Many weary people besides the popes came to rest here in early times, and one mediæval warrior, Count Guido of Montefeltro, the great leader of the Ghibellines, laid down his arms and left his castle at Urbino in the year 1296, to pass his last days as a friar doing penance within the peaceful shelter of San Francesco for a long life of intrigue and bloodshed. He prayed by day, for at night they say he stood gazing out of his window, one of those we see above the walled orchard of the monks, watching the stars and attempting to divine the mysteries and destinies he read there, exceeding even the superstition of the age by his faith in the laws of astrology. But his meditations and careful preparation for a holy death were suddenly disturbed, and he found himself once more plunged into the whirl of Italian politics and intrigue. War raged between Pope Boniface VIII, a Gaetani, and the powerful family of the Colonna who braved his excommunications, and, when their Roman palaces were burnt, fled to their strongholds in the country. Many of these fell into the hands of the papal troops, but Penestrino, their principal fief, resisted all attacks and the Pope was nearly defeated when, remembering the old soldier Count Guido known to be "more cunning than any Italian of his time, masterly alike in war and in diplomacy," he hastened to ask his counsel. The story is recounted by Dante, who could not forgive the Ghibelline chieftain for coming to the assistance of the Pope. Boniface, seeking to silence the scruples of the friar, promised to absolve him from all sin, even before committal, if only he would tell him how to act so "that Penestrino cumber earth no more." Guido, whose subtlety had not deserted him in the cloister, gave an answer which, while it ensured success to the papal arms, stamped him as a man of such deceit and treachery that Dante placed him in the eighth gulf of hell, among the evil counsellors eternally surrounded by flaming tongues of fire. "Then, yielding to the forced arguments, Of silence as more perilous I deem'd, And answer'd: 'Father! since thou washest me Clear of that guilt wherein I now must fall, Large promise with performance scant, be sure Shall make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.'"[94]