In the midst of this activity, in June 1304, a conflagration laid a great part of the city in ashes, during a violent feud between the populace and the nobility. It is said that 1,700 noblemen’s palaces, towers, and houses of citizens were destroyed, besides incalculable wealth, and many monuments of the old town. The prior of San Piero Scheraggio, Ser Freri Abbati, was the incendiary. As an example of the ferocity of the manners of the times it may be here mentioned that in the year 1307 the belfry of the Benedictine abbey was partially demolished because the monks had rung the alarm-bell during a quarrel which had arisen respecting taxation of the clergy. Activity in construction was not, as we have said before, confined to the defence and adornment of the city itself, for at this period the building of numerous forts was determined upon for the protection of the environs, the completion of which was afterwards vigorously carried on. Such defences were necessary in times of perpetual warfare, like the feuds of the communes; and the marches upon Rome led by Henry of Luxembourg and Louis of Bavaria, with the enterprises of Uguccione della Faggiuola and Castruccio Castracane, in connection with these, gave immediate occasion for them. In much later times they were still an effectual protection, for the art of besieging was still in its infancy when the art of defence had already made important progress, and armies under celebrated generals were stayed for months by inconsiderable villages, as the history of the second half of the fifteenth century will show.