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Rh other, Pisa or Genoa was to be the Queen of the Tyrrhene Sea, was no less distinctly a personal one than which of two rival beauties shall preside at a tournament.

216. This personal rivalry, so far as it was separated from their commercial interests, was indeed mortal, but not malignant. The quarrel was to be decided to the death, but decided with honour; and each city had four observers permittedly resident in the other, to give account of all that was done there in naval invention and armament.

217. Observe, also, in the year 1251, when we quitted our history, we left Florence not only Guelph, as against the Imperial power (that is to say, the body of her knights who favoured the Pope and Italians, in dominion over those who favoured Manfred and the Germans), but we left her also definitely with her apron thrown over her shield; and the tradesmen and craftsmen in authority over the knight, whether German or Italian, Papal or Imperial.

That is in 1251. Now in these last two lectures I must try to mark the gist of the history of the next thirty years. The Thirty Years' War, this, of the Middle Ages, infinitely important