Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III 1261-1267 Flight of the Guelfs from Florence -- Farinata degli Uberti saves Florence from destruction -- The Ghibellines supreme in Tuscany -- Defeat of Manfred at Benevento by Charles of Anjou -- Flight of Guido Novello and the Ghibelline allies from Florence -- Guy de Montfort arrives in Florence as Charles' vicar -- Guelf supremacy finally re-established. THE news of the terrible disaster at Montaperti was received in Florence with the utmost consternation, " and there arose so great a lamentation both of men and women that it reached to the heavens, inasmuch as there was not a house in the city that had not one killed or a prisoner".1 The Guelfs did not wait to be driven out, but hastily fled with their families to Lucca, abandoning the city of Florence to its fate. " And for this desertion the Guelfs were greatly to be blamed, seeing that the city of Florence was strongly fortified with walls and with moats full of water, and might well have been defended and held. But the judgment of God must needs run its course without let in the punishment of wickedness; and to whom God intends ill, him He deprives of wisdom and forethought. And the Guelfs having departed on the Thursday, on the Sunday following, being the sixteenth day of September, the exiles from Florence who had taken part in the battle at Montaperti, together with Count Giordano and his German troops, and the other soldiers of the 1 Villani, bk. vi. ch. 79. FARINATA DEGLl UBERTI '"£