Guilds, the Priori (a very strong power in Perugia), Capitano del Popolo and Capitano della Parte Guelfa; all of whom recur again and again in her chronicles, playing important parts as peace-makers or as arbitrators in her turmoils and dissensions.

The historians of Perugia, naturally enough perhaps, tend to speak of her as of an independent Republic, but this she never was. She had her own rulers, she grew powerful and individual, she finally became a great capital, but she was never a free state like Florence or Rome. Something in her extraordinary position, something in the character of her people, warlike and tenacious from the first, proved her final force. Great wandering hordes and armies thought twice before they attacked her walls. Thus she enjoyed long periods of ease, and in her stormy breast she nurtured the ferocious families which were to prove her strength, but equally her bane in later years.

Being utterly cut off from mercantile expansion or commerce of an ordinary sort, she used her concentrated force in subduing neighbouring towns, and thus extending her dominion over Umbria. Her power soon became recognised, and many little towns and hamlets sent envoys to present acts of submission to the growing power. When these were given freely she received them graciously, and when withheld she sometimes showed a power of rapacity and cruelty which is well nigh inconceivable.

Her history is full of wars against Siena, Gubbio, Arezzo, Città di Castello, Todi, Foligno, Spoleto and Assisi, all chronicled at great length by her proud historians. We have collected a few scattered facts relating to these, which cast some light upon the character of the Perugians, who, as their power strengthened, began to show, not only a tyrannous disposition, but an occasional spark of the grimmest humour. Leaving aside other events, such as the encroaching power of the Pope, we may now glance at some of these.

The first act of voluntary submission came from the island of Polvese in 1130, and was received with great solemnity in the Piazza di San Lorenzo and in the presence of all the inhabitants of the city. A little later more than nine hundred of the people of Castiglione del Lago came to place their land on the shores of Trasimene under the protection of Perugia. Città di Castello and Gubbio followed suit, and many of the smaller towns and hamlets. But, if submission was sweet, blows, one surmises, were well nigh sweeter to the fierce and savage owners of Perugia, and horrid were the skirmishes—one can scarcely call them battles—which ensued from time to time when towns resisted or rebelled against them.

Assisi and Perugia were ever an eyesore to one another, and their inhabitants scoured the plain between them like packs of wolves. In one of these savage little contests tradition tells us that a certain Giovanni di Bernadone, a youth of only twenty summers, was taken prisoner by the Perugians and kept a year in the Campo di Battaglia. The Palace of the Capitano del Popolo in the Piazza Sopramuro now covers the place where the youth was chained, and we may look on it with veneration, for he was no other than that sweetest soul of mediæval history, St Francis of Assisi.

When Città della Pieve dared to rebel, the action of Perugia was prompt and effective. “Most gladly did the youth of Perugia—hot with the dignity of their city, and by no means disposed to forgive those who despised or disobeyed her—assemble in arms,” says Bartoli. The army thus assembled was instantly sent to the recalcitrant city, but the Pievese had scarcely caught sight of it hurrying towards their gates, than they sent their Procuratore, Peppone d’Alvato, to sue for peace and beg forgiveness for their misdeeds. This was kindly granted, but Peppone, accompanied by some hundred and thirty Pievese, was forced to come to Ripa di Grotto and there listen to the reproaches of the Podestà of Perugia, whilst the Bishops of Perugia and of Chiusi, the Provost of S. Mustiola, and the Arciprete of Perugia, sitting on high chairs, surrounded by various grandees, were in readiness to enjoy the spectacle. All were dressed in their finest, but we are told that the Arciprete of Corciano threw all his neighbours entirely into the shade by the splendour and the brilliancy of his many-coloured garments.[6] Peppone kneeling at the Bishop’s feet with his hand on the gospels, swore faith and loyalty to the Perugians, and we hear that the Pievese returned home “rejoicing” at the pardon obtained in this most humiliating fashion. This last fact we may take the liberty to doubt, but it is certain that the Perugians enjoyed the whole episode immensely, neither did they consider the humiliation of their enemies complete. A further punishment had yet to be thought of, and at last a brilliant plan was resolved on. The Piazza of San Lorenzo needed paving, and the Pievese were told that they must provide all the necessary bricks for this purpose, and this “puerile waspishness,” as Bonazzi describes it, so delighted the hearts of the Perugians that, as we learn, not even the death of the great foe of the Guelph cause, Frederick II., “was able to give them a keener sense of joy.”

Perugia and Foligno had always regarded each other with undisguised dislike, skirmishing about and exchanging insults wherever they happened to meet. Once the people of Foligno had come bare-footed, and with a sword and knife hung round their necks, to implore pardon of Perugia, but they revolted again, and the Perugians continued to attack and to molest them. Three times in a single year (1282) their lands were devastated, and finally the town was taken, and the walls demolished, and imperative orders were issued absolutely forbidding these to be rebuilt on the western side. At last Pope Martin IV., amazed and disgusted by the behaviour of a people to whom he was honestly attached, interfered, but Perugia continued to molest her unhappy neighbour with a quite peculiar animosity, whereupon the Pope, angered beyond measure by their disobedience, excommunicated them. “Into such a passion did the Pope fall with the people of Perugia,” says Mariotti, “that he issued a most severe excommunication against them.” It was just at the time of the Sicilian Vespers. The Perugians, irritated by their sentence of excommunication, determined to celebrate a kind of mock vespers on their own account. Gregorovius says that this is the first instance recorded in history of this strange form of popular demonstration. “They made a Pope and Cardinals of straw, and dragged them ignominiously through the city and up to a hill, where they burned the effigies in crimson robes, saying, as the flames leapt up, “That is such-and-such, a Cardinal; and this is such-and-such, another.”

A strange scene, truly, in a half-civilised city! But political and religious causes came between and put an end to these half childish squabbles. A little later the Pope forgave the Perugians, and they continued their evil ways, and persisted in destroying the peace of the Umbrian towns.

Arezzo had the satisfaction of a victory over Perugia in 1335, and in defiance and derision she hanged her Perugian prisoners with a tabby cat hung beside them, and a string of lasche dangling from their braces.[7] But pranks like these were not allowed to pass unnoticed, and Perugia did not fail to grasp her finest banner with the lion of