effected.  The slightest disturbance of the equilibrium in any quarter made itself felt throughout the city.[2] The opinions of each burgher were known and calculated.  Individuals, by their wealth, their power of aiding or of suppressing poorer citizens, and the force of their personal ability, acquired a perilous importance.  At Florence the political balance was so nicely adjusted that the ringing of the great bell in the Palazzo meant a revolution, and to raise the cry of Palle in the streets was tantamount to an outbreak in the Medicean interest.  To call aloud Popolo e liberta was nothing less than riot punishable by law.  Segni tells how Jacopino Alamanni, having used these words near the statue of David on the Piazza in a personal quarrel, was beheaded for it the same day.[3] The secession of three or four families from one faction to another altered the political situation of a whole republic, and led perhaps to the exile of a sixth part of the enfranchised population.[4] After this would follow the intrigues of the outlaws eager to return, including negotiations with lukewarm party-leaders in the city, alliances with hostile states, and contracts which compromised the future conduct of the commonwealth in the interest of a few revengeful citizens.  The biographies of such men as Cosimo de’ Medici the elder and Filippo Strozzi throw the strongest light upon these delicacies and complexities of party politics in Florence.

[1] It may be worth while to compare the accurate return of the Venetian population in 1581 furnished by Yriarte (Vie d’un Patricien de Venise, p. 96).  The whole number of the inhabitants was 134,600.  Of these 1,843 were adult patricians; 4,309 women and children of the patrician class; Cittadini of all ages and both sexes, 3,553; monks, nuns, and priests, 3,969; Jews, 1,043; beggars, 187.

[2] We might mention, as famous instances, the Neri and Bianchi factions introduced into Pistoja in 1296 by a quarrel of the Cancellieri family, the dismemberment of Florence in 1215 by a feud between the Buondelmonti and Amidei, the tragedy of Imelda Lambertazzi, which upset Bologna in 1273, the student riot which nearly delivered Bologna into the hands of Romeo de’ Pepoli in 1321, the whole action of the Strozzi family at the period of the extinction of Florentine liberty, the petty jealousies of the Cerchi and Donati detailed by Dino Compagni, in 1294.

    [3] Segni, St. Fior. p. 53.

[4] As an instance, take what Marco Foscari reported in 1527 to the Venetian Senate respecting the parties in Florence (Rel.  Ven. serie ii. vol. i. p. 70).  The Compagnacci, one of the three great parties, only numbered 800 persons.

In addition to the evils of internal factions we must reckon all the sources of mutual mistrust to which the republics were exposed.  As the Italians had no notion of representative government, so they never