Other legates had been about the same time sent into Tuscany by the pope; they convoked at St. Ginasio, a borough situated at the foot of the mountain of San Miniato, the diet of the towns of that country. These provincial diets were in the habit of assembling frequently, and had till then been presided over by an officer belonging to the emperor, in memory of whom the castle in which he resided is still called San Miniato al Tedesco. These diets settled the differences which arose between cities, and had succeeded in saving Tuscany from the civil wars between the Guelfs and Ghibellines. Pisa, which had been loaded with favours by the sovereigns of the house of Hohenstaufen, and which had obtained from them the dominion of sixty-four castles or fortified towns on the shores of Tuscany, and over the isles of Corsica, Elba, Capraia, and Pianosa, proclaimed its determination of remaining faithful to the Ghibelline party, and its consuls withdrew from the diet convoked at St. Ginasio; but those of the cities of Florence, of Siena, of Arezzo, of Pistoia, and of Lucca accepted the protection of the pope, offered by his two legates, and promised to coalesce in defence of their common liberty.[b]
Florence
FACTIONS IN FLORENCE
[1177-1215 A.D.]
We have already seen that the spirit of political as well as religious party began to rise as early as 1177, and excepting some short intervals of uneasy repose, remained in a state of violence until 1182. From this epoch there are no accounts of actual war within the city of Florence until 1215; but nearly five years of hard fighting between two great factions of undiminished force was unlikely to be followed by a dead calm except from exhaustion; or by any oblivion of injury in an age and country where revenge was a duty, not a crime.
The great power and independence of the newly created podesta, together with external hostilities, probably assisted in maintaining peace in a city that prided itself on being founded under the protection and ascendant of Mars, and therefore doomed by fate to everlasting troubles. Hence Roccuzzo de’ Mozzi is made by Dante to say:
“Io fui della città, che nel Batista
Cangiò ’l primo Padrone, onde ei per questo
Sempre con l’arte sua la farà trista.”