260. Remember, then, this revolution, as coming between the battles of Welcome and Tagliacozzo; and that it expresses the lower revolutionary temper of the trades, with English and French assistance. Its immediate result was the appointment of five hundred and sixty lawyers, woolcombers, and butchers, to deliberate upon all State questions,--under which happy ordinances you will do well, in your own reading, to leave Florence, that you may watch, for a while, darling little Pisa, all on fire for the young Conradin. She sent ten vessels across the Gulf of Genoa to fetch him; received his cavalry in her plain of Sarzana; and putting five thousand of her own best sailors into thirty ships, sent them to do what they could, all down the coast of Italy. Down they went; startling Gaeta with an attack as they passed; found Charles of Anjou's French and Sicilian fleet at Messina, fought it, beat it, and burned twenty-seven of its ships. 261. Meantime, the Florentines prospered as they might with their religious-democratic constitution,--until the death, in the odour of sanctity, of Charles of Anjou, and of that Pope Martin IV. whose tomb was destroyed with Urban's at Perugia. Martin died, as you may remember, of eating Bolsena eels,--that being his share in the miracles of the lake; and you will do well to remember at the same time, that the price of the lake eels was three soldi a pound; and that Niccola of Pisa worked at Siena for six soldi a day, and his son Giovanni for four. 262. And as I must in this place bid farewell, for a time, to Niccola and to his son, let me remind you of the large commission which the former received on the occasion of the battle of Tagliacozzo, and its subsequent massacres, when the victor, Charles, having to his own satisfaction exterminated the seed of infidelity, resolves, both in thanksgiving, and for the sake of the souls of the slain knights for whom some hope might yet be religiously entertained, to found an abbey on the battle-field. In which purpose he sent for Niccola to Naples, and made him build on the field of Tagliacozzo, a church and abbey of the richest; and caused to be buried therein the infinite number of the bodies of those who died in that battle day; ordering farther, that, by many monks, prayer should be made for their souls, night and day. In which fabric the king was so pleased with Niccola's work that he rewarded and honoured him highly. 263. Do you not begin to wonder a little more what manner of man this Nicholas was, who so obediently throws down the towers which offend the Ghibelliues, and so skilfully puts up the pinnacles which please the Guelphs? A passive power, seemingly, he;--plastic in the hands of any one who will employ him to build, or to throw down. On what exists of evidence, demonstrably in these years here is the strongest brain of Italy, thus for six shilling a day doing what it is bid.