CHAPTER TWO

MCCXXV

On Monday morning, 23 September 1325, the captain-general of Florence, Ramón de Cardona, led a weary Guelf army down a dusty Tuscan road to the town of Altopascio, some fifteen kilometers to the southeast of Lucca. His ultimate objective was the city of Lucca and its powerful signore, Castruccio di Gerio Castracani degli Antel- minell, arguably the most dangerous of the many enemies who had menaced Florence in the past two generations. Since assuming the signoria in 1316, Castruccio had devoted himself to making Lucca the dominant city-state in Tuscany. Ten years of vigorous and uni- formly brilliant campaigning had brought much of northwestern Tuscany under his control. More recently he had turned his atten- tions east toward Florence, in whose shadow Lucca had stood too long and whose definitive defeat would leave Castruccio uncontested master of Tuscany. The capture of Pistoia in May 1325 extended Castruccio’s dominion to the northwestern edge of the Florentine contado and gave him a potential staging ground for an assault on Florence itself. Pisa, too, was in his sights; its acquisition would give him the means to launch a great invasion of Florence from the west. Cardona’s campaign was more than just another episode in the cease- less contending of the Tuscan communes. Its conclusion might very well determine the fate of Florence.1 Cardona’s arrival in Florence in May 1325 was, for the Florentines, a godsend.2 Cardona was a tough, shrewd, battle-hardened Catalan who had previously served under the papal legate, Cardinal Bertrand du Poujet, as captain-general of the Church’s forces in Lombardy. He was also quite possibly the only commander in Italy who could match Castruccio in audacity and skill. Cardona worked from the

1 For the Altopascio campaign, see Louis Green, Castruccio Castracani. A Study on the Origins and Character of a Fourteenth-Century Italian Despotism (Oxford, 1986), pp. 161–182. 2 Villani, X.ccxv (p. 598). 24 chapter two outset to throw off the feckless defensiveness which had character- ized Florentine policy toward Castruccio throughout the 1320s. The Florentines, he believed, could not afford to let Castruccio deliver the first blow. Cardona quickly assembled an army and took to the field. Rather than risking a decisive engagement with Castruccio him- self, Cardona left Castruccio unmolested at Pistoia and led his forces against key Lucchese targets. His initial successes raised the hopes of Florentine allies farther afield; contingents from Siena, Bologna, Perugia and elsewhere swelled his ranks to 15,000 infantrymen and 2,400 horses, including 500 French knights. By mid-July his Guelf army had taken Montefalcone and began the march to Lucca. Cardona’s bold strategy had the desired effect. Suddenly, Castruccio found himself thrown onto the defensive—a position to which he was decidedly unaccustomed. He had no choice but to withdraw from Pistoia and move to the defense of Lucca itself. Leaving a small garrison to hold Pistoia, he hastened west with the bulk of his force to secure the high plain above Altopascio. But he was too late to stop Cardona from capturing the town on 25 August. From Altopascio, Cardona made ready to advance on the abbey-village of Pozzeveri, one of the last stops on the road to Lucca. Still, Cardona knew that his success was anything but assured. Castruccio was an audacious tactician and a masterful strategist; the urgency of his situation had doubtless rendered him more danger- ous than ever. Cardona’s progress, moreover, had been slowed in recent weeks by a troubling agglomeration of problems. Since the campaign against Montefalcone in July, his forces had been ravaged by epidemic. As sickness spread through the ranks, troops who had campaigned with great enthusiasm against minor Lucchese holdings began to lose heart as they neared Lucca—and the promise of a decisive engagement with a commander whom many regarded as invincible. Throughout the summer, desertion further depleted ranks already thinned by sickness and death. While Cardona remained unbowed in his determination to carry the war to Lucca, some of his anxious Florentine subordinates began to press for the less ambi- tious goal of keeping Castruccio contained. The army’s advance from Altopascio slowed to a crawl as Cardona squabbled with his cap- tains and the morale of his soldiers plummeted. Castruccio, meanwhile, had thrown himself into the defense of his city with demonic energy, shoring up his forces and issuing a series of desperate appeals to his Ghibelline allies. On 21 September he