nna._ Sec. 22.--_How Albert of Austria
defeated and slew Adolf, king of Germany, and how he was elected king
of the Romans._

Sec. 23.--_How the Colonnesi came to ask pardon of the Pope, and
afterwards rebelled a second time._

[Sidenote: 1298 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Inf. xxvii. 67-111.]

In the said year, in the month of September, negociations having taken
place between Pope Boniface and the Colonnesi, the said Colonnesi,
both laymen and clergy, came to Rieti, where the court was, and threw
themselves at the feet of the said Pope, asking pardon, who forgave
them and absolved them from excommunication, and desired them to
surrender the city of Palestrina; and this they did, and he promised
to restore them to their state and dignity, which promise he did not
fulfil, but caused the said city of Palestrina to be destroyed from
the hill and stronghold where it was, and a new city to be built on
the plain, to which the name of the Civita Papale was given; and all
this false and fraudulent treaty the Pope made by the counsel of the
count of Montefeltro, then a minor friar, when he said the evil word
"ample promise and scant fulfilment." The said Colonnesi, finding
themselves deceived in that which had been promised to them, and the
noble fortress of Palestrina destroyed by the said deceit, before the
year was ended rebelled against the Pope and the Church; and the Pope
excommunicated them again with heavy sentence; wherefore, fearing lest
they should be taken or slain through the persecution of the said
Pope, they departed from the city of Rome and were dispersed, some to
Sicily, some to France and to other places, concealing themselves in
one place after another so as not to be recognised, and to the end no
certain abiding-place of theirs might be known, especially M. Jacopo
and M. Piero, which had been cardinals; and thus they continued in
exile so long as the said Pope lived.

Sec. 24.--_How the Genoese defeated the Venetians at sea._ Sec.
25.--_Of the great earthquakes that befell in certain cities in Italy._

Sec. 26.--_When the palace of the people of Florence was begun, where
dwell the Priors._

[Sidenote: 1298 A.D.]

In the said year 1298, the commonwealth and people of Florence began
to build the Palace of the Priors, by reason of the differences
between the people and the magnates, forasmuch as the city was always
in jealousy and commotion, at the election of the Priors afresh every
two months, by reason