the city of Noli; and in the Eastern
Riviera they held Lerici.

Sec. 91.--_How the Ghibellines of Lombardy took Cremona._

Sec. 92.--_How the exiles from Genoa took the suburbs of Prea._

[Sidenote: 1318 A.D.]

In the said year, at the end of May, the said exiles had besieged the
city of Co' di Fare for two months, and it was bravely held by them
within by means of a cunning device of ropes which kept the tower in
communication with a vessel in the port of Genoa, and by this means
they were supplied and provisioned in spite of all the host; wherefore
the said exiles took counsel how they might dig and cut away the
ground under the said tower. They within, fearing that it might fall,
surrendered it on condition that their lives should be spared, and
some said for money; and when they had returned into Genoa, they were
condemned to death, and were cast down from a height. While the
refugees were busied with the said siege, they continually attacked
the suburbs of Prea, which are without the Oxen Gate; and fighting
manfully, they took the place on the 25th day of June in the said
year, whereby they advanced greatly, and the inhabitants of Genoa lost
in like measure; for the host without increased, and gathered in the
suburbs, and took the mountain of Peraldo and of S. Bernardo above
Genoa, and surrounded the city; and above Bisagno they pitched another
camp, so that the city was all besieged by land, and by sea it
suffered great persecution from the galleys of Saona, and from the
exiles, which had the lordship over the sea.

Sec. 93.--_How King Robert came by sea to succour Genoa._

[Sidenote: 1318 A.D.]

In the said year 1318, the Guelf party being thus besieged in Genoa by
sea and by land, they sent their ambassadors to Naples to King Robert,
who had been the cause of the whole disturbance in Genoa, that he
should succour them and aid them without delay; and if he did not do
this, they could not hold out, so straitened were they by the siege
and by want of victuals. For the which thing King Robert straightway
raised a great fleet of forty-seven transport vessels and twenty-five
light galleys, and many other boats and craft laden with provisions;
and he in person, with the prince of Taranto, and with M. John, prince
of the Morea, his brothers, and with other barons and with horsemen to
the number of 1,200, departed from Naples on the 10th day of July, and
came by sea, and entered into Genoa on the 21st day