Alexander IV, to destroy the monster that held in terror the Trevisan march, caused a crusade to be preached in that country. He promised those who combated the ferocious Ezzelino all the indulgences usually reserved for the deliverers of the Holy Land. The marquis d’Este, the count di San Bonifacio, with the cities of Ferrara, Mantua, and Bologna, assembled their troops under the standard of the church; they were joined by a horde of ignorant fanatics from the lowest class, anxious to obtain indulgences, but unsusceptible of discipline and incapable of a single act of valour. Their number, however, so frightened Ezzelino’s lieutenant at Padua, that he defended but feebly the passage of the Bacchiglione and the town. The legate Philip, elected archbishop of Ravenna, entered Padua at the head of the crusaders, on the 18th of June, 1256; but he either would not or could not restrain the fanatic and rapacious rabble which he had summoned to the support of his soldiers: for seven days the city was inhumanly pillaged by those whom it had received as its deliverers. As soon as Ezzelino was informed of the loss he had sustained, he hastened to separate and disarm the eleven thousand Paduans belonging to his army; he confined them in prisons, where all, with the exception of two hundred, met a violent or lingering death. [Illustration: ITALIAN NOBLEMAN, THIRTEENTH CENTURY] During the following two years the Guelfs experienced nothing but disasters: the legate whom the pope had placed at their head proved incompetent to command them; and the crowd of crusaders whom he called to his ranks served only to compromise them, by want of courage and discipline. The Ghibelline nobles of Brescia even delivered their country into the hands of Ezzelino after he had put the legate’s army to flight, in the year 1258. The following year this tyrant, unequalled in Italy for bravery and military talent, always an enemy to luxury, and proof against the seductions of women, making the boldest tremble with a look, and preserving in his diminutive person, at the age of sixty-five, all the vigour of a soldier, advanced into the centre of Lombardy in the hope that the nobles of Milan, with whom he had already opened a correspondence, would surrender this great city to him. He passed the Oglio and afterwards the Adda, with the most brilliant army he had ever yet commanded: but the marquis Palavicino, Buoso da Doara, the Cremonese chieftain, and other Ghibellines, his ancient associates, disgusted with his crimes, had secretly made an alliance with the Guelfs for his destruction.