and Milan, and Ticino,
and well-nigh all the cities of Lombardy, save Modena, for the merits
of S. Gemignano, which was bishop thereof; for when he was passing
through this city with his people, by a divine miracle he did not see
it save when he was without the city, and by reason of the miracle he
passed it by, and did not destroy it: and he destroyed Bologna and put
to martyrdom S. Proculus, bishop of Bologna, and thus he destroyed
well-nigh all the cities of Romagna. And afterwards passing through
Tuscany he found the city of Florence strong and powerful. Hearing the
fame thereof, and how it had been built by the noblest Romans, and was
the treasure-house of the Empire and of Rome, and how in this country
had been slain Radagasius, king of the Goths, his predecessor, with so
great a multitude of Goths, as before has been narrated, he commanded
that it should be besieged, and long time he sat before it in vain.
And seeing that he could not obtain it by siege, inasmuch as it was
very strong in towers and in walls and in many good soldiers, he set
about to gain it by deceit and by flattery and by treachery. Now the
Florentines had continual war with the city of Pistoia; and Totila
ceased laying waste the country around the city, and sent to the
Florentines that he desired to be their friend, and in their service
would destroy the city of Pistoia, promising and making show of great
love, and to give them privileges with very generous covenants. The
imprudent Florentines (and for this cause they were ever afterwards
called _blind_ in the proverb) believed his false flatteries and vain
promises; they opened the gates to him, and admitted him and his
followers into the city, and lodged him in the Capitol. And when the
cruel tyrant was within the city with all his forces, under false
seeming he showed love to the citizens, and one day he invited to his
council the greatest and most powerful chiefs of the city in great
numbers; and when they came to the Capitol, as they passed one by one
through an entry, he caused them to be slain and massacred, none
perceiving ought of the fate of the other; and afterwards he had them
thrown into the ducts of the Capitol, to wit, the conduit of the Arno
which flows underground by the Capitol, to the end that no man might
know thereof. And thus he put them to death in great numbers, and
nought was perceived thereof in the city of Florence save that at the
exit from the city where the said aq