I Visconti captain (1290–1299). The Tizzoni (Ghibellines) and Avogadri (Guelphs) disputed the city from 1301 to 1334. The Guelphs were expelled several times, enabling the Marquess of Monferrato to take Vercelli (1328), which voluntarily placed itself under the Viscount of Milan in 1334. In 1373, Bishop Giovanni Fieschi expelled the Visconti, but Matteo reconquered the city. Facino Cane (1402), profiting by the strife between Giovanni Maria and Filippo Maria Visconti, took Vercelli, but was driven out by Theodore II of Montferrat (1404), from whom the city passed to the dukes of Savoy (1427). In 1499 and 1553 Vercelli was captured by the French, and in 1616 and 1678 by the Spaniards. In 1704 it sustained an energetic siege by the French, who failed to destroy the fortress, after which it shared the fortunes of Savoy. In 1821 Vercelli rose in favour of the Constitution. Government Main sights Vercelli is home to numerous relics of the Roman period, e.g. an amphitheatre, hippodrome, sarcophagi, and many important inscriptions, some of which are Christian. There are seven noteworthy towers in the town, the most important are the Torre dell’Angelo, which rears up over the old market square, and the Torre di Città in Via Gioberti. Vercelli Cathedral, formerly adorned with precious pillars and mosaics, was erected and enlarged by Saint Eusebius of Vercelli, to whom it was dedicated after his death. It was remodelled as of the ninth century and radically changed in the eighteenth by Count Alfieri. Like the other churches in the city, it contains valuable paintings, especially those of Gaudenzio Ferrari, Gerolamo Giovenone and Bernardino Lanino, who were natives of Vercelli. The cathedral's Capitulary Library contains valuable manuscripts. Its religious texts include the Codex Vercellensis, an evangeliarium of the fourth century; hagiographical manuscripts, not all of which have been critically examined; and a very old copy of the Imitation of Christ, which is relied upon as an argument for attributing the authorship to John Gersen. Its secular texts include the Novels of Justinian; and the 8th-century Leges Langobardorum (Laws of the Lombards - Germanic). Finally, it contains the famous Vercelli Book — an Old English manuscript which includes the celebrated alliterative poem The Dream of the Rood. The civil archives are not less important and contain documents dating from 882. The Basilica di Sant'Andrea was erected by Cardinal Guala Bicchieri in 1219. Together with the old Cistercian monastery, it is