In 1367 the Spanish Cardinal Albornoz was busily employed in recovering the States of the Church. Perugia was at that time faithful to the Pope, and she received the Cardinal with due honours and gave him valuable help, especially in an expedition against Galeotto Malatesta of Rimini. Her goodwill however was of short duration, for the citizens saw themselves despoiled of Città di Castello and of Assisi during the Cardinal's campaigns, and this they would not brook. They therefore sent a strong army at once towards Viterbo, but it was beaten back with heavy loss, and Urban V.'s authority was again firmly rooted at Perugia. He sent his brother, Cardinal Angelico, Bishop of Albano, as Vicar General to represent him in the city. Thus the authority of the popes crept in upon the town, and authority of some kind became every year more necessary as the voice of the people grew and strengthened and as the exiled nobles quarrelled outside the walls. Papal authority was finally represented in 1375 by an imperious French abbot, known in Perugian annals as Mommaggiore, whose doings and buildings have been described in another place. (See pp. 184-186.) The yoke that Mommaggiore--"that French Vandal, that most iniquitous Nero," as the chroniclers call him,--put upon the neck of Perugia, proved unbearable to every party, and all the different factions for once joined together to break it. Florence and other cities, castles, and fortresses which had "unfurled the banner of liberty," joined in the revolt, and in 1375 the abbot was driven in a very undignified fashion from the city. A republic was then declared and the whole town rejoiced at having broken away from the thraldom of the Popes of Avignon. In vain did Gregory XI. call the people of Perugia "sons of iniquity"; in vain did he hurl the most terrible excommunications against them;[13] the feud between the city and the Pope was only laid to rest when the latter died. It had lasted long, and had produced something worse even than the struggle of two strong powers, for it had served to increase the terrible civil discord within the town. With the accession of Urban VI. a treaty was concluded, and Perugia acknowledged his right of dominion. In 1387 Urban arrived in the city, and as he entered the gates a white dove rested on his hat and refused to be removed by the servants who ran forward to deliver His Holiness from the unexpected visitor. It answered the Pope's touch however, and was handed to his chaplain, and everyone accepted the event as an excellent omen. We will not linger to judge of its excellence, we can only say that the bird heralded an entirely new chapter in the history of the town, which hitherto had developed under general influences and many different hands. Her coming history is that of single influences, of personalities, or, in other words, of despots. The time had come when Perugia was to show the fruit of her stern ambitious character in the individual men whom she had reared.