Chapter 36

CHAPTER VI

The pope imprisons the cardinal and assists the Florentines--
Difference of opinion between the count and the Venetians
respecting the management of the war. The Florentines reconcile
them--The count wishes to go into Tuscany to oppose Piccinino, but
is prevented by the Venetians--Niccolo Piccinino in Tuscany--He
takes Marradi, and plunders the neighborhood of Florence--
Description of Marradi--Cowardice of Bartolomeo Orlandini--Brave
resistance of Castel San Niccolo--San Niccolo surrenders--
Piccinino attempts to take Cortona, but fails.

While the Florentines were thus anxious, fortune disclosed the means
of securing themselves against the patriarch's malevolence. The
republic everywhere exercised the very closest espionage over
epistolary communication, in order to discover if any persons were
plotting against the state. It happened that letters were intercepted
at Monte Pulciano, which had been written by the patriarch to Niccolo
without the pope's knowledge; and although they were written in an
unusual character, and the sense so involved that no distinct idea
could be extracted, the obscurity itself, and the whole aspect of the
matter so alarmed the pontiff, that he resolved to seize the person of
the cardinal, a duty he committed to Antonio Rido, of Padua, who had
the command of the castle of St. Angelo, and who, after receiving his
instructions, soon found an opportunity of carrying them into effect.
The patriarch, having determined to go into Tuscany, prepared to leave
Rome on the following day, and ordered the castellan to be upon the
drawbridge of the fortress in the morning, for he wished to speak with
him as he passed. Antonio perceived this to be the favorable moment,
informed his people what they were to do, and awaited the arrival of
the patriarch upon the bridge, which adjoined the building, and might
for the purpose of security be raised or lowered as occasion required.
The appointed time found him punctual; and Antonio, having drawn him,
as if for the convenience of conversation, on to the bridge, gave a
signal to his men, who immediately raised it, and in a moment the
cardinal, from being a commander of armies, found himself a prisoner
of the castellan. The patriarch's followers at first began to use
threats, but being informed of the pope's directions they were
appeased. The castellan comforting him with kind words, he replied,
that "the great do not make each other prisoners to let them go again;
and that those whom it is proper to take, it is not well to set free."
He shortly afterward died in prison. The pope appointed Lodovico,
patriarch of Aquileia, to command his troops; and, though previously
unwilling to interfere in the wars of the league and the duke, he