X.
From this moment the Florentines devoted their chief attention to the affairs of the city, although these had not been altogether neglected, even during the last wars. Continual improvements had been made in the administration of the Republic, and in many respects it was a model administration, while there was also a notable increase of commerce, trade, and wealth. At the same time many public works had been completed under the direction of the famous architect Arnolfo di Cambio, the creator of some of the grandest public buildings in Florence. He planned the alterations for the enlargement of the city, first undertaken in 1285, and afterwards built the third circuit of walls, the which work was also superintended by the celebrated chronicler Giovanni Villani. It was likewise by Arnolfo's care that the Loggia of Or' San Michele, then used as a corn market, was built in and paved, the Piazza dei Signori supplied with a pavement, and the Badia embellished and restored. Folco Portinari, the father of Dante's Beatrice, founded, at his own expense, the church and hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. The Piazza of Santa Maria Novella was laid out, and many other public works of a similar kind were begun.[330]
Meanwhile political reforms were uninterruptedly carried on, and among them the notable measure passed in 1289, reducing the Podestà's term of office from twelve to six months.[331] The post was then conferred on Rosso Gabrielli of Gubbio, a city supplying many Podestàs and Captains of the people not only to Florence, but to all parts of Italy. At that period Romagna, Umbria, and the Marches seemed to be a nursery of these dignitaries, the inhabitants of those provinces being not only well trained to arms, as is proved by the horde of captains and soldiers of adventure they sent forth, but also well versed in the legal lore of the neighbouring university of Bologna. This reduction to six months of the Podestà's tenure of office was not long maintained, but had been decreed for the same motives as the change of Signory every two months. The power of a magistrate authorised to administer justice, in command of the army and invariably escorted by a body of armed followers in his private pay, might be easily transformed into a formidable despotism, as several Italian republics had already found to their cost. Hence it was endeavoured to avert this danger from Florence by changing the magistrates so frequently as to allow no time for hatching plots against the Commonwealth, or forming a party whose adherence could be counted on for any length of time.
But political and social changes of a very different and far graver kind were now brewing among the citizens of Florence. Signs of a new and radical transformation were becoming daily more pronounced; hence the greater need of assuring peace in order to withstand the inevitable and imminent shock of coming revolutions. The presence of the Angevins in Florence, the example set by their nobles, and their continual creation of new knights, had swelled the arrogance of the leading Guelphs to a boundless extent. These patricians were now known by the name of grandi, and in imitation of the French nobility assumed manners ill-suited to a republican state, trying to rule everything and all men according to their will. A serious riot took place in 1287, because one of these chieftains, named Totto Mazzinghi, being condemned to death by the Podestà for murder and other crimes, Messer Corco Donati, one of the leading nobles of Florence, attempted to rescue him by force on the way to the scaffold. Thereupon the Podestà, resenting such open violation of the law, caused the alarm bell to be rung. The people flocked to the place of execution sword in hand, some mounted, some on foot, to the cry of "Giustizia, Giustizia!" and the sentence was then carried out with the uttermost rigour of the law. The condemned Mazzinghi was dragged through the streets before being hung; the promoters of the revolt against the magistrates were heavily fined, and order was re-established in the city. But these disturbances were indicative of deeper evils to come, and Florentine statesmen were full of anxiety. In order to check the arrogance of the grandi, and prevent them from combining with the populace, the middle-class Guelphs began to grant political rights on a continuously wider scale, while restricting the power of the nobles. As we have already seen, the latter had been obliged to provide sureties personally responsible for their actions, to swear to abstain from deeds of vengeance, from oppressing the people and so forth. The very remarkable law passed on August 6, 1289, served to overthrow the might of the nobles, both within and without the city walls, and to enhance that of the people by destroying the last lingering remains of the feudal system. Thanks to this decree, serfdom was entirely abolished throughout the territory; for in terms resembling a proclamation of the rights of man, it declared liberty to be an imprescriptible, natural right, a right never to be dependent on another's will; and that the Republic was determined not only to maintain liberty intact throughout its dominions, but likewise increase the same.[332] Thus every species of bondage, whether for a term or for life, was abolished, together with all contracts or agreements infringing on the liberty of the individual.
It has been thought by some writers that the Commune of Bölogna had already achieved this most important reform in 1256, and that Florence only followed its example thirty-three years later. But this was an error induced by supposing that in the Italian communes the abolition of serfdom was completed at one stroke, whereas, on the contrary, it was carried out very slowly and in different degrees. In the territory there were not only nobles and their serfs, but also fideles, whose personality was already recognised by law, but who still remained dependents of the nobiles and bound to yield them service and tribute. At a later date the condition of the fideles was further ameliorated; they could hold land in fee from their lords, or by payment of a yearly rent (a livello), but remained bound to them on terms of villeinage, and therefore bound to the soil. For this reason the lords believed, or feigned to believe themselves entitled to sell the soil, together with the fideles attached to it, even when this was no longer in accordance with the spirit of the law. The Bölognese abolished serfdom in 1256, but the peasantry remained in their master's dependence, that is, more or less as fideles, and although these conditions were ameliorated in 1283 they were not altogether abrogated. But even earlier than 1289 serfs had ceased to exist in the Florentine territory, and, judicially, the fideles had been long considered almost independent of their masters, although the latter, by the abuse of purely personal contracts, often compelled them to remain attached to the soil and claimed the right of disposing of them, as well as of the land. These were the abuses condemned and suppressed by the Florentines in 1289, as being adverse to liberty, "the which is a natural and therefore inalienable right." The new law likewise decreed that in consequence of this natural right all the above-mentioned sales became null and void; and cancelling every illegal contract, it finally guaranteed complete freedom to the peasantry. And by another clause every peasant was thenceforth enabled (irrespective of any sale of the land) to purchase his emancipation from any personal contract binding him to the proprietor of the soil. Thus the law of 1289 did not abolish serfdom, inasmuch as that institution had been already suppressed by the Florentines some time before, but it assured, for the first time, complete liberty to the cultivators of the soil. Economically, the new law was very advantageous to the Commune, by converting the peasantry into direct contributors, and no less advantageous to the democracy, inasmuch as it broke the last links of the feudal system, and weakened the power of the nobles throughout the contado.[333]
Many other measures were also passed in 1289 and 1290 for the purpose of strengthening the position of the people in the city, and serving to show that Florence steadily pursued the work of political and social transformation. First of all, the number of legally constituted guilds was increased by adding five more to the seven greater guilds, and all having their special insignia, organisation, arms, and political attributes.[334] We now find records of twelve greater guilds in the archives of the Republic, whereas, previously to this date, seven only were mentioned. It is true that the number was very soon reduced again to seven; but then the five omitted were joined to nine others, these fourteen designated as the lesser guilds, and the total number of the guilds was finally fixed at twenty-one. In 1290 another law was passed, called the law of prohibition, decreeing that no prior could be re-elected to office until three years had elapsed. Later on this prohibition was partially extended even to the kinsmen of a prior.[335] The scope of these measures was always to prevent the rise of any future tyranny and to keep the growing arrogance of the nobles in check.
Other laws were also framed for the same purpose. As, for instance, the two decrees carried almost unanimously on June 30, and July 3, 1290.[336] By these all guild-masters were prohibited, under severe penalties, from forming monopolies, agreements, compacts, fictitious sales, or other arrangements tending to the imposition of arbitrary prices, regardless of the rules prescribed by statute. And not only the individuals guilty of such infringement were subject to punishment and to be mulcted in the sum of 100 lire, but the guild to which they belonged was also subject to a fine of 500 lire for neglecting to enforce obedience to the laws, and its rectors and consuls were to be mulcted in 200 lire.
On January 2, 1291, another law was passed of a far weightier import, with the clearly expressed aim of curbing by force the wolfish rapacity of the nobles (volentes lupinas carnes salsamentis caninis involvi).[337] This decree rigorously prohibited recourse to any tribunal or magistrate save to the legally constituted authorities, such as the priors, the Captain, Podestà, or the judges in ordinary of the Commune. All persons having obtained from the Pope, Emperor, King Charles, or their respective vicars exemptions of any kind, or right of appeal to other magistrates, and pretending to exercise such right, and all persons who, with the same intent, should assert the power of exercising old feudal privileges, were warned to refrain from attempting to use such rights under penalty of the severest punishment. The new law minutely described different forms of similar fictitious exemptions, and determined the penalties incurred by their use. What seems strangest of all is, that this law decreed the punishment not only of persons asserting and trying to exercise the above-mentioned rights, of the notaries transcribing the acts, and the lawyers declaring them valid; but in cases where the real criminals should escape punishment, it likewise held responsible the relations and distant connections of the guilty, and even their labourers and tenants. At that period the populace, the well-to-do burghers and the nobles (grandi) formed as it were three classes of citizens, or, indeed, three distinct social bodies, who both for offence and defence, in all questions of party rancour, revenge or political privilege, acted as though every one was willingly and of necessity bound to be responsible for the deeds of his colleagues. Hence, recognising this state of things, certain extreme measures were decreed, which, although opportune and even imperative at the moment—in order to forward the democratic cause by assisting the weak to struggle against the powerful class—were none the less arbitrary. However, the necessity of employing the most stringent remedies was becoming daily more obvious. The nobles had been too much uplifted by the favours heaped on them by the Pope and the Angevins. And the brilliant success recently achieved at Campaldino, where victory had been decided by the prowess of Corso Donati and Vieri de' Cerchi, had so swelled their pride that they openly vaunted their contempt for the law, and constantly violated its prescriptions. This state of things finally produced the revolution of 1293, resulting in the constitution of the second popular government (il secondo popolo) and the total overthrow of the nobles.