LUCCA A BONE OF CONTENTION [Illustration: A FLORENTINE WELL HEAD, FOURTEENTH CENTURY] [Sidenote: [1334-1342 A.D.]] The Florentines, forced to defend themselves against their ally, who after they had contributed to his elevation betrayed them, sought the alliance of the Venetians, who also had reason to complain of Mastino. A treaty was signed between the two republics on the 21st of June, 1336. The war, to which Florence liberally contributed in money, was made only in Lombardy and was successful. Padua was taken from Mastino on the 3rd of August, 1337, and, as that town showed no ardent desire of liberty, it was given in sovereignty to the Guelf house of Carrara. The Venetians took possession of Treviso, Castelfranco, and Ceneda. It was the first acquisition they had made beyond the Lagune, their first establishment on terra firma, which henceforward was to mingle their interests with those of the rest of Italy. But their ambition at this moment extended no further. Satisfied themselves, and sacrificing their allies, they made peace with Mastino della Scala on the 18th of December, 1338, without stipulating that the city of Lucca, the object of the war, should be given up to the Florentines, for which these had contracted a debt of 450,000 florins. The Florentines, successively betrayed by all their allies, saw the danger of their position augment daily; the Guelfs lost, one after the other, every supporter of their party; the vigour of the king of Naples, now seventy-five years of age, was gone. The pope, John XXII, had died at Avignon, on the 4th of December, 1334; and his successor, Benedict XII, like him a Frenchman, neither understood nor took any part in the affairs of Italy. A few months previous, on the 17th of March, 1334, the cardinal Bertrand de Poiet had been driven by the people from Bologna; and this ambitious legate, no longer supported by the pope his father, had disappeared from the political scene.