to abstain from intervention in Lombardy, and Gian Galeazzo from intervention in Tuscany. The treaty of 1392 was followed by a few years of troubled peace, broken by only a brief renewal of hostilities in 1397, which was ended by another treaty in 1398. During these years Gian Galeazzo continued to prosecute his schemes by diplomacy and intrigue. [Sidenote: Successes of Gian Galeazzo.] In 1394 a revolution was effected in Pisa and the lordship of the city acquired by Jacopo d’Appiano, who was notoriously in the pay of Milan. Five years later, Appiano’s son completed the bargain by handing over Pisa to Gian Galeazzo in return for the principality of Piombino. Genoa only escaped a similar fate by a voluntary submission to France in 1396. Siena in 1399, Perugia and Assisi in 1400 sought to escape the disorders of faction by accepting the rule of Milan. Everywhere republican liberties seemed destined to give way to the advance of despotism. Paolo Guinigi, with the help of Milanese gold, made himself lord of Lucca in 1400, and in the next year Giovanni Bentivoglio became the master of Bologna. Slowly but surely the coils were being drawn round Florence, and the league which she had formed for the defence of liberty was wholly broken up. Hawkwood had died in 1394, and no leader of equal merit could be found except in the service of Milan. A momentary prospect of relief was offered when the princes of Germany in 1400 deposed the incapable Wenzel and gave the kingship of the Romans to the Elector Palatine, Rupert III. Rupert undertook to invade Italy and to crush the upstart ruler of Milan whom his rival had raised to the rank of duke. But the German troops were no match either in skill or in discipline for the mercenaries of Italy, and were utterly routed at Brescia by Jacopo dal Verme (October 24, 1401). The last hope of Florence disappeared when Giovanni Bentivoglio, who had turned against Milan, was compelled to surrender, and the Bolognese welcomed the substitution of a foreign for a native despot (July, 1402). But death intervened to thwart an [Sidenote: His death in 1402.] ambition which human opposition had failed to check. On September 3, 1402, Gian Galeazzo was carried off by the plague at the age of fifty-five. The kingdom of northern Italy perished with the man who had practically created it. Footnote 9: See Genealogical Table I, in Appendix. CHAPTER IX THE SCHISMS IN THE PAPACY AND EMPIRE, 1378-1414