[CHAPTER IX.][489]
THE FLORENTINE REPUBLIC IN DANTE'S TIME.
I.
AFTER the enforcement of the Enactments of Justice (1293) and the expulsion of Giano della Bella, the Florentine Republic passed through a phase of extraordinary and almost delirious confusion. Its incidents are very familiar to us, owing to the splendid series of chroniclers and historians who, from that moment, began to record the minutest particulars of all that occurred under their eyes. Modern writers have also studied that period and ransacked its archives; more especially Professor Del Lungo, who has recently given proofs of an industry and learning which cannot be sufficiently praised. Nevertheless, I believe that some useful work may be done by trying to bring all those facts together and scrutinising their organic unity, in order to ascertain whence they proceeded, whither they tended, and thus explain, if possible, the primary cause of so much disorder and the real significance of the new revolutions undertaken. I may also add that such investigation might prove to have much historical importance, since it concerns the time in which not only a new art, new literature, and new civilisation first sprang into being, but when the old mediæval social order was decaying and fading away, and the society of the Renaissance beginning to take shape.
In the midst of these events the figure of Dante Alighieri stands forth in giant mould, instantaneously arousing the most earnest attention, and enhancing the value of all his surroundings.
As we have frequently observed and repeated, the history of Florence runs a very plain course down to the year 1293, through the series of wars and revolutions, during which the Guelph inhabitants of the city first attacked the Ghibelline feudal lords, who, castled on every surrounding hill, impeded all trade; and then, having conquered them, demolished their strongholds, and forced them to dwell inside the city walls, subject to the laws of the Commune. Next, the people were compelled to combat and break down the surviving feudal element that sought to assert itself in the city. Before the year 1293 this too had been destroyed, and only the Grandi were left, namely, nobles stripped of their titles and of the old feudal privileges of their class. The Enactments of Justice, which dissolved their associations and excluded them from all share in the government, had increased, on the other hand, the strength of the guilds and the people. These accordingly were the masters of Florence, and the new law supplied them with a most efficacious means of continuing the persecution and routing the nobles in the tribunals of the State. The terms Guelph and Ghibelline were still retained, but had lost their original meaning. The old aristocracy, constituting the real nucleus of the Ghibelline party, having now disappeared, the city was wholly Guelph. The general condition of Italy also fostered this state of things. In fact, owing to the fall of the Hohenstauffens and the success of the Angevins, summoned to Italy by the Pope, the Guelph party had triumphed throughout the Peninsula. The murder of Conradin (1298) had proved the death knell of the Ghibellines.
The triumph of France was more and more assured, and during the interregnum of the Empire Philip the Beautiful played almost the part of an emperor. At the same time Boniface VIII. loudly declared that the Pope stood above all kings and princes of the earth, and that all were bound to yield him submission.
But division still reigned in Florence. First of all, germs of future discord were lurking in the bosom of the people itself, owing to its subdivision into rich people (popolo grasso), or the Greater Guilds, and small people (popolo minuto), or Lesser Guilds, having the populace at their back. The Greater Guilds, at the head of the principal manufacturing business and the vast export and import trade, were always ready to undertake fresh wars, which, by burdening the city with taxes, greatly diminished the internal luxury upon which the Lesser Guilds, engaged in small crafts, depended for their daily support. It needed little to convert this clash of material interests into a political conflict, especially when we remember that the Greater Guilds had taken possession of the government without allowing the Smaller Crafts any share in it. For the moment, however, the lower class, although so turbulent and numerically strong, lacked cohesion and experience, and had no leading men at its head. But although without real elements of political strength, and still incapable of forming a party, it was excellently suited to swell the ranks of already constituted parties having the wit to use its aid in their progress to power.
The nobles, on the other hand, although defeated, persecuted, and oppressed, were by no means stamped out, and still retained some measure of influence and skill. The expulsion of Giano della Bella was an instance in point; for, by contriving to make the people believe him its foe, they induced it to desert him and then provoked the mob to attack him. Although deprived of legal authority, the nobles were still practically strong. Always boasting of their victory of Campaldino, they had undoubtedly played a prominent part in all the greater wars of the Republic in past times, and even now made far better soldiers than the popular class. As the wealthy proprietors of town and country mansions, castles, and farms, they were undistracted by commercial cares, and had more leisure for military pursuits; while the material independence they enjoyed made them all the more sensitive to the sting of political ambition. It was natural that they should seek and obtain the co-operation of the populace in their contest with the burghers. Thus, in junction with the former, they constituted a vast and dangerous body of agitators, but without organic cohesion, and all equally ineligible to office, inasmuch as the nobles had been excluded from power in 1293, and the populace had never been allowed any share of it.