h cloth and silk and with
wooden walls, in divers parts of the city; and likewise there were
bands of women and of maidens going through the city dancing in
ordered fashion, and ladies, by two and two, with instruments, and
with garlands of flowers on their heads, continuing in pastimes and
joyance, and at feasts and banquets.

[Sidenote: 1289 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Par. viii. 64-66.]

[Sidenote: Purg. vii. 136. Convivio iv. 11: 126.]

Sec. 133.--_Of a fierce and violent battle between the duke of Brabant
and the count of Luxemburg._ Sec. 134.--_How Don James came from Sicily
into Calabria with his armada, and there received some loss, and
afterwards laid siege to Gaeta._ Sec. 135.--_How Charles Martel was
crowned king of Hungary._ Sec. 136.--_How they of Chiusi were routed,
and the Guelf refugees restored._ Sec. 137.--_How the Lucchese, with the
forces of Florence, marched upon the city of Pisa._ Sec. 138.--_Of an
expedition that the Florentines made wherein they should have had
Arezzo yielded up to them._ Sec. 139.--_Of a great fire that broke out in
Florence in the house of the Pegolotti._ Sec. 140.--_How the Florentines
and their allies made a third expedition against Arezzo._ Sec. 141.--_How
Porto Pisano was taken and laid waste by the Florentines and Genoese
and Lucchese._ Sec. 142.--_How the marquis of Montferrat was taken
prisoner by them of Alexandria._ Sec. 143.--_Of a great miracle that came
to pass in Paris concerning the body of Christ._ Sec. 144.--_How they of
Ravenna seized the count of Romagna, who was there to represent the
Church._

Sec. 145.--_How the soldan of Babylon conquered by force the city of
Acre, to the great hurt of the Christians._

[Sidenote: 1291 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxvii. 89.]

In the year of Christ 1291, in the month of April, the soldan of
Babylon [Cairo] of Egypt having first garrisoned and provisioned
Syria, traversed the desert and came into the said Syria with his
host, and laid siege to the city of Acre, which of old was called in
the Scriptures Ptolemais, and now is called Acon in Latin; and the
soldan had with him so much people, both foot and horse, that his host
stretched over more than twelve miles. But before we tell more of the
loss of Acre, we will tell the reason why the soldan came to besiege
it, and took it, as it was related to us by trustworthy
fellow-citizens of our own, and merchants which were in Acre at that
time. It is true that, because the Sara