Meanwhile, the Pisans returning from Majorca, laden with spoil, offered in token of gratitude to their faithful friends the choice of accepting either two bronze doors or two porphyry columns. The Florentines preferred the latter. The columns were consigned to them wrapped in scarlet cloth, in token of their value, and now stand in the chief portal of San Giovanni. However, when the cloth was stripped off, it was seen that some envious person had injured the columns with fire. Evidently part of this account is legendary, and we also discern that something must have been added to it afterwards, when Pisa and Florence were separated by long and inextinguishable animosity.110
But the wrong date repeated in Villani and many other chroniclers, regarding a war that lasted several years, and was apparently only recommenced in 1117, does not justify us in denying a fact so constantly affirmed by many writers.111 The Balearic expedition certainly took place, and there is equal certainty that it was led by the Pisans, with the help of various friends and allies. Their fear lest the city should be attacked by the Lucchese in their absence was justified by the fact that this had really happened in former times. The Pisans were now foes of Lucca and friends of Florence, whose loyalty during that early period was very generally recognised. Why should it be incredible that these friendly Pisans should have entrusted the city to their care, or that they should have proved worthy of the confidence reposed in them? Paolino Pieri not only repeats the story as told by all the other chroniclers, but also adds that the bit of ground upon which the guilty soldier was executed had been purchased with the help of Bello the Syndic, and that even in his own day he saw that it was still left uncultivated in memory of the deed: "it was on the fourth day of July, three hundred and two years more than one thousand, when I saw that ground untouched." At any rate, this is a proof that the tradition of the fact still survived in the fourteenth century, and that every one had the fullest belief in it.
VI.
The death of Countess Matilda, in 1115, was followed by a period of so much disorder as to mark the beginning of a new era for all Central Italy, and more especially for Florence. The countess, as we know, left a will bequeathing all her possessions to the Church; but this donation could only affect her allodial estates, since all those held in fief naturally reverted to the Empire. It was not always easy to precisely distinguish these from those; often, indeed, impossible: hence an endless succession of disputes. And such disputes became increasingly complicated by the pretensions of the Pope and the emperor, each of whom asserted his right to the whole inheritance, the one as Matilda's universal legatee, and the other as the supreme head of the margraviate. Then, too, as we have seen, many considered themselves to have been unjustly deprived of their estates, in favour of others with no rightful claim. All this led to a real politico-social crisis that brought the disorder to a climax. Thereupon the emperor, Henry IV., sent a representative, bearing the title of Marchio, Iudex, Praeses, to assume the government of Tuscany in his name. Of course, no one could legally contest his right to do this; but the Papal opposition, the attitude of the cities now asserting their independence, and the general disorder split the margraviate into fragments. Accordingly the representatives of the Empire could only place themselves at the head of the feudal nobility of the various contadi and, by gathering them together, form a Germanic party opposed to the cities. In the documents of the period the members of this party are continually designated by the name of Teutons (Teutonici).112
Florence, surrounded by the castled nobility occupying her hills, could only decide on one of two courses. Either to yield to those who had always been her mortal enemies, and were now emboldened by Henry's favour, or to combat them openly, and thus declare enmity to the Empire, the which, in the present state of affairs, would amount to a proclamation of independence; and the latter was the course adopted. Florence was now conscious of her own strength, and recognised that safety could only be gained by force. The change was accomplished in a very simple and almost imperceptible way. The same worthies who had administered justice, governed the people, and commanded the garrison in Matilda's name, now that she was dead, and no one in her place, continued to rule in the name of the people, and asked its advice in all grave emergencies. Thus these grandi became Consuls of the Commune that may be said to have leapt into existence unperceived. This is why no chroniclers mention its birth, no documents record it, and a plain and self-evident fact is made to appear extremely complicated and obscure. In endeavouring to discover unknown events and lost documents which had never existed, the solution of a very easy problem was hedged round with difficulties, while evident and well-established particulars best fitted to explain it were entirely lost sight of.
Nevertheless, we are not to believe that the event was accomplished without any shock, for the change was of a very remarkable kind. It is true that the actual government remained almost intact; but its basis was altered, since it was now carried on in the name of the people, instead of that of the Countess. This, in itself, signified little, inasmuch as for some time past the city had been practically, if not legally, its own master, and the people beginning to feel and make felt its personality. But the social and political results of the change were neither few nor inconsiderable. Naturally, during Matilda's reign, the governing authorities were men of her choice; and although all official and judicial posts changed hands from time to time, they became increasingly monopolised by a small cluster of families, chief among whom, as we have already said, were most probably the Uberti and their clan. Now, however, that the authorities were to be elected by the people, there was a broader, although still somewhat limited, range of choice. Accordingly, there was more change of office, and men were removed in turn from one to another. This custom already prevailed in other communes, and had been adopted even in Florence both by popular associations and those of the grandi. Hence it necessarily prevailed in the formation of the new government.
Nor can we believe that those always to the front in former times could have now withdrawn without resistance, or without attempting to maintain their position by favour of the Empire and the Teutonici; nor is it credible that those now entitled to a larger share in the government should have refrained from relying, in their turn, on the strength of the popular favour, backed by the most vital interests of the city. Friction between the leading families seems inevitable to us in this state of things, and Florence must have witnessed some such conflict as at Pisa in Daiberto's day, and in almost all other Italian communes. We learn from Villani (v. 30), from the "Annales," and many other works, that there was a great fire in Florence in 1115, a similar one in 1117, and that "what was left unburned in the first fire was consumed in the second." It was certainly an exaggeration to say that the whole city was destroyed, but the fact of the fire is generally affirmed.113 We also know that in those times, before gunpowder was invented, fire and arson were the most efficacious weapons in popular riots. Villani says, farther, that "fighting went on among the citizens … sword in hand, in many parts of Florence." It is true, that, in his opinion, the fight was for the faith, seeing that the city being given over to heresy, licence, and the sect of the Epicureans, God therefore chastised it with pestilence and civil war. But, although we find no certain traces in history of any widely diffused heresy in Florence at the time, it is undoubted that from 1068 the earliest gleams of Florentine freedom were mixed and confused, as we have seen, with a religious movement, and it is also certain that the "Annales," i., of the year 1120 record the fact of one named Petrus Mingardole being condemned for heresy to the ordeal by fire,114 and also add that, between 1138 and 1173, the city was thrice smitten by an interdict, all of which goes to prove a continued religious agitation. Besides, Florence, and particularly her people, remained constantly faithful to the Church party, while the Uberti and their adherents, who sided with the