in the bags kept for the purpose, felt sure of their election, and had no inducement to maintain a high standard of integrity.  Sismondi also dates from this epoch the withdrawal of the Florentines from military service.[6] Nor, as the sequel shows, was the measure efficient as a check upon the personal ambition of encroaching party leaders.  The Squittino and the Borse became instruments in the hands of the Medici for the consolidation of their tyranny.[7] By the end of the fourteenth century (about 1378)the Florentines had to meet a new difficulty.  The Guelf citizens began to abuse the so-called Law of Admonition, by means of which the Ghibellines were excluded from the government.  This law had formed an essential part of the measures of 1323.  In the intervening half-century a new aristocracy, distinguished by the name of nobili popolani, had grown up and were now threatening the republic with a close oligarchy.[8] The discords which had previously raged between the people and the patricians were now transferred to this new aristocracy and the plebeians.  It was found necessary to abolish the Admonition, which had been made a pretext of excluding all novi homines from the government, and to place the members of the inferior Arti on the same footing as those of the superior.[9] At this epoch the Medici, who neither belonged to the ancient aristocracy nor y the more distinguished houses of the nobili popolani, but rather to the so-called gente grassa or substantial tradesmen, first acquired importance.  It was by a law of Salvestro de’ Medici’s in 1378 that the constitution received its final development in the direction of equality.  Yet after all this leveling, and in the vehement efforts made by the proletariat on the occasion of the Ciompi outbreak, the exclusive nature of the Florentine republic was maintained.  The franchise was never extended to more than the burghers, and the matter in debate was always virtually, who shall be allowed to rank as citizen upon the register?  In fact, by using the pregnant words of Machiavelli, we may sum up the history of Florence to this point in one sentence:  ’Di Firenze in prima si divisono intra loro i nobili, dipoi i nobili e il popolo, e in ultimo il popolo e la plebe; e molte volte occorse che una di queste parti rimasa superiore, si divise in due.’[10]

[1] I will place in an appendix (No. ii.) translations of Varchi, book iii. sections 20-22, and Nardi, book i. cap. 4, which give complete and clear accounts of the Florentine constitution after 1292.

[2] See Machiavelli, Ist.  Fior. lib. ii. sect.  II.  The number of the Priors was first three, then six, and finally eight.  Up to 1282 the city had been divided into Sestieri.  It was then found convenient to divide it into quarters, and the numbers followed this alteration.

    [3] Machiavelli, Ist.  Fior. lib. ii. sect. 13, may be consulted
    for the history of Giano della Bella and his memorable ordinance. 
    Dino Compagni’s Chronicle contains the account of a contemporary.