The news of Braccio's death caused the utmost consternation in Perugia. If the great captain had saved the town at a critical point, he may also be said to have created a situation which was perhaps a still more critical one for her citizens. Braccio was a noble. With his advent in Perugia the party of the nobles had returned. Terrible things were in store for the city. For a little while, and partly through the efforts of a rather complicated personality, they were postponed, but the time of terror was at hand.
When Braccio died at Aquila, the Perugians prepared to defend themselves they knew not well from what. "Each man," says Graziani, "furnished himself with flour, the ditches and walls were repaired both of the city and the territory around it, and every one left the open country and took refuge in fortresses and city palaces." Two courses lay open to them, and of the two they selected that which seemed least evil. They submitted themselves once more to the power of the Pope; and on July 29th, 1424, the delighted Martin entered Perugia as its acknowledged lord and ruler.
Like many famous people of that day Martin had studied at the Perugian University, and perhaps he had preserved an affection for the city which he had known in his youth. Anyhow, the terms of peace which he concluded with the citizens were very mild, and as usual, all the privileges obtained from Innocent III. were preserved. But this time it was through the _nobles_ that the Pope had been called into the city. The thin end of the wedge was surely and irretrievably driven in, and the power of the nobles was as a matter of fact secure. The Pope himself fostered the growing power, and amongst others, who on the occasion of his advent received rich possessions from him, was Malatesta Baglioni. Martin handed Spello over to his rule, and thus helped to enrich a family whose members were for a period to wrest the power from the Church itself, and to set the town ablaze with crime and bloodshed.
The nobles remained at the head of affairs, but, as we have said, there was one strong personality--a Perugian citizen, Niccolò Piccinino--who made a last effort, as Braccio Fortebraccio and Michelotti had done before him, to become that strange creation of the day: a _condottiere_ despot.