IV.
After the expulsion of Giano della Bella, the nobles seemed again masters of the city for a time; and their spirits were immoderately raised by their success in procuring the election of a Signory (June 15, 1295) exclusively composed of their own friends. By the beginning of July they had concerted their plans, and repaired to the Piazza armed for the fray. But the people were already gathered there and in superior force, so that civil war would have instantly broken out had not certain friars and citizens intervened, and fortunately contrived to pacify the public excitement. Nevertheless, the Signory being favourable to the nobles, determined to turn the opportunity to account, and on July 6, 1295, managed to get the Bill passed that, as we have previously related, was incorporated in the enactments for the purpose of modifying them and considerably attenuating their severity.[497]
Some of these modifications were of a purely formal kind, but others encroached on the substance of the law. As the enactments now stood, accomplices in the offences decreed punishable were no longer classed with the direct authors of crimes, a single Capitanus homicidii now being recognised. Nor was the testimony of two witnesses of good repute any longer considered sufficient proof of the crime, the testimony of three witnesses now being required. Finally it was no longer indispensable that candidates to the Signory should be practically engaged in some trade, continue artem exercentes; their enrolment in the guild of the trade being decreed sufficient proof of their eligibility, qui scripti sint in libro seu matricola alicuius artis. This last concession was, in fact, slighter than it appeared, seeing that even before then the practical exercise of trade had been more often apparent than real. But the principle for which men had fought was now cast aside, and putting together the various concessions granted in 1295, we plainly see that the amendment of the law was a genuine victory for the nobles. In fact, the popular discontent ran high at the passing of this Bill, and Villani tells us that the Signory who had proposed and carried it were treated with much contumely and scorn on leaving office, and even greeted with volleys of stones in the public streets.[498] Accordingly a popular reaction ensued that proved to be the germ of new and serious discord among the citizens. The first step taken was to deprive the nobles of certain of their weapons; the next to proclaim some of the less factious aristocrats members of the popular class, in order to weaken their party.[499] Besides this, fresh laws were soon decreed to restore the pristine force of the enactments, followed by other measures of the same kind, culminating in the creation of a new magistrate for the express purpose, as will be seen, of ensuring the strict fulfilment of the law. But it was impossible for these changes to be effected without fresh discord and bloodshed in the city.
For there was not only fiercer strife just then between the nobles and the people, but the former now split into two divisions, formed respectively of those bent on doing away with the enactments, and those who had renounced that idea. These new factions were designated by the names of the two families acting as leaders, namely, the Donati and the Cerchi. The latter were of humble origin, but had made their way up and were now counted among the richest merchants in the world. They boasted a wide-spreading kindred, numerous friends, owned vast estates both in town and country, and lived in grand style. They had recently purchased many palaces of the Counts Guidi, members of the oldest Florentine nobility; and by lending their houses at St. Procolo to the Signory, to whom no palace had yet been assigned, were more easily enabled to keep in favour with the heads of the State. Villani, being of the opposite party, says that the Cerchi were "easy-going, innocent, and savage." They were, in fact, business folk, unpractised in warfare, and with small aptitude for political intrigue. The term "savage" was applied to them on account of their humble descent, and Dante himself, though an adherent of their party, speaks of it as "savage" (selvaggia). In virtue of their origin and continued practice of trade, they were liked and esteemed by the people, and their avowed opposition to the Donati[500] won them still higher favour. Besides the advantages of wealth and of wide-spreading family ties, their courtesy of manner helped to advance their popularity.
On the contrary, the "gentle-born and warlike" Donati, as Villani calls them, were of old feudal descent. Messer Corso, the head of the family, was a daring, shrewd, hard-hitting man, of moderate means, but so immoderately haughty and ambitious as to tolerate no equals, and least of all among the enriched merchants. He was known as the baron, and Compagni, who was on the Cerchi side, says that whenever Corso rode through the streets, "he seemed the lord of the earth" ("che la terra fosse sua"). Many magnates of the city, many nobles of the territory, and particularly the Pazzi of the Upper Valdarno, considered him their leader. Some of the merchants also adhered to him, and among others the Spini, who owned a bank in Rome, and as business agents for the Pope and the Curia, drove a very profitable trade. This Donati faction was detested by the burghers, but in favour with the populace, who greeted the baron with shouts of applause as he passed through the streets. But although Corso's courage and subtlety stood him in good stead during the struggle now impending, his arrogance alienated many followers and disposed them to join the Cerchi. The Cavalcanti were among his opponents, and that graceful poet and valorous knight, young Guido Cavalcanti, had conceived so special and deadly a hatred for him that the two never met in the streets without drawing their swords. The Donati's influence in the city was chiefly owed to the favour of the captains of the party, while that of the Cerchi was maintained by the support of the Signory. Thus the palace of the Guelph Society and of the Priors became the headquarters, as it were, of the two opposing camps. The two families likewise owned neighbouring estates in the country and dwelt near each other in town. Their respective houses were situated in the St. Piero quarter or sesto of the city, which, on account of the continual disturbances occurring there at the time, was known by the name of "The Scandalous Sesto" (Sesto dello Scandalo). Everything served as fuel to the flame. Words uttered by either party were reported and exaggerated to the other. How Corso Donati always spoke of Guido Cavalcanti as Guido Cavicchia; how, when alluding to the head of the family and party chief, Vieri de' Cerchi, he would ask, "Has the ass of Porta brayed to-day?" On the other hand, the Donati were styled by their adversaries "The Ill-famed," as being men of bad repute and doers of evil.
It is not easy to exactly ascertain how and when these parties first became known as Bianchi and Neri, for the chroniclers are rather vague and not altogether agreed upon the point. Both names were of old usage in Florence as distinctive family appellations; in fact, there had already been White Cerchi and Black Cerchi, but the latter afterwards became the chiefs of the White party.[501] The same names had then been employed to designate two opposite factions of the Cancellieri house waging fierce strife in Pistoia. The Florentines, who exercised great authority in that town, mediated between the two sides to bring them to make peace; and to achieve this intent sent some members of the Pistoian, Bianchi, and Neri to Florence. The Whites were quartered in the Frescobaldi palace, the Blacks in the house of certain Cerchi, to whom they were related. But this measure had a very unexpected result, for, as Villani[502] remarks, even as one sick sheep infects another with disease, so the Pistoians communicated their party hatred to the Florentines, who thus became increasingly divided. At all events, from that time the Donati were Blacks, the Cerchi Whites.
Hence it may be clearly seen that this division of parties no longer corresponds with that of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Principles are set aside and personal passions and hatreds more and more dominant. But, in the nature of things, no Florentine family at the time could have a better claim to be entitled Ghibellines than the Donati, a line boasting feudal descent, and connected with the oldest nobility of the city and its territory. The head of the house was Messer Corso, who, after the death of his first wife, contracted a second marriage with one of the Ubertini, an old Ghibelline family that had been always opposed to the popular government, and seemed to have the very blood of the tyrants of Romagna and Lombardy in its veins. Yet it was principally through Corso Donati that events again took another unexpected turn. Spurred by his devouring ambition, he started a secret intrigue with Boniface VIII. through his Roman agents, the Spini, and the Pope believed that at last he had found a man after his own heart.[503] And before very long these secret practices produced visible results.
V.
The Pope's purpose of exercising undue interference in Florentine affairs was plainly seen when the question was discussed as to revoking the banishment of Giano della Bella. Though without any lawful voice in the matter, he not only made violent opposition to the proposal, but also, on January 23, 1296, addressed a letter to the Florentines, threatening them with interdict, unless they abandoned the idea.[504] No one, however, was yet aware that he had already formed a scheme, and was secretly plotting to carry it into effect; nor did any one imagine that Papa Bonifacius volebat sibi dari totam Tusciam,[505] although this was afterwards ascertained to be the case, and written proof of it is extant in an old document that serves to explain his real aims.[506] These were also formulated clearly enough by the chronicler Ferreto, when he wrote that Boniface meditated "faesulanum popolum iugo supprimere, et sic Thusciam ipsam, servire desuetam, tyrannico more comprehendere."[507] In fact, in May, 1300, the Pope had already sent word to the Duke of Saxony that the Tuscan factions having infected his own States, it was impossible for him to achieve any result without first reducing Tuscany to subjection. And he continued that although able to do this on his own authority, he nevertheless preferred to gain the consent of the electoral princes, and likewise that of Albert of Austria, king of the Romans, to whom he forwarded a minute of the act of renunciation.[508] Donati, being privy to the scheme, had hastened to assume the attitude of the most Guelph of all Guelphs, and denounce the Cerchi as Ghibellines. Consequently all who distrusted the Pope were increasingly willing to join the Cerchi side.