twelve _popolani_ was elected, henceforth known as the _Signori Dodici_, four from each terzo of the city, holding office for two months, one of them to serve as Captain of the People; there was further to be a kind of subsidiary council of six _gentiluomini_, who were not to reside with the Signoria in the Palazzo, but without whom the Twelve could undertake nothing of importance nor open letters that concerned the state. When the Emperor returned from Rome at the beginning of May and passed through Siena again, he was received with great honours and renewed acclamations, as the Deliverer of the People, and made about sixty knights, nobles of Siena and plebeians alike--many of the latter carried bodily to him on the shoulders of the populace and knighted, amidst the wildest clamour and confusion, against their own will and to the great disgust of the imperial barons. Hardly had the Emperor left the city than the six nobles--with the consent of their leader, Giovanni di Agnolino Salimbeni, who appears prominently during these years as a powerful influence in the Republic on the side of peace and moderation--were forced to lay down their office. The whole government now remained in the hands of the Twelve, who were mostly petty tradesmen and notaries, and whose rule was corrupt and incapable. A number of the subject towns refused to acknowledge them; Montepulciano gave itself to Perugia, and the Sienese, in revenge, persuaded the governor of Cortona to revolt against the Perugians. A fierce war between Siena and Perugia followed. The Sienese gained a creditable victory outside the walls of Cortona. The light armed cavalry of Perugia harried the Sienese contado, and even approached the gates of the city itself, and the Sienese retaliated by taking the mercenaries of Conrad of Landau into their pay--who were, however, intercepted and severely cut up by the Florentine mountaineers of the Val di Lamone--and ravaged the Perugian territories up to the walls of Perugia. Peace was made at the end of 1358, much to the advantage of Siena, who kept Cortona, while the Perugians had to set Montepulciano free at the end of five years. At the beginning of 1365 the latter town made Messer Giovanni di Agnolino their Podestà, and returned to the obedience of Siena.