concluded between Galeazzo and the Florentines, on the basis of mutual restitution.[20] When will a sufficient number of instances have been recorded by the pen of history, of nations harrassing each other by the outrages of war, and after years of havock and bloodshed, when exhausted by exertions beyond their natural strength, agreeing to forget the original subject of dispute, and mutually to resume the station which they occupied at the commencement of the contest. “Were subjects wise,” what would be their reflections, when their rulers, after the most lavish waste of blood, coolly sit down and propose to each other the _status quo ante bellum_. Happy would it be, could the _status quo_ be extended to the widow and the orphan—to the thousands and tens of thousands, who, in consequence of the hardships and accidents of war, are doomed to languish out the remnant of their lives in torment and decrepitude. A. D. 1393.—In the year 1393, the antipope Clement VII. dying at Avignon, the schismatic cardinals, still persisting in their rebellion against the Italian pontiff, elected as the legitimate successor of St. Peter, Pietro da Luna, who assumed the name of Benedict XIII.[21] For the space of five years after the pacification of Genoa, Florence enjoyed the blessings of peace; but at the end of that period its tranquillity was again disturbed by the ambition of Galeazzo, who had now obtained from the emperor Wenceslaus, the title of duke of Milan. This turbulent chieftain, being encouraged by the death of Auguto,[22] the experienced commander of the Florentine forces, sent into Tuscany a strong body of troops, which made incursions to the very gates of the capital. Ruin and devastation attended the progress of the Milanese forces, who laid waste the country with fire and sword, and led a great number of the inhabitants into captivity. The following letter, addressed on a similar occasion by Poggio to the chancellor of Siena, is at once a document of the misery to which the small states of Italy were at this time exposed in consequence of the wasteful irruptions of their enemies, and a record of the benevolent dispositions of the writer’s heart.