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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part VII}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{florence
footnote
government
arts
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justice
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citizens
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$Date{}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book III: The History Of Italy
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part VII

     Though there was much less obedience to any legitimate power at Rome than
anywhere else in Italy, even during the thirteenth century, yet, after the
secession of the popes to Avignon, their own city was left in a far worse
condition than before.  Disorders of every kind, tumult and robbery, prevailed
in the streets.  The Roman nobility were engaged in perpetual war with each
other.  Not content with their own fortified palaces, they turned the sacred
monuments of antiquity into strongholds, and consummated the destruction of
time and conquest.  At no period has the city endured such irreparable
injuries; nor was the downfall of the western empire so fatal to its capital
as the contemptible feuds of the Orsini and Colonna families.  Whatever there
was of government, whether administered by a legate from Avignon or by the
municipal authorities, had lost all hold on these powerful barons.  In the
midst of this degradation and wretchedness, an obscure man, Nicola di Rienzi,
conceived the project of restoring Rome, not only to good order, but even to
her ancient greatness.  He had received an education beyond his birth, and
nourished his mind with the study of the best writers.  After many harangues
to the people, which the nobility, blinded by their self-confidence, did not
attempt to repress, Rienzi suddenly excited an insurrection, and obtained
complete success.  [A.D. 1347.] He was placed at the head of a new government,
with the title of tribune, and with almost unlimited power.  The first effects
of this revolution were wonderful.  All the nobles submitted, though with
great reluctance; the roads were cleared of robbers; tranquillity was restored
at home; some severe examples of justice intimidated offenders; and the
tribune was regarded by all the people as the destined restorer of Rome and
Italy.  Though the court of Avignon could not approve of such an usurpation,
it temporized enough not directly to oppose it.  Most of the Italian
republics, and some of the princes, sent ambassadors, and seemed to recognize
pretensions which were tolerably ostentatious.  The King of Hungary and Queen
of Naples submitted their quarrel to the arbitration of Rienzi, who did not,
however, undertake to decide upon it.  But this sudden exaltation intoxicated
his understanding, and exhibited failings entirely incompatible with his
elevated condition.  If Rienzi had lived in our own age, his talents, which
were really great, would have found their proper orbit.  For his character was
one not unusual among literary politicians - a combination of knowledge,
eloquence, and enthusiasm for ideal excellence, with vanity, inexperience of
mankind, unsteadiness, and physical timidity. As these latter qualities became
conspicuous, they eclipsed his virtues and caused his benefits to be
forgotten; he was compelled to abdicate his government, and retire into exile.
After several years, some of which he passed in the prisons of Avignon, Rienzi
was brought back to Rome, with the title of Senator, and under the command of
the legate.  It was supposed that the Romans, who had returned to their habits
of insubordination, would gladly submit to their favorite tribune.  And this
proved the case for a few months; but after that time they ceased altogether
to respect a man who so little respected himself in accepting a station where
he could no longer be free; and Rienzi was killed in a sedition. ^o

[Footnote o: Sismondi, t. v. c. 37; t. vi. p. 201; Gibbon, c. 70; De Sade, Vie
de Petrarque, t. ii. passim; Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 339.  It is difficult to
resist the admiration which all the romantic circumstances of Rienzi's history
tend to excite, and to which Petrarch so blindly gave way. That great man's
characteristic excellence was not good common sense.  He had imbibed two
notions, of which it is hard to say which was the more absurd: that Rome had a
legitimate right to all her ancient authority over the rest of the world; and
that she was likely to recover this authority in consequence of the revolution
produced by Rienzi.  Giovanni Villani, living at Florence, and a stanch
republican, formed a very different estimate, which weighs more than the
enthusiastic panegyrics of Petrarch.  La detta impresa del tribuno era un'
opera fantastica, e di poco durare.  1. xii. c. 90.  An illustrious female
writer has drawn with a single stroke the character of Rienzi, Crescentius,
and Arnold of Brescia, the fond restorers of Roman liberty, qui ont pris les
souvenirs pour les esperances.  Corinne, t. i. p. 159.  Could Tacitus have
excelled this?]

     Once more, not long after the death of Rienzi, the freedom of Rome seems
to have revived in republican institutions, though with names less calculated
to inspire peculiar recollections.  Magistrates called bannerets, chosen from
the thirteen districts of the city, with a militia of three thousand citizens
at their command, were placed at the head of this commonwealth.  The great
object of this new organization was to intimidate the Roman nobility, whose
outrages, in the total absence of government, had grown intolerable.  Several
of them were hanged the first year by order of the bannerets.  The citizens,
however, had no serious intention of throwing off their allegiance to the
popes.  They provided for their own security, on account of the lamentable
secession and neglect of those who claimed allegiance while they denied
protection.  But they were ready to acknowledge and welcome back their bishop
as their sovereign. Even without this they surrendered their republican
constitution in 1362, it does not appear for what reason, and permitted the
legate of Innocent VI. to assume the government. ^p We find, however, the
institution of bannerets revived and in full authority some years afterwards.
But the internal history of Rome appears to be obscure, and I have not had
opportunities of examining it minutely.  Some degree of political freedom the
city probably enjoyed during the schism of the church; but it is not easy to
discriminate the assertion of legitimate privileges from the licentious
tumults of the barons or populace.  In 1435 the Romans formally took away the
government from Eugenius IV., and elected seven signiors or chief magistrates,
like the priors of Florence. ^q But this revolution was not of long
continuance.  On the death of Eugenius the citizens deliberated upon proposing
a constitutional charter to the future pope.  Stephen Porcaro, a man of good
family and inflamed by a strong spirit of liberty, was one of their principal
instigators.  But the people did not sufficiently partake of that spirit.  No
measures were taken upon this occasion; and Porcaro, whose ardent imagination
disguised the hopelessness of his enterprise, tampering in a fresh conspiracy,
was put to death under the pontificate of Nicholas V. ^r

[Footnote p: Matt. Villani, pp. 576, 604, 709; Sismondi, t. v. p. 92.  He
seems to have overlooked the former period of government by bannerets, and
refers their institution to 1375.]

[Footnote q: Script. Rerum Italic. t. iii. par. 2, p. 1128.]

[Footnote r: Id. pp. 1131, 1134; Sismondi, t. x. p. 18.]

     The province of Tuscany continued longer than Lombardy under the
government of an imperial lieutenant.  It was not till about the middle of the
twelfth century that the cities of Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Siena, Arezzo,
Pistoja, and several less considerable, which might, perhaps, have already
their own elected magistrates, became independent republics.  Their history
is, with the exception of Pisa, very scanty till the death of Frederic II.
The earliest fact of any importance recorded of Florence occurs in 1184, when
it is said that Frederic Barbarossa took from her the dominion over the
district or county, and restored it to the rural nobility, on account of her
attachment to the church. ^s This I chiefly mention to illustrate the system
pursued by the cities of bringing the territorial proprietors in their
neighborhood under subjection.  During the reign of Frederic II.  Florence
became, as far as she was able, an ally of the popes.  There was, indeed, a
strong Ghibelin party, comprehending many of the greatest families, which
occasionally predominated through the assistance of the emperor.  It seems,
however, to have existed chiefly among the nobility; the spirit of the people
was thoroughly Guelf.  After several revolutions, accompanied by alternate
proscription and demolition of houses, the Guelf party, through the assistance
of Charles of Anjou, obtained a final ascendency in 1266; and after one or two
unavailing schemes of accommodation it was established as a fundamental law in
the Florentine constitution that no person of Ghibelin ancestry could be
admitted to offices of public trust, which, in such a government, was in
effect an exclusion from the privileges of citizenship.

[Footnote s: Villani, l. v. c. 12.]

     The changes of internal government and vicissitudes of success among
factions were so frequent at Florence for many years after this time that she
is compared by her great banished poet to one in sickness, who, unable to
rest, gives herself momentary ease by continual change of posture in her bed.
^t They did not become much less numerous after the age of Dante.  Yet the
revolutions of Florence should, perhaps, be considered as no more than a
necessary price of her liberty.  It was her boast and her happiness to have
escaped, except for one short period, that odious rule of vile usurpers under
which so many other free cities had been crushed.  A sketch of the
constitution of so famous a republic ought not to be omitted in this place.
Nothing else in the history of Italy after Frederic II. is so worthy of our
attention. ^u

[Footnote t: E se ben ti ricordi, e vedi il lume,
     Vedrai te somigliante a quella inferma,
     Che non puo trovar posa in su le piume,
     Ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma.
     Purgatorio, cant. vi.]

[Footnote u: I have found considerable difficulties in this part of my task;
no author with whom I am acquainted giving a tolerable view of the Florentine
government except M. Sismondi, who is himself not always satisfactory.]

     The basis of the Florentine polity was a division of the citizens
exercising commerce into their several companies or arts.  These were at first
twelve; seven called the greater arts, and five lesser; but the latter were
gradually increased to fourteen.  The seven greater arts were those of lawyers
and notaries, of dealers in foreign cloth, called sometimes Calimala, of
bankers or money-changers, of woollen-drapers, of physicians and druggists, of
dealers in silk, and of furriers.  The inferior arts were those of retailers
of cloth, butchers, smiths, shoemakers, and builders.  This division, so far
at least as regarded the greater arts, was as old as the beginning of the
thirteenth century. ^v But it was fully established and rendered essential to
the constitution in 1266.  By the provisions made in that year each of the
seven greater arts had a council of its own, a chief magistrate or consul, who
administered justice in civil causes to all members of his company, and a
banneret (gonfaloniere) or military officer, to whose standard they repaired
when any attempt was made to disturb the peace of the city.

[Footnote v: Ammirato, ad ann. 1204 et 1235.  Villani intimates, l. vii. c.
13, that the arts existed as commercial companies before 1266.  Machiavelli
and Sismondi express themselves rather inaccurately, as if they had been
erected at that time, which indeed is the era of their political importance.]

     The administration of criminal justice belonged at Florence, as at other
cities, to a foreign podesta, or rather to two foreign magistrates, the
podesta and the capitano del popolo, whose jurisdiction, so far as I can trace
it, appears to have been concurrent. ^w In the first part of the thirteenth
century the authority of the podesta may have been more extensive than
afterwards.  These offices were preserved till the innovations of the Medici.
The domestic magistracies underwent more changes.  Instead of consuls, which
had been the first denomination of the chief magistrates of Florence, a
college of twelve or fourteen persons called Anziani or Buonuomini, but
varying in name as well as number, according to revolutions of party, was
established about the middle of the thirteenth century, to direct public
affairs. ^x This order was entirely changed in 1282, and gave place to a new
form of supreme magistracy, which lasted till the extinction of the republic.
Six priors, elected every two months, one from each of the six quarters of the
city, and from each of the greater arts, except that of lawyers, constituted
an executive magistracy. They lived during their continuance in office in a
palace belonging to the city, and were maintained at the public cost.  The
actual priors, jointly with the chiefs and councils (usually called la
capitudine) of the seven greater arts, and with certain adjuncts (arroti)
named by themselves, elected by ballot their successors.  Such was the
practice for about forty years after this government was established.  But an
innovation, begun in 1324, and perfected four years afterwards, gave a
peculiar character to the constitution of Florence.  A lively and ambitious
people, not merely jealous of their public sovereignty, but deeming its
exercise a matter of personal enjoyment, aware at the same time that the will
of the whole body could neither be immediately expressed on all occasions, nor
even through chosen representatives, without the risk of violence and
partiality, fell upon the singular idea of admitting all citizens not unworthy
by their station or conduct to offices of magistracy by rotation.  Lists were
separately made out by the priors, the twelve buonuomini, the chiefs and
councils of arts, the bannerets and other respectable persons, of all
citizens, Guelfs by origin, turned of thirty years of age, and, in their
judgment, worthy of public trust.  The lists thus formed were then united, and
those who had composed them, meeting together, in number ninety-seven,
proceeded to ballot upon every name.  Whoever obtained sixty-eight black balls
was placed upon the reformed list; and all the names it contained, being put
on separate tickets into a bag or purse (imborsati), were drawn successively
as the magistracies were renewed.  As there were above fifty of these, none of
which could be held for more than four months, several hundred citizens were
called in rotation to bear their share in the government within two years.
But at the expiration of every two years the scrutiny was renewed, and fresh
names were mingled with those which still continued undrawn; so that accident
might deprive a man for life of his portion of magistracy. ^y

[Footnote w: Matteo Villani, p. 194.  G. Villani places the institution of the
podesta in 1207; we find it, however, as early as 1184.  Ammirato.]

[Footnote x: G. Villani, l. vi. c. 39.]

[Footnote y: Villani, l. ix. c. 27, l. x. c. 110, l. xi. c. 105; Sismondi, t.
v. p. 174.  This species of lottery, recommending itself by an apparent
fairness and incompatibility with undue influence, was speedily adopted in all
the neighboring republics and has always continued, according to Sismondi, in
Lucca, and in those cities of the ecclesiastical state which preserved the
privilege of choosing their municipal officers: p. 95.]

     Four councils had been established by the constitution of 1266 for the
decision of all propositions laid before them by the executive magistrates,
whether of a legislative nature or relating to public policy.  These were now
abrogated; and in their places were substituted one of 300 members, all
plebeians, called consiglio di popolo, and one of 250, called consiglio di
commune, into which the nobles might enter.  These were changed by the same
rotation as the magistracies, every four months. ^z A parliament, or general
assembly of the Florentine people, was rarely convoked; but the leading
principle of a democratical republic, the ultimate sovereignty of the
multitude, was not forgotten.  This constitution of 1324 was fixed by the
citizens at large in a parliament; and the same sanction was given to those
temporary delegations of the signiory to a prince, which occasionally took
place.  What is technically called by their historians farsi popolo was the
assembly of a parliament, or a resolution of all derivative powers into the
immediate operation of the popular will.

[Footnote z: Villani, l. ix. c. 27, l. x. c. 110, l. xi. c. 105; Sismondi, t.
v. p. 174.]

     The ancient government of this republic appears to have been chiefly in
the hands of its nobility.  These were very numerous, and possessed large
estates in the district.  But by the constitution of 1266, which was nearly
coincident with the triumph of the Guelf faction, the essential powers of
magistracy as well as of legislation were thrown into the scale of the
commons.  The colleges of arts, whose functions became so eminent, were
altogether commercial.  Many, indeed, of the nobles enrolled themselves in
these companies, and were among the most conspicuous merchants of Florence.
These were not excluded from the executive college of the priors at its first
institution in 1282.  It was necessary, however, to belong to one or other of
the greater arts in order to reach that magistracy.  The majority, therefore,
of the ancient families saw themselves pushed aside from the helm, which was
intrusted to a class whom they had habitually held in contempt.

     It does not appear that the nobility made any overt opposition to these
democratical institutions.  Confident in a force beyond the law, they cared
less for what the law might provide against them.  They still retained the
proud spirit of personal independence which had belonged to their ancestors in
the fastnesses of the Apennines.  Though the laws of Florence and a change in
Italian customs had transplanted their residence to the city, it was in strong
and lofty houses that they dwelt, among their kindred, and among the fellows
of their rank.  Notwithstanding the tenor of the constitution, Florence was
for some years after the establishment of priors incapable of resisting the
violence of her nobility.  Her historians all attest the outrages and
assassinations committed by them on the inferior people.  It was in vain that
justice was offered by the podesta and the capitano del popolo.  Witnesses
dared not to appear against a noble offender; or if, on a complaint, the
officer of justice arrested the accused, his family made common cause to
rescue their kinsman, and the populace rose in defence of the laws, till the
city was a scene of tumult and bloodshed.  I have already alluded to this
insubordination of the higher classes as general in the Italian republics; but
the Florentine writers, being fuller than the rest, are our best specific
testimonies. ^a

[Footnote a: Villani, l. vii. c. 113, l. viii. c. 8; Ammirato, Storia
Fiorentina, l. iv. in cominciamento.]

     The dissensions between the patrician and plebeian orders ran very high,
when Giano della Bella, a man of ancient lineage, but attached, without
ambitious views, so far as appears, though not without passion, to the popular
side, introduced a series of enactments exceedingly disadvantageous to the
ancient aristocracy.  [A.D. 1295.] The first of these was the appointment of
an executive officer, the gonfalonier of justice, whose duty it was to enforce
the sentences of the podesta and capitano del popolo in cases where the
ordinary officers were insufficient. A thousand citizens, afterwards increased
to four times that number, were bound to obey his commands.  They were
distributed into companies, the gonfaloniers or captains of which became a
sort of corporation or college, and a constituent part of the government.
[A.D. 1295.] This new militia seems to have superseded that of the companies
of arts, which I have not observed to be mentioned at any later period.  The
gonfalonier of justice was part of the signiory along with the priors, of whom
he was reckoned the president, and changed, like them, every two months.  He
was, in fact, the first magistrate of Florence. ^b If Giano della Bella had
trusted to the efficacy of this new security for justice, his fame would have
been beyond reproach.  But he followed it up by harsher provisions.  The
nobility were now made absolutely ineligible to the office of prior.  For an
offence committed by one of a noble family, his relations were declared
responsible in a penalty of 3,000 pounds.  And, to obviate the difficulty
arising from the frequent intimidation of witnesses, it was provided that
common fame, attested by two credible persons, should be sufficient for the
condemnation of a nobleman. ^c

[Footnote b: It is to be regretted that the accomplished biographer of Lorenzo
de' Medici should have taken no pains to inform himself of the most ordinary
particulars in the constitution of Florence.  Among many other errors he says,
vol. ii. p. 51, 5th edit., that the gonfalonier of justice was subordinate to
the delegated mechanics (a bad expression), or priori dell' arti, whose
number, too, he augments to ten.  The proper style of the republic seems to
run thus; I priori dell' arti e gonfaloniere di giustizia, il popolo e 'l
comune della citta di Firenze. G. Villani, l. xii. c. 109.]

[Footnote c: Villani, l. viii. c. 1; Ammirato, p. 188, edit. 1647.  A
magistrate, called l' esecutor della giustizia, was appointed with authority
equal to that of the podesta for the special purpose of watching over the
observation of the ordinances of justice.  Ammirato, p. 666.]

     These are the famous ordinances of justice which passed at Florence for
the great charter of her democracy.  They have been reprobated in later times
as scandalously unjust; and I have little inclination to defend them. The
last, especially, was a violation of those eternal principles which forbid us,
for any calculations of advantage, to risk the sacrifice of innocent blood.
But it is impossible not to perceive that the same unjust severity has
sometimes, under a like pretext of necessity, been applied to the weaker
classes of the people, which they were in this instance able to exercise
towards their natural superiors.