And the
heartburnings between the two parties went on, smouldering hotter and
hotter, till July, 1258, when the people having discovered secret
dealings between the Uberti and the Emperor Manfred, and the Uberti
refusing to obey citation to the popular tribunals, the trades ran to
arms, attacked the Uberti palace, killed a number of their people, took
prisoner, Uberto of the Uberti, Hubert of the Huberts, or Bright-mind
of the Bright-minds, with 'Mangia degl' Infangati, ('Gobbler [1] of the
dirty ones' this knight's name sounds like,)--and after they had
confessed their guilt, beheaded them in St. Michael's corn-market; and
all the rest of the Uberti and Ghibelline families were driven out of
Florence, and their palaces pulled down, and the walls towards Siena
built with the stones of them; and two months afterwards, the people
suspecting the Abbot of Vallombrosa of treating with the Ghibellines,
took him, and tortured him; and he confessing under torture, "at the
cry of the people, they beheaded him in the square of St. Apollinare."
For which unexpected piece of clangorous impiety the Florentines were
excommunicated, besides drawing upon themselves the steady enmity of
Pavia, the Abbot's native town; "and indeed people say the Abbot was
innocent, though he belonged to a great Ghibelline house.
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