While the Ghibellines thus acquired the preponderance in Tuscany, the tyrant fell who at the head of that party had caused so much blood to flow in the Trevisan march. Ezzelino was hereditary lord of Bassano and Piedmont: he succeeded in making himself named captain of the people by the republics of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre, and Belluno. By this title he united the judicial with the military power; he was subject only to councils which he might assemble or not at his pleasure. It does not appear that there was any permanent magistracy like the signoria of Florence, to repress his abuse of power. Accordingly he soon changed the authority which he derived from the people into a frightful tyranny: fixing his suspicions upon all who rose to any distinction, who in any way attracted the attention of their fellow citizens, he did not wait for any expression of discontent, or symptom of resistance in the nobles, merchants, priests, or lawyers, who by their eminence alone became suspected, to throw them into prison and there, by the most excruciating torture, extract confessions of crimes that might justify his suspicions. The names which escaped their lips in the agony of torture were carefully registered in order to supply fresh victims to the tyrant. In the single town of Padua there were eight prisons always full, notwithstanding the incessant toil of the executioner to empty them; two of these contained each three hundred prisoners. A brother of Ezzelino, named Alberic, governed Treviso with less ferocity, but with a power not less absolute. Cremona was in like manner subject to a Ghibelline chief; Milan no longer evinced any repugnance to that party. In that city, as well as in Brescia, the factions of nobles and plebeians disputed for power.