Chapter 53

CHAPTER III

The Florentines prepare for war against the pope--They appeal to a
future council--Papal and Neapolitan movements against the
Florentines--The Venetians refuse to assist the Florentines--
Disturbances in Milan--Genoa revolts from the duke--Futile
endeavors to effect peace with the pope--The Florentines repulse
their enemies from the territory of Pisa--They attack the papal
states--The papal forces routed upon the borders of the Lake of
Perugia.

The Florentines now prepared for war, by raising money and collecting
as large a force as possible. Being in league with the duke of Milan
and the Venetians, they applied to both for assistance. As the pope
had proved himself a wolf rather than a shepherd, to avoid being
devoured under false accusations, they justified their cause with all
available arguments, and filled Italy with accounts of the treachery
practiced against their government, exposing the impiety and injustice
of the pontiff, and assured the world that the pontificate which he
had wickedly attained, he would as impiously fill; for he had sent
those whom he had advanced to the highest order of prelacy, in the
company of traitors and parricides, to commit the most horrid
treachery in the church in the midst of divine service and during the
celebration of the holy sacrament, and that then, having failed to
murder the citizens, change the government, and plunder the city,
according to his intention, he had suspended the performance of all
religious offices, and injuriously menaced and injured the republic
with pontifical maledictions. But if God was just, and violence was
offensive to him, he would be displeased with that of his viceregent,
and allow his injured people who were not admitted to communion with
the latter, to offer up their prayers to himself. The Florentines,
therefore, instead of receiving or obeying the interdict, compelled
the priests to perform divine service, assembled a council in Florence
of all the Tuscan prelates under their jurisdiction, and appealed
against the injuries suffered from the pontiff to a future general
council.

The pope did not neglect to assign reasons in his own justification,
and maintained it was the duty of a pontiff to suppress tyranny,
depress the wicked, and exalt the good; and that this ought to be done
by every available means; but that secular princes had no right to
detain cardinals, hang bishops, murder, mangle, and drag about the
bodies of priests, destroying without distinction the innocent with
the guilty.

Notwithstanding these complaints and accusations, the Florentines
restored to the pope the cardinal whom they had detained, in return
for which he immediately assailed them with his own forces and