Nevertheless, as we have already noted, the Church, having gained meanwhile a great increase of power, refused to tolerate the pride and arrogance of barbarians who showed her so little respect. Hence the Pope resolved to expel these strangers by the help of others, and called the Franks into Italy. Charlemagne, the founder of the new Empire, could not regard the Latins, to whom the growing civilisation of his states was so much indebted, with the inextinguishable barbarian contempt felt by the Longobards. He sought to extend his conquests and his power. He wished to assist the Pope, in order to be consecrated by him and obtain his moral support. Therefore he came to Italy, and the already disintegrated Longobards could ill withstand the firm unity of the Franks, strengthened as it was by the prestige of his own victories. In vain the Longobards had already chosen and sworn fealty to another monarch; in vain they prepared for defence. After two hundred and five years of assured and almost unchecked domination, their kingdom was overthrown for ever. In 774 Charlemagne became master of Italy, and in the year 800 was crowned emperor by the Pope in Rome. Thus the Western Empire became reconstituted and consecrated in a new shape, entirely separate and independent from the Empire of the East. The Franks deprived the Longobards of all their dominions, excepting the Duchy of Benevento in Southern Italy. The power of the Pope was greatly increased by his assumption of the right of anointing the emperor, who rewarded him with rich donations and promised additions of territory. Rome, however, was ruled as a free municipality; and Venice, after the manner of the Greek cities in the South, had already asserted her freedom. Such was the state of Italy after the last barbarian invasion—that, namely, of the Franks.

As usual, the new masters appropriated one-third of the land; but the condition of the natives was now decidedly changed for the better. Roman law was recognised as the code of the vanquished, and this is an evident sign that it was never entirely obsolete during the two centuries of Longobard rule. Charlemagne greatly improved the condition of the Latins, and sometimes promoted them to honours, i.e., to offices of royal appointment. But the special characteristic of his reign in Italy was the new hierarchy he established there. He destroyed the power of the dukes, whose attitude was too threatening to the unity of the Empire, and raised instead the position of the counts. Even in the Marches, or border-provinces, he retained no dukes, but replaced them by marquises (Mark-grafen, Praefecti limitum). In this manner the ancient unity of the comitatus, or Gau, became likewise the basis of the new barbarian society. Nor did Charlemagne stop at this point, but began to distribute offices, lands, and possessions in beneficio—i.e., in fief—and therefore on condition of obligatory military service. This proved the beginning of a social revolution, possibly originated at an earlier date, but now carried to completion under the name of feudalism. Not the emperor only, but kings, counts, and marquises also granted lands, revenues, and offices in fief, in order to obtain a sufficient supply of vassals. Thus an infinite number of new potentates was created: vassalli, valvassori, and valvassini, the latter being lowest in degree. Gradually the whole society of the Middle Ages took a feudal shape; the recipient of a grant of land was bound to yield military service, at the head of the peasants employed on his ground. Similar privileges, similar obligations, accompanied every donation of land or bestowal of office; for even official posts were generally supplemented by a concession of land or of revenue. Thus the Germanic tendency to division and subdivision in small groups was satisfied, while, at the same time, the Empire, the cities, and even the Church itself, assumed a feudal form. The bishops in their turn soon began to possess benefices, and gradually rose to increased power, until we find them in the position of so many counts and barons. Both in their own persons, and those of their subordinates, they enjoy immunity from ordinary laws and tribunals—an inestimable advantage, serving to enhance their independence and unite large clusters of population beneath their sheltering sway. Feudalism, accordingly, is a new order, a new and thoroughly Germanic aristocracy, yet at the same time it is the root of a veritable revolution in barbaric society, the which revolution will continue to grow and extend through many vicissitudes. Step by step the Crown will begin to exempt the benefices or fiefs of the vassals from subjection to the count, and will then declare them hereditary by means of a series of laws, all designed for the purpose of irritating the lesser potentates against their superiors, and of giving increased strength to the royal authority; but which served, on the contrary, to open a way of redemption to the downtrodden people. All this, however, was still unforeseen in the days of Charlemagne. He organised the feudal system, and kept his realm united and flourishing, although soon after his death (814) the Empire was split into several kingdoms.

The rule of the Franks in Italy lasted to the death of Charles the Fat, in 888. And throughout this rule of 115 years, the revolution to which we have alluded was steadily making way. On all sides the number of benefices or fiefs continually grew, and year by year exemptions increased at an equal rate. These were conceded more easily to prelates than to others, since when laymen received benefices they were entitled to leave them to their heirs, and thus became inconveniently powerful. This state of things proved very favourable to cities in which bishops held residence. At first the count was sole ruler of the city, save the portion appertaining to the Crown, and called gastaldiale, as being under the command of a gastaldo, or steward; then, as the power of the bishop increased, another portion was exempted from the count's jurisdiction, as being vescovile, i.e., the property of the bishop. Step by step this portion was enlarged until it included nearly the whole of the town: many cities, in fact, were ruled solely by the bishop. Thus the fibres of barbarian society were weakened, and we might almost say unknit, by a method that would have served to keep it in subjection to the supreme authority of the monarch, but for the fact that the people, deemed to be dead, was not only breathing, but on the point of asserting its strength against nobles, kings and emperors, prelates, and Popes.

Two revolts in the cause of liberty successively took place, and both began under the Carlovingians, and continued during the reigns of their successors. The first enervated and enfeebled the barbarian society to which the soil of Italy was so ill suited; the second prepared the way for the rise of communes. With the death of Charles the Fat the rule of the Franks lapsed, and barbarian invasions likewise ceased. The Germanic tribes had settled down on Italian soil and were becoming civilised. Nevertheless, Italy had still to pass through a string of revolutions and years of ill fortune. At the dissolution of the Empire of the Franks, certain counts and marquises, especially the latter, who, by the union of several counties, had gained the power of dukes, were found asserting extravagant pretensions, even endeavouring to form independent states, and often with success. To this day, in fact, there are reigning families descended from Frankish marquises and counts. To compass their destruction benefices and immunities had been granted in vain: their power was not to be so easily extinguished. For, even in Italy, where, owing to the different character of the country, the ancient civilisation had tenaciously lingered on, and now began to awake to new life, and where, too, the Papacy and the Greeks of Byzantium had impeded the absolute triumph of Germanic institutions, feudal counts and marquises now arose to contest the crown. Next followed long years of renewed devastation and conflict, ending by the crown being retained in the grasp of German emperors and kings. The first wars and quarrels were carried on by Berengarius of Friuli and Guido of Spoleto, with other Italian and foreign nobles, a German king, two Burgundian monarchs, and finally by King Otho of Germany, who remained victor. It was during these seventy odd years of continued strife that Italian kings first reigned in Italy, though with an always uncertain and disputed rule. Then came a forty years' peace (961–1002), during which Otho I., II., III. reigned in turn, and another Italian marquis, Hardouin of Ivrea, disputed the crown of Italy with the German kings. But in 1014 Hardouin was vanquished by Henry of Germany, surnamed the Saint, to whom succeeded Conradin of the Franconian or Salic dynasty.

These two German sovereigns completed the feudal revolution, already mentioned by us, the which, begun by the Carlovingians, and continued by the Othos, had failed nevertheless to assure the supremacy of kings and emperors over Italy. But, at all events, seeing that the Othos had purposely exempted numerous lesser vassals from rendering allegiance to the counts and barons, and had accorded many cities to prelates; also seeing that the renascence of communes was considerably promoted by all the aforesaid exemptions, some writers conceived the idea that this renascence was chiefly owed to the initiative of the Othos. But these emperors had a very different aim in view, and had failed to achieve it. They sought to undermine the strength of all possible assailants of the Crown, when threatened by revolts such as that of the Marquis of Ivrea. For this reason Henry the Saint continued to favour the greater feudatories at the expense of "holders of honours"—that is to say, of counts and marquises—and in fact almost annihilated the latter class. Conradin the Salic carried out the scheme more completely, by favouring even the minor feudatories and making benefices hereditary. From that moment the victory of the German sovereigns over the feudal lords was assured; for vassals once rendered masters of their fiefs owed obedience to the Crown alone, and thus the pride of the great nobles was permanently abased. Not so the new popular pride, which had grown to be a power unawares.

Accordingly, we find a multitude of facts showing that the condition of the Roman race was continually improving; that feudal society, by the action of its own sovereigns, was daily losing substance and strength; that as the Latin civilisation revived by the natural force of events, it changed, assimilated, and absorbed the principles of Germanic society. Even before the two races came into conflict, the traditions of the conquered had frequently combated and overcome those of victors. The latter, indeed, had already accepted the Roman law to some extent, when the once subject race pleaded the sanction of their municipal statutes.

Italians were in a state of ferment and of radical transformation when the first signs of a revival of the communes appeared. Neither the barbarian rule nor the Empire had ever really mastered the social order of the peninsula; and exactly when feudalism was first founded and seemed likely to spread everywhere and assure the quiet supremacy of the emperors over Italy, fresh causes of peril and strife suddenly sprang into existence. Papacy and clergy attained to loftier and more menacing power; the immunities lavished on prelates, from dread of the laity, rendered them temporal potentates dependent on the emperors, while as spiritual dignitaries they owed obedience to the Pope: thus practically enjoying a double investiture. This led to much disorder and scandalous corruption in the Church, since prelates were converted into feudal lords, holding sway over cities, making war on other territories, keeping open court, and indulging in every worldly pleasure. The Popes wished to re-establish discipline, to maintain absolute rule over the bishops, and nominate them unhindered; but this was opposed by the emperor, since the temporal authority of the prelates made them logically subject to his rule as well. Thus began the famous war of investitures between the Papacy and the Empire, the issue of which was so long undecided. Meanwhile neither the Church, the Empire, nor the feudal system could obtain complete mastery over the social movement, and the confusion was increased by their continual disputes. This state of things weakened even the authority of the prelates; and then the communes, having necessarily learnt the art of self-government during the period when dioceses were left vacant, having noted the prosperity of the Southern republics, and found their strength increased by the extension of commerce and the feudal disorganisation, finally saw that the moment to achieve freedom had arrived. Even in cities ruled by lay nobles, things followed the same course, since to side either with the Empire or the Church always served to excite much enmity against those in power, and procured many allies for the weaker party.

Accordingly the eleventh century witnessed the arisal of communes throughout Italy, and the joy of independence once realised, it was impossible to return to a state of vassalage, whether under bishops, counts, or the Empire itself. At first these communes were hemmed in on all sides by a vast number of dukes, counts, and barons of various degrees of strength, inasmuch as the feudal order was still very powerful and still supreme in all country districts. Of German descent and trained to arms, these nobles fought in their own interest, although nominally for the Empire and its rights, against the new communal order that suddenly faced them with such menacing strength. They swooped down from their strongholds to bar the trade of the towns; they levied tolls, threatened violence, and tried to treat free men as their vassals. Thereupon the indignant citizens were stirred to vengeance from time to time, and often ended by razing great fortresses to the ground. On the other hand, the nobles still remaining in the cities became wearied of living among men who no longer respected the distinctions of class or race, and often departed to rejoin their friends. They frequently emigrated in such numbers that the citizens suffered injury by it, and issued decrees forbidding their exodus. The Pope gave encouragement to the communes, because the reduction of his prelates' temporal power did not displease him, and the abasement of the Empire was indispensable to his aims. Thus the struggle of the working classes against feudalism finally began, and with it the real history of our communes.

But it should not be thought that the Commune arose to champion the rights of man or in the name of national independence. Nothing of the kind. The Empire was still held to be the sole and universal fount of right. Almost to the close of the fifteenth century, in fact, all cities, whether Guelph or Ghibelline, foes or friends of the Empire, continued to indite their State papers in its name.12 The revived republics always acknowledged its supremacy, and their own dependence, almost, one might say, as though in claiming a new and more general exemption, they only sought to be, as it were, their own dukes or counts. They combated the nobles and combated the Empire; but victory once assured, they recognised the authority of the emperor, and prayed him to sanction the privileges they had won. Nor was the destruction of the Empire at any time desired by the Popes; its protection was often indispensable to them, and they too recognised it as the legitimate heir of ancient Rome, and consequently as the only source of political and civil rights. Their purpose was to subject the temporal to the spiritual power. Therefore, during the rise of the Commune, theocracy and feudalism, Papacy and Empire, still subsisted together and always in conflict. The Commune had to struggle long against obstacles of all kinds; but it was destined to triumph, and to create the third estate and people by whom alone modern society could be evolved from the chaos of the Middle Ages. This constitutes the chief historical importance of the Italian Commune.

CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF FLORENCE.

I.

THE origin of Florence is wrapped in great obscurity, and little light is to be derived from chroniclers, who either avoided the subject altogether or clouded it over with legends. Much has been written of late touching these chroniclers and on the value and varying credibility of their accounts. But in endeavouring to ascertain everything, and push research too subtly, long and learned disputes have sometimes arisen on particulars which can never, perhaps, be verified and are scarcely worth knowing, while more significant and easily investigated points have been left untouched. By this method some risk is incurred of building up from those writers a species of occult science for the sole benefit of the initiated, whereas all that is absolutely known of the origin of Florence may be expressed in a few words.

The Florentine Commune being of tardier birth than many others, its historians and chroniclers were likewise of later date, since no commune possesses a written history until conscious of its own personality. Thus, it was only in the twelfth century that yearly records were first started, registering some of the more important events of Florence, giving dates, and names of places and persons, while, at the same time, lists were made of the Consuls, the first magistrates of the Commune, and afterwards supplemented with the names of the Podestà, who succeeded to the Consuls. These magistrates being changed yearly, and even more frequently, this catalogue served as a chronological guide, and was soon converted into a register of contemporaneous events in the town.

A very early fragment of these annals is preserved in the Vatican, and is written on the back of a sheet forming part of a codex13 of Longobard laws. It contains eighteen records, running from 1110 to 1173, in different handwritings, all, however, of the twelfth century, with some blunders and no chronological arrangement. Nevertheless these records are of much importance, being the earliest we possess. A similar and longer series of records of much later date, running from 1107 to 1247, is to be found in a thirteenth-century MS.14 in the National Library at Florence.

Both collections have been recently republished and illustrated by Dr. Hartwig, under the title of "Annales florentini," i. and "Annales florentini," ii.15 The Codex containing the second series also comprises the oldest list extant of Consuls and Podestà, from 1196 to 1267, and has been rendered more complete by the results of fresh research.16

Other and similar records must have been certainly made, first in Latin, then in Italian, and, in passing from this family to that, from hand to hand, enlarged, revised, and altered according to the taste, or even the fancy, of their transcribers. But, from the remains of those records and all matter copied from them by the chroniclers, it may be inferred with almost absolute certainty that they told little or nothing of the origin of the Commune. We are therefore inclined to believe that this was neither the outcome of virulent conflict nor of downright revolution, for either would have been undoubtedly registered in the annals, but that it gradually evolved and developed amid struggles of secondary importance.

If in these days we desire to ascertain the origin of the Florentine Commune, it is only natural that older generations should have felt even a keener interest in the theme. They, however, lacked the art and critical method enabling us to track and often lay bare the darkest and most remote periods of history by means of public documents, although many now perished must have been at their disposal. But our forefathers were readier to draw on their own imagination, and thus a legend regarding the origin of the city was created, and soon became widely diffused.

The primary germ from which this legend was developed and expanded must date from the twelfth century, seeing that it was known and recorded by the chronicler Sanzanome, who wrote during the first years of the thirteenth century. It cannot be much older than this, seeing that the events and dates to which it alludes, in however vague and shadowy a fashion, carry it down beyond the eleventh century. Several inedited copies of this legend are still to be found in Florentine libraries,17 and it has been published in three different compilations. The most ancient of these, in Latin, is contained in a codex dating from the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century.18 The second, in Italian, is in a Lucchese MS.,19 compiled between 1290 and 1342; at one point it gives a record of 1264,20 and was probably written at that time. The third and later version, known as the "Libro fiesolano", is comprised in an Italian codex dated 1382, in the Marucellian Library at Florence, was discovered by Signor Gargani and published by him in 1854.21 Dr. Hartwig discovered the second, which is identical, save in language, with the first, and published all three under the title of "Chronica de Origine Civitatis,"22 found in the Lucca MS.; although in other MSS. it is styled "Memoria del Nascimento di Firenze."

Such was the material at the service of the old chroniclers, and all they had to rely upon regarding the origin of Florence. The earliest chronicler of whom any remains are extant is the judge and notary Sanzanome, who, as already noted by us, wrote his "Gesta Florentinorum" at the beginning of the thirteenth century. We find him mentioned more than once in Florentine documents from 1188–1245.23 Although we cannot be certain that this name always referred to the same individual, it is certain that the same chronicler records his presence in the war of Semifonte in the year 1202, and in that of Montalto in 1207. Besides, his work is found in a Florentine codex of the thirteenth century, and if not in his own hand, in the character of about the same period.24 This first attempt at Florentine history, written in Latin by a judge and notary, supposed by Milanesi and Hartwig to have been a native of a neighbouring town, but resident in Florence, has a stamp of its own, very different from that of all subsequent Florentine chronicles. Sanzanome says nothing as to the origin of the Commune and its internal constitution. After a vague and hasty allusion to the old legend,25 he starts with the war and destruction of Fiesole in 1125, "cum eius occasione Florentia sumpsisset originem." Thus, from the beginning, he shows us the Commune already established, with its consuls and captains, and proceeds to recount its conflicts with neighbouring powers in a stilted, rhetorical fashion, with uncertain and often erroneous dates, and with speeches in strained imitation of ancient Roman historians. Consequently some writers refused to assign any historic value to his work. But, on the other hand, critics of greater weight and impartiality, such as Hartwig, Hegel, and Paoli, have recognised that the work of this notary, who was almost a precursor of the fifteenth-century humanists, is a literary phenomenon, and that the fact of its isolation makes it the more remarkable as a proof of ancient Florentine culture, and also because we find beneath its rhetorical flourishes much useful information on the early history of Florence.

Hence all the other chroniclers had to face one and the same problem: how to write a history, or even a bare chronicle of the earliest beginnings of Florence, from the scant and fragmentary accounts at their disposal? The notary Sanzanome shirked the difficulty by saying nothing of the foundation of the town, and then expanding his narrative with rhetorical flights, fictitious speeches, and descriptions of battles, in which his own fancy and imitation of the classics played the main part. But this method was neither congenial nor possible to the simpler folk of a later day, who sought to write as they spoke, and whose culture was slighter, or at all events very different from the notary's. These chroniclers, therefore, had no basis to build upon save one legend and a few scraps of information that could not possibly satisfy their patriotic pride.

Fortunately for their purpose, just at this time—namely, towards the middle of the thirteenth century—an event of great literary importance occurred, serving to put the Florentine chroniclers on a new track. A Dominican monk, one Martin of Troppau, in Bohemia, surnamed therefore Oppaviensis, vulgarly known as Martin Polono, chaplain, apostolic penitentiary, and afterwards archbishop, wrote an historical work which, although of no remarkable merit, had an extraordinary and rapid success. It was a species of manual of universal history, chronologically arranged under the names of the various emperors and Popes, down to the year 1268. Its author afterwards carried it down to a few years later, with an introduction treating of the times anterior to the Roman Empire.26 This book was mechanically arranged, and stuffed with anecdotes, blunders, and fables; but was the work of an eminent prelate, inspired with the Guelphic spirit. The author's method of arranging the events of the Middle Ages under the headings of Popes and Emperors served as a leading thread through the vast labyrinth. It is certain that his book was rapidly diffused throughout Europe, especially in Italy, and above all in Florence. As Prof. Scheffer Boichorst remarks: "Its first translator was a Florentine, and another Florentine, Brunetto Latini, the first to make use of it." In fact, the Florence libraries have numerous copies of it in Latin MSS. of the fourteenth century, while others of the same period comprise an Italian translation that, according to the results of learned research,27 must have been produced in Florence towards 1279.28 This fact alone is a most luminous proof of the rapid popularity and diffusion of the work. As it was a common practice with the scribes of that period to insert alterations of their own in the works they copied out, it may have easily occurred to some transcriber of this translation to enrich it here and there with the more important of the few facts then known of the early history of their city. But as Martin Polono's work was only brought down to the end of the thirteenth century, and items of Florentine history had increased in number and extent, so it came about that all these additions forsook universal history and were solely devoted to that of Florence. In this way the former merely served, as it were, as an introduction to the latter; a result highly gratifying to municipal self-complacency.

One of the first works introducing Martin Polono's book, translated, shortened, re-written, and with several interpolated Florentine items, is that entitled "Le Vite dei Pontefici et Imperatori Romani," once attributed to Petrarch, and existing in several Florentine fourteenth-century codices. In this work, however, Florentine history is still given very secondary importance, and indeed when at last, after various sequels and alterations, it finally appeared in print in 1478, Polono's primitive method was still maintained by giving summaries here and there of the lives of the other emperors and Popes. But other versions soon appeared in which Florentine history filled a larger space.29 In a fourteenth-century MS. of the Naples National Library, first examined by Pertz, we find Martin Polono's share of the work considerably curtailed, and the history of Florence not only much extended, but likewise carried down to 1309.30 Here one begins to see that the writer was chiefly interested in Florentine events. Professor Hartwig was so struck by this fact as to be at the pains to extract everything relating to Florence from the MS., and print it apart, as one of the authorities probably recurred to by Villani.31 In a chronicle attributed to Brunetto Latini the same purpose is still more clearly indicated. Some of the Florentine news contained in it were long and frequently extracted, printed, and employed; notably the list of Consuls and Podestà used by Ammirato, and a narrative of the Buondelmonti tragedy (1215), differing considerably from Villani's version of the tale. It was speedily decided that the author must have written in 1293, since he records an event of that year, and says that he witnessed it with his own eyes.32 Later, this Chronicle was attributed to Brunetto Latini, although the narrative is carried down to a date when Dante's master must have certainly ceased to exist.33 During his learned researches in Florence Dr. Hartwig discovered a MS. that, in all probability, is the original autograph of the Chronicle.34 Although mutilated—starting only from 1181—this Codex is doubly precious, as it clearly shows the method on which this and many similar works were compiled. There is a middle column containing the usual mangled version of Martin Polono35; and here on the margins, between the rubrics and sometimes even the lines, are added notices of general history, drawn from other sources, and special records of Florentine events.

The history is thus brought down to 1249, where a gap occurs extending to 1285, from which year the author continues his narrative to 1303.36 But in this second part the character of the work is entirely changed. Having no longer Martin Polono as a guide, he now forsakes that prelate's method. The affairs of the Empire and the Church are reduced to still smaller proportions, more space is given to those of Florence, and instead of being scattered haphazard over the narrative, they are now united and carried steadily on. Thus we see a real chronicle of Florence gradually developing before us and acquiring a special value of its own. Its discoverer, Dr. Hartwig, at first considered it an autograph, but finally conceived doubts on that score. The great disorder of the manuscript; its mutilated commencement; the gap between thirty-six years in the middle; the absence of certain records, comprised in certain excerpts from it, quoted by old writers; the discovery that many of these writers quoted from another MS. of the Chronicle belonging to the Gaddi Library; all this justified his statement that the problem could not be finally solved without the aid of the Gaddi Codex, which he had not yet been able to discover.

On the other hand, Professor Santini maintained, in a prize essay, that the Gaddi Codex could only be a copy of that found by Hartwig, and that the latter must be the mutilated original manuscript. After a short time the question was ultimately decided by another student of our Istituto Superiore, Signor Alvisi, who, having unearthed the Gaddi Codex in the Laurentian Library, found it to be a fifteenth-century copy.37 Here the various fragments—arranged in separate columns in the original MS.—are joined with the remainder of the text, though often in an arbitrary fashion. Here, too, there is the gap between 1249–85, but the Chronicle, instead of starting from 1181, begins, like Martin Polono's first compilation, with Jesus Christ—primo e sommo Pontefice—and the Emperor Octavian. Thus, it may now be affirmed, that the Codex in the Florence National Library is a genuine and, as it were, photographic representation of the method employed for the earliest compilations of Florentine historiography. It allows us to see the author at work, as it were, before our eyes.

Another, but far less perfect, specimen of this kind of production is afforded by the Lucca MS., to which previous allusion has been made. The author carefully tells us that it was composed between the years 1290 and 1342. He transcribes the whole legend of the origin of Florence, and then gives his Italian pasticcio of Martin Polono, beginning from the Emperor Octavian. But he intersperses it with "many things relating to the affairs of Tuscany, and especially of Florence ... the greater part being found in divers books on Tuscany, of which some contain more, some less" (qual na più, qual na meno). Having reached the year 1309 in this fashion, he continues his narrative by borrowing from Villani, several books of whose history had already appeared in 1341, and with this assistance carries his work down to 1342. He continues by reproducing a Latin description of Florence written in 1339, and then gives the Latin introduction that Martin Polono had added to his history. The compiler of this Lucca Codex avows that his method is neither logical nor chronological; but craves the reader's indulgence, saying that in this work he had first put together all the Italian and then all the Latin portions, with the intention of arranging them better afterwards, by fusing them together and writing the whole in Latin. This intention he seems to have found no time to fulfil. From this Codex also, all the portions relating to Florence were subsequently extracted and printed.38 As may be seen, the compiler's method is always the same, although in this case heavier and more mechanical than usual, for lack of any inherent connection between the different parts. The only novelty consists in transcribing the entire legend to make it serve as an introduction to Florentine history; an example that, as will be seen, was afterwards followed by others.

But however flattering to Florentine self-love this system of fusing the history of the Commune with that of the universe might be, it was clearly apparent that the former remained crushed, as it were, by the contact. Hence even the fourteenth century witnessed attempts to expound it apart. Paolo Pieri begins his Chronicle from 1080, the year from which the other writers also date their earliest historical account of Florence, and continues it, with slight allusions to the Popes and slighter to the emperors, down to 1305, including the scanty Florentine records "gleaned from many chronicles and books, with certain novel matters seen by me, Paolino di Piero, and written ad memoriam." On the other hand, Simone della Tosa, who died in 1380, begins his "Annals" with a list of Consuls and Podestà (1196–1278), and then passes to the death of Countess Matilda (1115) and on to 1346, supplementing towards the close his meagre account of Florentine affairs with details about his own family. But simple summaries such as these, consisting only of a few pages, were more inadequate than ever to satisfy the needs of a city that now, in the fourteenth century, had already won a foremost place in Italy, was proudly asserting equality with Rome, and aspired to have a history similar to that of the ancient metropolis of the world.

Such was the ambitious problem that Giovanni Villani as shown by his own words, proposed to solve. In the year 1300, he says, "being in Rome for the Jubilee, admiring the grand memories of that city, reading the glorious deeds narrated by Virgil, Sallust, Lucan, Titus Livy, Paul Orosio, and other masters of history, who recounted, not the events of Rome alone, but likewise strange events of the universal world: I borrowed their style and form."39 Reflecting that "our old Florentines had left few and confused records of past deeds in our city of Florence,40 and that our city, the child and creature of Rome, was on the upward path, and about to achieve great things, whereas Rome was on the decline," I resolved "to bring into this volume and new chronicle all the events and beginnings of the city of Florence, ... and give henceforth in full the deeds of the Florentines, and briefly the notable affairs of the rest of the universe."41 Thus, according to Villani, the course to be pursued was to connect the history of Florence with that of the world, as others had done before him, but in such wise that Florence should not be the loser, but rather play the chief part. Hence his work is no longer a mechanical mosaic; he arranges his history, dividing it in books and chapters, after the manner of the ancients. We do not know all the authorities from whom his work was derived, for this question has not yet been completely investigated. But we know that they were many in number. For general history, Martin Polono was still the main source; but Villani also drew from the "Gesta Imperatorum et Pontificum" of Thomas Tuscus,42 the "Vita di San Giovanni Gualberto," the "Cronache di San Dionigi" (an Italian translation of which was printed—1476—before the original text), and the "Libro del Conquisto d'Oltremare," which was a history of the Crusades, translated from the French into almost every other language during the Middle Ages.43

That Villani is a very valuable authority in Florentine history dating from the end of the thirteenth century, is a fact well known to all, and need not be discussed here. As to the origin of the city, he has little that is genuinely historical to tell us. His accounts begin, as usual, from 1080, are more or less identical with those disseminated by other writers, not unfrequently charged with the same blunders, and often in the same words. This singular resemblance between many of the Florentine chroniclers when treating of early times, and remarked upon later, was easily explained so long as it was taken for granted that some chroniclers had copied from others. But when it could be proved, as was often the case, that the same resemblance existed even between totally independent writers, the problem was not so readily solved. For this reason, Prof. Scheffer-Boichorst, in noting the fact, after impartial and keen investigation, suggested the theory that all the different chroniclers had drawn from some common source, of which nothing was now known. Seeing that Tolomeo of Lucca, whose Annals were already concluded before Villani began to colour his design, often quotes from "Gesta" and "Acta Florentinorum," "Gesta" and "Acta Lucensium," the German critic assigned the name of "Gesta Florentinum" to what, in his opinion, must have been the original source used by all the chroniclers of Florence down to the beginning of the fourteenth century. This hypothesis became generally accepted as the most probable explanation of a fact that was otherwise inexplicable. But when attempts were made to precisely define the nature and limits of the "Gesta"—to define, not only its language, but in which year it was begun, in which ended, together with the style and exact character both of the work and its author—the question then stood on very disputable ground. Accordingly, I will leave discussions of this kind on one side, as beyond the sphere of a general outline. Besides, I must agree with Prof. C. Paoli44 in considering that the "Gesta" cannot have been a strictly individual work, but rather a collection of Florentine news, originally of very meagre proportions, but gradually enriched by fresh annalistic matter and new additions, as it passed from hand to hand. Some compilation of this kind, but of greater weight and repute (now unluckily perished), must have fallen into the hands of various chroniclers, who made use of it in turn, unconscious that it had served others before them. And these chroniclers were again copied by several of a later period.

Villani begins with the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues and then passes on to the legendary origin of Florence, dividing it in chapters and expounding it as though it were genuine history, but inserting various alterations, to which we shall refer later on. He then proceeds with a general history of the Middle Ages, and from the year 1080 engrafts on this stock all the accounts of Florence he had been able to collect, and even colours these by a variety of other legends much diffused among the people at the time, and often, also, by the addition of fantastic considerations of his own. What amount of accurate knowledge can be derived from all this? Substantially we find a single legend, and a small number of historical facts of undoubted value, though not free from errors, floating, as elsewhere, in an ocean of events quite unconnected with Florence, intermixed with scraps of misty traditions or legends, arbitrarily interpreted and explained. Therefore, the first question to be decided is that of the origin and value of the legend itself. Can any historical information be derived from it, either directly or indirectly? The second question is: Can it be ascertained with any certainty what original nucleus of authentic information the "Gesta Florentinorum" must have contained? The latter at least presents no serious difficulty, seeing that when we compare the various chroniclers, particularly those who worked independently, and extract what Florentine material they used in common and often gave in the same words, the main point is won. But, after all this, and after trying to extract some substance (scant enough, as will be seen) from the legend, very little genuine information is gained. It is therefore an absolute necessity to seek the aid of all public and private documents contained in our Archives, and of all learned modern investigations regarding mediæval history in general, and that of Florence in particular. Florentine historical research, first inaugurated by Ammirato, was diligently pursued in the eighteenth century by Borghini, Lami, and numerous other scholars, down to the present day. Nevertheless, the definite results of these prolonged inquiries, this vast display of learning, were still very few. For instance, we find that even the illustrious Gino Capponi, after a short introduction to his History of Florence, is compelled, like the ancients, to leap to the death of Countess Matilda, and makes his first mention, so to say, of the Commune after it had already existed for some time. Then the history of almost two centuries, to the year 1215, or thereabouts, is summed up in twelve pages, and only from the thirteenth forward are events related really in full.