According to the enactments, should a noble murder or procure the murder of one of the people, both the noble and the doer of the deed are to be condemned to death by the Podestà, and their property destroyed and made confiscate.[459] Should they escape by flight, they are to be sentenced in contumacy, and their property confiscated. Nevertheless their guarantor will have to pay the sum for which he stood surety, but with right of reimbursement from the confiscated and demolished property of the fugitive criminal. All other nobles who, without being direct accomplices in the crime, have had any share in it, are sentenced to a fine of two thousand lire; if failing to pay this, their property is confiscated, and their kinsmen or guarantors bound to pay it in their stead. But when the crime in question was that of inflicting serious bodily hurt, the doer of the deed and its instigators were sentenced to a fine of two thousand lire. If refusing to pay the penalty, their hands were chopped off; if escaping the reach of justice, their possessions were sacked, their funds confiscated, and their guarantors bound to pay the fine, but with the usual right of reimbursement from the sums confiscated by the State. For slighter offences, slighter penalties were adjudged. In every case the guilty were forbidden to hold any public office until five years had elapsed. For murderous attempts, the sworn testimony of the injured person or his nearest relation, together with that of two witnesses to the public voice on the matter (testimoni di pubblica fama), was considered sufficient proof of the crime; nor was it necessary for the two witnesses to have seen the crime actually committed. This was the clause most obnoxious to the nobles. In general they were little disturbed by threatened punishment, even of the severest kind, since they always hoped to escape it. But they were roused to fury as well as alarm, when measures were taken for the rigorous enforcement of the penalties prescribed. And this was precisely the chief intent and soul of the enactments. The whole course of procedure enjoined by them was almost as summary as that of martial law, and allowed much weight to public opinion, which, in the midst of party strife, was no trustworthy guide. The close union prevailing in associations had made ordinary legal procedure very difficult, if not impossible. Hence it was ordained that whenever a crime was perpetrated, the Podestà was bound to discover its author within five, or at most eight days, according to the gravity of the deed, under pain, in case of neglect of loss of office and a fine of five hundred lire for minor offences. In such case, however, the Captain was charged to take the matter in hand, and subject to the same penalties. All shops were then to be closed, the artisans called to arms, and the Gonfalonier to be on the alert to punish all recusants. But when the Podestà discovered the criminal, and it was a case of homicide, he and the Gonfalonier together were to ring the tocsin without waiting for the sentence of the court, and assembling the thousand select men, proceed to demolish the houses belonging to the criminal. The guild-masters were prompt to obey the Captain's summons. When slighter offences were in question the criminal's houses were not destroyed until sentence had been passed.[460] It should be remarked that this pulling down of houses was never carried to the point of total demolition, and, particularly in cases of petty crimes, the Gonfalonier and Podestà always settled beforehand what damage should be wrought.[461]
Very severe penalties were imposed both on injured persons failing to denounce crime,[462] and on the makers of false accusations.[463] When one of the people received hurt through joining in some quarrel of the nobles, or in cases of conflict between master and man, the enactments were not applied, and the common law was again enforced.[464] Other clauses followed touching unjust appropriation of the people's property on the part of the nobles, and obstacles interposed by them to bar the former from due receipt of income, for which offences, fines varying between one thousand and five hundred lire were prescribed in the customary way.[465] A noble sentenced to any fine was forbidden to beg or collect the amount from others, since this would have made it easier to commit deeds of vengeance in common and pay the penalty by means of a general subscription. Therefore any noble begging contributions from others was condemned to a special fine of five hundred lire; while all trying to collect money for him, as well as those supplying it, were mulcted in one hundred lire.[466]
No appeal of any sort was permitted against sentences pronounced according to the enactments,[467] since these overruled all ordinary statutes, and it was forbidden either to prorogue, suspend, or alter them, under penalty of incurring the severe punishment prescribed in the General Conclusion.[468]
IX.
Thus the Enactments of Justice were framed. As already stated, their object was to fortify the guilds, give greater unity to the Government and the people, humble the nobles, and promote the dispersal of associations. Only it was to be doubted whether a law of this kind could be fully carried out, or would not rather be violated by the nobles, thus sharing the fate of many earlier laws promulgated for the same purpose. Giano della Bella used his best efforts to avert this danger. He had not compiled the enactments, nor was he in office when they were discussed and passed; but he undoubtedly assisted in promoting them. On the 15th of February, 1293, shortly after they were proclaimed, he was elected to the "Priors," and on the 10th of April—namely, ten days before his term of office expired—we find that a new law, devised for the purpose of "fortifying" the enactments among which it was subsequently incorporated, was presented, discussed, and passed by all the State Councils.
This additional law, one decidedly accordant with the spirit of action rather than of debate, possessed by Giano della Bella, was of a very simple kind. It ordained that another thousand men, together with one hundred and fifty magistri de lapide et lignamine and fifty piconarii fortes et robusti, cum bonis picconibus,[469] should be added to the force of one thousand popolani at the disposition of the Gonfalonier of Justice, of the Captain and Podestà. The object of this new measure was self-evident: it was intended to inflict real punishment; to thoroughly confiscate the property and demolish the abodes of all nobles doing injury to the people. Accordingly the aristocrats were provoked to fury, and their hatred of Giano could no longer be restrained. But he was nowise alarmed; on the contrary, it spurred him to new efforts, and he planned another measure, that, if carried into effect, would have proved a deathblow to the nobles.
As we have seen, the latter's position as magistrates of the Guelph Society still kept their power intact; so, in order to humble them, Giano proposed to deprive their captains "of the Seal of the Society, and of its property, which was considerable, and hand these over to the Commune. Although a Guelph, and of Guelph nationality, he hoped, by this measure, to humble the power of the magnates."[470] In fact, once deprived of the seal, that was the symbol, as it were, of their separate entity; once their movable property, or funds, transferred to the Commune, their caste would have been notably enfeebled, if not destroyed, and the last stronghold of nobility lost. Giano's proposal was likewise justified by a law established by the Guelph Society, decreeing the latter to be only entitled to one-third of the property confiscated from the Ghibellines, while as matter of fact it had appropriated the whole. Hence there was some reason for compelling the Society to disgorge at least the two-thirds it had unduly usurped. To what extent Giano's plan was fulfilled, the absence of documents leaves us in ignorance. Although the incident is recorded by historians,[471] the Guelph Society long continued to exercise tyrannous rule. At any rate the mere fact of proposing this law suffices to explain the increasing hatred developed against Giano, and the speedily visible signs of approaching disaster in the city.
X.
Thereupon the people rose to the emergency, and in order to be prepared for events, hastened to avert all risk of foreign war by concluding peace with the Pisans, in spite of the latter being already reduced to such extremities, that the continuation of the war would have certainly led to their still deeper humiliation and abasement. But the Florentines decided for peace in order to "fortify the position of the people, and lower the power of nobles and potentates, who often acquire renewed strength and vitality by war."[472]
Negotiations were set on foot during the Gonfaloniership of Migliore Guadagni (April 15 to June 15, 1293), and concluded soon afterwards during that of Dino Compagni. The terms arranged were: the restitution of prisoners; free passage through Pisa for the merchandise of all communes included in the Tuscan League, and the same right of passage, free of duty, for Pisan merchandise through the States of the League. For the term of four years the Pisans were to contrive the election of their Podestà and Captain, in such wise that one of the pair should always belong to one of the communes of the League, the other to some house not rebelled against the same, and no member of the family of the Counts of Montefeltro was ever to be chosen. Now the Pisan leader who had defended the city so valiantly, and filled the offices of Podestà, Captain of the people and of war, was precisely Count Guido Montefeltro. Hence, by the terms of the treaty, he was now forced to leave Pisa, together with all the foreign Ghibellines; and twenty-five leading citizens were also to be given in hostage. Thus the Pisans were compelled to behave with the harshest ingratitude. The count, indeed, might have made them pay dearly for it, being still in command of a numerous and most devoted army; but he preferred to bear the insult with dignity. Appearing before the Council, he recounted his services to Pisa, the ill return made for them, and then, having received the monies due to him, instantly went away. The Pisans were likewise pledged to dismantle the walls of the fortress of Pontedera, and to fill up the trenches; farther, to recall to the city all the leading Guelph exiles. On the other hand, Florence was to give back their castle of Monte-Cuccoli, and all their other possessions in Val d'Era.[473]