During these years of the rule of the Twelve, the contado was perpetually threatened by wandering bands of mercenaries – the Compagnia Bianca, mainly Englishmen, but led by German captains; the Compagnia della Stella; the Compagnia del Cappello of Italians, under Niccolò da Montefeltro; the Compagnia di San Giorgio, which is associated with the great name of John Hawkwood. These had to be compounded with, to be guarded against by enrolling other mercenaries, to be played off against each other. In October 1363, the Sienese, led by their Conservatore or War-Captain, Ceccolo di Giordano Orsini, and stiffened by a strong force of Germans and Hungarians, overtook the Compagnia del Cappello, which was devastating the contado, in the Valdichiana, and gained a complete victory, taking its captain and other leaders prisoners. But when, in March 1367, they tried to play the same game with John Hawkwood and his company of Englishmen, near Montalcinello, there was a very different tale to tell; the Sienese were driven back to Siena in headlong rout, their Conservatore was taken prisoner, and peace had to be purchased at a goodly rate of golden florins. Within the city there was restless plotting against the Twelve, followed by banishments and executions – for this government was by no means so reluctant to lay hands upon the nobles as the Nine had been. Realising that the feeling of the city was turning against them, the Twelve sent a splendid embassy to receive Pope Urban V. when he landed at the Port of Talamone (on his way to Rome in that ineffectual, because premature, attempt to heal the leprosy of Avignon), entered into league with him, sent horsemen under Sozzo Bandinelli and Piero Piccolomini to support the cause of the Church at Viterbo and Bologna. This was good so far as it went, but it did not avert the storm that burst upon Siena in 1368.
The Twelve had split into two factions – the “Canischi” and the “Grasselli.” The Canischi sided with the Tolomei, with whom were Piccolomini, Saracini, and Cerretani; the Grasselli were allied with the Salimbeni. The Emperor was expected in Tuscany, and the most honoured citizen of Siena, Giovanni di Agnolino Salimbeni, had come from Montepulciano to head the embassy that went from Siena to greet Caesar in Lombardy. Although even the magistrates in the Signoria were at daggers drawn, Giovanni’s influence had delayed the catastrophe; but, on his return from the Emperor, he was killed by a fall from his horse on the way from Siena to Rocca d’Orcia. The nobles rose in mass, united with the adherents of the Nine, and senza colpo di spada, at the beginning of September, forced the Twelve to surrender the Palace and the entire control of the State. A new magistracy of thirteen consuls was established; one from each of the five Greater Families, five representatives of the lesser nobles, three to represent the Nine. An embassy was dispatched by this new government to the Emperor; but, in the meanwhile, the Salimbeni had made common cause with the adherents of the Twelve, and sent ambassadors on their own account. On September 24th the Salimbeni, shouting for the People and the Emperor, rushed out of their palace and gardens in arms, joined forces with the Twelve, broke open the Porta di San Prospero, and admitted Malatesta de’ Malatesta, the imperial vicar, who with 800 horse had been lying in wait. From street to street the people and nobles struggled desperately with each other; during the three weeks of their rule, the latter had fortified their houses and enrolled soldiers for this emergency, which enabled them to hold their own at first even against the trained cavalry of the imperial vicar, while their overbearing and tyrannous conduct had exasperated the people to madness. A last stand was made in the Campo round the Palazzo, where there was a grim struggle, grande e aspra battaglia, until Malatesta carried the place by storm, and the populace, rushing in after the imperial soldiery, sacked it. The nobles fled from the city with their families, carrying with them all the goods that they could save from the wreck. Malatesta fortified himself in the Poggio Malavolti, from which, until the following January, he practically ruled the city as imperial vicar; while in the Palazzo a popular council of 124 plebeians met, which was called the Consiglio de Riformatori, and created a new supreme magistracy of twelve, composed of five of the popolo minuto, four of the Twelve, three of the order of the Nine; the Signori Dodici Difensori del Popolo Senese. The same proportion of the three ordini or Monti was to hold in the general council of 650 popolani. To reward the Salimbeni for their services to the People, or, as Malavolti, the aristocratic historian of Siena, puts it, “for the perfidy they had used against the other nobles,” they were given five castles in the Sienese contado and declared popolani, so as to be eligible for the chief magistracy.
The Emperor came back to Siena on October 12th, with the Empress. He entered at the Porta Tufi, where the Twelve and the Salimbeni met him, all crowned with flowers and bearing olive branches. He alighted at the Salimbeni palace, while his followers were quartered in the deserted houses of the exiled nobles. The next day, after Mass in the Duomo, he knighted Reame and Niccolò Salimbeni – “and very little pleasure did any one take in that,” says the Sienese Chronicle grimly. An enormous present of money was made to him and the Empress, as also to Malatesta, and when the Emperor left on the 14th, the Empress remained behind for some days to induce Siena to redeem the imperial crown which had been pawned in Florence. In the meanwhile the nobles were making alarms and excursions in the contado, almost up to the gates of the city. There was another revolution in December. The lowest portion of the populace, or at least lower than those hitherto represented in the administration – “verily plebeians and entirely new men,” as Malavolti has it – assailed the Palazzo, forced their way in, hunted out the representatives of the Twelve and Nine alike. Finally by a sort of general compromise a council of 150 riformatori was appointed, who reformed the State by the creation of a supreme magistracy of Fifteen Defenders, composed of eight of the popolo minuto, four of the Twelve, three of the Nine. This was the origin of the Monte dei Riformatori, because the name was retained in the families of those popolani who took a part in this regime, the names of Nine and Twelve (Nove and Dodici) being retained in those families who belonged to these two orders and shared their fortunes. The Monti of Riformatori, Dodicini, and Noveschi were likewise known as the People of the Greater Number, the People of the Middle Number, and the People of the Lesser Number respectively.13
The Emperor rode again into Siena, with the Empress and a long train of knights and nobles, on December 22nd. He dismounted as before at the Palace of the Salimbeni. The nobles were still ravaging the contado and, by means of the Marquis of Montferrat, Charles made some sort of attempt to effect a reconciliation between them and the people, which was cut short by the intrigues of the Salimbeni and Dodicini, who had gained the shallow Caesar’s ear. The arrival of a papal legate, the Cardinal of Bologna, with armed men at the end of the month increased the general alarm: it was rumoured that Charles intended to sell Siena to the Pope. The Emperor demanded the surrender of the fortresses of Massa, Montalcino, Grosseto, Talamone and Casole, and implied that he meant to reform the State; the Fifteen summoned a general council of more than 800 citizens, and returned an absolute refusal. Then the Salimbeni thought that the time had come to strike. On January 18th, Niccolò Salimbeni rode furiously through the street with armed followers, shouting “Long live the People! Down with the traitors who want the nobles back!” Malatesta with his cavalry entered the Campo, drew up in front of the Palace, calling upon the Signoria in the name of Caesar to surrender, and to expel the three representatives of the Nine. Instantly the alarm was sounded from the Mangia Tower. The armed forces of the people poured into the Campo, and their captain, Matteino di Ventura Menzani, with the gonfalone in his hand, led them against the foreign cavalry. The bells were ringing a stormo from churches and palaces, clashing and clanging over the heads of republicans and imperialists, when Caesar himself, his royal helmet crowned with a garland, appeared upon the scenes. With the Salimbeni and a long train of horsemen he was making his way to the Palazzo, when the victorious people, having routed Malatesta, burst upon him at the Croce del Travaglio. The