on the first lines. Her entire future policy proves this. In all the small wars which follow, and which lead to her final supremacy over every other city in Umbria—cities which at the outset had been as strong as herself, and even stronger, we trace this masterful and incontestable personality—the personality of the griffin which the old Etruscan settlers captured thousands of years before upon the hill-tops and chose for their city arms.
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In all the intense complication of the times which follow it is almost impossible to unravel the exact position of individual towns. At one moment we find Perugia belonging apparently to the Duchy of Spoleto, at another joined to the Tuscan League, at another putting herself under the protection of the Pope, whilst all the time nominally belonging to the Empire. Bonazzi remarks that one result of the perpetual conflict between Emperor and Pope was the liberty left to the citizens; in another place he says that in the scant documents which contain her early history, “Perugia is always mentioned alone, always managing her own affairs.” The said management dated back in all probability to that of the very earliest settlement, which was mainly agricultural, and managed by chiefs or a Village Council. As the town grew, so likewise did the numbers of its rulers. In Perugia, as in other places, the original Village Council, which was first held in the public square, was abandoned as politics grew complicated. The Consuls, ten in number, two to each Porta or gate, met in council on the steps of the first Cathedral. The finest architectural building in Perugia is notably the Palazzo Pubblico, but long before the construction of this palace there was another building which served the same purpose close to the Duomo in which the different protectors of the city met. We do not propose to trace the form of government here. Suffice it to say that, in Perugia as elsewhere, we find the usual titles of Consuli and Podestà, then of the Heads of City Guilds, the Priori (a very strong power in Perugia), Capitano del Popolo and Capitano della Parte Guelfa; all of whom recur again and again in her chronicles, playing important parts as peace-makers or as arbitrators in her turmoils and dissensions.
The historians of Perugia, naturally enough perhaps, tend to speak of her as of an independent Republic, but this she never was. She had her own rulers, she grew powerful and individual, she finally became a great capital, but she was never a free state like Florence or Rome. Something in her extraordinary position, something in the character of her people, warlike and tenacious from the first, proved her final force. Great wandering hordes and armies thought twice before they attacked her walls. Thus she enjoyed long periods of ease, and in her stormy breast she nurtured the ferocious families which were to prove her strength, but equally her bane in later years.
Being utterly cut off from mercantile expansion or commerce of an ordinary sort, she used her concentrated force in subduing neighbouring towns, and thus extending her dominion over Umbria. Her power soon became recognised, and many little towns and hamlets sent envoys to present acts of submission to the growing power. When these were given freely she received them graciously, and when withheld she sometimes showed a power of rapacity and cruelty which is well nigh inconceivable.
Her history is full of wars against Siena, Gubbio, Arezzo, Città di Castello, Todi, Foligno, Spoleto and Assisi, all chronicled at great length by her proud historians. We have collected a few scattered facts relating to these, which cast some light upon the character of the Perugians, who, as their power strengthened, began to show, not only a tyrannous disposition, but an occasional spark of the grimmest humour. Leaving aside other events, such as the encroaching power of the Pope, we may now glance at some of these.
The first act of voluntary submission came from the island of Polvese in 1130, and was received with great solemnity in the Piazza di San Lorenzo and in the presence of all the inhabitants of the city. A little later more than nine hundred of the people of Castiglione del Lago came to place their land on the shores of Trasimene under the protection of Perugia. Città di Castello and Gubbio followed suit, and many of the smaller towns and hamlets. But, if submission was sweet, blows, one surmises, were well nigh sweeter to the fierce and savage owners of Perugia, and horrid were the skirmishes—one can scarcely call them battles—which ensued from time to time when towns resisted or rebelled against them.
Assisi and Perugia were ever an eyesore to one another, and their inhabitants scoured the plain between them like packs of wolves. In one of these savage little contests tradition tells us that a certain Giovanni di Bernadone, a youth of only twenty summers, was taken prisoner by the Perugians and kept a year in the Campo di Battaglia. The Palace of the Capitano del Popolo in the Piazza Sopramuro now covers the place where the youth was chained, and we may look on it with veneration, for he was no other than that sweetest soul of mediæval history, St Francis of Assisi.
When Città della Pieve dared to rebel, the action of Perugia was prompt and effective. “Most gladly did the youth of Perugia—hot with the dignity of their city, and by no means disposed to forgive those who despised or disobeyed her—assemble in arms,” says Bartoli. The army thus assembled was instantly sent to the recalcitrant city, but the Pievese had scarcely caught sight of it hurrying towards their gates, than they sent their Procuratore, Peppone d’Alvato, to sue for peace and beg forgiveness for their misdeeds. This was kindly granted, but Peppone, accompanied by some hundred and thirty Pievese, was forced to come to Ripa di Grotto and there listen to the reproaches of the Podestà of Perugia, whilst the Bishops of Perugia and of Chiusi, the Provost of S. Mustiola, and the Arciprete of Perugia, sitting on high chairs, surrounded by various grandees, were in readiness to enjoy the spectacle. All were dressed in their finest, but we are told that the Arciprete of Corciano threw all his neighbours entirely into the shade by the splendour and the brilliancy of his many-coloured garments.[6] Peppone kneeling at the Bishop’s feet with his hand on the gospels, swore faith and loyalty to the Perugians, and we hear that the Pievese returned home “rejoicing” at the pardon obtained in this most humiliating fashion. This last fact we may take the liberty to doubt, but it is certain that the Perugians enjoyed the whole episode immensely, neither did they consider the humiliation of their enemies complete. A further punishment had yet to be thought of, and at last a brilliant plan was resolved on. The Piazza of San Lorenzo needed paving, and the Pievese were told that they must provide all the necessary bricks for this purpose, and this “puerile waspishness,” as Bonazzi describes it, so delighted the hearts of the Perugians that, as we learn, not even the death of the great foe of the Guelph cause, Frederick II., “was able to give them a keener sense of joy.”