VI

The opening of the second half of the fourteenth century had been signalised by the feuds of two great houses, both risen from the people.  These were the Albizzi and the Ricci.  At this epoch there had been a formal closing of the lists of burghers;—­henceforth no new families who might settle in the city could claim the franchise, vote in the assemblies, or hold magistracies.  The Guelf College used their old engine of admonition to persecute novi homines, whom they dreaded as opponents.  At the head of this formidable organisation the Albizzi placed themselves, and worked it with such skill that they succeeded in driving the Ricci out of all participation in the government.  The tumult of the Ciompi formed but an episode in their career toward oligarchy; indeed, that revolution only rendered the political material of the Florentine republic more plastic in the hands of intriguers, by removing the last vestiges of class distinctions and by confusing the old parties of the State.

When the Florentines in 1387 engaged in their long duel with Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without some permanent central authority still further confirmed the power of the rising oligarchs.  The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in 1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudent policy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice.  Assuming the sway of a dictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office, struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all names but those of powerful families who were well affected towards an aristocratic government.  The great house of the Alberti were exiled in a body, declared rebels, and deprived of their possessions, for no reason except that they seemed dangerous to the Albizzi.  It was in vain that the people murmured against these arbitrary acts.  The new rulers were omnipotent in the Signory, which they packed with their own men, in the great guilds, and in the Guelf College.  All the machinery invented by the industrial community for its self-management and self-defence was controlled and manipulated by a close body of aristocrats, with the Albizzi at their head.  It seemed as though Florence, without any visible alteration in her forms of government, was rapidly becoming an oligarchy even less open than the Venetian republic.  Meanwhile the affairs of the State were most flourishing.  The strong-handed masters of the city not only held the Duke of Milan in check, and prevented him from turning Italy into a kingdom; they furthermore acquired the cities of Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, Montepulciano, and Cortona, for Florence, making her the mistress of all Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Volterra.  Maso degli Albizzi was the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, spending the enormous sum of 11,500,000 golden florins on war, raising sumptuous edifices, protecting the arts, and acting in general like a powerful and irresponsible prince.