Then the burghers and nobles--"Cittadini amatori della Patria," Tronci calls them--formed the Campagnia di S. Michele, for it bore on its gonfalon St. Michael Archangel, and the black eagle of the Empire. It was the business of this company to restore peace and unity to the city. The leaders resolved to recall the exiles, among them Pietro Gambacorti. He came, and the city greeted him, and he swore to serve the Republic and to forgive his enemies. A riot followed; the Bergolini armed themselves and burnt the Gambacorti palaces. But Pietro Gambacorti called to the city, which had risen to defend itself and to make reprisals, saying, "I have pardoned them--I, whose parents they slew. By what right do you refuse to do what I have done?"[45] The Bergolini took the government, and there was peace. Then the Campagnia di S. Michele broke up. Not for long, however, could there be peace in Pisa. The Raspanti still held one of the gates; and thinking to better themselves, they sent an embassy to Charles, who was in Lucca, asking his help. He imprisoned the embassy, and at once sent his Germans to seize the city. But the Pisans heard of it. They rang the great bells in the Campanile, and barricaded the gates with the benches and stalls in the Duomo, on the Baptistery they set their bowmen, and on the Campanile the slingers. Then they tore up the streets, and waited to give death for death. The Germans, however, were easily beaten and bought off, and Pisa again returned to her internal quarrels. Out of these sprang, in 1385, Pietro Gambacorti, as Captain of the people. It was the beginning of the last twenty years of Pisa's life as an independent city. She now stood between Visconti in the north and Florence close at hand. Florence was her friend against Visconti for her own sake: she meant to have Pisa herself. Gambacorti did his best. With infinite tact he kept friends with both cities. Under him Pisa seemed to regain something of her old confidence and prosperity. A man of fine courage, simplicity, and passing honest, he was incapable of suspecting a tried friend whom he had benefited. Yet it was by the hand of such an one he fell.