In reading old chronicles of contemporary events, we see before our eyes the living, speaking figures of Giano della Bella, Farinata degli Uberti, Corso Donati, and Michele di Lando. Their feelings, loves, and hates are known and almost familiar to us; but we are plunged in a restless, unrestrained tumult of passions, without knowing whence blows the blast driving men and things onward in a whirl of confusion, without one moment's truce. No sooner do we pass beyond the visual horizon of the writer, than all images become confused, and our sight is no less obscured than his own. Even at moments of most eloquent description we hear of institutions and magistrates conveying no meaning to our ears, and often see these change, disappear, and return without grasping the why and wherefore. But when, on the other hand, by the study and imitation of ancient authors, the art of embracing a vaster circle of facts springs into being, and the causes and relations of those facts are investigated in order to weld them into visible unity, historic criticism is still lacking to verify events, to examine and define laws and institutions, to colour and almost revive the past in all its varied and changeful aspects. The genius of the historian emits, as it were, flashes of light; but these, while illuminating some occasional point, only leave a confused and uncertain view of past ages in our mind. We require to know men and institutions, parties and laws, as they really were; nor is this enough: we must also comprehend how all these elements were fused into unity, and how laws and institutions were begotten by those men in those times.
This was the task modern writers should have performed, but many reasons have prevented its completion. First of all, the progress achieved by art and literature while liberty was perishing in Florence, and their great influence on all modern culture, fixed the principal attention of writers on this section of Florentine history as being one of very general importance, and more easily intelligible to all. Accordingly, the greater number of modern, and especially of foreign students neither examined nor understood the precise period in which all the noblest qualities of the Florentine nature had been formed, and during which were evolved and trained the intellectual powers afterwards expressed in art and letters to the admiration of the whole world. Many foreigners seemed to believe that art and letters had not only flourished when manners were most corrupt, but were almost the result of and identified with the corruption that led to their decline. For the fine arts, being the offspring of liberty and morality, could not long survive their parent forces.
It should be also observed that no great modern writer has yet produced any work specially devoted to the political and constitutional history of Florence.4 It must be confessed that more than by any modern pen was achieved to this effect by the elder and younger Ammirato, who, although writers of the seventeenth century, already began to ransack State papers, and composed a work that was new and remarkable at that period. But they neither proposed to write a history of the Florentine constitution, nor possessed sufficient critical equipment for the purpose, had they sought to fulfil it. They often overload new and valuable information regarding events, and even institutions, with a mass of useless detail, destructive to the general unity of their narrative.
It is scarcely requisite to add that modern writers, only treating of Florence in general histories of Italy, were necessarily compelled to pass briefly over secondary parts of their work. They often relied too blindly on old authors of acknowledged repute and influence, without using enough discrimination in sifting material of undeniable value from other parts composed of second-hand narratives and repetitions of fabulous tales. We have only to compare Villani with Malespini to see that one of the two undoubtedly copied many chapters from the other.5 Nor is this a solitary example. As we have before remarked, Machiavelli borrowed whole chapters from Cavalcanti;6 Guicciardini often translated from Galeazzo Capra, better known under the name of Capella;7 Nardi reproduced Buonaccorsi verbatim. Therefore, without critical examination of these writers, and careful decision as to their relative value and the confidence to be accorded to different parts of their works, it is uncommonly easy to be misled. For this, and many other reasons, modern historians of Italy encounter numerous pitfalls when treating of Florentine matters. Now and then we see them halting, in common with chroniclers of the widest renown, to define the precise functions of the Captain of the people, or Podestà, or Council of the Commune, and afterwards finding it extremely difficult to make their definitions agree with actual facts whenever those titles recur in their pages. Such mistakes nearly always proceed from a double source. The definitions supplied by old writers regarding magistrates and their functions were extremely slight, when they alluded to their own times, and often inexact where other periods were in question. Also, modern writers generally demand a precise and fixed definition of institutions which were subject to change from the day of their birth, and unalterable only in name. The name not only remains intact after the institution has become entirely different from what it was at first, but often long outlives the institution itself. It is curious to see what ingenious theories are then started to give substance and reality to names now become ghosts of a vanished past. The only way to thread this labyrinth is by endeavouring to reconstruct the series of radical changes every one of those institutions underwent, and without once losing sight of the mutual relations preserved between them during the continual vicissitudes to which they are subject. Only by seeking the law that regulates and dominates these changes is it possible to discern the general idea of the Republic and determine the value of its institutions.
But what can be done while we lack so many of the elements most needed for the completion of this task? The learned have yet to arrange, examine, and illustrate the endless series of provisions, statutes, consulte, pratiche, ambassadorial reports, and, in short, of all the State papers of the Republic, many of which are still unsought and undiscovered. Nevertheless, we believe that, without attempting for the present any complete history of Florence, some rather useful work may be performed. We may certainly follow the guidance of old chroniclers and historians regarding events of which they had ocular testimony, trying, when needed, to temper their party spirit by confronting them with writers of an opposite faction. Vast numbers of documents have been published in driblets, and many learned dissertations, although the series is still incomplete; besides, one may easily resort to the Florence archives in order to vanquish difficulties and bridge the principal gaps. And after undertaking researches of this kind, it seems easy to us to clearly prove how the whole history of Florence may be illumined by a new light, and its apparent disorder made to disappear. In fact, as soon as one begins to carefully examine the veritable first causes underlying the apparent, and often, fallacious causes of political revolutions in Florence, these revolutions will be found to follow one another in a marvellously logical sequence. Then in the wildest chaos we seem rapidly able to discern a mathematical succession and connection of causes and effects. Personal hatreds and jealousies are not causes, but only opportunities serving to accelerate the fast and feverish sequence of reforms by which the Florentine Commune, after trying by turns every political constitution possible at the time, gradually attained to the highest liberty compatible with the Middle Ages. It is this noble aim, this largeness of freedom, that rouses all the intellectual and moral force contained in the Republic, evolves its admirable political acumen, and allows letters and art and science to put forth such splendid flowers in the midst of apparent disorder. But when strictly personal passions and hatreds prevail, then real chaos begins, the constitution becomes corrupt, and the downfall of freedom is at hand.
The sole aim of the present work is to offer a brief sketch of the history of Florence during the foundation of its liberties. So great is the importance