LUDWIG COMES TO ITALY
Ludwig was crowned at Milan on the 31st of May by the excommunicated Aretine prelate, the archbishop of Milan having refused to perform this office; but whether from a delay in the promised supplies accompanied by an insolent message from Galeazzo Visconti, as Villani avers, or from the complaints of Marco, Lodrisio, and Azzo Visconti against Galeazzo’s tyranny, or from suspicion of an attempt to poison the emperor,—as the sudden death of Stefano Visconti after tasting his drink, led others to suppose,—it is certain that on the 20th of July Galeazzo’s brothers, Lucchino and Giovanni, and his son Azzo were arrested along with that prince himself, and closely imprisoned; the strong castle of Monza being given up to Ludwig as the price of the latter’s safety. This revolution was effected at the public council of Milan after Visconti’s German troops had been seduced; an imperial vicar and twenty-four citizens were immediately appointed to govern the city thus suddenly restored to apparent independence, and 50,000 florins were granted to the emperor. This decided conduct pleased the Milanese and Guelfs as much as it alarmed the other Lombards, because it was Visconti himself that had brought Ludwig into Italy and he was the first to experience that monarch’s ingratitude.
A Tuscan Officer
A diet afterwards assembled near Brescia where several new bishops were created and about 200,000 florins collected from the Ghibelline states of Lombardy; Ludwig then crossed the Po near Cremona, and with two thousand men-at-arms marched through Parma, passed the mountains without any opposition from the papal troops stationed in those parts, and halted at Pontremoli on the 1st of September, 1327. Here he was received by Castruccio, but refused to sojourn at Lucca until Pisa, which had determined to shut her gates upon him, had been reduced. This city was at once invested. The siege lasted a month, and the city might have baffled Ludwig, but fresh discord, the curse of these licentious republics, caused it to be surrendered on condition that neither their own exiles, nor Castruccio, nor any of his people should be admitted into the town; that their form of government should remain inviolate, and 60,000 florins be paid into the imperial treasury. On the 11th of October Ludwig entered Pisa, and three days after, the citizens, of their own accord but principally through fear of the populace, destroyed the capitulation and admitted both Castruccio and the exiles, while they threw themselves and their country on the emperor’s mercy. Justice was well administered, but dearly purchased by a contribution of 160,000 florins—enormous at any time, but peculiarly so at a moment when the Sardinian War and final loss of that province had reduced the whole community to the verge of ruin, and when, only a few days before, 5000 florins could not be demanded without the danger of revolution; so badly governed, or so short-sighted and capricious were the people.
CASTRUCCIO GOES TO ROME
After the settlement of Pisa, Ludwig and Castruccio repaired to Lucca, where the more powerful spirit of the latter was made manifest in its immediate ascendency and influence over his guest, whose splendid reception Castruccio followed up by a present of 50,000 florins; both chiefs then proceeded to Pistoia, from whose heights Castruccio pointed out the plain and towers of Florence, and showed the easy access which the possession of the one gave him to the territory of the other.
Returning to Lucca for the feast of St. Martin, the emperor took that opportunity of publicly placing on the head of Castruccio the ducal circle, investing him with the states of Lucca, Pistoia, Volterra, and the bishopric of Luni, conferring on him the privilege of quartering the royal arms of Bavaria with his own, besides an unscrupulous donation of the Pisan towns of Serrezzano, Rotina, Montecalvole, and Pietra Cassa. The ceremony of receiving the ducal coronet from an emperor’s hands, Castruccio’s great power, talents, and influence, and the universal feeling that this title would not long continue vain and empty, but become in substance as in name the first dukedom in Italy since the time of the ancient Lombards, altogether imparted a solemn and imposing character to the transaction which increased the apprehensions of every Italian Guelf; nor was the Ghibelline Pisa less anxious or discontented to see four of her walled towns quietly made over to Castruccio as a coronation gift—an earnest, as it seemed to be, of her own destiny.
The duke of Calabria, knowing that Castruccio was unwillingly compelled to follow Ludwig, who resumed his march towards Rome on the 15th of December, also prepared to quit Florence, leaving Philip Sanguineto with a thousand men-at-arms as his vicar. At a public feast he took leave of the Florentines, promising to return when the kingdom of Naples should be safe, and departed on the 27th of December, the same day that Castruccio by another road marched from Lucca to join the imperialists.
[1327-1328 A.D.]