Mount Robolini with great loss in
slain and prisoners of the men of Pistoia. And at that time Messer
Uberto da Mandella of Milan was Podesta of Florence. And because the
government of the Popolo was not pleasing to the greater part of the
Ghibelline families in Florence, forasmuch as it seemed to them that
they favoured the Guelfs more than was pleasing to them, and as in
past times they were used to do violence, and to be tyrannical,
relying on the Emperor, therefore they were even now unwilling to
follow the people and the commonwealth on the said expedition against
Pistoia, rather did they both in word and in deed oppose it through
factious hatred; forasmuch as Pistoia was ruled in those days by the
Ghibelline party; whereby was caused so great mistrust, that when the
host returned victorious from Pistoia, the said Ghibelline families in
Florence were banished and sent forth from the city by the people of
Florence, the said month of July, 1251. And the heads of the
Ghibellines in Florence being banished, the people and the Guelfs who
remained in the lordship of Florence, changed the arms of the
commonwealth of Florence; and whereas of old they bore the field red
and the lily white, they now made on the contrary the field white and
the lily red; and the Ghibellines retained the former standard, but
the ancient standard of the commonwealth dimidiated white and red, to
wit, the standard that went with the host upon the carroccio, never
was changed. We will leave for a while the doings of the Florentines,
and we will tell somewhat of the coming of King Conrad, son of the
Emperor Frederick.

Sec. 44.--_How King Conrad, son of Frederick the Emperor, came from
Germany into Apulia, and had the lordship over the realm of Sicily,
and how he died._

[Sidenote: 1251 A.D.]

[Sidenote: 1252 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Cf. Purg. iii. 121.]

When King Conrad of Germany heard of the death of the Emperor
Frederick, his father, he prepared with a great company to pass into
Apulia and Sicily, to take possession of the said Kingdom, of the
which Manfred, his bastard brother, had become vicar-general, and was
ruling it altogether, save only the cities of Naples and of Capua, the
which had rebelled after the death of Frederick, and were returned to
obedience to the Church; as also many cities of Lombardy and Tuscany,
on occasion of the death of the said Frederick, had changed their
government and returned to the obedience of the Church. Th