them by sixteen men, chosen from the dregs of the plebeians, who assumed the title of Riformatori.  This new Monte de’ Sedici or de’ Riformatori showed much integrity in their management of affairs, but, as is the wont of red republicans, they were not averse to bloodshed.  Their cruelty caused the people, with the help of the surviving patrician houses, together with the Nove and the Dodici, to rise and shake them off.  The last governing body formed in this diabolical five-part fugue of crazy statecraft received the name of Monte del Popolo, because it included all who were then eligible to the Great Council of the State.  Yet the factions of the elder Monti still survived; and to what extent they had absorbed the population may be gathered from the fact that, on the defeat of the Riformatori, 4,500 of the Sienese were exiled.  It must be borne in mind that with the creation of each new Monte a new party formed itself in the city, and the traditions of these parties were handed down from generation to generation.  At last, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Pandolfo Petrucci, who belonged to the Monte de’ Nove, made himself in reality, if not in name, the master of Siena, and the Duke of Florence, later on in the same century extended his dominion over the republic.[3] There is something almost grotesque in the bare recital of these successive factions; yet we must remember that beneath their dry names they conceal all elements of class and party discord.

    [1] Machiavelli, in spite of his love of freedom, says (St. Fior.
    lib. vii. 1):  ’Coloro che sperano che una repubblica possa essere
    unita assai di questa speranza s’ingannano.’

[2] Vol. i. pp. 324-30.  See, too, Segni, p. 213, and Giannotti, vol. i. p. 341.  De Comines describes Siena thus:  ’La ville est de tout temps en partialite, et se gouverne plus follement que ville d’Italie.’

    [3] Siena capitulated, in 1555, to the Spanish troops, who resigned
    it to Duke Cosmo I. in 1557.

What rendered the growth of parties still more pernicious, as already mentioned, was the smallness of Italian republics.  Varchi reckoned 10,000 fuochi in Florence, 50,000 bocche of seculars, and 20,000 bocche of religious.  According to Zuccagni Orlandini there were 90,000 Florentines in 1495, of whom only 3,200 were burghers.  Venice, according to Giannotti, counted at about the same period 20,000 fuochi, each of which supplied the state with two men fit to bear arms.  These calculations, though obviously rough and based upon no accurate returns, show that a republic of 100,000 souls, of whom 5,000 should be citizens, would have taken distinguished rank among Italian cities.[1] In a state of this size, divided by feuds of every kind, from the highest political antagonism down to the meanest personal antipathy, changes were very easily