V.
The seven guilds, already described by us, were styled the greater guilds, as being those of most importance and having the chief trade and wealth of the State in their hands. Several of these guilds consisted, as we have seen, rather of different crafts banded together, than of a single branch of industry; they gave employment to many workers, gathered and made use of enormous funds. But Florence also possessed the so-called lesser guilds numbering fourteen in all, namely: Linenmakers and Mercers, Shoemakers, Smiths, Salters, Butchers and Slaughterers, Wine-dealers, Innkeepers, Harnessmakers, Leatherdressers, Armourers, Ironmongers, Masons, Carpenters, Bakers.[363]
Certain smaller Florentine crafts had also obtained great repute in Italy: for instance, that of the wood and stone carvers, who were esteemed as some of the best in the world. In all work demanding any share of artistic ability the Tuscans stood unrivalled. Thus the Florentine moulders of waxen images were considered to have incomparable skill, and we even find this remarked by the chronicler Dei. But neither the carvers nor the wax moulders formed an association, and were artists rather than artizans. But, leaving this question aside, the lesser guilds, although numerous and energetic, failed to achieve any noteworthy influence. Their difference from the greater guilds mainly lay in the fact that, being solely concerned with the local trade of the Republic, they were confined to a very limited field of business and enterprise, while the others engaged in the trade with the East and the West, were enabled to attain a high position even in politics, and to finally become masters of the State.
Looking back on the period in which the greater guilds rose to power, we shall see that they simultaneously held in their grasp the commerce, wealth, and government of the Florentine Republic. We shall also readily understand the enormous energy they must have displayed in order to use politics as a means for increasing the opulence that, in the existing conditions of Italy, had become the chief strength of our communes. The Florentine merchants, having long divined that the future would belong to them, were always the firmest supporters of the Guelph party against the Imperial Ghibellinism of the nobles and had vowed eternal hatred to the latter. We may now imagine Florence as a huge house of business, situated in the centre of Tuscany, and surrounded by others all competing with it in the race for success. International law and equity were unknown to the Middle Ages: hence when any State felt envious of its neighbour, the obvious course to adopt was to prohibit that neighbour from traversing its territory, and exact unbearably heavy dues from the rival it feared. Accordingly, the Republic of Florence, being the object of still fiercer jealousy on account of the continual increase of its commerce, and lacking room to breathe, as it were, without access to the sea, would have been speedily reduced to impotence had it not resisted its neighbours by force of arms. Hence, the necessity of defending its existence involved the State in an uninterrupted series of wars, invariably terminated by treaties of commerce, in which the unfailing subtlety of the Florentines always won the advantage.
We have seen from the beginning how Florence combated the neighbouring barons in order to secure the progress of its dawning trade, and subsequently obtained a passage through the Mugello for its increased traffic with Romagna and Lombardy. Later on, we have seen it engaged in fiercer struggles, and, after many vicissitudes, subduing almost all the Ghibelline cities of Tuscany, as, for instance, Volterra, Sienna, and Arezzo. And when inquiring why Florence should have remained so obstinately Guelph, even in the face of Papal threats, and repeating the same question Farinata put to Dante—
"Dimmi, perchè quel popolo è si empio
Incontro a' miei in ciascuna sua legge?"[364]
the invariable reply has been that in addition to political motives of a more general nature, it must be kept in mind that the plutocracy now risen to power had first attained wealth by doing its chief business with Rome. Sienna, Arezzo, and Volterra being on the road and closer to Rome, were doomed to defeat in any competition with Florence.
Then, as soon as the Republic had secured its hold on Roman affairs and the Lombard trade, we saw its irresistible need of access to the sea, and that a war of extermination with Pisa had become altogether inevitable. To suppose that this prolonged, constantly renewed and sanguinary conflict was solely caused by a blind instinctive hatred of Pisa, when other and more serious reasons were so plainly existent, would be to deny the evidence of facts. From beginning to end it was simply the clash of violently opposed interests. The Pisans were perfectly aware that to yield a free passage to the power already commanding the chief trade in the interior of Italy—the power that, without having as yet a single galley afloat, had already made its way to all the harbours of the East—the power so persistently struggling for absolute supremacy in Tuscany—could only lead to their own lasting subjection. Therefore they resisted to the utmost of their strength. Their resources were undoubtedly great, and as many other Italians were equally hostile to the supremacy of Florence, the latter could never have succeeded in reducing the Pisans, had it not constantly employed the shrewdest devices in addition to its efforts in the field. In fact there is no better proof of the political ability of the Florentines than their mode of conducting this war and the means they employed to attain the object that, throughout the whole course of their history, had been their chief and invariable aim. We find them steadfast in their friendship to Lucca, and always prompt to succour that city at all costs, because Lucca was never well disposed to the Pisans, and might prove a most useful ally in any campaign against them. So, too, we always find Florence on good terms with Genoa, and avoiding every risk of giving offence to a power that was Pisa's natural rival on the seas. Indeed, the Florentines always did their best to foster that rivalry, inasmuch as without an ally strong enough to assist them by crushing Pisa's power by sea, they could never hope to overthrow it by land. And at last the Pisans were defeated by the Genoese in the naval battle of Meloria (August 6, 1284). From that day the conquest of Pisa by the Florentines, although still to be long contested, was a foregone conclusion, and from that moment also their friendship for the Genoese began to lose warmth. While desiring assistance in overcoming Pisa, they wished to avoid aggrandising the power of a Ghibelline republic, already very mighty on the sea. Accordingly, after having so furiously attacked and enfeebled Pisa, we find them aiding that state to withstand the Genoese, until the moment came when the latter having abandoned the idea of conquering Pisa, they could successfully undertake its conquest on their own account.
With equal sagacity they pursued the same course in the years during which they were menaced by the powerful Dukes of Milan who sought to become masters of all Italy, and also when threatened from the south by the enmity of King Ladislaus of Naples. The art of stirring division among their foes, of supporting the weaker party against overbearing neighbours, of constantly contriving to rouse half Italy against every potentate risen to sufficient strength to be a terror to their own Republic, was the invariable means by which Florence maintained her independence in the midst of States who were losing their liberty, and in the midst of the numerous and formidable foes pressing about her on all sides. And this successful policy was the work of the greater guilds, or rather of the prosperous trading class (popolani grassi).
These mercantile aristocrats ruled the Republic with so much energy and zeal, precisely because the aggrandisement of Florence conduced at the same time to the increase of their own wealth and commerce. Thus a city whose population was seldom more than 100,000, and often shrank far below that number, and whose narrow territory was surrounded by so many enemies, was enabled to become a State feared by the rest of Italy, and respected throughout Europe. These Florentine merchants were so jealous of their liberty as to deem no sacrifice too vast for its preservation, and were neither bewildered nor daunted by any danger, even when their trade was at stake. In fact, although so obstinately Guelph, and connected with Rome by so many commercial interests and ties, we find them ready to combat the Pope himself, when he made attacks on their liberty, and see them giving the name of the Eight Saints to the magistrates charged to conduct the campaign against Gregory XI. (1376). In the like manner we find them carrying on a war with the Visconti of Milan at a yearly cost of millions of florins, without the resources of the Republic being exhausted, or the courage of its rulers worn out.