FLORENTINE HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST AUTHENTIC RECORDS TO THE ACCESSION OF FERDINAND THE THIRD, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY.

BOOK THE FIRST. CHAPTER VI. FROM A.D. 1085 TO A.D. 1170.

Although strong presumptive proof has been given of the independence of Florence during nearly all the eleventh century, still no tangible document, no act of sovereign authority performed in her own name, is extant before the twelfth, and her history during the whole of this period is merged in that of Italy; being at best but a doubtful patchwork of insulated uncertainties.

Matilda as Marchioness of Tuscany exercised her powers of public jurisdiction up to the year 1100, and while she lived probably enjoyed the honours and authority if not the emoluments of Florentine royalty; but after that year her name is no longer heard of within the walls. An attempt has been already made to explain the somewhat paradoxical connexion between the free cities and the crown of Italy; but for greater perspicuity and as an introduction to the account of Florentine government it may not here be irrelevant to quote the historian Sigonius as well as some extracts from records of an older date adduced by Cosimo della Rena: they describe a state of things that existed even to the close of the twelfth century, somewhat differing, it is true, from our present notions of civil liberty, but which like all great and continued evils finally roused the angry spirit of freedom awakened the slumbering dignity of man, and burst those ties that bound the Italian cities to aristocratic privilege and imperial supremacy.

This produced a most wholesome movement throughout all northern Italy which in its day was accused of turbulence, visionary projects of political improvement, and restless democratic innovation. Innovation! Time, says Bacon, is the great innovator: the elements are unstable; all is mutability, even the very races of created beings that once inhabited the crust of this changing planet have been successively blotted from its surface; that surface no longer the same, and the present race of man perhaps destined to be in its turn extinguished before some higher creation. And shall we then still continue to stigmatise those who, in their endeavours to enlighten mankind, would alter the effete institutions of other times to suit the wants intelligence and habits of their own, with the crime of restless and wanton innovation? But let us contemplate for a while the good old times of Italian servitude under Frankish and German rulers; let us examine privilege and scan the admired prerogatives of legitimacy, and we shall no longer marvel that the inalienable rights of man were sternly asserted and intrepidly maintained.

“It was an ancient custom,” say these records, “after the Roman empire had passed to the Franks, and still practised in our own days, that whenever the kings of Italy intended to go into that province they sent forward some of their most experienced people to visit all the cities and castles in order to receive the contributions due under the name of 'Foderum.' The result was that many cities, towns and castles where the payment of this tax had been altogether resisted or only a portion of it acknowledged, were punished for their audacity and razed to the ground. There is a tradition that from ancient custom is derived this kind of justice; by virtue of which on the king’s arrival in Italy it is understood that all dignities and magistracies immediately cease and are re­disposable at the sovereign’s pleasure according to legal provisions and the opinion of jurists. It is moreover asserted that the judges of the land acknowledge so ample an authority in the king’s person, and that they believe the people are bound to furnish for the use of the court and army everything usually produced by the earth, both of the necessaries and delicacies of life, according as they are demanded; scarcely even excepting the oxen that till the ground or the seed for the next year’s crop.”

From this plenary power arose the various exemptions and privileges conceded by the monarchs of those times with such benefit to their exchequers; and those lords distinguished by feudal holdings repaid themselves by forced contributions from their serfs and vassals to most of whom they left no more than what was requisite for their daily sustenance. Sigonius at a later day gives us a similar picture but deriving his information partly from the same source: in the year 973 he says: “The emperor Otho after conquering the rest of Italy left the greater number of Italian cities in liberty but all tributary, he having in some created marquises and counts to govern them yet always reserving to himself the rights of sovereignty. He reduced the freedom of cities to this, namely, that they might have their own laws, customs, jurisdiction, and magistracies with the power of imposing local taxes at their pleasure after having sworn allegiance to their sovereign the king of Italy. Following this system part of the executive government was nominated by the king to represent his person and part was elected by the community: those elected by the king to administer justice in the provinces were called “Messi” or messengers; in other words Envoys, Nuncios, Legates, or Imperial Ambassadors. The magistrates elected by the people were called Consuls, and their number was two or more according to the ancient usage of the Roman commonwealth. These took a yearly oath of allegiance in presence of the bishop or royal Nuncio; and even before the time of Frederic Barbarossa foreign presidents were nominated under the title of “Podestà”. Hence it is that Otho bishop of Fresingen a cotemporary and relation of that emperor justly writes “that in their civic institutions and the conservation of their republics the people of Lombardy imitated the wariness of the Romans; and in order to avoid the rigid imperial government they preferred the rule of consuls to the authority of a podestà”. For a clearer explanation it may be necessary to say that at the diet of Roncaglia in 1158 Frederic I dexterously imposed a magistrate and master of his own creation on every town of the Lombard kingdom under the specious and perhaps to a certain point real pretext of justice. A prodigious number of causes having been brought before him he declared that a whole life would be insufficient to determine them, and therefore gave full authority to a class of imperial officers, called by the appropriate title of Podestà with the condition that they should always be strangers living at a considerable distance from the place they were to govern and entirely unconnected with it. The consequences were soon felt; for the new podestàs being nominated solely by the crown and taken from nobles or civilians devoted to it, found themselves in direct opposition to the consuls who were freely chosen by the people; hence quarrels became so frequent that the Emperor in an angry mood determined to abolish the consulate. Words soon changed to blows and though the people everywhere succeeded in preserving their magistrates they could not entirely throw off the podestàship, which had in fact much to recommend it, so retained the functionary but reserved his nomination to themselves. In the course of time this minister superseded the consuls and by introducing the habit of looking to one chief for the settlement of public justice and private disputes paved the way in several instances, says Sismondi, for the retreat of liberty and the advance of absolute authority.

“The Emperor or King of Italy”, continues Sigonius, “maintained the Frankish tributes, which were the Foderum, the Parata, and the Mansionaticum. The Foderum was a tax by which the Italians were obliged to furnish entertainment for the king whenever he visited the province, or else pay many times its estimate in money. The Parata were intended for repairs of bridges and roads in the sovereign’s passage; and the Mansionaticum for the maintenance of his house and quarters: under this name were comprised all the contributions “that the country furnished for the royal army, and so amply and rigorously enforced was the king’s power, that every necessary of life, every production of the land, the seed and labouring oxen only excepted, belonged to the service of die court and the soldiers’ daily consumption”. Otho having thus disposed of the cities did not neglect the opportunity of securing the good-will of private individuals by especial favours, not only for his own immediate advantage but to increase the splendour of his court: following the Franks’ example he invited the most valorous and distinguished to join his armies and rewarded those by whom he was well and faithfully served. “His rewards consisted principally of dignities and the possession of some peculiar privileges occasionally conceded to his favourites. The dignities were titles of Duke, Marquis, Count, Captain, Vavassour, and Vavassin. The privileges were the right of imposing duties and tolls of divers natures; such as coining money, grazing cattle, erecting milk, making salt, and using rivers and streams in every way that might turn them to most advantage. “A Duke was he who obtained a duchy; a Marquis, a marquisate; a Count, a contado, contea, or county, under a feudal tenure.

“The Captains were those empowered by the sovereign or some of the above-mentioned dignitaries to rule either a portion or all the lower classes of the people. The Vavasours were ministers subordinate to the Captains, and the Vavasins to the Vavasours. The three first were called King’s Captains, and the others greater or lesser Vavasours, with inferior ranks besides.” By this a new nobility was introduced into Italy, those alone being considered noble who either personally or through their ancestors had been dignified by such titles and privileges. This however did not generally apply to the civic nobility: those of Venice for instance arose out of a pure and primitive democracy gradually condensed into a nucleus of privileged nobles, around which a new population of foreign emigrants, unentitled to civic privileges, had insensibly formed and became the Venetian people of after times. The Genoese nobles derived their title from the office of principal magistrate or from having been one of the podestàs council an office which only began in the twelfth century; and in general high civic office conferred a dignity equal in fact if not in name to high nobility.

Otho’s system subsequently acquired strength and became a fertile source of military rewards and distinctions all intended to gain the affection and secure the fidelity of those by whose means the country was governed, under the various names of Feudatories, Vassals, Uomini, and Fedeli; and the Feudo, the Vassallaggio, the Ominio and the Omaggio, or Homage, were rights of the crown, by virtue of which those who obtained dignities or the possession of lands were obliged with their posterity to acknowledge the king for their master by taking the oath of allegiance and being always ready to expose both life and fortune in his service.

Three sorts of dominion therefore existed : the superior, the middle, and the inferior: the first was that of the emperor: the second, of the duke count or marquis; and the third that of private individuals over their own allodial property, for which was due neither rent nor service. Hereditary succession to the greater fiefs gradually diminished the royal authority and they soon began to assume the form and character of independent states: but while their lords exercised certain acts of jurisdiction within the towns, these last during the eleventh century enjoyed municipal freedom, and up to a certain period remained unshackled in all their external operations: therefore if antiquarians be correct in assigning the sovereign prerogative of coining to Florence so early as the year 1000 it will go far to prove that she also was well advanced in the road to independence.

The relation between Italian kings and civic communities during the Saxon dynasty, as well as the connexion of these last with the provincial dukes after that office became hereditary, (the power of making war excepted), was not unlike the present relationship between Great Britain and some of her colonies: the latter enjoy, or are said to enjoy a free internal legislature on popular principles under a representative of the crown; and as the Italian cities rejected even this semblance of superiority the moment they were able, so probably will the British colonies assert their freedom whenever their native vigour and independence abate the necessity of support.

It does not appear how or when Florence became independent, but one of Matilda’s last acts there exists in the archives of the archiepiscopal palace or “Capitolo Fiorentino” and is given at length by Cantini in his Historical Essays on Tuscan Antiquities. It is an investiture made of the court and lands of Campiano by Count Guido in her presence on the 1st of March 1100 to the canons of Saint Reparata of Florence: also another exercise of royal authority in the following June in favour of the Vallombrosan monks as quoted by Fiorentini: after this no more is heard of her jurisdiction having been actively employed within the city although she visited Florence as late as 1105, and in 1103 granted some new favours to the above-named convent.

The next document in proof of the complete emancipation of Florence is its first authenticated act of independent power, namely a contract with the castle and town of Pogna in the Val d’Elsa in 1101 where the two consuls ore named as representatives of the Florentine people, who on their part promise to defend those of Pogna against all enemies except the Emperor or his Nuncios, without allusion to Matilda or any other superior.

If the dates of these instruments are correct, for Borghini seems doubtful of the latter, they mark with great precision the setting of regal power and the early dawn of popular rule in Florence; wherefore its independence may be with some confidence dated from the year 1100, but whether this liberty were a boon from Matilda, or whether it had gradually fed and fattened on times and circumstances until too strong for regal control there are no documents to prove. It is however scarcely credible that Florence could have suddenly broken from Matilda’s grasp, for she was not wont to suffer any opposition to royal power as may be judged from the whole tenor of her reign; and the siege of Prato in 1107 for a revolt against Florence, (which from this would appear to have been under her especial protection) is an instance in point. She also assembled a large army about the same time to punish Ferrara which had rebelled when she was in distress; and moreover exercised several acts of authority in the neighbourhood of Prato the same year, and in the Mugello in 1105; all tending to prove that her power was still howering around Florence but never after settled within its walls. Yet at this very time the Countess Matilda was almost Queen of Italy; her dominions not only extended over a great part of Lombardy including Mantua and Milan, but also beyond the Alps where she inherited great possessions from her mother: all her acts show clearly enough how jealous she was of the royal authority but the wars of Pisa and Lucca prove that either force or inclination were sometimes wanting to exert it.

These acts of private hostility between rival cities may have been exercised by virtue of an original imperial grant with which it became dangerous for provincial lords to meddle, except as mediators; and in fact the right of an appeal to arms was fully recognised by the laws and customs of the age ; it was considered as the voice of God, and therefore acknowledged universally from the private gentleman to the independent city, from duels to national contests. Matilda was in continual movement through her states; constantly occupied in public works, administering justice, bestowing favours or granting privileges; but especially in the aggrandisement of convents and churches with the idea of reenforcing religion, or what she believed to be such, by the addition of great temporal power, while she simultaneously worked out her own salvation. Amongst her numerous acts of grace more especially towards those who had always remained faithful, the unflinching loyalty of Florence was perhaps rewarded by complete emancipation: but that no documents now exist of these conjectured acts is not surprising, because all the public and private archives of the city were consumed in the successive conflagrations of 1115 and 1117 which mined most part of the town leaving only obscure and detached notices of anterior history.

The foregoing evidence being deemed sufficient to prove that Florentine independence existed at the beginning of the twelfth century if not long before, a rapid sketch will now be made of the particular form of civil government adopted by this infant state, and thus spare some interruptions in the general story of a city against which her great poet sarcastically exclaims—

Atene e Lacedemona che fenno

L’antiche leggi e furon si civili,

Fecero al viver bene un picciol cenno

Verso di te che fai tanto sottili

Provedimenti ch’a mezzo Novembre

Non giunge quel che tu di’ Ottobrc fili.”

The general outline of that form of government chosen by the free Italian cities during the Saxon dynasty has already been traced; also the supposed institution of a senate and consuls at Florence according to the conflicting accounts of Malespini and Ammirato; the former referring this institution to the days of Charlemagne; the latter to those of the Fiesoline conquest; while the first authentic proof of their existence is in the above­mentioned treaty with Pogna in 1101. Their number was originally two; afterwards one for each quarter of the city; and finally a consul for each “Sesto'” or sixth—when the town was thus divided. The Duke of Bavaria’s occupation of  Florence along with all the rest of Tuscany in 1135 or 1137 probably crushed the consular authority while he remained, as no record appears of any person having held that office during three subsequent years from the former date. In 1138 Bucello and Florenzetto were consuls; after which, documents are wanting up to 1172 when Foreze Forteguerra and Arlotto filled that station; in 1184 there seems to have been no less than eight, and afterwards more; thus fluctuating from two to twelve over a period of about ninety years. They probably augmented with the augmentation of people and increase of public business for magistrates like laws are multiplied by civilisation. The number was finally reduced to one for each “Art” or Trade who not only presided over those of his own calling, but was also a member of the supreme government, one consul taking the foreign, another the civil, and a third the criminal department of state, as was the custom about the same epoch in Genoa. It is believed that when two consuls only existed, one administered the political one the civil affairs : but in 1181 another consul was added with the title of “Ordinary Judge” apparently unconnected with trade or politics; and also three “Consuls of Justice” who seem to have formed a court of appeal from his decisions.

In an old treaty with Guido di Ridolfino and other lords of Trebbio in 1193, the first sure indication of a change in the form of government occurs by the mention of a Podestà and his council, as well as of another magistracy composed of seven citizens called “Rectors of the Arts”. The spirit and forms of liberty seem even thus early to have penetrated into the smallest fiefs and curbed feudal despotism : for the lords of Trebbio “along with the consul of that place” promise to receive a Florentine garrison and consider themselves under the jurisdiction of that government, making peace or war at its bidding : for every new castle built they engage to offer at the Baptist’s shrine in Florence a large waxen torch; and to the municipality one silver mark; while the Podestà promises on the part of his countrymen that no person shall be suffered to molest the Trebbians, who are to be considered in all respects as Florentines.

The “Rectors of the Arts” were in 1204 called “Priors”, and afterwards “Consuls”; they seem to have formed a chamber of commerce and manufactures besides exercising the functions of judicial magistrates in their respective trades and the higher duties of general administration. Ammirato asserts that the government at this time consisted of eleven “Consuls of the Arts”; two “Military Consuls”; three “Priors of the arts”; a “Senator of the City”; a “General Council”; a “Special Council”; and lastly ten “Buoniomini” or “Good­men” from each “”Sesto”, besides one officer for the administration of justice whose title does not appear.

How all these were elected and the exact nature of their duties are points not well ascertained and embrace too wide a field for present discussion; but there is reason to believe that they collectively formed the General Council at which the consuls presided, one being commonly distinguished by the name of “Rector”. Whether this was a fluctuating title of honour or a permanent dignity with superior power is not clear; but probably the latter, as it was always given to the Podestà, of whose office a more explicit notice becomes necessary.

There are no accounts of the exact time when this magistrate first appeared in Florence nor of her being immediately affected by the institution or revival of that office in 1158 at the Diet of Roncaglia: it seems probable that all the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany were included in the same decree for none could fairly avoid so apparently just an act of regal power based as it seemed to be on a rigid sense of justice. As there are indications of such a functionary in 1184, and the certainty of one in 1193, we have additional reasons for believing that Florence was also compelled to receive these governors but perhaps, without much interruption of the ancient consular authority, for it is not until the year 1207 that the Republic seems to have been really governed by such magistrates. “Hitherto,” says Malespini, “the city had been ruled by a seignory of Consuls selected from the most distinguished citizens of the Senatorial Council of a Hundred Buoniomini; and these consuls directed the republic in all things and administered civil and criminal justice : their office lasted one year, and their number was four while the city was divided into quarters, and afterwards six when changed into Sestos; but our ancestors only mention one of them who was of the greatest consequence, or at most two.

“The city increasing in numbers and in vice, and evil offices becoming frequent amongst the citizens; in order to improve the condition of society and to save the inhabitants from the hateful necessity of punishing malefactors; or by prayers, or relationship, intimidation, necessity, enmity; or any other reason whatever, that justice should be defeated; it was resolved to invest a foreign gentleman with the authority of Podestà for one year; that he should preside in their civil courts with his Judges; that he should administer criminal justice, pass sentence on those convicted of capital crimes, order corporal punishments, and carry into execution all the orders of the community”.

The first podestà was Gualfredotto of Milan who inhabited the Bishop’s palace: nevertheless the consuls were not discontinued but still retained the administration of every other affair.

From the podestàship of Gherardo Capponsacchi in 1193 to the year 1199 there is no notice of that office, but in the last-mentioned year Paganello de’ Porcari, or Porticari, of Lucca filled this station, and so much to the public satisfaction that he was continued until 1201, or double the usual period. The office was however, at this epoch, of inferior power and dignity to that of 1207; and if Porticari were invested with more than common authority, it was probably either as an experiment or from some peculiar ephemeral circumstance, for he is not quoted by any of the early historians as the first regular podesta; and in his time as we have seen this new magistracy had not quite obscured the consular dignity.

Paganello’s name is to be found in several public acts while he held office; but the very year of its expiration no less than twelve consuls signed a charter of liberties granted to some of the inhabitants of San Donato in Poci for assistance given to Florence in the Semifontine War. The Podestà of 1207 should therefore be considered in conformity with Malespini and Villani’s account, as a new state-officer with increased powers; and not as the mere successor of former magistrates under the same title. His power was very extensive; because independent of the administration of civil and criminal justice he interfered in all foreign affairs, commanded in war, and seems to have assembled and directed the general council, besides holding a separate one called the “Council of the Podestà”:  there is however much obscurity about these early fluctuating forms of Florentine government; it seems indeed to have been a mere chain of expedients forged link by link from existing circumstances, rather than any regularly digested system, a natural consequence of the lightened pressure or rather total removal of the fixed weight of royal authority from a people not yet sufficiently steadied by self-government.

During the Ghibeline ascendancy in 1250, the citizens tumultuously suppressed this office and substituted a “Captain of the People” to watch over their rights, besides other changes. It was re-established the following year in all its pristine authority which afterwards became considerably extended; but whether by the natural expansion and encroachment of power or by public decrees, is now very difficult to determine, for the Florentines were continually pecking with almost capricious jealousy at their institutions, or recklessly increasing power at the nod of faction and expense of freedom. In 1270 they limited the term of office to six months, but the Captain of the People still continued conjointly with this and a new council of twelve citizens called “Anziani” or elders, who superseded the consuls.

The “Capitano del Popolo” when first appointed was intended as the people’s advocate and protector, an office somewhat analogous to the Roman tribunes: but it soon lost this character and became a part of the regular executive government, the prevailing features of which for a long period were mutability and the frequent exposure of public liberty in times of external danger. In such times the Republic was wont to implore the protection of some foreign potentate with dictatorial authority, and was ever rewarded by his shameless and unmeasured rapacity: the Romans with a finer spirit trusted their safety and freedom to a fellow-citizen and their own native courage, and were never disappointed. Haply the Florentines preserved their independence; but these protectors, or their vicars, governed with mercenary, selfish, and almost absolute sway, and often with tyranny; and the only wonder is that they did not take permanent possession of the state. When their power ended, the regular constitutional government resumed its functions and continued in activity until 1502, when the podestà’s authority was confided to a Council of Justice called the “Ruota” or Wheel, because each individual like each spoke became in his turn uppermost and presided with all the potency and attributes of Podestà. Such is the general outline of Florentine institutions, the various parts of which we shall make an attempt to fill up in the course of this History.

The Florentines increasing in riches and strength, and all the ambitious confidence of a rising nation, were no longer content with a domain, limited and chequered by the possessions of proud and powerful barons, who with a nominal friendship scorned the dominion of ignoble citizens and even rendered but an uneasy obedience to imperial vicars. Wherefore indulging the natural propensity of strength to command weakness, and hiding incipient ambition under the cloak of compassion and justice, Florence covertly intimated to the rural population and small communities, that behind the republican aegis shelter would be found against feudal oppression; and even the chiefs themselves were invited to acquiesce in Florentine supremacy. Those who hearkened were received joyfully and acquired the rights of citizenship; those that resisted were reduced by force and their castles demolished or occupied as best suited the victors’ convenience.

The first enterprise was against Monte Orlando where some of the principal citizens governing under the title of “Cattani” refused the proffered hand of Florence : an army was instantly assembled; the place assaulted carried and levelled to the ground without any hesitation or delay. The siege of Prato, then in its infancy, was the next expedition : its inhabitants had previously occupied a hill called Chiavello between the site of their present town and Pistoia, and not far from Monte Murlo; but they afterwards purchased land from Count Guido and moved down to a plain at the foot of Monte Morello where they hoped under his auspices to escape from Florentine ambition and gave to their new settlement the appropriate name of Prato. On refusing obedience to Florence preparations were made to reduce them, and under the conduct of Countess Maltida in person, who took the place, they were taught an early lesson of prudence.

Matilda’s presence has led some to believe that as yet the Florentines were unable single-handed to reduce so insignificant a town the siege of which had been commenced a long time before her arrival; and the fact of her co-operation is singular enough, because it would seem as if Florentine aggressions were not only tolerated but seconded by that princess. A denser mist is thus cast over all these early transactions; but the Counts Guido who then protected Prato were powerful chiefs with strong mountain territory, and gave Florence much trouble even in her better days; they might possibly have embraced the imperial cause nay were likely to do so, and Matilda was as unlikely to permit the example of a petty town renouncing its allegiance to a faithful adherent only to increase the power of and gain protection from an enemy; for it was discontent at the Florentine government that first made them quit Chiavello and seek peace and favour from those potent chieftains.

The star of Matilda was now in the ascendant; her Italian influence was paramount, and her great enemy Henry IV, after having been defeated and imprisoned by his own son, had died of starvation in 1106 while vainly soliciting the humble office of clerk to the Church of the Holy Virgin at Spires which he had himself erected and endowed!

This miscreant Son had made his father a prisoner by stratagem; threats of death forced him to resign the then royal insignia of the Holy Lance, the Cross, and the Imperial Sceptre: and Pasqual II at whose unchristian incitements so unnatural a war was chiefly begun, soon felt the evil consequences of his conduct. Henry V descended into Italy at the head of a large army, and after an honourable reception at Florence proceeded with overflowing protestations of duty and reverence to be crowned at Rome; but no sooner was he there than the old dispute about investitures with many other grievances revived with augmented bitterness until the impetuous monarch broke into open acts of violence. He imprisoned both Pope and Cardinals, made Pasqual swear not to visit him with ecclesiastical censure; demanded for his father’s body, which had remained years unburied, the rights of sepulture; and insisted on his own instant coronation.

These acts soon convinced the world that the dethroner and murderer of his own father was not the man to regard word or oath; or bow to the dictates, or brook the ambitious pride of grasping churchmen. After visiting Matilda he returned to Germany leaving a deep impression of his power in the Italian mind; yet Florence, ever faithful to the church from which no danger to public liberty was feared, disdained to conciliate that church’s enemy and therefore directed her arms more particularly against the neighbouring barons of the imperial faction.

The Emperor’s Vicar who then resided at the town or castello of San Miniato del Tedesco, seeing the hostile conduct of Florence towards all who really were, or pretended for protection to be his masters friends, immediately took the field, captured Monte Casole, and even menaced the capital; but the citizens who resolved to answer words by deeds instantly marched to the place, and after some hard blows. exasperating language, and the Vicar’s death, the town was recaptured and destroyed. This short decisive war against the imperial representative himself, who had actually been provoked to hostilities, and waged with such vigour under the eyes of Matilda, exhibits the growing audacity of Florence; and she, then amusing herself by superintending the construction of the Pisan baths, could scarcely have been displeased at any successful opposition to the imperial arms in Tuscany.

Scarcely two years from the date of this event, being then at a place called Monte Baroncione and in her sixty-ninth year, this celebrated woman breathed her last after a long and glorious reign of incessant activity, during which she displayed a wisdom, vigour, and determination of character rarely seen even in men: she bequeathed to the Church all those patrimonial estates of which she had previously disposed by an act of gift to Gregory VII without however any immediate royal power over the cities and other possessions thus given, as her will expresses it, “for the good of her soul and the souls of her parents”.

Whatever may now be thought of her chivalrous support, her bold defence, and her deep devotion to the Church, it was in perfect harmony with the spirit of that age and has formed one of her chief merits with many even in the present. Her unflinching adherence to the cause she had so conscientiously embraced was far more noble than the emperor Henry’s conduct: swinging between the extremes of unmeasured insolence and abject humiliation, he died a victim to papal influence over superstitious minds; an influence which amongst other debasing lessons, then taught the world that a breach of the most sacred ties and dearest affections of human nature was one means of gaining the approbation of a Being who is all truth and beneficence.

Matilda’s object was to strengthen the chief spiritual against the chief temporal power, but reserving her own independence; a policy subsequently pursued, at least in spirit, by the Guelphic states of Italy: she therefore protected subordinate members of the Church against feudal chieftains, and its head against the feudal emperor. True to her religious and warlike character she died between the sword and the crucifix, and two of her last acts even when the hand of death was already cold on her brow, were the chastisement of revolted Mantua and the midnight celebration of Christ’s nativity in the depth of a freezing and unusually inclement winter.

Only indistinct accounts are extant of these early transactions of Florentine History; the original records as already remarked, having perished in a fire which this year did great a n 1117 mischief (AD 1117), and was followed two years afterwards by another much more destructive that not only devoured houses and palaces as yet scarcely rebuilt, but multitudes of those that had escaped the former calamity. In these two conflagrations it is supposed that almost all the public and private archives were consumed, an irreparable loss, which by effacing the vivid memorials of past ages has left nothing but obscurity and dim shadows to evade the inquiries and satisfy the wants of the historian.

Such misfortunes were attributed to divine wrath, the corruption of manners, and heretical doctrines: the latter were then extremely common in Florence, and religious opinions so strong and various that theology was often forced to decide its arguments by the sword. These disputes were maintained up to the time of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic before complete tranquillity was restored; and even the disciples of these honest bigots subsequently quarrelled on an absurd point of doctrine that was first mooted in this century.

The Florentine Epicureans are particularly blamed for gluttony lasciviousness and other vices, which were quite enough, says Malespini, to account for every calamity. But whatever may have been their private immorality the Florentines as a people seem at this time not only to have had the confidence of their neighbours but to have deserved it also: the Pisans, who were then in the full tide of military and commercial glory, on sending an expedition against the Saracens of Majorca requested them to protect Pisa from an apprehended attack of the Lucchese its bitterest enemies. The Florentines accepted this charge without hesitation, equipped a strong force, occupied a position two miles from that city and prohibited on pain of death the entrance of any Florentine into the town: the old men with the wives and daughters of their allies alone remained there, and the object was to prevent a shadow of suspicion from darkening the minds of absent citizens which might tarnish the reputation of their women or reflect on the honour of Florence. In despite of this penalty one soldier had the audacity to enter the forbidden place and was instantly condemned to death : the aged Pisans vainly petitioned for his pardon, and to save him forbade the execution of any sentence on their territory. The Florentine general in conformity with his instructions bowed to their commands, but determining neither to suffer a breach of discipline nor encourage the repe­tition of a crime which might dishonour his country, he purchased a field from one of the neighbouring peasantry in the name of Florence, and hanged the culprit there in despite of every supplication from the Pisans.

In due time the Florentines being relieved, were offered as a mark of gratitude, the choice between a pair of metal gates or two truncated columns of highly polished porphyry, the spoils of their late expedition. The latter were selected and afterwards sent, adorned with scarlet cloth, in grand pomp to the people who had so honourably served the Republic, and are still to be seen attached by massive chains, which tell a different tale, to the brazen gates of the Florentine Baptistry, a lasting memorial of the high spirit, discipline, and honesty of that nation. “In the polished surface of these magic columns,” said the Saracen slaves that accompanied them to Pisa, “are to be seen all treasons or machinations against that state which possesses them but history further records that the Pisans hearing and believing this, yet unwilling to recede from their offer, passed them through a furnace, and at once destroyed their lustre and dangerous enchantment.

We have already said that the Rocca or citadel of Fiesole was still standing in the year 1125 as a stronghold for the Cattani, a set of predaceous chiefs who harassed the whole neighbourhood by levying contributions on travellers and merchants: such employment was then far from rare or even dishonourable, but far too stinging to be long suffered by a mercantile people; it was therefore reduced by famine, but this act drew down strong ecclesiastical censures on Florence. The why is not easy now to explain except by supposing that its feudal Lord the Bishop, in his anxiety to preserve that town interwove temporal and spiritual interests so closely in complaining of the outrage as to interest the Pontiff in his quarrel: nor is it unlikely that the disputes which arose nearly a century later without any assigned cause between the Florentines and Hildebrand Bishop of Fiesole, might have arisen from the churchman’s efforts to attract a population round his episcopal residence in direct opposition to their policy, which was always jealous of any attempt to repeople that city: it was moreover a political maxim of all free Italian communities that their Bishops should be divested of feudal power as being utterly inconsistent with their sacred duties, and that they should be compelled to live under civil jurisdiction. This was a probable cause of quarrel; and in fact the dispute after lasting several years became so violent as to make Pope Honorius III stop them by giving Hilde­brand the Church of Santa Maria in Campo as his residence and commanding his permanent removal to Florence.

When once the Republic began to feel its power and had determined to allow of no independent chiefs in its dominion, the haughty nobles who though attached to the Emperor scarcely vouchsafed obedience to his Vicars, clearly foresaw their own downfall in its increasing and uncontrolled authority. They were not likely therefore to fall tamely under the shadow of her flag or surrender a jot of feudal independence without a struggle, and hence continual disputes arose between them, to which the contention of Popes and Emperors was ever adding new bitterness. But in these conflicts the Clergy although rich and powerful, were generally left untouched, and the Bishop of Florence was allowed to enjoy bis vast possessions in tranquillity; for by adhering to the party of Matilda and the Republic, the Bishop and Clergy necessarily ranked amongst its firmest allies and their disputes were personal or local, not political.

FLORENTINE HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST AUTHENTIC RECORDS TO THE ACCESSION OF FERDINAND THE THIRD, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY.