great war between the Adimari and
the Tosinghi, and between the Rossi and the Tornaquinci, and between
the Bardi and the Mozzi, and between the Gherardini and the Manieri,
and between the Cavalcanti and the Bondelmonti, and between certain of
the Bondelmonti and the Giandonati, and between the Visdomini and the
Falconieri, and between the Bostichi and the Foraboschi, and between
the Foraboschi and the Malispini, and among the Frescobaldi
themselves, and among the family of the Donati themselves, and many
other noble houses. [And therefore let not the reader marvel because
we have put this event at the head of our book, forasmuch as the most
strange events arose from this beginning, and not only to our city of
Florence, but to all the region of Italy.]

[Sidenote: 1293 A.D.]

Sec. 2.--_How the people of Florence made peace with the Pisans, and
many other notable things._ Sec. 3.--_Of a great fire which broke out
in Florence in the district of Torcicoda._ Sec. 4.--_How the war began
between the king of France and the king of England._

Sec. 5.--_How Celestine V. was elected and made Pope, and how he
renounced the papacy._

[Sidenote: 1294 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Cf. Inf. iii. 58-60; xxvii. 104, 105.]

[Sidenote: Par. xxvii. 41.]

[Sidenote: Cf. Inf. iii. 59, 60.]

In the year of Christ 1294, in the month of July, the Church of Rome
had been vacant after the death of Pope Nicholas d'Ascoli for more
than two years, by reason of the discord of the cardinals, which were
divided, each party desiring to make one of themselves Pope. And the
cardinals being in Perugia and straitly constrained by the Perugians
to elect a Pope, as it pleased God they were agreed not to name one of
their own college, and they elected a holy man which was called
Brother Peter of Morrone in Abruzzi. This man was a hermit, and of
austere life and penitence, and in order to abandon the vanity of the
world, after he had ordained many holy monasteries of his Order, he
departed as a penitent into the mountain of Morrone, which is above
Sermona. He, being elected and brought and crowned Pope, made in the
following September, for the reformation of the Church, twelve
cardinals, for the most part from beyond the mountains, by the
petition and after the counsel of King Charles, king of Sicily and of
Apulia. And this done, he departed with the court to Naples, and by
King Charles was graciously received and with great honour; but
because he was simple