The Story of Florence. Gardner Edmund G.

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4

"With these folk, and with others with them, did I see Florence in such full repose, she had not cause for wailing;

With these folk I saw her people so glorious and so just, ne'er was the lily on the shaft reversed, nor yet by faction dyed vermilion."

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"The house from which your wailing sprang, because of the just anger which hath slain you and placed a term upon your joyous life,

"was honoured, it and its associates. Oh Buondelmonte, how ill didst thou flee its nuptials at the prompting of another!

"Joyous had many been who now are sad, had God committed thee unto the Ema the first time that thou camest to the city.

"But to that mutilated stone which guardeth the bridge 'twas meet that Florence should give a victim in her last time of peace."

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"And one who had both hands cut off, raising the stumps through the dim air so that their blood defiled his face, cried: 'Thou wilt recollect the Mosca too, ah me! who said, "A thing done has an end!" which was the seed of evil to the Tuscan people.'" (Inf. xxviii.)

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The Arte di Calimala, or of the Mercatanti di Calimala, the dressers of foreign cloth; the Arte della Lana, or wool; the Arte dei Giudici e Notai, judges and notaries, also called the Arte del Proconsolo; the Arte del Cambio or dei Cambiatori, money-changers; the Arte dei Medici e Speziali, physicians and apothecaries; the Arte della Seta, or silk, also called the Arte di Por Santa Maria; and the Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai, the furriers. The Minor Arts were organised later.

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Some years later a new officer, the Executor of Justice, was instituted to carry out these ordinances instead of leaving them to the Gonfaloniere. This Executor of Justice was associated with the Captain, but was usually a foreign Guelf burgher; later he developed into the Bargello, head of police and governor of the gaol. It will, of course, be seen that while Podestà, Captain, Executore (the Rettori), were aliens, the Gonfaloniere and Priors (the Signori) were necessarily Florentines and popolani.

9

Rossetti's translation of the ripresa and second stanza of the Ballata Perch'i' no spero di tornar giammai.

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"Thou shall abandon everything beloved most dearly; this is the arrow which the bow of exile shall first shoot.

"Thou shalt make trial of how salt doth taste another's bread, and how hard the path to descend and mount upon another's stair."

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"On that great seat where thou dost fix thine eyes, for the crown's sake already placed above it, ere at this wedding feast thyself do sup,

"Shall sit the soul (on earth 'twill be imperial) of the lofty Henry, who shall come to straighten Italy ere she be ready for it."

12

i. e. The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.

13

Purg. VI.–

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15

The "Colleges" were the twelve Buonuomini and the sixteen Gonfaloniers of the Companies. Measures proposed by the Signoria had to be carried in the Colleges before being submitted to the Council of the People, and afterwards to the Council of the Commune.

16

From Mr Armstrong's Lorenzo de' Medici.

17

The Palle, it will be remembered, were the golden balls on the Medicean arms, and hence the rallying cry of their adherents.

18

The familiar legend that Lorenzo told Savonarola that the three sins which lay heaviest on his conscience were the sack of Volterra, the robbery of the Monte delle Doti, and the vengeance he had taken for the Pazzi conspiracy, is only valuable as showing what were popularly supposed by the Florentines to be his greatest crimes.