and took from
him some of his strongholds. But the year after, when he had gathered
his forces, with the aid of the Piedmontese and of King Charles, he
made a great expedition against them, and overran their places and did
them much hurt. But a little time after the said marquis fell sick,
and died in great pain and misery; and he had been the gayest and most
redoubted and powerful tyrant in Lombardy, and he left no son of
lawful wedlock, and his lands and lordship became a cause of great
strife between his brothers and nephews, and one of his bastard sons,
which was named Francis, whom the Venetians greatly favoured because
he was born in Venice; and much strife and war followed therefrom with
hurt to the Venetians, as hereafter in due time we shall make mention.

[Sidenote: 1306 A.D.]

[Sidenote: 1307 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Purg. vii. 132.]

Sec. 89.--_How M. Napoleone Orsini, the legate, came to Arezzo; and
of the expedition which the Florentines made against Gargosa._ Sec.
90.--_How the good King Edward of England died._ Sec. 91.--_How the
king of France went to Poitiers to Pope Clement, to cause the memory of
Pope Boniface to be condemned._

Sec. 92.--_How and after what fashion was destroyed the Order and mansion
of the Temple of Jerusalem by the machinations of the king of France._

[Sidenote: 1307 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Purg. xx. 91-93.]

[Sidenote: 1310 A.D.]

In the said year 1307, before the king of France departed from the
court of Poitiers, he accused and denounced to the Pope, incited
thereto by his officers and by desire of gain, the master and the
Order of the Temple, charging them with certain crimes and errors,
whereof as the king had been informed the Templars were guilty. The
first movement came from a prior of the said Order, of Monfaucon in
the region of Toulouse, a man of evil life and a heretic, and for his
faults condemned to perpetual imprisonment in Paris by the grand
master. And finding himself in prison with one Noffo Dei, of our city
of Florence, a man full of all vices, these two men, despairing of any
salvation, evilly and maliciously invented the said false accusation
in hope of gain, and of being set free from prison by aid of the king.
But each of them a little while after came to a bad end; forasmuch as
Noffo was hanged and the prior stabbed. To the end they might move the
king to seek his gain, they brought the accusation before his
officers, and the officers brought it before