among the Guelfs, if
there had not been this device of the lordship of King Robert they
would have been torn to pieces and destroyed by each other, and one
side or the other cast out.

[Sidenote: 1313 A.D.]

Sec. 57.--_How the Spinoli were expelled from Genoa._ Sec. 58.--_How
Uguccione da Faggiuola, lord of Pisa, made great war against the
Lucchese, so that they restored the Ghibelline refugees to Lucca under
enforced terms of peace._

Sec. 59.--_Of the death of Pope Clement._

[Sidenote: 1314 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Inf. xix. 82-87. Par. xvii. 82, xxvii. 58-60, xxx. 142-148.
Epist. v. 10: 167, 168.]

In the year 1314, on the 20th day of April, Pope Clement died; he was
on his way to Bordeaux, in Gascony, and when he had passed the Rhone
at Roquemaure, in Provence, he fell sick and died. This was a man very
greedy of money, and a simoniac, which sold in his court every
benefice for money, and was licentious; for it was openly said that he
had as mistress the countess of Perigord, a most beautiful lady,
daughter of the count of Foix. And he bequeathed to his nephews and
family immense and boundless treasure; and it was said that while the
said Pope was yet alive, one of his nephews, a cardinal, died, whom he
greatly loved; and he constrained a great master of necromancy to tell
him what had become of his nephew's soul. The said master having
wrought his arts, caused a chaplain of the Pope, a very courageous
man, to be conducted by the demons, which had him to hell, and showed
him visibly a palace wherein was a bed of glowing fire, and thereon
was the soul of the said nephew which was dead, and they said to him
that for his simony he was thus judged. And he saw in his vision
another palace being raised over against the first, which they told
him was being prepared for Pope Clement. And the said chaplain brought
back these tidings to the Pope, which was never afterwards glad, and
he lived but a short time longer; and when he was dead, and his body
had been left for the night in a church with many lights, his coffin
caught fire and was burnt, and his body from the middle downwards.

Sec. 60.--_How Uguccione da Faggiuola with the Pisans took the city of
Lucca and stole the treasure of the Church._ Sec. 61.--_How M. Peter,
brother of King Robert, came to Florence as lord._ Sec. 62.--_How King
Robert went with a great armament against Sicily, and besieged the
city of Trapali._

Sec. 63.--_How the Paduans were dis