the common dowry for wives, and 200 or 300 lire was, in those times, held to be excessive; and the most of the maidens were twenty or more years old before they were wedded. After such habits and plain customs then lived the Florentines, but they were true and trustworthy to one another and to their commonwealth, and with their simple life and poverty they did greater and more virtuous things than are done in our times with more luxury and with more riches. [Sidenote: 1259 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] Sec. 70.--_How Paleologus, emperor of the Greeks, took Constantinople from the French and the Venetians._ Sec. 71.--_Of a very sore battle which was between the king of Hungary and the king of Bohemia._ Sec. 72.--_How the great tyrant, Ezzelino da Romano, was defeated by the Cremonese and died in prison._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xii. 109, 110. Par. ix. 25-30.] In the said year 1260, Ezzelino of Romano, which is a Trevisan castle, was defeated and wounded and taken prisoner by the Marquis Pallavicino, and by the Cremonese in the country around Milan, near to the bridge of Casciano over the river Adda, as he was on his way to seize Milan, having with him more than 1,500 horsemen; from the which wounds he died in prison, and was buried with honour in the village of Solcino. He knew by augury that he should die in a village of the country of Padua, which was called Basciano, and he would not enter therein; and when he felt himself wounded he asked what the place was called, and they answered, "Casciano"; then he said, "Casciano and Basciano are all the same," and he gave himself up for dead. This Ezzelino was the most cruel and redoubtable tyrant that ever was among Christians, and ruled by his force and tyranny (being by birth a gentleman of the house of Romano), long time the Trevisan March and the city of Padua, and a great part of Lombardy; and he brought to an end a very great part of the citizens of Padua, and blinded great numbers of the best and most noble, taking their possessions, and sending them begging through the world, and many others he put to death by divers sufferings and torments, and burnt at one time 11,000 Paduans; and by reason of their innocent blood, by miracle, no grass grew there again for evermore. And under semblance of a rugged and cruel justice he did much evil, and was a great scourge in his time in the Trevisan March and in Lombardy, to punish them for the sin of ingratitude. At last, as it pleased God, by less powerful men than his own he was vilely defeated and slain, and all his followers were dispersed and his family and his rule came to nought. Sec. 73.--_How both the king of Castille and Richard, earl of Cornwall, were elected king of the Romans._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xv. 23-120.]