ers, had
advanced to the very port of Genoa and shot their defiance into the proud
city in the form of silver-headed arrows, and stones belted with
scarlet.[1] They had to pay dearly for this insult. The Genoese, recalling
their cruisers, speedily mustered a fleet of eighty-eight galleys, which
were placed under the command of another of that illustrious House of
Doria, the Scipios of Genoa as they have been called, Uberto, the elder
brother of Lamba. Lamba himself with his six sons, and another brother,
was in the fleet, whilst the whole number of Dorias who fought in the
ensuing action amounted to 250, most of them on board one great galley
bearing the name of the family patron, St. Matthew.[2]

The Pisans, more than one-fourth inferior in strength, came out boldly,
and the battle was fought off the Porto Pisano, in fact close in front of
Leghorn, where a lighthouse on a remarkable arched basement still marks
the islet of MELORIA, whence the battle got its name. The day was the 6th
of August, the feast of St. Sixtus, a day memorable in the Pisan Fasti for
several great victories. But on this occasion the defeat of Pisa was
overwhelming. Forty of their galleys were taken or sunk, and upwards of
9000 prisoners carried to Genoa. In fact so vast a sweep was made of the
flower of Pisan manhood that it was a common saying then: "_Che vuol veder
Pisa, vada a Genova_!" Many noble ladies of Pisa went in large companies
on foot to Genoa to seek their husbands or kinsmen: "And when they made
enquiry of the Keepers of the Prisons, the reply would be, 'Yesterday
there died thirty of them, to-day there have died forty; all of whom we
have cast into the sea; and so it is daily.'"[3]

[Illustration: Seal of the Pisan Prisoners.]

A body of prisoners so numerous and important naturally exerted themselves
in the cause of peace, and through their efforts, after many months of
negotiation, a formal peace was signed (15th April, 1288). But through the
influence, as was alleged, of Count Ugolino (Dante's) who was then in
power at Pisa, the peace became abortive; war almost immediately
recommenced, and the prisoners had no release.[4] And, when the 6000 or
7000 Venetians were thrown into the prisons of Genoa in October 1298, they
would find there the scanty surviving remnant of the Pisan Prisoners of
Meloria, and would gather from them dismal forebodings of the fate before
them.

It is a fair conjecture that to that remnant Rusticiano of