This was the moment chosen by Genoa for a desperate and decisive struggle with her perpetual rival. For some years the hostile fleets continued to harass each other and engage in petty skirmishes, as if to measure their strength and prepare for a final effort. On Aug. 6, 1284, at the great battle of Meloria 72 Pisan galleys engaged 88 Genoese, and half the Pisan fleet was de stroyed. The chroniclers speak of 5,000 killed and I ',coo pris oners; and, although these figures must be exaggerated, so great was the number of captives taken by the Genoese as to give rise to the saying—"To see Pisa, you must now go to Genoa." This defeat crushed the power of Pisa. She had lost her dominion over the sea, and the Tuscan Guelphs again joined in attacking her by land. Count Ugolino had taken part in the battle of Meloria and was accused of treachery. At the height of his country's dis asters he sought to confirm his own power by making terms with the Florentines, by yielding certain castles to Lucca and by neglecting to conclude negotiations with the Genoese for the release of the prisoners, lest these should all prove more or less hostile to himself. This excited a storm of opposition against him. The archbishop, Ruggieri, having put himself at the head of the nobles, was elected podesta by the Lanfranchi, Sismondi and Gualandi, and a section of the popular party. The great bell of the commune called together the adherents of the archbishop; the bell of the people summoned the partisans of the count. After a day's fighting (July 1, 1288) the count, his two sons and his two grandsons were captured in the palazzo del popolo (or town hall), and cast into a tower belonging to the Gualandi, and known as the "Tower of the Seven Streets." Here they were all left to die of hunger. Their tragic end was afterwards immortalized in the Divina Commedia. The sympathies of Dante Alighieri, the Flor entine patriot and foe of Rome, were naturally in favour of the victims of an aristocratic prelate opposed to all reconciliation with Florence.
The Florentines were now allied with Lucca and Genoa, and a few of their vessels succeeded in forcing an entry into the Pisan port, blocked it with sunken boats, and seized its towers. In 1293 they secured a profitable peace. They and the other members of the Guelph league were freed from all imposts in Pisa and its port. In addition to these privileges the Genoese also held Corsica and part of Sardinia; and throughout the island of Elba were exempted from every tax. They likewise received a ransom of 160,000 florins for their Pisan prisoners.
In 1312 the arrival of the Emperor, Henry VII., gladdened the hearts of the Pisans, but his sudden death in 1313 again over threw their hopes. He was interred at Pisa, and Uguccione della Faggiuola remained as imperial lieutenant, was elected podesta and captain of the people, and thus became virtual lord of the city. As a Ghibelline chief of valour and renown he was able to restore the military prestige of the Pisans, who under his com mand captured Lucca and defeated the Florentines at Monteca tini on Aug. 29, 1315. In 1316, however, he was expelled in an outburst of popular fury. But Pisa's freedom was forever lost. Uguccione della Faggiuola was succeeded by other lords or tyrants of whom the most renowned was Castruccio Castracane, a political and military adventurer of much the same stamp as Uguccione himself. With the help of Louis the Bavarian, Castruccio became lord of Lucca and Pisa, and was victorious over the Florentines; but his premature death in 1328 again left the city a prey to the conflicts of opposing factions. New lords, or petty tyrants, rose
to power in turn during this period of civil discord, but the mil itary valour of the Pisans was not yet extinguished. By sea they were almost impotent—Corsica and Sardinia were lost to them forever—but they were still formidable by land. In 1341 they besieged Lucca in order to prevent the entry of the Florentines, to whom the city had been sold for 250,000 florins by the powerful Mastino della Scala. Aided by their Milanese, Mantuan and Paduan allies, they gave battle to their rivals, put them to rout at Altopascio (Oct. 2), and then again excluded them from their port. Thereupon the Florentines obtained Porto Talamone from Siena and established a navy of their own. By this means they were enabled to capture the island of Giglio, and, attacking the Pisan harbour, carried off its chains, bore them in triumph to Florence, and suspended them in front of the baptistery, where they remained until 1848. Then in pledge of the brotherhood of all Italian cities, they were given back to Pisa, and placed in the Campo Santo.
The war was now carried on by the free companies with vary ing fortune, but always more or less to the hurt of the Pisans. In 1369 Lucca was taken from them by the emperor Charles IV.; and afterwards Giovan Galeazzo Visconti, known as the count of Virtil, determined to forward his ambitious designs upon the whole of Italy by wresting Pisa from the Gambacorti. For at this time the conflicts of the Raspanti faction, headed by the Gherardesca, with the Bergolini led by the Gambacorti, had left the latter family masters of the city. At Visconti's instigation Piero Gambacorti, the ruler of the moment, was treacherously assassinated by Jacopo d'Appiano, who succeeded him as tyrant of Pisa, and bequeathed the state to his son Gherardo. The latter, a man of inferior ability and daring, sold Pisa to the count of Virtu, receiving in exchange 200,000 florins, Piombino, and the islands of Elba, Pianosa and Monte Cristo. Thus in 1399 Visconti took possession of Pisa, and left it to his natural son, Gabriele Maria Visconti, who was afterwards expelled from its gates. But even in this century of disaster the Pisans continued to encour age not only commerce, but also the fine arts. In the year 1278 they had entrusted the erection of their fine Campo Santo to Nic cola and Giovanni Pisano, by whom the architectural part of it was completed towards the end of the century. In the following year the first artists of Italy were engaged in its decoration, and the celebrated frescoes attributed to Orcagna (q.v.) were painted on its walls. Others were afterwards supplied by Benozzo Gozzoli and men of lesser note, and the labour of ornamentation was only dis continued in The Victory of Florence.—Meanwhile, in 1406, the Floren tines made another attack upon Pisa, besieging it simultaneously by sea and land. Owing to the starving condition of its defenders, and aided by the treachery of Giovanni Gambacorti, they entered the city in triumph on Oct. 9, and sought to "crush every germ of rebellion and drive out its citizens by measures of the utmost harshness and cruelty." Such were the orders sent by the Ten of War to the representatives of the Florentine government in Pisa, and such was then the established policy of every Italian state.