A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [263]
Agitation in northern Italy was intense at news of Coucy’s advent. Siena sent envoys secretly to Milan to bargain for support against Florence. Florence sent envoys to divert him from Tuscany by gracious words and protestations of friendship. Florentine diplomacy was conducted by the permanent chancellor, Coluccio Salutati, a cultivated scholar who could frame his foreign correspondence in elegant Latin rhetoric that reflected credit on the republic. The continuity of his office, which was equivalent to that of a chief administrator, gave him great influence, and the fact that his appointment was regularly renewed over a period of thirty years is evidence—given the turbulence of Florentine politics—of a man of remarkable political ability, not to say equanimity. His heart was in literature and the new humanism, but in the conduct of affairs he was efficient, diligent, learned, and genial, admired for his integrity and style. According to Gian Galeazzo, a state paper by Salutati carried in the political scales the weight of a thousand horsemen. This was Coucy’s opponent.
In response to the Florentine greetings, Coucy was surpassingly gracious. “We met,” states the report probably written by Salutati, “with joyful embraces and greetings and he spoke reassuringly and peacefully to us. He called us not friends and brothers but his very fathers and masters.… Not only did he promise to abstain from hostility toward us, but he pledged to support us with his army in our own affairs.” Coucy had clearly learned the Italian manner. He assured the Florentines their fears were fanciful and promised to confine his passage to a strictly limited route. They accepted his assurances, perhaps less because they trusted them than because, with Hawkwood absent in Naples, they did not have an armed force capable of barring his way. Neutral but suspicious, they raised a company of 4,000 peasants and commoners to guard the route.
Starting in August, Coucy crossed the Apennines and entered the land of the “Tuscan miracle” on the west. Cypress stood out against the rich blue sky, vineyards and silver olive trees clung to the slopes. Between hills topped by castle or village, slow white oxen moved through a landscape hand-tended for 2,000 years. The French army penetrated harshly in a progress that was not the peaceful one Coucy had promised. To their stupor et dolor (shock and grief), as the Florentines afterward complained bitterly to the King of France, they learned “he was not the same toward us in his heart as he outwardly feigned.” Partly as a form of intimidation to remind Florence to stay neutral, partly to pay and provision his mercenaries, Coucy exacted tribute from towns, looted villages, even seized castles. Florence sent more envoys crying, “Peace! Peace!” and offering rich gifts and further assurance of neutrality if he would bypass Florentine territory. Coucy continued to answer soothingly, but force once employed quickly became rapine, difficult to restrain.
“They not only stole geese and hens, robbed the dovecotes and made off with sheep, rams, and cattle,” according to the Florentine complaint, “they actually stormed our unarmed walls and undefended homes as if they were at war with us. They took people captive and tortured them and forced them to pay ransom. They killed men and women in cruel ways and set fire to their empty houses.”
As Coucy advanced, Florence learned with dismay that he was in communication with the exiled lords of Arezzo, an ancient and important hill town forty miles to the southeast which the Florentines had long coveted and were preparing to annex. Its history dated back to the Etruscans, its famous red glazed pottery to the Romans; from its cluster of towers with belvederes and balconies, St. Francis in Giotto’s painting exorcised flying demons. In the strife of Guelfs and Ghibellines, its ruling family, the Tarlati, lords of Pietramala, had been overthrown in 1380, and the