But time and circumstance were steadily undermining the great House, and with a sudden crash it fell. On a certain January night in 1277, the wife of Matteo Visconte was delivered, we are told, of her first son, who, because he was born _ad cantu galli_, as the cocks were crowing—heralding a false dawn, as their habit is in winter midnights—was named _Galeazzo_, first of the many of that name who were to crow over Milan. It was at this very moment that Otto Visconte—who, with his great-nephew, father of the new-born babe, and the rest of his kinsmen, had been making desperate attacks upon various points in the Milanese country, with little success so far—was creeping stealthily in the darkness, at the head of a strong body of fighting men, towards Desio, a village ten miles from Milan, where the Della Torre, disdainful of their oft-beaten foe, were sleeping encamped, with but a small force and under a careless watch. Awakened by the noise of attack, these latter rushed to arms; but too late. The enemy was in their midst. Francesco della Torre, son of Napo, fell pierced with wounds. The chief himself, overthrown in his weighty armour, lay grieving helplessly upon the ground, and with a crowd of sons and kinsmen was made captive. All was over. Otto Visconte rode victorious at last into Milan, where the citizens, who had heard of the discomfiture of their lords as they were starting with the Caroccio to the rescue, suited their faith to the occasion, and with immense applause and jubilee proclaimed the prelate Lord of Milan.
Thus, by the hazard of a moment’s battle, the long supremacy of the Torriani was overthrown. Napo was imprisoned in the terrible Tower of Baradello, whose ruins still crest a hill a mile or two on the Milanese side of Como. Here, within the bars of a cage, the once mighty chief languished for a year and a half till he died.
Meanwhile, the change of ruler had brought the city none of the relief from war and its burdensome cost, which the people had fondly expected. The kinsmen and adherents of the exiled family in the city were very numerous and strong, and the whole Guelf party in Lombardy was anxious to bring about the restoration of the Torriani. The new Lord of Milan was attacked with fury, and could only maintain himself by the energetic use of the sword, and by those same methods of proscription and banishment with which his predecessors had made themselves odious.