At all events, this proved the beginning of the long list of savage reprisals darkening the history of Florence, when the winning faction not only destroyed the dwellings of the defeated, but banished their foes en masse. The Ghibellines were now masters of all, and for their greater security retained the services of Count Giordano Lancia and his eight hundred Germans. It seemed as though the party, being of Teutonic origin, could not yet grasp the reins of government without the support of German soldiery, and could only command the Republic in the emperor's name. This was the final result of admitting the Imperial feudal nobility within the walls of Florence, and allowing them to institute a political and military chief instead of an ordinary judge in the person of the Podestà.
III.
The Ghibelline victory over the Guelphs of Florence in 1249, with all its violence and bloodshed, was by no means an assured triumph. The Ghibellines had destroyed free institutions and exiled a vast number of adversaries; aided by the Imperial vicar, Giordano Lancia and his eight hundred men, they were absolute masters of Florence; nevertheless, the populace, the burghers, and the greater part of the citizens still remained Guelphs. Besides, Pope Innocent IV. roused so many enemies against the emperor in Italy, that the latter's success was destined to a speedy decline. The Florentine exiles were biding their time in neighbouring strongholds, and above all in the Castles of Montevarchi and Capraia in the upper and lower Val d'Arno. From these points they made frequent skirmishing expeditions, clearly showing that they had by no means lost hope of soon re-entering the city. Accordingly, the conquerors had to be perpetually on the alert against them to provide against some sudden attack restoring them to power.
Therefore Ghibellines and Germans marched against Montevarchi; but almost the whole storming force was killed or captured. This defeat opened the eyes of the Florentine Ghibellines to the danger of their position, and decided them to lay regular siege to the Castle of Capraia, headquarters of the principal Guelphs, chiefs of the party or League, as it was called at the time, directing all the movements of the rest. Although the beleaguering force greatly outnumbered their own, the besieged decided on an obstinate defence, and the Ghibellines were bent on winning the castle either by violence or starvation. But they would have failed to accomplish this but for the arrival of reinforcements from the emperor, who, having been compelled to raise the siege of Parma, had now advanced into Tuscany. But, in spite of these fresh foes, hunger alone drove the Guelphs to surrender. Their leaders were given up to Frederic II., who was then at Fucecchio. He carried them with him to the kingdom of Naples, and, according to the Florentine chroniclers, had them barbarously blinded, beaten to death with clubs, or drowned in the sea, with the exception of one alone, whose life was spared after his eyes had been torn out.
By this time the emperor was irritated and exhausted by the continual wars thrust on him by the Papacy. He had enjoyed no peace since the day (June 24, 1243) when Sinibaldo de Fieschi ascended the Chair of St. Peter as Pope Innocent IV. This pontiff had pronounced his deposition at the Council of Lyons in 1245. He had then secretly excited many conspiracies against him, and attempted more or less to ensure their success. The emperor had been led to suspect his most devoted friend and secretary, Pier delle Vigne, of complicity in one of these plots. Accordingly this faithful servant was thrown into the tower of San Miniato al Tedesco, condemned to lose his eyes, and then transferred to another prison in Pisa, where he dashed out his brains against the wall. Frederic's spirit was alternately cowed and irritated by the hostility he encountered; for, with all his philosophy and unbelief, he greatly dreaded the thunders of the Vatican. He sought reconciliation with the Pope, wished to return to the East to fight the infidels; and Innocent chose that moment to rouse all the Guelph cities against him, thus again forcing him to fly to arms to support the Ghibelline cause and maintain his own sway over Italy.
This he was unable to effect without recurring, as we have seen, to incredible excesses of violence, which naturally increased the number of his enemies on all sides. The Guelphs of Germany had already refused to acknowledge the authority of his son Corrado, whom he had sent as his representative. The army commanded by the emperor in person had been routed at Parma. All the Guelph cities of Romagna, with Bölogna at their head, marched a powerful force against the Ghibellines under King Enzo, another of Frederic's natural sons, and defeated them at the battle of Fossalta on May 26, 1249. Enzo himself was captured and carried in triumph to Bologna, where he remained a prisoner till his death in 1271. But the emperor did not live long enough to feel this last blow. On December 13, 1250, he ceased to breathe in a castle near Lucera in Apulia, and his death completed the downfall of the Ghibelline party in Florence and throughout Italy. For religious hatred was now combined with political enmity against this party. Not only because the Ghibellines combated the Pope, but still more, because the various heresies gradually spreading through Italy found many followers in their ranks, in consequence of frequent marks of tolerance and favour received from the emperor. The heretical poison now slowly infecting the Italian social body was a grave anxiety to the Popes. The Albigenses had first roused attention and found adherents in Provence, where native bards had devoted their talents to attacking the Roman Court. But the religious orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic were bent on crushing the new creed. Innocent III. had founded the Holy Inquisition for the same purpose, and St. Dominic, at the head of mobs thirsting for heretic blood, had ordained the massacre of the Albigenses and ravaged all Provence. Some fugitives, however, had escaped into Italy, to spread the same hatred against Rome, the same poison of heresy. In fact, the Paterini, opposed to the Pope, denying the virginity of the Madonna, and having no belief in transubstantiation or other dogmas of the Catholic faith, found followers everywhere and held public gatherings. The Epicurean, Averrhoistic, and other philosophical tenets were rapidly propagated among Italian scholars. For some time, during the most brilliant period of the Imperial Court in Sicily, all this intellectual and religious turmoil seemed to be chiefly centred at Palermo. For there Frederic II. had gathered about him a throng of scholars, troubadours, poets of every kind, Mussulmans, Greek schismatics, Provençal Albigenses, and materialistic philosophers; and although a crusader and persecutor of heretics, took singular delight in this mixed society, in whose midst, and in a storm of sarcasm, doubt, and hatred of priests, Italian poetry first sprang to life, and later on, in the Divine Comedy, gave forth so great a wealth of earnest faith and lofty aspiration. In the meantime, however, heresy and scepticism were current throughout the Peninsula. The Paterini quickly obtained many converts among the Ghibellines in Florence, and the Pope established the Inquisition there for the trial and punishment of backsliders. In 1244 Fra Pietro of Verona, moved by religious fury rather than zeal, came to stir the orthodox spirit by his inflammatory sermons; and founded the Society of the Captains of Holy Mary or of Faith, composed of men and women vowed to the extermination of heretics. Public feeling caught fire in 1245, and a real battle between Catholics and heretics raged in the Florence streets. Both at Santa Felicità and in the space by the Croce al Trebbio, where a column still commemorates the ill-fated event, the Captains of the Faith, robed in white, bearing the badge of the cross, and commanded by their big, strong, dare-devil chief, Friar Pietro of Verona, routed the Paterini and drove them from Florence. In reward for this sanguinary triumph the friar was appointed Inquisitor of Tuscany, and subsequently of Lombardy as well. There in the north, between Milan and Como, he finally met his death at the hands of men wearied of his persecutions. This gained him the title of a martyred saint, and he was known henceforth as St. Peter—Martyr of Verona.[241]
IV.
Meanwhile, in 1250, the year now claiming our attention, Frederic II. passed away, his son Enzo lay captive in Bölogna, Innocent IV. was stirring the Guelphs to action, and Pietro of Verona had become the scourge of all heretics and foes of the Papacy in Tuscany and Lombardy. Accordingly the Ghibelline domination in Florence was approaching its end. In fact, from the moment that the emperor withdrew into Apulia, already stricken with mortal disease, the Guelphs showed so much boldness that the Ghibellines decided on a fresh expedition to oust them from the Castle of Ostina, in the Valdarno, where they had assembled in great force. But while laying siege to the stronghold the Ghibellines were compelled to keep a strong reserve at Figline to protect their rear from the many Guelph partisans lurking at Montevarchi. The latter, however, made a night attack on the force encamped at Figline, and routed it so thoroughly that when the news reached Ostina the Ghibellines raised the siege and marched back to the capital. Thereupon both the people and burghers of Florence, tired of the unbearable load of taxation imposed on them by the continual wars undertaken by the Ghibellines, and worn out by the "grave extortions and acts of violence of these tyrannical masters," felt that the moment for vengeance had come, and rose in open revolt. The rebels were led by the more influential citizens of the so-called middle class, then acting as heads of the people. These men first held their sittings in the Church of San Firenze, then in Santa Croce, and finally, still dreading attack from the Uberti, assembled in smaller numbers and with greater safety in the houses of the Anchioni family. Here, in October, 1250, they proclaimed the nomination of thirty-six "Corporals of the people," six to each sestiere, forming the basis of the third Florentine Constitution, known as the First Popular Government (Primo Popolo), because its main purpose was to organise and strengthen the people in opposition to the nobles, and by this time the latter being much disheartened, unresistingly submitted to the new government. The first measure adopted was the dismissal of all the magistrates in office, and reforms were then undertaken. The post of Podestà was retained, and henceforth this official became still more exclusively the head of the patricians, being now counterbalanced by the newly instituted Captain of the people, as chief of the popolani. But, as in this way the Republic was divided in two parts, a central, presiding body was established consisting of twelve elders (anziani) of the people, two for each sestiere. These anziani had some of the attributes of the Consuls of former days, with this difference, however, that not only were they men of the people, but that the chief government of the city was now entrusted to the Podestà and the Captain. In fact, the new and most important part of the reform was this institution of a Captain as commander of the people, who were now organised on a military footing. The city was divided into twenty armed companies, with twenty gonfalons or banners, under as many gonfalonieri. The contado, on the contrary, was organised in ninety-six companies, corresponding with its ninety-six existing parishes (pivieri). These town and country companies combined formed a united popular militia, ready for action at any moment, either against foreign foes or to curb patrician tyranny at home. The whole of this armed multitude was under the orders of the Captain, and as he combined the functions of tribune, general, and judge, he afterwards bore the additional titles of Defender of the Guilds and the People, Captain of all the Guelphs, &c. Similarly to the Podestà, the Captain held office for one year, and it was indispensable that he should be a Guelph, a noble, and an alien. He came to Florence provided with his own judges, knights, and war-horses, inasmuch as he was leader of the people in war and administrator of justice in times of peace. But, as we have already stated, the Podestà still retained his civil and military importance. In right of his office, he had to give judgment in all civil and criminal cases, those reserved for the Captain's decision being usually acts of violence committed by the grandi against the people, questions regarding taxes or valuations, and certain cases of extortion, perjury, and violence, provided these had not been already cited before the Podestà, or unless he should have refused them his attention.[242] Also, in the above-mentioned cases, the Captain was likewise empowered to adjudge capital punishment. The red and white gonfalon or banner of the people was in his charge, and by ringing the bell of the so-called Lion's Tower he summoned the people to assembly. He resided in the Badia, together with the elders, who acted as his counsellors in many respects. Messer Uberto of Lucca was the first Captain of the people. As to the Podestà, although certain writers, misled by the somewhat obscure statements of Villani and Malespini, believed his office to have been at least temporarily abolished, it is certain that he remained at the head of what was specially called the Commune.[243] He, too, had his companies of armed men, and likewise commanded the mounted bands composed almost exclusively of nobles, the bowmen and crossbowmen, bucklermen (palvesari), &c., forming conjointly the so-called host, or nucleus of regulars in the mass of the Republican army. The Podestà was often commander-in-chief of the whole army, but his special function was the command of the cavalry and the host (oste).[244] And for the further enhancement of his dignity, it was decided to build a great and monumental palace,[245] in which he was to hold residence with his attendant officers and counsellors. But, on the other hand, as nothing was neglected to increase the strength of the people against the patricians, it was decreed that the towers of all powerful houses should be cut down so that none should exceed the height of seventy-five feet (fifty braccia), and the superfluous material was used to wall in the city on the south side of the river (oltr' Arno).[246]
This third constitution of Florence, known as the Primo Popolo, or First Popular Government, was in fact a politico-military constitution, dividing the Republic into two halves, the Commune and the people, and in which the aristocrats and democrats formed, as it were, two opposing camps. The army was marshalled under the banners both of the Commune and the people; all important measures required the sanction both of the Commune and the people. A similar division of authority may seem strange at this day, but it was common enough in the Middle Ages. It was customary to many Tuscan cities, and we find an example of it at Bölogna, where the nobility and people formed, as it were, two distinct republics, having different laws and statutes, and two separate palaces for their respective magistrates. At Milan we find a tripartite republic in the Credenza dei Consoli, the Motta, and the Credenza di Sant Ambrogio, consisting respectively of the greater and middle nobility and the people. This seemed a perfectly natural arrangement, seeing that social conditions are reflected in the institutions to which they give birth; the social body was divided, because it owed its origin to the struggle between the Latin and Teutonic races, between conquerors and conquered. Accordingly, the remote heirs of either race stood arrayed in two opposite camps, armed and prepared for conflict.[247]