[14] Villani, Croniche, v. 37.
[15] Purgatory, xvi. 115.
[16] The name Podestà originally denoted the chief authority of a city or county, whether vested in one person or several. Frederick I. established Imperial officers under this title throughout Tuscany near the end of his reign, and for some time the Podestà was regarded as the Emperor’s delegate. Before the end of the century, however, they had become municipal officers, gradually displacing the former consuls from the chief position. About 1200 the custom of choosing them from the citizens of some other town than that in which they officiated, seems to have become established; the native consuls being their councillors.
[17] Hell, x. 96.
[18] Hell, xxxii. 81, 106.
[19] Ibid., x. 36.
[20] Paradise, vi. 133.
[21] They seem to have acted on the principle of filling their own pockets, rather than of maintaining order; and are placed by Dante among the hypocrites, in the sixth pit of Malebolge (Hell, xxiii. 103). They belonged to the order of Knights of St. Mary, popularly called Jovial Friars.