s of class
distinctions and by confusing the old parties of the State.

When the Florentines in 1387 engaged in their long duel with Gian
Galeazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without some
permanent central authority still further confirmed the power of the
rising oligarchs. The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in
1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudent
policy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice. Assuming the sway of a
dictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office,
struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all names
but those of powerful families who were well affected towards an
aristocratic government. The great house of the Alberti were exiled in
a body, declared rebels, and deprived of their possessions, for no
reason except that they seemed dangerous to the Albizzi. It was in
vain that the people murmured against these arbitrary acts. The new
rulers were omnipotent in the Signory, which they packed with their
own men, in the great guilds, and in the Guelf College. All the
machinery invented by the industrial community for its self-management
and self-defence was controlled and manipulated by a close body of
aristocrats, with the Albizzi at their head. It seemed as though
Florence, without any visible alteration in her forms of government,
was rapidly becoming an oligarchy even less open than the Venetian
republic. Meanwhile the affairs of the State were most flourishing.
The strong-handed masters of the city not only held the Duke of Milan
in check, and prevented him from turning Italy into a kingdom; they
furthermore acquired the cities of Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo,
Montepulciano, and Cortona, for Florence, making her the mistress of
all Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Volterra. Maso
degli Albizzi was the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, spending the
enormous sum of 11,500,000 golden florins on war, raising sumptuous
edifices, protecting the arts, and acting in general like a powerful
and irresponsible prince.

In spite of public prosperity there were signs, however, that this
rule of a few families could not last. Their government was only
maintained by continual revision of the lists of burghers, by
elimination of the disaffected, and by unremitting personal industry.
They introduced no new machinery into the Constitution whereby the
people might be deprived of its titular sovereignty, or their own