Something will have been gathered from the preceding chapters of the faction fights that have swept over the Campo and raged round the Palace. Here, too, in one of those fevers of piety that overtook the Sienese at intervals, vast crowds assembled to listen to the burning words of San Bernardino. Specially famous are the discourses that he delivered here in the August and September of 1427, immediately after he had refused the Bishopric of Siena. He had been specially urged to come, not only by the Commune, but by the Pope and the late Bishop, to allay the bitterness of the rival factions within the city. "Ah, my children!" he said, "no longer follow these parties, nor these standards, for you see to what they bring us. You have the example in the time that is passed, how evilly things have fallen out of old for many. Ah! be at peace in your own home." And again, in his last sermon: "There still remain many peaces for us to make. I pray you hold me excused, and so I believe that you accept my excuse. You must consider that I have had many things to attend to in these sermons. Ah! for the love of God, love one another. Alas! see you not that, if you love the destruction, one of the other, what followeth to you therefrom? See you not that you are ruining your very selves? Ah! put this thing right, for the love of God; do not wait for God to lay His hands upon us with His scourge; for if you leave it to Him to do, you will be chastised for it. Love one another! What I have done, to make peace among you and to make you like brothers, I have done with that zeal that I should wish my own soul to receive. And so say I of this, as of the other things of the Commune; I have done it all to the glory and honour of God, and for the weal and salvation of your souls. As I have told you, I have treated you as true children; and I tell you more, that if I could take you by the hair, I would pacify the whole lot of you. And let no one think that I have set myself to do anything at any person's request. I am only moved by the bidding of God, for His honour and glory."[70] Here is a scene of another kind, from the _Diari_ of Allegretto, under July 1463, when the Duchess of Calabria with a train of Apulian nobles visited Siena: