The names of Michelotti, Braccio Fortebraccio, Piccinino and of the noble families of Oddi and of Baglioni are familiar to all who have merely turned the pages of her history. Perugia, like other towns of Italy, had at the end of the fourteenth century reached a point of internal strife from which strong personalities could easily rise up to dispute or to control the existing government. Why it was exactly that the Popes did not from the first forcibly interfere with the turbulent doings of these men, it is difficult to tell. They were constantly coming to the city, constantly appealed to by the citizens and nobles, for ever interfering both by menaces and arms, but it was not till more than a century of blood and tyranny had passed, not till the glory of the town was already on the wane, that the power of the Church came down to crush Perugia like a sledge-hammer. Strangely enough it was a Pope who first gave the city away into the hands of a private person or Protector. [Illustration: ARMS OF PERUGIA] CHAPTER II _The Condottieri and the Rise of the Nobles_ "The confusion, exhaustion, and demoralisation engendered by these conflicts determined the advent of Despots.... The Despot delivered the industrial classes from the tyranny and anarchy of faction, substituting a reign of personal terrorism that weighed more heavily upon the nobles than upon the artizans and peasants.... He accumulated in his despotic individuality the privileges previously acquired by centuries of consuls, _podestàs_, and captains of the people."--See "Age of the Despots," J. A. SYMONDS. Deep gloom closed in upon Perugia towards the end of the fourteenth century. The breach between the nobles and the people continued to widen. Sometimes one party was driven out of the city, sometimes another. Now and again both parties were recalled, and a compact of peace arranged by an arbitrary person from outside. But this last arrangement produced an even more terrible state of affairs, and crime and bloodshed were the inevitable result. We read of deaths by hundreds and not tens--cruel and indescribable deaths, which make one shudder--and already in the thick of the strife the names of Oddi and of Baglioni are stamped upon the records. One of the strangest points in the history of the city at this time was the fashion in which these feuds between the rival factions were met by them. Whichever party was weakest retired for the time to the country, leaving the city to their rival till time should favour their own cause.[14]