[469] This law, drawn up in full official form, is contained in Document A. of the Bonaini Compilation, but still as a separate law. On the other hand, in Compilations F. and G. we find it incorporated with the enactments it was designed to strengthen. In Compilation G. it is dated April 10, 1293, so also in the Latin Codex, but is undated in Compilation G. We should remark in this connection that the law edited by Bonaini is not only incorporated with the enactments in Compilations F. and G., but in both comprises codicils of a later date—such, for instance, as giving power to call nearly the whole of the city and territory to arms, up to the number of 12,200 men. Had this clause been passed in Giano's time, the chroniclers could not have failed to record it. Villani states that at first one thousand men only were enrolled—that is, the same number authorised by the earlier enactments; the number was afterwards raised to two thousand, as enjoined by the new law, and later still to four thousand (viii. 1). Therefore, even according to Villani, the number was progressively enlarged.
[470] Villani, viii. 8.
[471] After Villani, Ammirato wrote: "For in addition to the measures ordained, Giano had deprived the Captains of the Society of their seal; and had provided that the funds of the said Society, which amounted to a large sum, should be consigned to the Commune" (vol i. bk. iv. p. 346, Batelli edition, Florence, 1846–49).
[472] Villani, viii. 2.
[473] Villani, viii. 2; Ammirato, ad annum, vol. i. pp. 339.
[474] Ibid. viii. 2; Ammirato, vol. i. pp. 340, 341.
[475] Villani, viii. 2; and "Cronica" of the pseudo B. Latini, ad annum.
[476] Ibid. viii. 1. Compagni gives a different version in vol. i. 12. He relates that the offenders were of the Galigai family, and that he, being Gonfalonier at the time, had to demolish their dwellings. We have adhered to Villani, who states the fact to have occurred under the first Gonfalonier, Baldo Ruffoli (in office from February 15th to April 15th), whereas Compagni held the Gonfaloniership from June 15th to August 15, 1293, and it is scarcely probable this could have been the first occasion on which the enactments were enforced. It is known that Compagni's Chronicle is only extant in copies dated after his time, and therefore probably containing blunders, alterations, and additions made by its transcribers. Compagni's chronology is often extremely vague. While Gonfalonier he may have undoubtedly seen some sentences executed; but the first sentence on the nobles seems to have been carried out as related by Villani, and also corroborated by Coppo Stefani, bk. iii., rubric 198, Ammirato, vol. i. p. 338, and other historians of weight. Some years after the first publication of this essay, Professor Scheffer Boichorst produced the famous work (vide "Historische Zeitschrift," xxiv. p. 313, 1870) that raised the very heated controversy as to the authenticity of Dino Compagni's Chronicle. At a later period Professor Del Lungo's learned volumes induced the German scholar to cede many of the points in dispute. Accordingly we may still continue to refer to Dino Compagni, although not without careful sifting and discrimination.
[477] Compagni, i. 12, p. 55.
[478] Vide chap. vi. of this work.