END OF SELECTIONS FROM BOOK VII.
BOOK VIII.
Here begins the Eighth Book. It tells how the second Popolo arose in the city of Florence, and of many great changes which by reason thereof came afterwards to pass in Florence, following on with the other events of those times.
§ 1.—In the year of Christ 1292, on the 1st day of February, the city 1292 a.d. of Florence being in great and powerful state, and prosperous in all things, and the citizens thereof waxing fat and rich, and by reason of excessive tranquillity, which naturally engenders pride and novelties, being envious and arrogant among themselves, many murders, and wounds, and outrages were done by one citizen upon another; and above all the nobles known as magnates and potentates, alike in the country and in the city, wrought upon the people who might not resist them, force and violence both against person and goods, taking possession thereof. For the which thing certain good men, artificers and merchants of Florence, which desired good life, considered how to set a remedy and defence against the said plague, and one of the leaders therein, among others, was a man of worth, an ancient and noble citizen, being one of the popolani, rich and powerful, whose name was Giano della Bella, of Par. xvi. 131, 132. the people of S. Martin, with the following and counsel of other wise and powerful popolani. And instituting in Florence an order of judges to correct the statutes and our laws, as by our ordinances the custom was of old to do, they ordained certain laws and statutes, very strong and weighty, against such magnates and men of power as should do wrong or violence against the people; increasing the common penalties in divers ways, and enacting that one member of a family of magnates should be held answerable for the others; and two bearing witness to public fame and report should be held to prove such crimes; and the public accounts should be revised. And these laws they called the Ordinances of Justice. And to the intent they might be maintained and put into execution, it was decreed that beyond the number of six Priors which governed the city, there should be a gonfalonier of justice appointed by the several sesti in succession, changing every two months, as do the Priors. And when the bells were set tolling, the people were to rally to the church of San Piero Scheraggio and give out the banner of justice, which before was not the custom. And they decreed that not one of the Priors should be of the noble houses called magnates; for before this good and true merchants had often been made Priors, albeit they chanced to be of some great and noble house. And the ensign and standard of the said Popolo was decreed to be a white field with a red cross; and there were chosen 1000 citizens, divided according to the sesti, with certain standard-bearers for each region, with fifty footmen to each standard, which were to be armed, each one with hauberk and shield marked with the cross; and they were to assemble at every tumult or summons of the gonfalonier, at the house or at the palace of the Priors, to do execution against the magnates; and afterwards the number of the chosen footmen increased to 2,000, and then to 4,000. And a like order of men-at-arms for the people, with the said ensign, was enrolled in each country and district of Florence, and they were called the Leagues of the People. And the first of the said gonfaloniers was one Baldo de' Ruffoli of the Porte del Duomo; and in his time the standard sallied forth with armed men to destroy the goods of a family named Galli of Porta S. Marie, by reason of a murder which one of them had committed in the kingdom of France on the person of a popolano. This new decree of the people, and change in the State was of much importance to the city of Florence, and had afterwards many and divers consequences both ill and good to our commonwealth, as hereafter in due time we shall make mention. And in this new thing and beginning of the Popolo, the popolani would have been hindered by the power of the magnates but that in those times the said magnates of Florence were in greater broils and discords among themselves than ever before since the Guelfs returned to Florence; and there was great war between the Adimari and the Tosinghi, and between the Rossi and the Tornaquinci, and between the Bardi and the Mozzi, and between the Gherardini and the Manieri, and between the Cavalcanti and the Bondelmonti, and between certain of the Bondelmonti and the Giandonati, and between the Visdomini and the Falconieri, and between the Bostichi and the Foraboschi, and between the Foraboschi and the Malispini, and among the Frescobaldi themselves, and among the family of the Donati themselves, and many other noble houses. [And therefore let not the reader marvel because we have put this event at the head of our book, forasmuch as the most strange events arose from this beginning, and not only to our city of Florence, but to all the region of Italy.]
§ 2.—How the people of Florence made peace with the Pisans, and many 1293 a.d. other notable things. § 3.—Of a great fire which broke out in Florence in the district of Torcicoda. § 4.—How the war began between the king of France and the king of England.
§ 5.—How Celestine V. was elected and made Pope, and how he renounced the papacy.
1294 a.d.
Cf. Inf. iii. 58-60; xxvii. 104, 105.
In the year of Christ 1294, in the month of July, the Church of Rome had been vacant after the death of Pope Nicholas d'Ascoli for more than two years, by reason of the discord of the cardinals, which were divided, each party desiring to make one of themselves Pope. And the cardinals being in Perugia and straitly constrained by the Perugians to elect a Pope, as it pleased God they were agreed not to name one of their own college, and they elected a holy man which was called Brother Peter of Morrone in Abruzzi. This man was a hermit, and of austere life and penitence, and in order to abandon the vanity of the world, after he had ordained many holy monasteries of his Order, he departed as a penitent into the mountain of Morrone, which is above Sermona. He, being elected and brought and crowned Pope, made in the following September, for the reformation of the Church, twelve cardinals, for the most part from beyond the mountains, by the petition and after the counsel of King Charles, king of Sicily and of Apulia. And this done, he departed with the court to Naples, and by King Charles was graciously received and with great honour; but because he was simple and knew no letters, and did not occupy himself willingly with the pomps of the world, the cardinals held him in small esteem, and it seemed to them that they had made an ill choice for the well-being and estate of the Church. The said holy father perceiving this, and not feeling himself sufficient for the government of the Church, as one who more loved the service of God and the weal of his soul than worldly honour, sought every way how he might renounce the papacy. Now, among the other cardinals of the court was one M. Benedetto Guatani d'Alagna, very learned in books, and in the things of the world much practised and sagacious, which had a great desire to attain to the papal dignity; and he had laid plans seeking and striving to obtain it by the aid of King Charles and the cardinals, and already had the promise from them, which afterwards was fulfilled to him. He put it before the holy father, hearing that he was desirous to renounce the papacy, that he should make a new decretal, that for the good of his soul any Pope might renounce the papacy, showing him the example of S. Clement, whom, when S. Peter came to die, he desired should be Pope after him; but he, for the good of his soul, would not have it so, and in his room first S. Linus and then S. Cletus was Par. xxvii. 41. Pope. And even as the said cardinal gave counsel, Pope Celestine made the said decretal; and this done, the day of S. Lucy in the following December, in a consistory of all the cardinals, in their presence he took off the crown and papal mantle, and renounced the papacy, and Cf. Inf. iii. 59, 60. departed from the court, and returned to his hermit life, and to do his penance. And thus Pope Celestine reigned in the papacy five months and nine days. But afterwards it is said, and was true, that his successor, M. Benedetto Guatani aforesaid (who was afterwards Pope Boniface), caused him to be taken prisoner in the mountains of S. Angiolo in Apulia above Bastia, whither he had withdrawn to do penance; and some say that he would fain have gone into Slavonia, but the other secretly held him in the fortress of Fummone in Campagna in honourable confinement, to the intent that so long as he lived none should be set up as a rival to his own election, forasmuch as many Christians held Celestine to be the right and true Pope, notwithstanding his renunciation, maintaining that such a dignity as was the papacy by no decretal could be renounced; and albeit S. Clement refused the papacy at the first, the faithful nevertheless held him to be father, and it behoved him to be Pope after S. Cletus. But Celestine being held prisoner, as we have said, in Fummone, lived but a short time in the said place; and dying there, he was buried poorly in a little church without Fummone pertaining to the order of his brethren, and put underground more than ten cubits deep, to the end his body might not be found. But during his life, and after his death, God wrought many miracles by him, whence many people held him in great reverence; and a certain time afterwards by the Church of Rome, and by Pope John XXII., he was canonised, and called S. Peter of Morrone, as hereafter in due time we shall make mention.