e nobles were
for ever excluded from the government, and the Gonfalonier of Justice
was appointed to maintain civil order by checking their pride and
turbulence.[3] These modifications of the constitution, effected between
1282 and 1292, gave its peculiar character to the Florentine republic.
Henceforward Florence was governed solely by merchants. Both Varchi and
Machiavelli have recorded unfavorable opinions of the statute which
reduced the republic of Florence to a commonwealth of shop-keepers.[4]
But when we read these criticisms, we must bear in mind the internecine
ferocity of party-strife at this period, and the discords to which a
city divided between a territorial aristocracy and a commercial
bourgeoisie was perpetually exposed. If anything could make the
Ordinanze della Giustizia appear rational, it would be a cool perusal of
the _Chronicle_ of Matarazzo, which sets forth the wretched state of
Perugia owing to the feuds of its patrician houses, the Oddi and the
Baglioni.[5] Peace for the republic was not, however, secured by these
strong measures. The factions of the Neri and Bianchi opened the
fourteenth century with battles and proscriptions; and in 1323 the
constitution had again to be modified. At this date the Signoria of
eight Priors with the Gonfalonier of Justice, the College of the twelve
Buonuomini, and the sixteen Gonfaloniers of the companies--called
collectively _i tre maggiori_, or the three superior magistracies--were
rendered eligible only to Guelf citizens of the age of thirty, who had
qualified in one of the seven Arti Maggiori, and whose names were drawn
by lot. This mode of election, the most democratic which it is possible
to adopt, held good through all subsequent changes in the state. Its
immediate object was to quiet discontent and to remove intrigue by
opening the magistracies to all citizens alike. But, as Nardi has
pointed out, it weakened the sense of responsibility in the burghers,
who, when their names were once included in the bags kept for the
purpose, felt sure of their election, and had no inducement to maintain
a high standard of integrity. Sismondi also dates from this epoch the
withdrawal of the Florentines from military service.[6] Nor, as the
sequel shows, was the measure efficient as a check upon the personal
ambition of encroaching party leaders. The _Squittino_ and the _Borse_
became instruments in the hands of the Medici for the consolidation of
their tyranny.[7] By the