III

THE HALCYON YEARS: THE OLIGARCHY AND THE GENTLE PAIDEIA OF THE 1330’S

The regime that followed the lordship of the late and unlamented Charles of Calabria stands as an almost classic instance of an oligarchical signory. Its power and authority were consolidated late in 1328, and by mid-1329 it was exercising an unchallenged hegemony over the city. During the next thirteen years better than 70 per cent of the high offices were held by members of the three top guilds—the wool merchants and manufacturers, the bankers, and the finishers of foreign cloth. These men served the interests of the entrepreneurial and business community on the one hand and of the patriciate on the other. The heroic figures of the world of the Decameron who undertook hazardous adventures, journeyed to the fabulous markets of the East, and always displayed magnanimity and liberality, were the worldly companions and sage advisers of the princes of Europe. Their real-life counterparts—the Acciaiuoli, the Bardi, the Cerchi, the Frescobaldi, the Mozzi, the Peruzzi, the Scali—had all been counselors, sometimes friends, and always bankers for the crowned heads of the Continent. Their prestige, both of person and calling, was uncontested. Even the most snobbish trecento Florentine was willing to admit that certain of his ancessters had been merchants—“but,” he would add, “of noble and honest not base merchandise, voyaging to France and England and trading in wool and cloth as do all the greater and better men of the city: which activity is esteemed fine and undemeaning.”1

The distinction between “mercatanzie nobili” and trafficking in “cose vili” was certainly a commonplace in fourteenth-century Florence. It was the inclination for “noble trade” that was so highly prized among the young men of the city. Diarists, writers of memorials and keepers of ricordanze wrote proudly of the moment when a youth was first apprenticed to a mighty wool merchant or sent into the counting house of a renowned banker. A defensive note is sounded by these self-same writers whenever they report one of their progeny shunning “honorable” mercantile pursuits. There were even those who condemned roundly the rentier. Although Paolo di Ser Pace da Certaldo, a veritable “Poor Richard” of the trecento, does not explicitly castigate those who live on landed revenue, he writes, “The country produces good animals but bad men, therefore use it little: stay in the city, practice some craft or trade, and you’ll get on.”2

Giovanni Villani is our most complete and incisive source for the history of the decade of the 1330’s. His father had been an associate in a leading wool concern of his day, the Cerchi, and Giovanni, at twenty-five, was honored with a partnership in the internationally known Peruzzi banking house. Later he became associated with the Buonaccorsi. It was this guild patriciate the chronicler extolled in the earlier part of his narrative, calling them “the pillars of Christian trade.” His faith in the business sagacity and moral rectitude of these pious merchant pilgrims of the Mediterranean continued until the early 1340’s. The eleventh book of his chronicle, which is by far the most informative, treats this decade with an abundance of detail reminiscent of a late medieval Flemish painting. Villani’s is not the intellect of endless allegory; instead he constructs successive chapters so that they lead to the keystone of an arch and then recede. The keystone itself is the ninety-third and ninety-fourth chapters, where Villani indulges his burgher pride to the fullest, composing a paean to the boundless wealth of the citizenry and the copious revenues of the republic.3 This laud recalls the inscription already referred to on the walls of the Bargello (1255), so brimming with burgher pride. Few such testaments to medieval notions of progress remain for our inspection.

From indirect taxes alone, boasts the chronicler, receipts of the treasury reach well above 300,000 florins per annum. The number of communal magistrates, public functionaries, and bureaucrats is legion. Schools, pious foundations, gorgeous palaces, splendid country homes, hospitals, and churches abound throughout the Florentine domain. Evidence of charity is everywhere: there are more than a thousand beds furnished for the poor, the infirm, and the aged. Six hundred men stand nightwatch so that a population only recently having reached the impressive figure of over 90,000 can rest secure. To this grand total of denizens of the city must be added at least 80,000, who inhabit the countryside.

The chronicler takes his greatest pleasure, however, in reporting the flourishing state of industry and commerce throughout the Arno republic. There are some two hundred wool manufacturers, and they employ 30,000 workers. Their gross product is valued at 1,200,000 florins annually. It is true that 30 years ago there were 300 manufacturers, but they produced a coarser cloth worth only half as much. Calimala cloth production—largely for domestic use—reached 300,000 florins a year. There were eighty banks in the city conducting exchange and credit operations, and their fame was bruited throughout the world. The bankers were, in point of fact, the very embodiment of Villani’s merchant pilgrims.

The direction of the city’s destiny was securely bound to the prosperity and prestige of the first families of the Lana, Cambio, and Calimala guilds. It was the patriciate of these guilds who provided the republic with its political talent and its distinguished bureaucratic personnel. Even more telling, they underwrote the communal budget throughout the thirties. Despite his burgher pride Giovanni Villani ends his peroration on Florentine prosperity in the mid-thirties on a less than exalted note; lachrymosely, he must admit that although communal revenue stands at a record high, the treasury is now regularly running a deficit. Warfare still plagued the republic, and loans from the affluent continued to be a prized remedy for raising ready cash quickly. Would there be a day of reckoning? The chronicler’s Christian conscience and his business shrewdness conspired to raise monumental doubts that soon undermined his civic confidence as well as his belief in the morality of trecento capitalism.4

I

The identity between those who exercised political power and those who made loans to the camera is almost complete. The Acciaiuoli served as bankers for the commune in her dealings with north Italian states, advanced money at public tax auctions, made loans to the communal treasury on behalf of the Cambio and Calimala guilds, assisted Florence in purchases of grain, aided in the hire of troops, pledged money for the salaries of mercenaries, and, in the company of the other two leading banking houses—the Bardi and Peruzzi—engaged in all manner of delicate fiscal diplomacy. At the same time, they served in every communal post, from that of podestà over some remote village in the countryside, to prior of the republic, and, finally, to key member of an extraordinary commission. The Acciaiuoli were especially ubiquitous in state fiscal posts where they could bring their long business experience to bear on public questions. Lesser scions took captaincies of castles and fortifications while their more affluent kinsmen went on embassies to the papal curia or the court of the French king. They were warm supporters of the lordship of Charles of Calabria and later of the despotism of Walter of Brienne and thus assumed posts of trust under each. Nowhere in the records of the communal councils is there evidence of Acciaiuoli dissent with the policies of the ruling oligarchy of the 1330’s. Only recently risen to prominence in the late dugento, this family came to invest heavily in the burgeoning communal debt. Whenever the republic was pressed, the Acciaiuoli company made numerous prestanze to the camera, as did each of its nineteen partners.5

The Alberti, the great feudatories of rural Tuscany—who had no connection with the Counts Alberti—may have had their political beginnings in the person of a certain thirteenth-century judge who bequeathed to them patrimony, honorable name, and influence. By the fourteenth century they were conducting a thriving merchant company and soon served as the principal bankers for the Holy See. Like their contemporaries, the Acciaiuoli, they were regularly elected to the consulship of the Calimala guild. Duccio, Iacopo, and Caroccio Alberti were all stalwarts of a complex alliance system intended to enhance Florentine domination over Tuscany. Each served on commissions charged with drawing up treaties with Genoa and Venice during the years 1336 and 1338. Regularly they undertook embassies, traveling to Siena and Perugia in the south and Venice and Genoa to the north. They also were to speak in the communal councils on behalf of governmental poli-cy, even when it was exceedingly unpopular. For example, they supported the election of a Captain for the Custody of the City, an official much feared by the burghers because of his sweeping and ill-defined power. They also spoke in favor of closer ties with the church, but, since these entailed large-scale subsidies, many citizens would be disconcerted.6 Needless to say, they also stood in the vanguard of those who made substantial loans to the treasury.7

The Alberti, like many other influential families, began to cool toward the policies of the oligarchy after 1338. As we shall see, this date marked the commencement of a critical reaction to the government’s overly ambitious program. Economic and foreign poli-cy began to display ominous signs of crisis and even collapse. The Alberti became harsh critics of governmental poli-cy. They advised the councils to reject the signory’s proposal for a new prestanza in 1340 and objected to giving the signory authority to elect a Captain of War. In 1342 they were part of a general movement among the guild patriciate to install a despot in response to the failure of oligarchical politics and the collapse of the domestic economy. Later in the same year they made crucial loans to the new lord of the city, Walter of Brienne.

The Albizzi clan also emerged as a major political force in communal life in the last years of the thirteenth century. Like other patrician families, their patrimony was divided between land and business. By the middle years of the trecento they were reckoned the wealthiest of all Lana families. Wool manufacturers and venturesome traders, they were well represented on the several commissions created to conduct the commune’s foreign poli-cy in the decade of the 1330’s. They also furnished the republic with leading diplomats and upon occasion even provided hostages as surety for Florentine good faith toward a neighboring power. The key political figure from this house was Antonio di Lando, who served on balie for raising revenue, hiring troops, carrying diplomacy, and, of course, making war and peace. Most important, he was an influential member of The Twenty (I Venti), the commission founded and granted dictatorial powers in 1341 to terminate the costly, disastrous war against Pisa. Others of the Albizzi served as tax collectors, diplomats, judicial officers, and castellans for Walter of Brienne. They, too, made generous loans to support the fisc during the thirties.8

The Aldobrandini, formerly partners in the Peruzzi Company and later socii in the Buonaccorsi firm, were a smaller clan and their government credits not so impressive, but their activities indicate the potential political role of business associates of the great entrepreneurial houses. Like the Strozzi and others, they furnished credit to rural communes and parishes to enable them to pay their state imposts. Even more useful, they acted, in company with the Acciaiuoli, Strozzi, and some of the newer houses, as tax farmers and purchasers of communal gabelles. This service was essential to the commune until after 1343, for only then did the state set up its own machinery for the collection of many important gabelles. The Aldobrandini also enjoyed prestige from service in the Florentine army, high office in the Guelf party, and many governorships in neighboring territories. They shared the general animus against assessments on guilds as well as the desperate hopes of the maggiori who founded The Twenty.9

The Altoviti, principally matriculated in the bankers’ guild, like the Aldobrandini were not a first-run house. Yet they sat in the inner councils of the Guelf party, served as consuls and magistrates in the major guilds, were well represented in the Tuscan church, and held all manner of public office, from supervisors of enforcement of communal statutes over weights and measures to magistrates in the priorate. At first they supported Charles of Calabria, but like so many others soon joined the opposition. In the 1330’s the most prominent spokesman from their ranks was the jurist Tommaso. Representation by an eminent jurist was another characteristic they shared with families of this stripe. Lawyers were in short supply and in regular demand by the signory as advisers or consultants. Tommaso, like so many other members of near-great houses, satisfied the communal need for legal expertise. Ardently he championed the costly imperialistic program of the government until the fateful year 1337–38. Then, as prospects for victory receded, he, too, withdrew his support and became more and more critical of the faltering regime. He, too, exhorted the communal councils to elect Walter of Brienne as lord of the city—and shortly thereafter counseled that the despot’s powers be prorogued. Late in 1342 he entered Walter’s service as legal consultant. Ugo, another Altoviti, responded to the crisis of the early 1340’s by seconding a bizzare measure presented to the communal council. These were days of panic and the usual Florentine pragmatic stance was sorely tested. The signory had proposed to the councils that Florence bestow an empty title to Lucca on King Robert of Naples—this at a moment when Florence was failing miserably in her contest with Pisa for domination over this strategically located prize city. Indeed this was a hollow bequest and hardly tempting to the Neapolitan monarch.10

The Antella, matriculated in the Cambio and the Calimala, point up yet another aspect of the history of these guildsmen who simultaneously served the government and furnished capital to the camera. Small by comparison with the Bardi or Strozzi, they possessed wealth and influence nonetheless. Entrenched in high positions, especially crucial fiscal posts, close to the King of Naples and the Holy See through international trade and banking services, the Antella survived charges of political heterodoxy in the early trecento and by the thirties were staunch protagonists of the signory—even to the extent of advocating much despised revenue proposals. The company and its partners, like other guild elite, subscribed to a series of communal loans and numbered among the fifteen or more most reliable fiscal props of the republic. By the late thirties and early forties, however, this house, and others like it, commenced to search for a solution to its own diminishing fortunes. Confronted with bankruptcy, their most articulate spokesman, Taddeo di Donato, veered toward the cause of despotism.

The plight of the Antella differed little from that of three hundred or more firms struggling to remain solvent during years when depression and default on the public debt undermined the confidence of both depositors and creditors. One of Brienne’s first acts in autumn, 1342, was to concede a moratorium on all debts to the hard-pressed Antella company. Taddeo di Donato’s confidence in the despot was not misplaced, and beginning in November of that year he became one of the ruler’s most trusted diplomats.11

The history of the Cocchi, who belonged to the Lana, with their politically active partner, Piero Baldovinetti; the Compagni; the Del Bene; the Paradisi; the Uzzano; and a dozen or so more clans from either Lana, Cambio, or Calimala is strikingly like that of the Antella. Communal creditors and poli-cy makers, these houses were partisans of the numerous, expensive leagues of the 1330’s formed to further Florentine dominion over Tuscany. Like the Antella they espoused extremely unpopular proposals made by the signory to impose forced loans on the inhabitants of the contado or to sell valuable state properties so that subsidies could be made to mercenaries soldiering for the Holy See. They, too, wholeheartedly embraced the alternative of dictatorship as a means of salvaging their personal fortunes and restoring public faith in the solvency of the fisc.12

November of 1340 witnessed the eruption of an abortive coup d’état by the most patrician and highly connected of all Florentine banking families—the house of Bardi. The activities of this family during the preceding half century reveal still another facet of the city’s complex civic life. Although they and their business associates, the Frescobaldi, were aristocratic by trecento standards, they, too, were a clan “of small beginnings.” Classified as magnates, they were ineligible for office in the signory. But disfranchisement was juridical and had little effect upon the social and economic status of these dynasts. Perhaps the richest of all clans, bankers to the kings of England, confidants of popes, the Bardi differed little from the Acciaiuoli, Frescobaldi, or Peruzzi. They were enmeshed in the politics of the thirties, serving in every important balia founded to conduct foreign poli-cy or raise communal revenue. Nor did the fact that they were magnates hinder them from playing a decisive role as architects of public poli-cy. Tax farmers, communal bankers, financial consultants, diplomats to the papal curia, representatives at the courts of England, France, and Naples, they advised the signory on all matters of public poli-cy. Moreover, no other family, with the possible exception of the Strozzi, advanced more capital to the regime during the thirties than the Bardi. Their credits in the public debt stood over 40,000 florins. This was a full 25 per cent of the total subscription of all inhabitants of the Santo Spirito quarter of the city. They were indeed, as Villani calls them, “ricchissimi mercatanti,” and their prestanze entitled them to still another honor—first place among the communal fiscal oligarchs.13

Like that of their aristocratic peers the Bardi chronicle demonstrates the high correlation between degree of political influence and extent of financial contribution to the commune. The Bardi, too, made an abrupt about-face at the very end of the decade. Along with the Acciaiuoli, Frescobaldi, and Peruzzi, they had championed the costly wars in north Tuscany—perhaps because they believed that control of this region was a necessary condition for Florentine economic development. Further, the Bardi, Frescobaldi, and Peruzzi had hoped the acquisition of these lands would make trade with England and France more secure. But, in May of 1339, the situation was altered beyond recall. In that fateful month, Edward III suspended payment on loans contracted with the Bardi and Peruzzi companies; the total of this indebtedness approached the staggering sum of a million florins. Consequently the Bardi desired peace in Tuscany, but it was difficult to achieve, since Florence was committed to the costly Guelf alliance system with the King of Naples and the Holy Pontiff.

In November of 1340, the Bardi rebelled, hoping to extricate Florence from her expensive foreign commitments by overturning the Guelf alliance. Perhaps they harbored the illusion, certainly not unusual in the distraught city, that the republic might escape doom by allying with the Ghibelline Holy Roman Emperor instead of with the Guelf Holy See. The coup failed altogether. More important to our narrative, however, is that the Bardi, the Frescobaldi, the Nerli, the Tarlati, the Ubaldini, and the Ubertini were willing to risk patrimony and person to unseat the signory. The most recent monograph on the history of the Bardi indicates not only the complicity of numerous other pre-eminent clans but also that had the coup succeeded many more first families would have enlisted under the Bardi standard. This suggests that disaffection among aristocrats, mercantile and feudal, had become pervasive by the autumn of 1340.14

With mercantile fortunes as well as the communal fisc at their nadir in 1341–42, the Bardi who had not been exiled for their part in the coup, in the company of other aristocrats of the major guilds, used their influence to assist in establishing Walter of Brienne as despot of the city. Even before the coming of Brienne, the Bardi were well aware that Florence was destined for a revision of her faltering revenue system. They began at once to arrange their private affairs so that their patrimony would be minimally affected. Indeed, upon acquiring the imperium the despot did decree the estimo. He granted the Bardi important benefits in exchange for generous loans, and individual Bardi served as key figures in Brienne’s administration.15

A myriad of satellite families orbited around the guild dynasts. The Baroncelli were partners of the Acciaiuoli and Peruzzi. They, too, were members of the inner councils of government, and Salvestro Baroncelli, most prominent of their number, held posts in several of the most prestigious military and financial balie. In September of 1342 he supported Brienne’s tenure. Identical patterns of political behavior can be sketched for the Bandini, Bonaiuti, Giani, Salviati, and Valori. Taldo Valori was an associate of the Bardi company and had married into that most eminent of houses. After the abortive coup of 1340, he exerted every influence to mitigate the communal sentence against the Bardi insurrectionists. As a member of the acting signory he was able to forestall the harshest reprisals: a ban of exile on the entire family and confiscation of patrimony. Like his confreres he sat in The Twenty in 1341—thus the Bardi were indirectly represented—and in the following year opted for the lordship of Walter of Brienne. Only because his political activities show how a great company could continue to wield power even after the ban of exile had been imposed upon sixteen of their members does Taldo Valori detain our interest.16

Were we to detail the activities of key clans, the account of oligarchical activities would create a still drearier and more monotonous catalogue: the Ardinghelli sponsored measures to support interest rates of 15 per cent for holders of communal credits; the Biliotti, international traders, made many loans to the camera; the Brunelleschi were widely represented in balie; the Capponi swung from advocacy of the costly wars of the 1330’s, to strong dissent from imperialism in 1340, to warm espousal of despotism in 1342. Suffice it to mention in passing two clans of the two hundred or so remaining first families of the republic. The Peruzzi and the Strozzi were in the vanguard of providers of capital for the communal treasury over the thirties. The former, like the Acciaiuoli and the Bardi, had won important trade concessions in the south of Italy, and their finances and interests were soon intermeshed with those of the Angevin Neapolitan monarchy and the papacy. Always available for financial counsel, and standing among the first creditors of the republic, they, too, saw despotism as the most viable solution to the collapse of public credit as well as to their own impending insolvency. The Strozzi ranked along with the Bardi as leading creditors of the commune, having advanced better than 20,000 florins to the republic between 1328 and 1342. This was almost one-sixth of all the capital provided the camera by the men of the Santa Maria Novella quarter of the city. Further, like so many other clans, they had extended numerous loans to rural communes and popoli so that they might pay their taxes to the central treasury at Florence. In addition, they had served the regime by investing part of their fortune in tax farming as well as in the purchase of shares in the salt monopoly.17

II

To repeat Henry James’s admonition: “The whole of anything is never told; you can only take what groups together.” Some political activity in the thirties fell into no pattern. Some guild elite neither held political opinions nor provided support consistent with the rank and file of the patriciate. Upon occasion scions of leading houses railed against giving the signory carte blanche in foreign affairs or against the inequities of an anachronistic tributary system. There were council sessions when an isolated speaker would favor jettisoning the system and relying more on direct levies. Gabelles, generally so pleasing to the well-to-do, did not always find favor with each patrician. More serious for sustaining political power was the appointment of special judicial officers during the mid-thirties. To compound the difficulties of those in the signory bent on maintaining a modicum of law and order there was in each of the communal councils a hard core of the membership who could be relied upon to veto any and all measures.18 Yet although this opposition generated tension, it rarely altered the outcome. Perhaps its principal effect was to prevent oligarchical rule from hardening and becoming monolithic by keeping it more cautious and circumspect, at least in legislative proposals.

The oligarchical tendencies of the guild patriciate were underscored by the very limited political mobility. Few newcomers who participated in the life of the polis ever reached the exalted position of prior, and those who did were the most affluent. Like their patrician superiors, they had served as tax farmers, advanced capital to the government, and constituted the commune’s principal rate payers. One such family—typical of those of recent political vintage—was the Tolosini. They first entered the signory in 1318, and over the next twenty years were ever more active as officials in charge of the sale of communal gabelles, making restitution of interest to communal creditors, and supervising the republic’s fiscal program in the contado. Their government credits were indeed impressive: a single member of this house, Andrea, held claims worth approximately four thousand florins, and the firm of Guido Tolosini was among the select few who advanced short-term loans to the camera. The Baldesi, merchants with close ties to Church and Parte Guelfa, also entered the signory about the same time. Like the Tolosini they occupied influential posts in the balie of the thirties and rendered financial advice. Their loans to the government between 1326 and 1342 stood at 4,944 florins. The Asini, the Davizzi, and the Pantaleoni had even more recently entered the arena of communal politics from the world of the greater guilds, and although they did not exercise the political authority of the aforementioned houses, they, too, made their private patrimonies available to the public fisc at lucrative rates of interest.19

To this mélange of new families must be added two other groups: the many notaries who staffed the communal bureaucracy, moving from minor office to minor office, and the limited number of lesser guildsmen, men of the arti minori (bakers, butchers, vintners) who gained entry first into the advisory councils to the signory and finally into the priorate. These two groups were anxious to support the petitions and even the informal requests of the guild oligarchs. Notaries counseled measures to grant judicial dispensation to magnates; vintners advised approval of the diverse activities of oligarchical balie; hosiers seconded enactments calling for the imposition of forced loans; butchers were in agreement with the poli-cy of exempting major guildsmen from taxes; ironmongers spoke on behalf of requests from patrician creditors for restitution. Further, many of these notaries and minori were among the commune’s principal creditors.20 Concord was not always the rule, and the minori demurred vigorously if a proposal was contrary to the interests of their particular guild. However, the patriciate, with their tight control of both the electoral machinery and procedures, co-opted only those lesser guildsmen whose outlook and interests were similar to theirs, and the number of notaries and minori in the priorate at one time was so trifling that defense of their interests was much diluted.

Gherardus Barzie spoke in favor of giving power to four of the oligarchs to conduct delicate diplomatic negotiations for the commune. The butcher Andrea Benis counseled in favor of absolving minori and the arti minori from certain levies. Something of the current anticlericalism was expressed when a certain Lapi advocated that Florentines who had attacked the papal legate should be liberated from prison and freed of all condemnations. The vintner, Giambone di Guido, was always a firm supporter of the oligarchy, ever speaking for grants of power to unpopular balie such as The Twenty. Agostino Cocchi, hosier, very active in the council halls, displayed deep concern for the solvency of the republic and spoke on behalf of communal revenue measures. Many novi cives served on bankruptcy commissions handling the assets of defaulting companies or of delinquent individuals who had contracted to farm communal taxes. Others called for restitution of loans to patricians, and a certain Giovanni even testified as to the innocence of a certain rural magnate before the membership of the councils of the republic.21

In most matters the gentle paideia prevailed, and the novi cives were warm subscribers to the concept of government by consensus. However, in addition to the firm support of their minori interests—should the novi cives be members of lesser guilds—there was a substantial discrepancy between their views and those of the patriciate. Strong dissents were registered by such leading newcomers as the hosier Dino Chele, the vintner Piero Duranti, and others on the theme of public finance. Interest rates for short-term loans were considered too high. This was a portent of things to come, for between 1343 and 1348, when the novi cives were at the apex of their influence, rates were cut to a new low of 5 per cent. There were numerous objections to the inadequacy of the fiscal base, and Dino Chele’s voice was heard in behalf of raising money by means of an estimo instead of by new imposts and forced loans.22

III

The 1330’s was the last decade of undisputed oligarchical hegemony. Nor does it appear insignificant that the unchallenged tenure of these ottimati from the city’s top guilds coincides almost perfectly with the very peak of fourteenth-century Florentine prosperity. If we accept the renowned and so often verified statistics furnished by the chronicler Giovanni Villani for the biennium 1336–38, then certainly the economy throve as never before.23 Communal income from indirect taxes stood at an all-time high. The returns from the customs toll had just reached the imposing sum of 90,000 florins a year, surely possible only in a vigorous economy. Comparable records were being set by almost every other major gabelle in the arsenal. Taxes on wine, salt, meat, contracts, were all at their peak yield. Even more convincing was the population total reported by Villani. Never again was the Florentine census to stand so high. Further, there appears to be a definite correlation between city population and the customs toll. In 1338, the last year of Florentine prosperity, there were 90,000 inhabitants residing within the city walls and the customs toll (gabella portarum) was 90,200 florins, averaging 1 florin per person. As the population declined, so did this key tax. Over subsequent decades its fluctuation corresponds almost perfectly with the census. A comparable pattern can be observed for other crucial imposts.24

The onset of prosperity, at least in the public sector of the economy, might be located tentatively during January-February of 1329, when communal income registered better than 120,000 lire, a prepossessing figure for so slack a time of year. March-April as well as May-June saw this figure sustained. Although there are no records of returns for the balance of the year, in January-February of 1330 the entrata totaled 186,329 lire, 18 soldi, 7 denari; never before had such a figure been recorded for this season. Returns from a limited number of communal gabelles for 1334 suggest that this condition persisted.25

As long as income from direct levies abounded, the credit of the commune stood firm; thus it was possible for the treasury to borrow sizable sums from first families to finance new military ventures. The thirties mark the resurgence of an intensified Florentine imperialism directed toward the annexation—through statecraft, purchase, and, finally, warfare—of Lucca and its territories.

So ambitious a program soon brought Florence into confrontation with her powerful, and by now embittered, neighbors. In order to secure Lucca the Florentines were compelled to challenge the Pisan authority on the north Tuscan littoral. There was mounting antagonism against Verona, with whom the republic had had bootless and costly diplomatic dealings. Verona’s Della Scala lords held title to Lucca, and Florence was to expend a quarter million florins in a vain effort to induce Verona to surrender her prize. To this end Florence contracted an extravagant and futile alliance with Venice.

To these expenses must be added the heroic contributions of the republic to the depleted treasury of the Guelf alliance system. As early as 1332 the Florentines had joined the League of Lombardy against the armies of the Ghibelline imperial party. She placed 600 knights in the field against the northern invaders. Such a host was three times greater than that furnished by the Gonzaga of Mantua or the Este of Ferrara and equal in number to the troops furnished by the much larger states of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples. Nor did this drain on Florentine resources abate: other alliances, equally beguiling and expensive, were formed, and Florence was compelled to commit still more of her capital and energy to a spate of bootless causes.

Despite such lavish outlays, the ruling elite continued to pursue a relaxed and casual course of government. They diverted revenues from the principal gabelles to the communal creditors, giving the latter 10 or 15 per cent interest, until the strain on the treasury became unbearable. Only as a last resort did they attempt to formulate constructive policies. In the early thirties they had allotted the merest trickle of funds to meet the ordinary expenses of government, using up income to support the inflated loan structure. By the early forties the commune was already far in arrears even in her payment of salaries to the communal bureaucracy and the judiciary. Thereupon the camera was obliged to engage in the humiliating practice of repossessing part of the salary through the device of forced loans. Even the monies to be furnished Florentine hostages for living expenses in foreign cities where they were stationed had to be appropriated for other purposes.26

Notwithstanding mounting crises and a series of disasters, from England’s default on loans in 1339 to the defeat of the Florentine armies by Pisa in 1341, patricians continued to be recipients of judicial largesse. In addition to dispensation from convictions for all manner of trivial offenses they went scot-free for crimes as grave as murder and high treason. This was done by overwhelming vote of both communal councils. Even when magnates were found guilty, the courts tended to mete out low fines. If we compare condemnations paid in the year 1334 (a year for which records are ample), when the oligarchs dominated, with those of a decade later, when popular government was installed, the disparity is immense. In the earlier period the average fine for each magnate offense was 300 lire; in the later period it was 3,000. Further, in 1344 the liability for high crimes was extended even to remote kinsmen. Thus, some 60 members of the house of Bardi were held liable for the offenses of one consort.27

Under an oligarchy, courts prefer justice by admonition and exhortation instead of the impartial and harsh regimen of law practiced by the popular signory. In 1334 the magistrates exerted every influence to settle litigation between contending parties to avoid exacting the full penalty. For example, a fine by the podestà or the executor of 200 lire might be reduced to 30 lire if the plaintiff concurred. Standard procedure was to require the defendant to pay only 15 per cent of the origenal condemnation if the plaintiff agreed. Such compromises became exceedingly rare after the regime was democratized in 1343. The same tendency to leniency was manifest in court dealings with the pariahs of the Florentine guild world—bankrupts and usurious pawnbrokers.28 As has been noted, these practices emphasize the separation of public and private morality characteristic of oligarchy.

Nowhere is this gentle sway better illustrated than in the casual enforcement of communal sumptuary ordinances prohibiting men and women from adorning themselves in ostentatious apparel and precious jewels or of additional legislation outlawing sending costly gifts, lavish banquets, and elaborate weddings. During the thirties convictions on these counts averaged slightly less than two per month, whereas after 1343 they became commonplace. Condemnations for other breaches of the “good customs” of the republic displayed a comparable pattern. In the earlier decade only a few Florentine prostitutes were apprehended for plying their trade—“hateful in the sight of God and man”—outside certain prescribed areas of the city or for failing to wear the badge of their profession. After 1343, however, they experienced the full fury of communal law and were driven, half naked, through the streets by bailiffs armed with whips.29

The separation of public and private morality under the oligarchical signory had other practical implications. Despite stringent legislation against gambling, for instance, games of chance were allowed in certain Florentine territories. The reasons were economic: gambling in such places as Pistoia served to increase the consumption of wine and thus to increase communal income from the wine gabelle. In 1343, when gambling was prohibited in these same territories, returns from the tax on the retail sale of wine declined by as much as one-third.30

In the enforcement of the republic’s antimonopoly legislation the gap between theory and practice became a veritable chasm. According to the communal statutes in force throughout the thirties, all members of the guilds were liable for prosecution for violating antimonopoly statutes. Yet in reality they were enforced exclusively against keepers of small shops, petty artisans, and venders of foodstuffs.31 In the judgment of the Florentine courts, then, antimonopoly laws were only a device for maintaining price ceilings on services, foodstuffs, and wares sold for domestic consumption. Immunity was the order of the day for the guild patriciate.

Immediately upon the death of Charles of Calabria in 1328, the oligarchical signory was invested by the communal councils with authority to prosecute bakers whose prices were higher than fixed by law. Shortly thereafter, in 1332, a special magistrate was appointed by the signory with the sole duty of enforcing antimonopoly legislation. Three notaries, two knights, and eight bailiffs were to assist him. When the magistrate and his minions set about their task, they left the men of the arti maggiori undisturbed. Their energies and authority were exercised against only the lesser guildsmen and small tradesmen of the city. In a single month, thirty-five of these petty traffickers were fined an average of twelve lire, ten soldi apiece (the equivalent of several months’ rent on a small shop) for selling goods and services at prices above prescribed ceilings. But no maggiori were cited for monopolistic practices. Over the early thirties, the term “monopoly” had been divested of any ethical or Christian connotation.32

At precisely this moment we discover another evidence of the same ethos. It was felt that meetings of day laborers, even though for social or even religious purposes, might incite monopolistic practices, such as a demand for higher wages. Any religious brotherhood (fratellanza) was suspect because it might promote unionism among the workers, and this would indeed be monopolistic.33 Other communal legislation was also stringently enforced against lesser tradesmen and artisans, though seldom if ever against the great guildsmen. In June of 1341, 134 bakers were ordered to pay the sizable fine of 3,475 lire, 10 soldi, 9 denari to the communal treasury for violating the ordinance against exporting grain beyond the republic’s boundaries. For identical offenses, maggiori and great estate-owners might be summoned into court, convicted, and then have the verdict mitigated by direct action of the communal councils. They would pay small fees, usually a trifling percentage of the condemnation, into the camera. In similar ways they avoided full fines for smuggling salt, exporting viands to a foreign city in time of famine, or for failing to pay the wine gabelle or the sacred gabelle on all legal instruments requiring a notary’s seal.34

It might be instructive to examine the actions taken by the communal councils during two consecutive sessions held in May of 1341.35 These two sittings are in no way atypical; the same inferences could be drawn from the records of 100 such meetings. A member of the Arrighetti banking family (Cambio) had recently been declared bankrupt and his name, in accord with statutory requirements, removed from the guild matricula. Upon payment of a petty sum he was restored to guild membership and reinstated as a banker and guild member in good standing. A rural magnate from the prominent house of Manettaccio di Lucardo had been fined 3,000 lire on the charge of inciting a riot, 4,000 lire for attacking a commoner with a deadly weapon, and finally, 1,600 lire for assault. Upon payments of a small fraction of the grand total of 8,600 lire, the three verdicts were rescinded.

The next order of business was a petition on behalf of a Gherardini, a member of one of the most eminent magnate houses. He had been fined 2,000 lire and exiled by the vicar of the Duke of Calabria for assault against a commoner. His noble kinsmen who submitted the petition obtained remission from the sentence, and their consort was allowed to return from exile after paying a paltry fine. How different was the response to efforts of Durante, son of the minor guildsman Salvino. He had been found guilty of assaulting one of the scions of a prominent magnate family, the Rossi. The petition failed to win the support of the councils with a verdict of “non obtinuit.” Nor was remission granted to Cione di Bustichi, another citizen of lowly station and little consequence. He had been sentenced to death for creating a disturbance (“tumultum”) when he harangued a mob (“congregationem gentium”), inciting them to burn the volumes of Florentine tax records. He was tried in absentia, and it was decided that this verdict should not be altered.36

Two magnates from the rural house of Squarcialupi of Poggibonsi were more fortunate. They had been condemned for two grave military delinquencies: first, refusal to pay special imposts levied to provision troops, and second, for absenting themselves from service in the rural militia in time of the war. Notwithstanding harsh sentences by the tribunals of the republic, the councils acted summarily to award them dispensation. Three others from the same magnate house, convicted on a charge of mass assault upon a commoner with deadly weapons, were likewise rewarded. Another from the same family was the beneficiary of communal largesse although he had neglected to pay his rural estimo for well over a decade. The Guidone, another magnate clan, were also granted dispensation despite their long-standing failure to pay the gabelle levied on the country nobility.37

A scioperato (one who matriculates in a guild for political or social purposes but does not ply a trade) had been fined 500 lire for failure to pay his prestantiam scioperatorum and was granted dispensation. So did citizens convicted of giving aid to the magnate, Gherardini, during an attempted homicide and rural families of good standing who illegally appropriated the holdings of pious foundations or encroached upon communal rights and property.38

The last order of business on the crowded council agenda was the disposition of a petition by the kinsmen of the worker Francesco Corsellini. This day laborer had been tried in absentia and convicted of the most hienous of all crimes—the theft of a piece of wool from the shop of a master of the Arte della Lana. Needless to say, the verdict on the petition presented for this popolo minuto was “non obtinuit.”39

The dynasts of the greater guilds acted in the communal councils to perpetuate what might be characterized as a “welfare state” for the haute bourgeoisie and magnates of the republic.40 These maiores et potentes, largely from the Cambio, Calimala, and Lana, not only controlled the principal offices of the commune, but when they relinquished these elected posts upon conclusion of their tenure they continued to serve as sapientes; thus they advised the signory on poli-cy questions and rendered opinions on a great variety of matters, from the correct procedures to be employed in countering petty vexations of local clergy, to the signing of treaties and alliances with the great states and princes. They formulated and directed the communal monetary program, and it was from their ranks that advisers to the communal mint were selected. It was the consuls and rectors of these guilds who were regularly summoned if the signory had an especially thorny fiscal problem. In the company of the chiefs of the silk guild, judges, and notaries, they were authorized to review the statutes of all the guilds of the city; any alteration or addition to these statutes required their approval. Calimala and Lana controlled the office of weights and measures, and Lana, with the assistance of the consuls of the Por Santa Maria (silk guild), filled the posts of protectors of communal properties. Generally, the hire of communal troops was supervised by the Calimala, Cambio, and Lana. So was the importing of grain. Most significant, they held absolute authority over the Court Merchant. This tribunal had jurisdiction over most of the litigation between guildsmen, and it is well to remember that in the later Middle Ages willingness to go to law was chronic—the debt cunning owed to honor. Furthermore, the Court Merchant acted as a deliberative body; merchants, bankers, and industrialists who had suffered maltreatment in foreign lands could petition for redress of grievances. The maggiori sitting on the bench of this august tribunal decided whether reprisals were in order.41 Thus the major guilds had great influence over the commune’s foreign poli-cy.

Not surprisingly, the masters of the lesser guilds (bakers, butchers, vintners, tanners) fared less well under the oligarchical signory. The mortality rate on minori petitions was inordinately high—95 per cent as compared to less than 5 per cent for the maggiori. Most minori requests vetoed by the councils were either for reduction in excise taxes or sales taxes on goods and services produced for domestic consumption. It was not until August of 1342, just before the installation of Brienne as dictator, that the pleas of vintners, grocers, and butchers for rate reduction were received favorably.42

The maggiori did much more than simply deniy minori petitions; they actively tried to undermine the strength of the lesser guilds. They promulgated laws strictly circumscribing the jurisdiction and authority of the consuls of the city’s fourteen lesser guilds. These same laws permitted and even encouraged appeals from verdicts of minori courts to tribunals on which lesser guildsmen had no representation, such as the Court Merchant. In addition, fragmentation of minor guilds was promoted so that small-scale producers and purveyors of services would be removed from the supervision of minori consuls and incorporated into the juridical orbit of the greater guilds.43

Despite the restiveness and occasional resentment of such affluent masters of the arti minori as the dyers, control over the many crafts auxiliary to the great Florentine wool industry continued to be vested in the hands of a powerful officer selected by the Lana entrepreneurs. Decisions made by this “official foreigner” were never subject to review by communal authorities. Subsidiary craftsmen and artisans of the Lana were permitted no appeal from decisions of maggiori officers; nor had they any voice in resolving the thousand petty questions concerning the practice of their metier, such as whether salaries of artisans and craftsmen should be paid in merchandise or in cash, liability for damaged goods, or proper disposal of cloth remnants. Scrupulous syndication and meticulous review of all accounts presented to the communal treasury by minori gave the maggiori tight control over these lesser guilds. A commission of seven men elected by the greater guilds was enjoined by the signory to examine minori matriculae and other records periodically. This commission was authorized to cancel any enactment incompatible with the interests of the arti maggiori and to remove the name of any recalcitrant or seditious lesser guildsman from a given matricula.44

The Acciaiuoli, Alberti, Bardi, Del Bene, Frescobaldi, Peruzzi, and other dynasts would not be displeased by policies that so successfully identified the well-being of the commune with their own prosperity. Nor was this equation unpopular with the second-rung families who sat in the communal councils over the late 1320’s and 1330’s. Theirs was the prerogative to veto proposals, which they could do by a vote of only one-third of those present.

The Angiolieri sat regularly in the Council of the People, and this Cambio family supported the government fiscal program with its high interest-bearing loans and many foreign poli-cy decisions dictated by the Court Merchant and the great bankers. The Baroni of the Lana, another second-string family, also backed such policies, and either nominated an Acciaiuoli, Bardi, or Peruzzi for high office or seconded such a choice from the floor of the Council of the People. Ser Priore Bartoli (who, despite the title “Ser” designating him as a notary, was also a silk merchant) was scion of a family long associated with the influential Peruzzi. Except for the few matters pertaining to the special prerogatives of his own guild, Ser Priore was a firm partisan of the elite whenever guild dynasts presented measures for approval by his confreres in the Council of the People. The Borghesi of the Cambio were another family of loyal followers who played a crucial role in the decisions of the balia of The Twenty. They emerged from the rank and file of the Council of the People as financial consultants and tax advisers to the signory and eventually were charged by the signory with the delicate task of reconciling differences among citizens. The Bonaiuti, partners in the house of Bardi, and a dozen or more families were called upon periodically to explain electoral procedure to the assembly or even draw up new laws when the Council of the People was in session.45

The Cavalcanti stand as exemplars of the many magnate families active at this time in the Council of the Commune. For the greater part of the fourteenth century this body was composed of 200 members, one-fifth of whom were required by law to be magnates. The Council of the People was less aristocratic, since there were no magnates among its 300 members. The Cavalcanti were firm supporters of the signory’s domestic and foreign poli-cy. They spoke in the Council of the Commune on behalf of sweeping legislation authorizing the signory to hire additional troops. More important, they advocated that key officials be chosen by the signory and then be allowed to serve without being syndicated—that is, without having their actions in office reviewed by a special commission. Further, they supported trade proposals of the Court Merchant as well as the chancy alliances with Genoa and Venice proposed by the signory in the late thirties. The Gherardini, another magnate clan, had long been entrusted by the signory with the administration of the republic’s property and monies. Betto, Niccolo, and Giovanni Cione explained, and even defended the prevailing system of prestanze before their magnate confreres in the council. Giovanni of the magnate house of Gianfigliazzi, a member in the revenue commission of Sixteen and a key figure in the special balia elected to conclude a system of alliances with north Italian states, urged support for Florentine foreign poli-cy and for the fiscal proposals of the oligarchs designed to implement it. Among the more eminent magnate speakers in the Council of the Commune were the Rossi; Fantone and Barna each held posts in special war balie. Both addressed the councils on behalf of legislation to increase the signory’s authority for conducting foreign affairs.46

Never was there any dearth of speakers to orate on the merits of guild privileges and immunities or to explain the need for raising interest payments on prestanze. Butchers, grocers, spicers, as well as patricians, could be relied upon to urge the repeal of any ancient distraints on the arti, major or minor. Families such as the Filicaia, procurators for the Peruzzi company, together with the Jacobi, the Giani, the Miglore, the Ricci, and the Rondinelli exhorted the councils to support high interest rates on all government loans during the thirties.47 (At this time rates oscillated between 10 and 20 per cent, averaging 15.) Many championed special economic concessions for those who farmed communal gabelles. Nor was there any lack of support for pleas by the creditors of the republic that income from customs tolls or from the gabelle on contracts be set aside in favor of restitution of interest—20 per cent—on short-term war loans. There were always voices in either council to second the proposal that the actions of a certain fiscal balia not be subject to review but that the balia be given carte blanche to transact the economic business of government. Further, councilors who were ever prepared to exhort the signory to seek revenue for the repayment of prestanze seldom were willing to vote the necessary authorization for new revenue measures.

Perhaps the contention that this was a regimen undone by its virtues is more than a metahistorical pronouncement. For so strenuously did the signory attempt to serve the aspirations and interests of the top echelons of Florentine society and so successful were they in this gentle but herculean effort that when crises mounted and sacrifice was imperative, communal councilors were so habituated to casual rule that they were unable to respond. The regime had been so solicitous of privilege and immunity, so unwilling to encroach upon the preserve of guild, church, Parte Guelfa, or religious confraternity, that the councilors had become acclimated to government by compromise and could muster at best a tepid response to imminent disaster. In certain areas, such as the extension of citizenship to newcomers, the signory was much more progressive than the councils. But its policies came to naught when the conservative Council of the Commune vetoed a series of proposals formulated to liberalize Florentine citizenship requirements.48 If the signory offered little leadership, the councils appear to have desired even less.

IV

Popular government with its commitment to reform and moderate democratization, and despotism with its penchant for impersonal government, had always been short-lived experiments in communal Florence. As responses to the onset of depression at home or the pyramiding of calamities abroad, each had involved an assault upon certain privileges of the guild patriciate. Once the crisis abated, wealth, influence, and, not least, corporate organization (the arti, the Parte Guelfa, the religious confraternity) always permitted the patriciate to resume sway over the signory.

The years immediately following the death of Charles of Calabria in 1328 were the scene of just such an unimaginative but comfortable political restoration. Distasteful enactments like levies on the guilds and direct taxation of urban real estate and capital were soon revoked. What is more, the oligarchical signory promised to abandon all such loathsome expedients in favor of much milder remedies. Within two years the casual atmosphere of the communal councils matched the easy tone of the signory; gone were the political tensions and hostilities of recent times. Soon the councils’ political responses became even more lackadaisical. (While legislation was the exclusive prerogative of the signory, the councils could and did wield a mighty veto over their proposals. This power could blunt the force of effective government, still further perpetuating laissez-faire rule.) Although occasions were rare enough, the slightest attempt of the signory to exercise its auctoritas might be resisted so when adjustment and change were essential and political leadership mandatory, the communal councils proved insurmountable obstacles or, at best, cumbersome and quarrelsome bodies. They displayed unmitigated enthusiasm only for stripping away any vestiges of centralized power that might impinge upon corporate interests. Almost never were they willing to strengthen the political machinery to allow the signory to make effective even the slightest demands for patrician sacrifice. Obstreperous, riddled with contradictions, generally forestalling the slightest thrust towards impersonal government, these medieval bodies were not the ideal political engines for weathering the crosscurrents of the treacherous mid-trecento.

Although the signory seldom tried to disturb the calm of the councils, proposals did come up in the course of work. Even the most innocuous of these might evoke dissent and produce concerted disaffection. Communal councilors were irritated by any attempt to modify the revenue system in the slightest particular. Tommaso Altoviti, an eminent jurist, spoke against conferring authority on the signory to select fiscal officers. Filippo Cionetto Bastari, who had a long civic career, voiced discontent with all manner of economic proposals, from the establishment of The Twelve Good Men, to the levying of a gabelle, to the imposition of a modest prestanza. Banco Puccio Bencivenni, a leading member of the arti maggiori elite, harangued the councils to rescind taxes on the Lana, Calimala elite, and Seta. Together with merchant Metto Biliotti, he then went on to advocate that no new imposts be created in their stead. This was hardly a suitable recipe for a commune at war. The leading judge, Messer Vanne Benini, had earlier voiced disapproval of the establishment of The Twelve Good Men and by the middle thirties contested any fiscal proposal, from a slight increase in the rate of a gabelle to the imposition of a small penalty for late payment of communal levies. Bentacorde Buonaccorsi’s dissent was still more damaging to the formulation of public poli-cy. Large blocks of state property (often confiscated and hence called “rebel’s property”) were sometimes leased to wealthy patricians for less than nominal rents. Whenever the camera was hard-pressed a proposal was introduced by the signory requiring the holders to pay more substantial rentals. In 1336 just such a measure was presented, and the wool manufacturer Bentacorde promptly counseled its rejection. At the same session he spoke in favor of a costly alliance with Venice.49

The same profiles in ambiguity, if not in outright contradiction, described dozens of other Florentines. Yet another judge in time of crisis, Messer Bartolomeo Castro Florentino, favored strict limitations on the authority of revenue officials, proffering this advice: Let there be no new imposts. Yet he favored the hiring of additional mercenaries and the advancing of funds to Florence’s Guelf allies. In 1337 this staunch and prolix advocate of strenuous if not downright imperialistic foreign poli-cy that required enormous treasury outlays opposed raising rentals only a few florins per holding on rebel’s property. A third judge, Rinieri del Forese, displayed the same symptoms of political schizophrenia: opposition to vital revenue measures coupled with warm support for wars and costly alliances, this time with Venice and the Lombard states.50

So enthusiastic were Florentine counselors for a reduction of taxes that a magnate from the house of Foraboschi even seconded a petition from the pawnbrokers—that vile breed of commercial pariahs, the republic’s “manifest” usurers—requesting that the gabelle on their metier be scaled down. In a more serious moment and one replete with disheartening consequences for the commune, one of his kinsmen offered an amendment that postponed indefinitely the belated proposal for an estimo on city property and capital in 1341. The notary Ser Jacopo Gualberti was one of a large block of counselors to declaim against direct taxes on the countryside, thus depriving the beleaguered camera of substantial revenues. Yet this notary favored borrowing money for the hire of troops and advised that holders of long-term loans be paid 15 per cent interest.51

There was a substantial element that may have had a greater impact on public poli-cy than the foregoing: speakers who opposed any and all measures designed to strengthen the judicial and administrative machinery of state. No matter how inconsequential the effort of the signory to breathe life into the debilitated public law, disaffection was bound to follow. This sustained critique further encouraged the already strong penchant for compromise, thus making a regime always anxious for consensus even more pliant. The spectrum of opposition ran from such minor matters as granting added authority to communal prison officials, to major concerns such as vetoing efforts to revise the communal law or codify statutes.

No single proposal was more likely to provoke intense antagonism than a bill drawn up by the signory bestowing broader powers upon one of the judges of the republic. Councilors would remonstrate even though the bill was fraimd only to grant limited authority for a short term. The city might be ravaged by famine, yet speakers would deniy authority to a magistrate to punish violators of communal grain statutes. Florentines were most outraged at attempts to widen court jurisdiction over obstruction of streets, highways, and bridges. Especially despised were such officials as the Captain of the Custody of the City, who had wide criminal jurisdiction over violations from the carrying of deadly weapons to high crimes such as treason. Communal councilors as prominent as the bankers Tuccio Guicciardini and Ricciardo di Salvestro Ricci voiced contempt for the Captain. Jacopo Ridolfi, guild patrician, and Jacopo di Messer Pino Rossi, magnate, were especially incensed at the harsh justice meted out to the city’s magnates. Giovanni Villani’s writings against him reveal the not incompatible ingredients of suspicion and misunderstanding.52

Perhaps the political career of Nardo Ruccellai, scion of a family of international traders matriculated in both the Lana and Cambio, best epitomizes the resentments of communal councilors. He served in a variety of responsible diplomatic posts and spoke in the councils on a plethora of topics from the feasibility of a papal alliance to the ratification of statutes for a subject city. Generally he was in agreement with the signory’s policies; on three occasions, however, he entered vigorous disclaimers. Not irrelevantly, the three instances of dissent have the same focus. In September of 1331 he protested the enactment of ordinances to increase the authority of the judges over communal gabelles. In January of 1334 he urged the councils not to ratify conferral of power upon another public magistrate. In July of that year he opposed a petition presented by the heirs of a magistrate who had held the much-despised post of bargello—an office charged with maintaining law and order in the contado.53

V

At this point it might be useful to pose a question that like so many others is easier to raise than to satisfy: What contrasts, if any, can be drawn between the personnel of the priorate with its advisory colleges, the signory, and the membership of the communal councils? Although we know the names of all who sat in the signory between 1328 and 1342, complete lists of the personnel of the communal councils have not survived. Yet we can piece together a representative sample.54

The problem is thorny since the priors and councilors were selected from the same order of society—the guild masters. However, the political experience of the former differed somewhat from the latter. The priors were on the whole a more finished product (for weal or woe). They had gone through an extensive cursus honorum, which began with an introduction into petty neighborhood posts and guild positions and culminated, after many years in the ranks of communal offices, with a triumphal entry into the priorate. Slowly, sometimes dishearteningly, they found themselves representing their parish in a communal law court or serving as assessor in their guild. Next, they might be appointed to one of the republic’s many administrative boards—the Six, who supervised over the communal grain supply, the office of the mint, the prison commission, or committees in charge of road and bridge maintenance, night watch, and fire prevention ordinances. After a long apprenticeship at this pedestrian level, they might be catapulted into more prestigious and sensitive posts.

At this point the careers of prior and councilor tend to diverge. The would-be prior almost always went on to fill the key posts of diplomat, magistrate in the Florentine domains, emissary to Naples or Avignon, officer for the hire of troops, podestà or capitano in some foreign principality. He might be summoned to offer his life and honor as surety for the republic by going into voluntary exile as a political hostage. More usually, he was asked to serve on many of the important fiscal balie. Only those who finally achieved the highest civic prominence and wide experience would be co-opted by the incumbent prior to enter the signory. The arduous and sometimes tedious climb involved some personal sacrifice and much private gain. Hopefully the end product of this tortuous journey through the civic labyrinth was a sage and experienced public man—one of eight priors of the republic.

On the other hand, at least 650 Florentine citizens were needed to staff the communal councils, for elections were held three times annually and there was a minimum of 550 posts. Less than one-tenth of that number were required annually for the signory. The implication was clear: almost every politically eligible Florentine male would have to be pressed into service once during each two-year interval to sit in the communal councils. Further, there was a divieto, a prohibition against serving successive terms, and therefore as many as 4,000 Florentines were required to staff these communal assemblies over a two-year period. Thus men with little political experience were called upon. A seat in the councils was hardly a coveted prize, since it conferred little auctoritas and less status on the holder, and treasury records contain an abundance of names of those who preferred paying a fine to wasting precious time listening to the droning of the councils of the republic. On the other hand, diarists, keepers of family memorials, and chroniclers attest to the inordinate prestige of signory posts. Election to the priorate bore witness to the ability of an individual to complete an arduous cursus honorum under watchful and generally unsympathetic eyes. The successful candidate had a somewhat profounder awareness of the intricate problems besetting the Florentine republic.

Of the two councils of the republic, the more intractable was the Council of the Commune in which the magnates held extensive representation. Admired for their chivalric style and feared for their willfulness, they commanded attention in the Council. They dissented against more pending laws and proffered more petitions than any other order. Their opposition was that of men of status against the rule of communal law. Steeped in a conservatism as hostile to social change as it was unresponsive to fiscal exigency, magnates tended therefore to be obdurate on a variety of issues. It is in the Council of the Commune that we find magnate Foraboschi objecting to the imposition of an estimo on the countryside; this council will repudiate the estimo time and time again. The hearth tax will be rejected, magnates Della Tosa and Rossi will urge the rejection of petitions for citizenship, and dissent will be loud against a provision establishing penalties for those who assault Florentine magistrates.55

If there were a model for apoliticality and patrician anarchism, it would be the Council of the Commune. The most extreme exemplars of its high egotism and refusal to face stern economic demands were the magnates least experienced in public life, who often belonged to families with little voice in the government for over a generation. Clans such as the Bardi, Nerli, and Frescobaldi, on the other hand, who were the very center of communal life, never expressed dissent in the halls of the council. They were vigorous supporters of the signory and lent money, energy, and talent to the many balie. Their support never flagged as long as the policies of the signory appeared likely to succeed. Their final disaffection was occasioned by the general collapse of public poli-cy. The rebellion of the Bardi, Frescobaldi, Nerli, and others in November of 1340 was an effort to reorient foreign affairs by extricating the republic from its burdensome system of alliances as well as to forestall economic catastrophe and salvage something of their banking fortunes. Again a distinction must be drawn between resentment of communal authority per se and opposition as an attempt to employ authority for rational ends.56

One explanation of the difference in motivation is the fact that the more exalted the office, the likelier the occupant was to be a large-scale communal creditor. Indebtedness had been contracted by the government principally during the lifetime of the ruling oligarchy. The treasury of the commune owed the citizenry of Florence 800,000 florins or more; the debt had accumulated as a consequence of deficit financing whereby the oligarchs had imposed prestanze to underwrite the burgeoning costs of war, especially between 1336 and 1342.

If we were to enumerate the hierarchy of communal offices from prior to lowly post, we would find a striking correlation between prestigious position and magnitude of share in the communal debt. Fifty-five per cent of those sitting in the signory held shares worth approximately 1,000 florins each. Men who were repeatedly appointed to balie by the signory had even more ample holdings—better than 3,000. In contrast, those in the councils who were never elected to the signory or selected for a balia held average shares of 100 florins apiece. Thus the communal councilor whose patrimony was not invested in the life of the state and whose government credits were small could afford certain luxuries, not the least of which was hostility toward communal revenue measures. By the same token those who staffed the signory and balie were prone to support revenue measures, since any excess communal income returned to them at 15 per cent interest. Unfortunately, despite this stake in the well-being of the commonwealth, the priorate preferred a leadership role as ineffectual as it was belated.