In reading old chronicles of contemporary events, we see before our eyes the living, speaking figures of Giano della Bella, Farinata degli Uberti, Corso Donati, and Michele di Lando. Their feelings, loves, and hates are known and almost familiar to us; but we are plunged in a restless, unrestrained tumult of passions, without knowing whence blows the blast driving men and things onward in a whirl of confusion, without one moment's truce. No sooner do we pass beyond the visual horizon of the writer, than all images become confused, and our sight is no less obscured than his own. Even at moments of most eloquent description we hear of institutions and magistrates conveying no meaning to our ears, and often see these change, disappear, and return without grasping the why and wherefore. But when, on the other hand, by the study and imitation of ancient authors, the art of embracing a vaster circle of facts springs into being, and the causes and relations of those facts are investigated in order to weld them into visible unity, historic criticism is still lacking to verify events, to examine and define laws and institutions, to colour and almost revive the past in all its varied and changeful aspects. The genius of the historian emits, as it were, flashes of light; but these, while illuminating some occasional point, only leave a confused and uncertain view of past ages in our mind. We require to know men and institutions, parties and laws, as they really were; nor is this enough: we must also comprehend how all these elements were fused into unity, and how laws and institutions were begotten by those men in those times.
This was the task modern writers should have performed, but many reasons have prevented its completion. First of all, the progress achieved by art and literature while liberty was perishing in Florence, and their great influence on all modern culture, fixed the principal attention of writers on this section of Florentine history as being one of very general importance, and more easily intelligible to all. Accordingly, the greater number of modern, and especially of foreign students neither examined nor understood the precise period in which all the noblest qualities of the Florentine nature had been formed, and during which were evolved and trained the intellectual powers afterwards expressed in art and letters to the admiration of the whole world. Many foreigners seemed to believe that art and letters had not only flourished when manners were most corrupt, but were almost the result of and identified with the corruption that led to their decline. For the fine arts, being the offspring of liberty and morality, could not long survive their parent forces.
It should be also observed that no great modern writer has yet produced any work specially devoted to the political and constitutional history of Florence.[4] It must be confessed that more than by any modern pen was achieved to this effect by the elder and younger Ammirato, who, although writers of the seventeenth century, already began to ransack State papers, and composed a work that was new and remarkable at that period. But they neither proposed to write a history of the Florentine constitution, nor possessed sufficient critical equipment for the purpose, had they sought to fulfil it. They often overload new and valuable information regarding events, and even institutions, with a mass of useless detail, destructive to the general unity of their narrative.
It is scarcely requisite to add that modern writers, only treating of Florence in general histories of Italy, were necessarily compelled to pass briefly over secondary parts of their work. They often relied too blindly on old authors of acknowledged repute and influence, without using enough discrimination in sifting material of undeniable value from other parts composed of second-hand narratives and repetitions of fabulous tales. We have only to compare Villani with Malespini to see that one of the two undoubtedly copied many chapters from the other.[5] Nor is this a solitary example. As we have before remarked, Machiavelli borrowed whole chapters from Cavalcanti;[6] Guicciardini often translated from Galeazzo Capra, better known under the name of Capella;[7] Nardi reproduced Buonaccorsi verbatim. Therefore, without critical examination of these writers, and careful decision as to their relative value and the confidence to be accorded to different parts of their works, it is uncommonly easy to be misled. For this, and many other reasons, modern historians of Italy encounter numerous pitfalls when treating of Florentine matters. Now and then we see them halting, in common with chroniclers of the widest renown, to define the precise functions of the Captain of the people, or Podestà, or Council of the Commune, and afterwards finding it extremely difficult to make their definitions agree with actual facts whenever those titles recur in their pages. Such mistakes nearly always proceed from a double source. The definitions supplied by old writers regarding magistrates and their functions were extremely slight, when they alluded to their own times, and often inexact where other periods were in question. Also, modern writers generally demand a precise and fixed definition of institutions which were subject to change from the day of their birth, and unalterable only in name. The name not only remains intact after the institution has become entirely different from what it was at first, but often long outlives the institution itself. It is curious to see what ingenious theories are then started to give substance and reality to names now become ghosts of a vanished past. The only way to thread this labyrinth is by endeavouring to reconstruct the series of radical changes every one of those institutions underwent, and without once losing sight of the mutual relations preserved between them during the continual vicissitudes to which they are subject. Only by seeking the law that regulates and dominates these changes is it possible to discern the general idea of the Republic and determine the value of its institutions.
But what can be done while we lack so many of the elements most needed for the completion of this task? The learned have yet to arrange, examine, and illustrate the endless series of provisions, statutes, consulte, pratiche, ambassadorial reports, and, in short, of all the State papers of the Republic, many of which are still unsought and undiscovered. Nevertheless, we believe that, without attempting for the present any complete history of Florence, some rather useful work may be performed. We may certainly follow the guidance of old chroniclers and historians regarding events of which they had ocular testimony, trying, when needed, to temper their party spirit by confronting them with writers of an opposite faction. Vast numbers of documents have been published in driblets, and many learned dissertations, although the series is still incomplete; besides, one may easily resort to the Florence archives in order to vanquish difficulties and bridge the principal gaps. And after undertaking researches of this kind, it seems easy to us to clearly prove how the whole history of Florence may be illumined by a new light, and its apparent disorder made to disappear. In fact, as soon as one begins to carefully examine the veritable first causes underlying the apparent, and often, fallacious causes of political revolutions in Florence, these revolutions will be found to follow one another in a marvellously logical sequence. Then in the wildest chaos we seem rapidly able to discern a mathematical succession and connection of causes and effects. Personal hatreds and jealousies are not causes, but only opportunities serving to accelerate the fast and feverish sequence of reforms by which the Florentine Commune, after trying by turns every political constitution possible at the time, gradually attained to the highest liberty compatible with the Middle Ages. It is this noble aim, this largeness of freedom, that rouses all the intellectual and moral force contained in the Republic, evolves its admirable political acumen, and allows letters and art and science to put forth such splendid flowers in the midst of apparent disorder. But when strictly personal passions and hatreds prevail, then real chaos begins, the constitution becomes corrupt, and the downfall of freedom is at hand.
The sole aim of the present work is to offer a brief sketch of the history of Florence during the foundation of its liberties. So great is the importance of the theme that the historian Thiers has given long attention to it, and we know that an illustrious Italian has already made it the object of many years of strenuous research.[8]
II.
The history of every Italian republic may be divided into two chief periods: the origin of the commune, the development of its constitution and its liberties. In the first period, during which an old state of society is decaying and a new one arising, it is hard to distinguish the history of any one commune from that of the rest, inasmuch as it treats of Goths, Longobards, Greeks, and Franks, who dominate the greater part of Italy in turn, reducing the country, almost throughout its extent, to identical conditions. The position of conquerors and of conquered is everywhere the same, only altered by change of rulers. Amid the obscurity of the times and scarcity of information, there seems scarcely any difference between one Italian city and another. But differences are more clearly defined, and become increasingly prominent after the first arisal of freedom. Most obscure, though not of earliest date, was perhaps the origin of Florence, which tarried long before beginning to rise to importance. Our present purpose being merely to throw light on the history of the Florentine Constitution, we need not devote many words to the first period mentioned above—namely, of the origin of Italian communes in general. At one time this question was the theme of a learned, lengthy, and most lively dispute, chiefly carried on by Italian and German writers. But the scientific severity of researches, in which Italian scholars won much honour, was often impaired by patriotism and national prejudice. It being recognised that the origin of the Commune was likewise the origin of modern liberty and society, the problem was tacitly transformed into another question—i.e., whether Italians or Germans were the first founders of these liberties, this society? It is easy to understand how political feelings were then imported into the controversy, and effectually removed it from the ground of tranquil debate.
Towards the end of the last century the question was often discussed in Italy by learned men of different views, such as Giannone, Maffei, Sigonio, Pagnoncelli, &c. Muratori, though lacking any prearranged system, threw powerful flashes of light on the subject, and raised it to higher regions by force of his stupendous learning. But the dispute did not become heated until Savigny took up the theme in his renowned "History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages." In endeavouring to prove the uninterrupted continuity of the said jurisprudence, he was obliged—inasmuch as all historical events are more or less connected together—to maintain that the Italians, when subject to barbarian and even to Longobard rule, lost neither all their personal liberty nor their ancient rights, and that the Roman Commune was never completely destroyed. Accordingly, the revival of our republics and of Roman law was no more than a renewal of old institutions and laws which had never entirely disappeared. Germany was quick to see to what conclusions the ideas of our great historian tended, and thereupon Eichorn, Leo, Bethmann, Karl Hegel, and others, rose up in arms against the theory of the Italian Commune being of Roman birth. They maintained, on the contrary, that the barbarians, and more especially the Longobards, whose domination was harsher and more prolonged than the rest, had stripped us of all liberty, destroyed every vestige of Roman institutions, and that, consequently, the new communes and their statutes were of new creation, and originally derived from Germanic tribes alone.
To all appearance these views should have stirred Italian patriotism to furious opposition, and made Savigny's ideas universally popular among us. Yet this was not the case. We supplied many learned adherents to either side. At that time our national feeling had just awakened; we already desired—nay, claimed—a united Italy, no matter at what cost, and detested everything that seemed opposed to our unity. Well, the Longobards had been on the point of mastering the whole of Italy, and the Papacy alone had been able to arrest their conquests by securing the aid of the Franks. But for this, even the Italy of the ninth or tenth century might have become as united a country as France. Already the school of thinkers had been revived among us that, even in Machiavelli's day, had regarded the Pope as the fatal cause of Italy's divisions. Therefore, naturally enough, while confuting Savigny's views, our nineteenth-century Ghibellines exalted the Longobards, ventured to praise their goodness and humanity, and hurled invectives against the Papacy for having prevented their general and permanent conquest of Italy. But, on the other hand, there was also a political school that looked to the Pope as the future saviour of Italy, and this school, prevailing later on during the revolution of 1848, adopted the opposite theory, and possessed two most illustrious representatives in Manzoni and Carlo Troya. At any rate, they had little difficulty in proving that barbarians had been invariably barbaric, killing, destroying, and trampling down all things, and that the Papacy, by summoning the Franks, no matter for what end, had certainly rendered some help to the harshly oppressed masses. The Franks, in fact, gave some relief to the Latin population, sanctioned the use of Roman law and granted new powers to Popes and bishops, who undoubtedly contributed to the revival of the communes. Thus, although for opposite ends, identical opinions were maintained on both sides of the Alps. Throughout this controversy learning was always subordinated to political aims, although the disputants may not have been always aware of it; and historic truth and serenity consequently suffered unavoidable hurt. Balbo, Capponi, and Capei, after throwing their weight on this side or that, ended by holding very temperate views, and their teachings cast much light on the point at issue.