The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09 : $b Italy
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09 : $b Italy
World history
But this Milanese chief, ere he finally quitted Tuscany, offered a
parting insult to Florence by holding public games in the very bed of the
Arno. He then returned with 25,000 florins as his share of the general
plunder, while Castruccio, loaded with prisoners and booty, resolved to
enter his capital in triumph like a Roman conqueror.
The fame of this event attracted a crowd of spectators from all parts
of Italy, eager to witness the revival of an ancient ceremony but more
eager to behold a hero whose reputation had already become familiar
to the world. On the 10th of November, being the festival of St.
Martin, Castruccio made this triumphal entry into Lucca; not in a car,
but on a magnificent courser, and at some distance from the gates a
solemn procession of the clergy, nobility, and almost all the women of
exalted rank in the city received him like a royal personage. At the
head of his procession were the prisoners of least note with uncovered
heads, and arms crossed upon the breast, stooping as it were in humble
supplication for the mercy of their emperor; next came the Florentine
carroccio rolling heavily along, drawn by the same oxen and decked with
the same trappings they had borne in the field, and overhung by the
reversed and now degraded standard of that republic. Then followed other
Florentine banners, those of the Guelf party and the kings of Naples,
with flags and pennons of inferior note, and various communities, all
trailing in the dirt and as it were sweeping the path of the conqueror.
Immediately after this mortifying spectacle walked the same chiefs who
had so often borne these flags to victory. Here Raymond of Cardona also
had full leisure to contemplate the effects of his own dishonesty; and
the gallant Urlimbach, a German knight who had unhorsed Castruccio,
could also muse on the instability of fortune, as despoiled of arms and
spurs he swelled the train of the victor. A multitude of noble captives
followed in this insulting procession, which was closed by Castruccio
and his legions in all the pride and insolence of victory. But nothing
mortified the prisoners so much as being compelled to bear large waxen
torches as offerings to St. Martin, the tutelar saint of Lucca and dear
to her troops because of the Bacchanalian license usual at his festival
on pretence of tasting the various flavours of the new-made wines, and
because the saint himself had once been a soldier.
FLORENCE IN DESPAIR CALLS ON THE DUKE OF CALABRIA
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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