It was in this period of their prosperity that the Pisans completed their apleudid monuments of art, the cathedral, the belfry, baptistery, and Campo Santo. The Pisans sent a fleet of 120 sail to the first crusade, and their soldiers and sailors assisted at the taking of Niema, and afterwards at that of Antioch, as a reward for which they obtained a street of that city to establish a factory in. In 1090 the Pisane were at the taking of Jerusalem. In the following year they sailed into the eca of Mamoru, and obliged the emperor Alexius to sign a treaty, by which he allowed them to establish a factory at Constanti nople, with ample privileges. The Pisan fleet returned home in triumph, and their city was then entirely surrounded by walls.
In 1114 the Pilaus sent a large armament, the largest that had ever sailed from their coast, to the conquest of the Balearic: Islands, which were in possession of the Moors, and which had become a nest ol Mohammedan pirates. The fleet consisted of 300 ships of various sizes, having on board 35,000 men and 900 horses. The archbishop of Pisa, I'ietro Moriconi, himself commanded the expedition. In April, 1117, the Pisans, in conjunction with Raymond° IV., count of Barcelona, accomplished the conquest of tho Baleares.. In tho year 1137, the Piaui fleet went to the coast of Naples to aid the Pope and the emperor against the Normans, and took the town of Amalfi.
In the war between Frederic liarbarossa and the Lombard cities, Pisa sided with the emperor. In the following century the I'isans, as Ghabelines, took the part of Frederick II. against the Pope. In 1258, peace was made between Genoa and Pisa, through the media tion of Pope Alexander IV. In 1282 began the fourth war between Pisa and Genoa. lu 1234 they suffered IC disastrous defeat off the island of Meloria from the Genoese, commanded by Oberto Darin. In the action they lost 3000 men killed or drowned, and 13,000 were carried prisoners to Genoa, where they Nero confined in chains, and wherfe moat of them died. Hence a proverb became current through out Italy—" Those who want to see Pisa must go to Genoa." In 1290, Conrad Doris attacked the Porto Mane, destroyed its towers, and sunk ships filled with donee at the entrance. From that time l'isa completely lost its rank as a maritime power, after a glorious career of four centuries, and Veuico and Genoa were left alono to dispute for the naval supremacy of the Mediterranean.
In the meantime Florence, at the head of the Guelph:I of Tuscany, availed l'isa by lend, and in their distress the I'isans appointed its their captain-general, for 10 years, Ugoliuo Count Gherardeaca, a Ghibeline feudal baron, who, in order to keep himself in power, favoured alternately Guelphs and Ghibelines, while he proscribed the more independent leaders of both parties. He was opposed by the
archbishop ltuggiero degli Ubaldini, a staunch Ghibeline; and in 1288, befog accused of betraying hia country into tho hands of the Guelphs of Florence and Lucca, an insurrection broke out against him, headed by the archbishop. Ugolino, being overpowered, was confined, with two of his sone and two of his grandsons, in a tower near the Arno, where the wretched prisoners were left to die of hunger. This catastrophe has furnished Dante with the eubject of one of his most powerful descriptions.
The Pisans then appointed Guido da Montefeltro their captain general. lie recovered by force the strongholds which Ugoliuo had put into the hands of the Guelph& Peace was made with Florence in 1203, and in 1290 with Genoa also. Pisa continued attached to the Ghibeline party, and at the death of the emperor Heury VII., in 1313, found herself exposed to the attack of all the Onelpha of Tuscany. Tho Pisani, gave the chief commatid to Uguccione della Isggitioht, a captain of some renown, who took Lucca, in 1314, and afterwards defeated the Florentines in the battle of Monteeatino. Tian resumed its republican form of governmeut in 1316, and in 1322 exiled 15 of the Ghibeline nobles, and made peace with the Guelphs. In the following year a general mmencro of the limns took place in Sant-ilia. and the insurgents offered the island to Alfonso, the son of Jatnea II., king of Amgen. Pisa made a last effort to prserve &militia, but was obliged to give it up to the Aragottese, in 1326. In 132a Castruccio Castracani, the great Ghibcline leader, took Pisa by surprise, but his death soon after restored it to freedom. In 134I the halms, who still retained much of their martial spirit, defeated the' Florentine., took possession of Lucca, and kept it till 1369, when the emperor Charles IV. obliged them to restore Lucca to its inde pendence.
Pisa was now distracted by internal feuds between the democratic party and the Ghibeline uobles, the result of which was that the city was sold by one of its tyrannical chiefs to Ginn Galeazzo Visconti, in February, 1399. At the death of Ginn Galeazzo, in 1403, his natural soil Gabrielle Maria had Pisa for his share, but not feeling himself secure, be placed himself under the protection of Charles VI. of France. Marshal Boucicault, the representative of Charles, sold the citadel and the other strongholds which he had in the territory of Pisa for 206,000 florins. Gabriello Maria demanded his share of the purchase money, but Marshal Boucicault rid himself of his importu nities by having him beheaded as a traitor to the French king.