authority was soon challenged in Alessandria and Asti. He left Milan in the hands of a vicar and went to fight the rebellious cities. However, he was captured by Thomas III of Savoy, whom he had made his enemy in taking Turin. In order to obtain his liberty, he ceded Turin, as well as Grugliasco and Collegno, and a huge sum of gold. He was freed on 21 June 1280. Starting from that moment, the power in the Piedmont would gradually pass into the hands to the House of Savoy. Weakened by continuous warfare, William soon lost control of Milan. On 27 December 1281, he was chased from the city by the one who had brought him there, Ottone Visconti. Final war In compensation for the loss of Milan, William received Alba. His daughter by Beatrice of Castile, Violante (Yolanda), married the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus, taking the name Irene (Eirene). William was soon campaigning again, in a continuous flow of defeats alternated to victories. Having reduced Alessandria to submission, the citizens of Asti paid the Alessandrians a large sum of money and induced them to revolt against the Marquis again. Constrained to deal with Alessandria once and for all, William encamped with a large army in front of the city walls. Heeding the appeals of the citizens, he entered the city to negotiate a peace, but was imprisoned in a cage, iron or wooden, for a public exhibition, until death released him 18 months later, probably due to hunger. Dante refers to the misery caused in Monferrato and the Canavese by the war with Alessandria in Canto VII of Purgatory: Succession William left a son, John, who inherited the marquisate. The lands he inherited were divided by years of constant war and few communes remained faithful. Sent to Saluzzo for his safety, John stayed there a year. William's body was given back to his family and was buried in the Cistercian abbey of Santa Maria di Lucedio, alongside his father. His obituary remembers him as fundator huius monasterii ("founder of this monastery"), although in reality he was just a member of the founding family. Legacy The marquisate of Montferrat was torn to pieces by the incessant expansionistic wars of William VII's reign. Chivasso, the centre of the Marquis' power, the veritable capital and seat of the marca Aleramica, was but an unimportant provincial town at the time. Never