n in the fourteenth century they could be reduced to a
contemptible list of thirty-three thousand inhabitants. From that period
to the reign of Leo the Tenth, if they multiplied to the amount of
eighty-five thousand, the increase of citizens was in some degree
pernicious to the ancient city.

IV. I have reserved for the last, the most potent and forcible cause of
destruction, the domestic hostilities of the Romans themselves. Under
the dominion of the Greek and French emperors, the peace of the city was
disturbed by accidental though frequent seditions: it is from the
decline of the latter, from the beginning of the tenth century, that we
may date the licentiousness of private war, which violated with impunity
the laws of the Code and the gospel, without respecting the majesty of
the absent sovereign or the presence and person of the vicar of Christ.
In a dark period of five hundred years, Rome was perpetually afflicted
by the sanguinary quarrels of the nobles and the people, the Guelphs and
Ghibelines, the Colonna and Ursini; and if much has escaped the
knowledge, and much is unworthy of the notice, of history, I have
exposed in the two preceding chapters the causes and effects of the
public disorders. At such a time, when every quarrel was decided by the
sword and none could trust their lives or properties to the impotence of
law, the powerful citizens were armed for safety, or offense, against
the domestic enemies whom they feared or hated. Except Venice alone, the
same dangers and designs were common to all the free republics of Italy;
and the nobles usurped the prerogative of fortifying their houses and
erecting strong towers that were capable of resisting a sudden attack.
The cities were filled with these hostile edifices; and the example of
Lucca, which contained three hundred towers, her law which confined
their height to the measure of fourscore feet, may be extended with
suitable latitude to the more opulent and populous States. The first
step of the senator Brancaleone in the establishment of peace and
justice, was to demolish (as we have already seen) one hundred and forty
of the towers of Rome; and in the last days of anarchy and discord, as
late as the reign of Martin the Fifth, forty-four still stood in one of
the thirteen or fourteen regions of the city. To this mischievous
purpose the remains of antiquity were most readily adapted: the temples
and arches afforded a broad and solid basis for the new struc