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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part VIII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{florence
guelf
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book III: The History Of Italy
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part VIII

     The nobility were soon aware of the position in which they stood.  For
half a century their great object was to procure the relaxation of the
ordinances of justice.  But they had no success with an elated enemy.  In
three years' time, indeed, Giano della Bella, the author of these
institutions, was driven into exile; a conspicuous, though by no means
singular, proof of Florentine ingratitude. ^d The wealth and physical strength
of the nobles were, however, untouched; and their influence must always have
been considerable.  In the great feuds of the Bianchi and Neri the ancient
families were most distinguished.  No man plays a greater part in the annals
of Florence at the beginning of the fourteenth century than Corso Donati,
chief of the latter faction, who might pass as representative of the
turbulent, intrepid, ambitious citizen-noble of an Italian republic. ^e But
the laws gradually became more sure of obedience; the sort of proscription
which attended the ancient nobles lowered their spirit; while a new
aristocracy began to raise its head, the aristocracy of families who, after
filling the highest magistracies for two or three generations, obtained an
hereditary importance, which answered the purpose of more unequivocal
nobility; just as in ancient Rome plebeian families, by admission to curule
offices, acquired the character and appellation of nobility, and were only
distinguishable by their genealogy from the original patricians. ^f Florence
had her plebeian nobles (popolani grandi), as well as Rome; the Peruzzi, the
Ricci, the Albizi, the Medici, correspond to the Catos, the Pompeys, the
Brutuses, and the Antonies.  But at Rome the two orders, after an equal
partition of the highest offices, were content to respect their mutual
privileges; at Florence the commoner preserved a rigorous monopoly, and the
distinction of high birth was that it debarred men from political franchises
and civil justice. ^g

[Footnote d: Villani, l. viii. c. 8.]

[Footnote e: Dino compagni; Villani.]

[Footnote f: La nobilita civile, se bene non in baronaggi, e capace di
grandissimi honori, percioche esercitando i supremi magistrati della sua
patria, viene spesso a comandare a capitani d' eserciti e ella stessa per se o
in mare, o in terra, molte vota i supremi carichi adopera.  E tale e la
Fiorentina nobilita.  Ammirato delle Famiglie Fiorentine.  Firenze, 1614, p.
25.]

[Footnote g: Quello, che all' altre citta suolo recare splendore, in Firenze
era dannoso, o veramente vano e inutile, says Ammirato of nobility. Storia
Fiorentina, p. 161.]

     This second aristocracy did not obtain much more of the popular affection
than that which it superseded.  Public outrage and violation of law became
less frequent; but the new leaders of Florence are accused of continual
misgovernment at home and abroad, and sometimes of peculation. There was of
course a strong antipathy between the leading commoners and the ancient
nobles; both were disliked by the people.  In order to keep the nobles under
more control the governing party more than once introduced a new foreign
magistrate, with the title of captain of defence (della guardia), whom they
invested with an almost unbounded criminal jurisdiction.  One Gabrielli of
Agobbio was twice fetched for this purpose; and in each case he behaved in so
tyrannical a manner as to occasion a tumult. ^h [A.D. 1336 and 1340] His
office, however, was of short duration, and the title at least did not import
a sovereign command.  But very soon afterwards Florence had to experience one
taste of a cup which her neighbors had drunk off to the dregs, and to animate
her magnanimous love of freedom by a knowledge of the calamities of tyranny.

[Footnote h: Villani, l. xi. c. 39 and 117.]

     A war with Pisa, unsuccessfully, if not unskilfully, conducted, gave rise
to such dissatisfaction in the city, that the leading commoners had recourse
to an appointment something like that of Gabrielli, and from similar motives.
Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, was descended from one of the French
crusaders who had dismembered the Grecian empire in the preceding century; but
his father, defeated in battle, had lost the principality along with his life,
and the titular duke was an adventurer in the court of France.  He had been,
however, slightly known at Florence on a former occasion.  There was a uniform
maxim among the Italian republics that extraordinary powers should be
conferred upon none but strangers.  The Duke of Athens was accordingly pitched
upon for the military command, which was united with domestic jurisdiction.
This appears to have been promoted by the governing party in order to curb the
nobility; but they were soon undeceived in their expectations.  The first act
of the Duke of Athens was to bring four of the most eminent commoners to
capital punishment for military offences.  These sentences, whether just or
otherwise, gave much pleasure to the nobles, who had so frequently been
exposed to similar severity, and to the populace, who are naturally pleased
with the humiliation of their superiors.  Both of these were caressed by the
duke, and both conspired, with blind passion, to second his ambitious views.
It was proposed and carried in a full parliament, or assembly of the people,
to bestow upon him the signiory for life.  [A.D. 1342.] The real friends of
their country, as well as the oligarchy, shuddered at this measure. Throughout
all the vicissitudes of party Florence had never yet lost sight of republican
institutions.  Not that she had never accommodated herself to temporary
circumstances by naming a signior.  Charles of Anjou had been invested with
that dignity for the term of ten years; Robert King of Naples, for five; and
his son, the Duke of Calabria, was at his death signior of Florence.  These
princes named the podesta, if not the priors; and were certainly pretty
absolute in their executive powers, though bound by oath not to alter the
statutes of the city. ^i But their office had always been temporary.  Like the
dictatorship of Rome, it was a confessed, unavoidable evil; a suspension, but
not extinguishment, of rights.  Like that, too, it was a dangerous precedent,
through which crafty ambition and popular rashness might ultimately subvert
the republic.  If Walter de Brienne had possessed the subtle prudence of a
Mateo Visconti or a Cane della Scala, there appears no reason to suppose that
Florence would have escaped the fate of other cities; and her history might
have become as useless a record of perfidy and assassination as that of Mantua
or Verona. ^j

[Footnote i: Villani, l. ix. c. 55, 60, 135, 328.]

[Footnote j: Villani, l. xii. c. 1, 2, 3.]

     But, happily for Florence, the reign of tyranny was very short.  The Duke
of Athens had neither judgment nor activity for so difficult a station.  He
launched out at once into excesses which it would be desirable that arbitrary
power should always commit at the outset.  The taxes were considerably
increased; their produce was dissipated.  The honor of the state was
sacrificed by an inglorious treaty with Pisa; her territory was diminished by
some towns throwing off their dependence.  Severe and multiplied punishments
spread terror through the city.  The noble families, who had on the duke's
election destroyed the ordinances of justice, now found themselves exposed to
the more partial caprice of a despot.  He filled the magistracies with low
creatures from the inferior artificers; a class which he continued to flatter.
^k Ten months passed in this manner, when three separate conspiracies,
embracing most of the nobility and most of the great commoners, were planned
for the recovery of freedom.  The duke was protected by a strong body of hired
cavalry.  Revolutions in an Italian city were generally effected by surprise.
The streets were so narrow and so easily secured by barricades, that, if a
people had time to stand on its defence, no cavalry was of any avail.  On the
other hand, a body of lancers in plate-armor might dissipate any number of a
disorderly populace. Accordingly, if a prince or usurper would get possession
by surprise, he, as it was called, rode the city; that is, galloped with his
cavalry along the streets, so as to prevent the people from collecting to
erect barricades.  This expression is very usual with the historians of the
fourteenth century. ^l The conspirators at Florence were too quick for the
Duke of Athens.  The city was barricaded in every direction; and after a
contest of some duration he consented to abdicate his signiory.

[Footnote k: Ibid., c. 8.]

[Footnote l: Ibid., l. x. c. 81; Castruccio. . . . corse la citta di Pisa due
volte.  Sismondi, t. v. p. 105.]

     Thus Florence recovered her liberty.  Her constitutional laws now seemed
to revive of themselves.  But the nobility, who had taken a very active part
in the recent liberation of their country, thought it hard to be still placed
under the rigorousordinances of justice.  Many of the richer commoners
acquiesced in an equitable partition of magistracies, which was established
through the influence of the bishop.  But the populace of Florence, with its
characteristic forgetfulness of benefits, was tenacious of those proscriptive
ordinances.  The nobles, too, elated by their success, began again to strike
and injure the inferior citizens.  A new civil war in the city streets decided
their quarrel; after a desperate resistance many of the principal houses were
pillaged and burned; and the perpetual exclusion of the nobility was confirmed
by fresh laws.  But the people, now sure of their triumph, relaxed a little
upon this occasion the ordinances of justice; and to make some distinction in
favor of merit or innocence, effaced certain families from the list of
nobility.  Five hundred and thirty persons were thus elevated, as we may call
it, to the rank of commoners. ^m As it was beyond the competence of the
republic of Florence to change a man's ancestors, this nominal alteration left
all the real advantages of birth as they were, and was undoubtedly an
enhancement of dignity, though, in appearance, a very singular one.
Conversely, several unpopular commoners were ennobled, in order to
disfranchise them. Nothing was more usual in subsequent times than such an
arbitrary change of rank, as a penalty or a benefit. ^n Those nobles who were
rendered plebeian by favor were obliged to change their name and arms. ^o The
constitution now underwent some change.  From six the priors were increased to
eight; and instead of being chosen from each of the greater arts, they were
taken from the four quarters of the city, the lesser artisans, as I conceive,
being admissible.  The gonfaloniers of companies were reduced to sixteen. And
these, along with the signiory, and the twelve buonuomini, formed the college,
where every proposition was discussed before it could be offered to the
councils for their legislative sanction.  But it could only originate,
strictly speaking, in the signiory, that is, the gonfalonier of justice, and
eight priors, the rest of the college having merely the function of advice and
assistance. ^p

[Footnote m: Villani, l. xii. c. 18-23.  Sismondi says, by a momentary
oversight, cinq cent trente familles, t. v. p. 377.  There were but thirty-
seven noble families at Florence, as M. Sismondi himself informs us, t. iv. p.
66; though Villani reckons the number of individuals at 1500.  Nobles, or
grandi as they are more strictly called, were such as had been inscribed, or
rather proscribed, as such in the ordinances of justice; at least I do not
know what other definition there was.]

[Footnote n: Messer Antonio di Baldinaccio degli Adimari, tutto che fosse de
piu grandi e nobili, per grazia era messo tra 'l popolo. - Villani, l. xii. c.
108.]

[Footnote o: Ammirato, p. 748.  There were several exceptions to this rule in
later times.  The Pazzi were made popolani, plebeians by favor of Cosmo de'
Medici. Machiavelli.]

[Footnote p: Nardi, Storia di Firenze, p. 7, edit. 1584.  Villani, loc. cit.]

     Several years elapsed before any material disturbance arose at Florence.
Her contemporary historian complains, indeed, that mean and ignorant persons
obtained the office of prior, and ascribes some errors in her external policy
to this cause. ^q Besides the natural effects of the established rotation, a
particular law, called the divieto, tended to throw the better families out of
public office.  By this law two of the same name could not be drawn for any
magistracy: which, as the ancient families were extremely numerous, rendered
it difficult for their members to succeed; especially as a ticket once drawn
was not replaced in the purse, so that an individual liable to the divieto was
excluded until the next biennial revolution. ^r This created dissatisfaction
among the leading families. They were likewise divided by a new faction,
entirely founded, as far as appears, on personal animosity between two
prominent houses, the Albizi and the Ricci.  The city was, however, tranquil,
when in 1357 a spring was set in motion which gave quite a different character
to the domestic history of Florence.

[Footnote q: Matteo Villani in Script. Rer. Italic, t. xiv. p. 98, 244.]

[Footnote r: Sismondi, t. vi. p. 338.]

     At the time when the Guelfs, with the assistance of Charles of Anjou,
acquired an exclusive domination in the republic, the estates of the Ghibelins
were confiscated.  One-third of these confiscations was allotted to the state;
another went to repair the losses of Guelf citizens; but the remainder became
the property of a new corporate society, denominated the Guelf party (parte
Guelfa), with a regular internal organization.  The Guelf party had two
councils, one of fourteen and one of sixty members; three, or afterwards four,
captains, elected by scrutiny every two months, a treasury, and common seal; a
little republic within the republic of Florence.  Their primary duty was to
watch over the Guelf interest; and for this purpose they had a particular
officer for the accusation of suspected Ghibelins. ^s We hear not much,
however, of the Guelf society for nearly a century after their establishment.
The Ghibelins hardly ventured to show themselves after the fall of the White
Guelfs in 1304, with whom they had been connected, and confiscation had almost
annihilated that unfortunate faction.  But as the oligarchy of Guelf families
lost part of its influence through the divieto and system of lottery, some
persons of Ghibelin descent crept into public offices; and this was
exaggerated by the zealots of an opposite party, as if the fundamental policy
of the city was put into danger.

[Footnote s: G. Villani, l. vii. c. 16.]

     The Guelf society had begun, as early as 1346, to manifest some
disquietude at the foreign artisans, who, settling at Florence and becoming
members of some of the trading corporations, pretended to superior offices.
They procured accordingly a law excluding from public trust and magistracy all
persons not being natives of the city or its territory.  Next year they
advanced a step farther; and, with a view to prevent disorder, which seemed to
threaten the city, a law was passed declaring every one whose ancestors at any
time since 1300 had been known Ghibelins, or who had not the reputation of
sound Guelf principles, incapable of being drawn or elected to offices. ^t It
is manifest from the language of the historian who relates these
circumstances, and whose testimony is more remarkable from his having died
several years before the politics of the Guelf corporation more decidedly
showed themselves, that the real cause of their jealousy was not the increase
of Ghibelinism, a merely plausible pretext, but the democratical character
which the government had assumed since the revolution of 1343; which raised
the fourteen inferior arts to the level of those which the great merchants of
Florence exercised.  In the Guelf society the ancient nobles retained a
considerable influence.  The laws of exclusion had never been applied to that
corporation.  Two of the captains were always noble, two were commoners.  The
people, in debarring the nobility from ordinary privileges, were little aware
of the more dangerous channel which had been left open to their ambition.
With the nobility some of the great commoners acted in concert, and especially
the family and faction of the Albizi.  The introduction of obscure persons
into office still continued, and some measures more vigorous than the law of
1347 seemed necessary to restore the influence of their aristocracy.  They
proposed, and, notwithstanding the reluctance of the priors, carried by
violence, both in the preliminary deliberations of the signiory and in the two
councils, a law by which every person accepting an office who should be
convicted of Ghibelinism or Ghibelin descent, upon testimony of public fame,
became liable to punishment, capital or pecuniary, at the discretion of the
priors.  To this law they gave a retrospective effect, and indeed it appears
to have been little more than a revival of the provisions made in 1347, which
had probably been disregarded.  Many citizens who had been magistrates within
a few years were cast in heavy fines on this indefinite charge.  But the more
usual practice was to warn (ammonire) men beforehand against undertaking
public trust.  If they neglected this hint, they were sure to be treated as
convicted Ghibelins.  Thus a very numerous class, called Ammoniti, was formed
of proscribed and discontented persons, eager to throw off the intolerable
yoke of the Guelf society.  For the imputation of Ghibelin connections was
generally an unfounded pretext for crushing the enemies of the governing
faction. ^u Men of approved Guelf principles and origin were every day warned
from their natural privileges of sharing in magistracy.  This spread a
universal alarm through the city; but the great advantage of union and secret
confederacy rendered the Guelf society, who had also the law on their side,
irresistible by their opponents.  Meanwhile the public honor was well
supported abroad; Florence had never before been so distinguished as during
the prevalence of this oligarchy. ^v

[Footnote t: G. Villani, l. xii. c. 72 and 79.]

[Footnote u: Besides the effect of ancient prejudice, Ghibelinism was
considered at Florence, in the fourteenth century, as immediately connected
with tyrannical usurpation.  The Guelf party, says Matteo Villani, is the
foundation rock of liberty in Italy; so that, if any Guelf becomes a tyrant,
he must of necessity turn to the Ghibelin side; and of this there have been
many instances: p. 481.  So Giovanni Villani says of Passerino, lord of
Mantua, that his ancestors had been Guelfs, ma per essere signore e tiranno si
fece Ghibellino: l. x. c. 99.  And Matteo Villani of the Pepoli at Bologna;
essendo di natura Guelfi, per la tirannia erano quasi alienati della parte: p.
69.]

[Footnote v: M. Villani, pp. 531, 637, 731.  Ammirato; Machiavelli; Sismondi.]

     The Guelf society had governed with more or less absoluteness for nearly
twenty years, when the republic became involved, through the perfidious
conduct of the papal legate, in a war with the Holy See.  Though the
Florentines were by no means superstitious, this hostility to the church
appeared almost an absurdity to determined Guelfs, and shocked those
prejudices about names which make up the politics of vulgar minds.  The Guelf
society, though it could not openly resist the popular indignation against
Gregory XI., was not heartily inclined to this war.  Its management fell
therefore into the hands of eight commissioners, some of them not well
affected to the society; whose administration was so successful and popular as
to excite the utmost jealousy in the Guelfs.  They began to renew their
warnings, and in eight months excluded fourscore citizens. ^w

[Footnote w: Ammirato, p. 709.]

     The tyranny of a court may endure for ages; but that of a faction is
seldom permanent.  In June, 1378, the gonfalonier of justice was Salvestro de'
Medici, a man of approved patriotism, whose family had been so notoriously of
Guelf principles that it was impossible to warn him from office.  He proposed
to mitigate the severity of the existing law.  His proposition did not
succeed; but its rejection provoked an insurrection, the forerunner of still
more alarming tumults.  The populace of Florence, like that of other cities,
was terrible in the moment of sedition; and a party so long dreaded shrank
before the physical strength of the multitude. Many leaders of the Guelf
society had their houses destroyed, and some fled from the city.  But instead
of annulling their acts, a middle course was adopted by the committee of
magistrates who had been empowered to reform the state; the Ammoniti were
suspended three years longer from office, and the Guelf society preserved with
some limitations.  This temporizing course did not satisfy either the Ammoniti
or the populace.  The greater arts were generally attached to the Guelf
society.  Between them and the lesser arts, composed of retail and mechanical
traders, there was a strong jealousy. The latter was adverse to the prevailing
oligarchy and to the Guelf society, by whose influence it was maintained.
They were eager to make Florence a democracy in fact as well as in name, by
participating in the executive government.

     But every political institution appears to rest on too confined a basis
to those whose point of view is from beneath it.  While the lesser arts were
murmuring at the exclusive privileges of the commercial aristocracy, there was
yet an inferior class of citizens who thought their own claims to equal
privileges irrefragable.  The arrangement of twenty-one trading companies had
still left several kinds of artisans unincorporated, and consequently
unprivileged.  These had been attached to the art with which their craft had
most connections in a sort of dependent relation. Thus to the company of
drapers, the most wealthy of all, the various occupations instrumental in the
manufacture, as woolcombers, dyers, and weavers, were appendant. ^x Besides
the sense of political exclusion, these artisans alleged that they were
oppressed by their employers of the art, and that, when they complained to the
consul, their judge in civil matters, no redress could be procured.  A still
lower order of the community was the mere populace, who did not practise any
regular trade, or who only worked for daily hire.  These were called ciompi, a
corruption, it is said, of the French compere.

[Footnote x: Before the year 1340, according to Villani's calculation, the
woollen trade occupied 30,000 persons, l. xi. c. 93.]

     "Let no one," says Machiavelli in this place, "who begins an innovation
in a state expect that he shall stop it at his pleasure, or regulate it
according to his intention." After about a month from the first sedition
another broke out, in which the ciompi, or lowest populace, were alone
concerned.  Through the surprise, or cowardice, or disaffection of the
superior citizens, this was suffered to get ahead, and for three days the city
was in the hand of a tumultuous rabble.  It was vain to withstand their
propositions, had they even been more unreasonable than they were. But they
only demanded the establishment of two new arts for the trades hitherto
dependent, and one for the lower people; and that three of the priors should
be chosen from the greater arts, three from the fourteen lesser, and two from
those just created.  Some delay, however, occurring to prevent the sanction of
these innovations by the councils, a new fury took possession of the populace;
the gates of the palace belonging to the signiory were forced open, the priors
compelled to fly, and no appearance of a constitutional magistracy remained to
throw the veil of law over the excesses of anarchy.  The republic seemed to
rock from its foundations; and the circumstance to which historians ascribe
its salvation is not the least singular in this critical epoch.  One Michel di
Lando, a woolcomber half dressed and without shoes, happened to hold the
standard of justice wrested from the proper officer when the populace burst
into the palace.  Whether he was previously conspicuous in the tumult is not
recorded; but the wild, capricious mob, who had destroyed what they had no
conception how to rebuild, suddenly cried out that Lando should be gonfalonier
or signior, and reform the city at his pleasure.

     A choice, arising probably from wanton folly, could not have been better
made by wisdom.  Lando was a man of courage, moderation, and integrity.  He
gave immediate proofs of these qualities by causing his office to be
respected.  The eight commissioners of the war, who, though not instigators of
the sedition, were well pleased to see the Guelf party so entirely prostrated,
now fancied themselves masters, and began to nominate priors.

     But Lando sent a message to them, that he was elected by the people, and
that he could dispense with their assistance.  He then proceeded to the choice
of priors.  Three were taken from the greater arts; three from the lesser; and
three from the two new arts and the lower people.  This eccentric college lost
no time in restoring tranquillity, and compelled the populace, by threat of
punishment, to return to their occupations.  But the ciompi were not disposed
to give up the pleasures of anarchy so readily. They were dissatisfied at the
small share allotted to them in the new distribution of offices, and murmured
at their gonfalonier as a traitor to the popular cause.  Lando was aware that
an insurrection was projected; he took measures with the most respectable
citizens; the insurgents, when they showed themselves, were quelled by force,
and the gonfalonier retired from office with an approbation which all
historians of Florence have agreed to perpetuate.  Part of this has
undoubtedly been founded on a consideration of the mischief which it was in
his power to inflict.  The ciompi, once checked, were soon defeated.  The next
gonfalonier was, like Lando, a woolcomber; but, wanting the intrinsic merit of
Lando, his mean station excited universal contempt.  None of the arts could
endure their low coadjutors; a short struggle was made by the populace, but
they were entirely overpowered with considerable slaughter, and the government
was divided between the seven greater and sixteen lesser arts, in nearly equal
proportions.

     The party of the lesser arts, or inferior tradesmen, which had begun this
confusion, were left winners when it ceased.  Three men of distinguished
families who had instigated the revolution became the leaders of Florence;
Benedetto Alberti, Tomaso Strozzi, and Georgio Scali.  Their government had at
first to contend with the ciompi, smarting under loss and disappointment.  But
a populace which is beneath the inferior mechanics may with ordinary prudence
be kept in subjection by a government that has a well-organized militia at its
command.  The Guelf aristocracy was far more to be dreaded.  Some of them had
been banished, some fined, some ennobled: the usual consequences of revolution
which they had too often practised to complain.

     A more iniquitous proceeding disgraces the new administration.  Under
pretence of conspiracy, the chief of the house of Albizi, and several of his
most eminent associates, were thrown into prison.  So little evidence of the
charge appeared that the podesta refused to condemn them; but the people were
clamorous for blood, and half with, half without the forms of justice, these
noble citizens were led to execution.  The part he took in this murder sullies
the fame of Benedetto Alberti, who in his general conduct had been more
uniformly influenced by honest principles than most of his contemporaries.
Those who shared with him the ascendancy in the existing government, Strozzi
and Scali, abused their power by oppression towards their enemies, and
insolence towards all.  Their popularity was, of course, soon at an end.
Alberti, a sincere lover of freedom, separated himself from men who seemed to
emulate the arbitrary government they had overthrown.  An outrage of Scali, in
rescuing a criminal from justice, brought the discontent to a crisis; he was
arrested, and lost his head on the scaffold; while Strozzi, his colleague,
fled from the city.  But this event was instantly followed by a reaction,
which Alberti, perhaps, did not anticipate.  Armed men filled the streets; the
cry of "Live the Guelfs!" was heard.  After a three years' depression the
aristocratical party regained its ascendancy.  They did not revive the
severity practised towards the Ammoniti; but the two new arts, created for the
small trades, were abolished, and the lesser arts reduced to a third part,
instead of something more than one half, of public offices.  Several persons
who had favored the plebeians were sent into exile; and among these Michel di
Lando, whose great services in subduing anarchy ought to have secured the
protection of every government.  Benedetto Alberti, the enemy by turns of
every faction - because every faction was in its turn oppressive - experienced
some years afterwards the same fate.  For half a century after this time no
revolution took place at Florence.  The Guelf aristocracy, strong in opulence
and antiquity, and rendered prudent by experience, under the guidance of the
Albizi family, maintained a preponderating influence without much departing,
the times considered, from moderation and respect for the laws. ^y

[Footnote y: For this part of Florentine history, besides Ammirato,
Machiavelli, and Sismondi, I have read an interesting narrative of the
sedition of the ciompi, by Gino Capponi, in the eighteenth volume of
Muratori's collection.  It has an air of liveliness and truth which is very
pleasing, but it breaks off rather too soon, at the instant of Lando's
assuming the office of banneret.  Another contemporary writer, Melchione de
Stefani, who seems to have furnished the materials of the three historians
above mentioned, has not fallen in my way.]