[440] Many historians assert that he was among the priors when the "Ordinamenti" were compiled. But these are officially dated the 18th of January, and Compagni states that Giano entered the Signory on the 15th of February. This statement is supported by the list of priors given by Coppo Stefani, in his "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," and likewise by documentary evidence.
[441] Another inedited compilation also exists in the Florence Archives. Certain new rubrics were inserted in this at a later date, and even, as we shall show further on, among the first twenty-eight.
[442] Dr. K. Hegel, "Die Ordnungen der Gerechtigheit," Erlangen, 1867. This is a Prolusion, in which the learned author of the "Storia della Costituzione dei Municipi Italiani," very carefully examines the code edited by Bonaini, and compares it with others. But he does not investigate the value or intrinsic importance of the enactments, and merely gives a brief summary of them.
[443] "Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i. (1855) p. 38, note 1.
[444] Until this draft was published, we could only refer to posterior compilations, and had no means of ascertaining to what extent they differed from the law in its original form. Although Bonaini had failed to discover the original document of the law as approved, his publication of the first draft brings us very near to the real thing. And this is a point of no small importance, seeing that the laws of the Florentine Republic underwent such radical changes from one day to another, that a compilation, dated only two or three years after the original law, might be very different from it. For instance, Document A, published by Bonaini ("Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i. p. 72), contains a rider or addendum to the Ordinamenti passed on the 9th and 10th of April, 1293. This was inserted as part of the original law in the compilations edited by Fineschi and Giudici.
In the following bibliographical notices I shall be obliged, for the sake of greater clearness, to occasionally repeat or sum up previously related facts.
1. Of the various compilations of the enactments, that included among the printed statutes was the first to be published.
2. P. F. Vincenzo Fineschi published a second compilation in his "Memorie storiche, che possono servire alle vite degli uomini illustri di Santa Maria Novella," &c., Florence, 1790.
3. The third published compilation was given by Prof. P. E. Giudici in the appendix to his "Storia dei Municipi Italiani," Florence, Poligrafia italiana, 1853; reprinted in 3 vols., Florence, Le Monnier, 1864–66. The Italian compilation, divided in 118 rubrics, the last of which is mutilated, was published from a codex in the State Archives of Florence ("Statuti," No. 8). By some oversight the author chanced to omit the three concluding rubrics.
4. The last published compilation is that brought out by Bonaini in the "Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i, No. 1, 1855, of which we have already spoken, and shall have to mention again farther on.