consternation among the soldiers. Whether this strange manoeuvre won the day history does not record. In 1440 Piccinino made a desperate effort to win for himself the government of Perugia, but Papal power was too deeply rooted in the city, and he had to rest content with the title of _Gonfaloniere of the Holy Church_--Supreme Magistrate of the City but acting in the Pope's name. Perugia had a terrible time under this ecclesiastical and military yoke. Three masters pulled her different [Illustration: NICCOLÒ PICCININO] ways: Piccinino, the Pope, and the nobles, and each of these three imposed taxes for their different uses. Piccinino's is an unsatisfactory career. It is that of a man pouring old wine into new bottles; the trade of the _condottiere_ ruler was practically dead. The Pope's tactics were unsatisfactory also. He tried to conciliate two parties. He encouraged and patronised the nobles and pandered to the populace by encouraging all kinds of extravagant superstition. There is a horrid tale about the burning of a witch at this time; and religious processions assumed such monstrous length that the streets could hardly hold them, and we read that the leading men got entangled in the tail of the procession which had not been able to leave the piazza before those who had left it long ago returned to the starting-point. Passion-preaching, too, became the fashion, accompanied by grotesque miracle-plays in which a barber from S. Angelo represented our Saviour; and all those things only served to increase the morbid passions of the people. In this complicated situation the nobles came off best, and their power grew and strengthened rapidly; but the power was evil. As for the attitude assumed by the former rulers of the city, it is difficult to judge. A sort of stupor seems to have fallen on the hitherto vigilant _Priori_. A feeble effort was made in 1444 to drive out the tormentors by payment of a large sum of money to mercenary soldiers, but these only took the pay and continued to enjoy themselves at the expense of the town.