Giovanni Villani marks this as the first sign of the scourge which was destined to prove so fatal to the peace of Italy.[1] But it was not any merely accidental outbreak of Banditti, such as this, which established the Condottiere system.

The causes were far more deeply seated, in the nature of Italian despotism and in the peculiar requirements of the republics.

We have already seen how Frederick II.

found it convenient to employ Saracens in his warfare with the Holy See.

The same desire to procure troops incapable of sympathizing with the native population induced the Scala and Visconti tyrants to hire German, Breton, Swiss, English, and even Hungarian guards.