Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II 'The Condottieri and the Rise of the Nobles " The confusion, exhaustion, and demoralisation engendered by these conflicts determined the advent of Despots The Despot delivered the industrial classes from the tyranny and anarchy of faction, substituting a reign of personal terrorism that weighed more heavily upon the nobles than upon the artizans and peasants He accumulated in his despotic individuality the privileges previously acquired by centuries of consuls, podatas, and captains of the people."—See " Age of the Despots," J. A. Symonos. PEEP gloom closed in upon Perugia towards the end of the fourteenth century. The breach between the nobles and the people continued to widen. Sometimes one party was driven out of the city, sometimes another. Now and again both parties were recalled, and a compact of peace arranged by an arbitrary person from outside. But this last arrangement produced an even more terrible state of affairs, and crime and bloodshed were the inevitable result. We read of deaths by hundreds and not tens—cruel and indescribable deaths, which make one shudder—and already in the thick of the strife the names of Oddi and of Baglioni are stamped upon the records. One of the strangest points in the history of the city at this time was the fashion in which these feuds between the rival factions were met by them. Whichever party was weakest retired for the time to the country, leaving the city to their rival till time should favour their own cause.1 Bonazzi gives an almost extravagant account of the boorish manner of the exiled nobles' lives. Down in the open country they hunted the abundant wild boar and devoured his flesh when they came home at night. They slept in dark and cavernous halls, and were out at dawn across the fields and...