knows what a citizen is really, knows also that, being unable to share either the honors or the advantages of the city, they are not truly citizens; therefore let us call them burghers, without franchise.  Those again who pay taxes and enjoy the citizenship (whom we will therefore call enfranchised burghers) are in like manner of two kinds.  The one class, inscribed and matriculated into one of the seven first arts, are said to rank with the greater; whence we may call them Burghers of the Greater:  the others, inscribed and matriculated into the fourteen lesser arts, are said to rank with the lesser; whence we may call them Burghers of the Lesser.  This distinction had the Romans, but not for the same reason.

Varchi:  Storia Fiorentina, lib. ix. chs. 48, 49, 46.

As for natural abilities, I for my part cannot believe that any one either could or ought to doubt that the Florentines, even if they do not excel all other nations, are at least inferior to none in those things to which they give their minds.  In trade, whereon of a truth their city is founded, and wherein their industry is chiefly exercised, they ever have been and still are reckoned not less trusty and true than great and prudent:  but besides trade, it is clear that the three most noble arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture have reached that degree of supreme excellence in which we find them now, chiefly by the toil and by the skill of the Florentines, who have beautified and adorned not only their own city but also very many others, with great glory and no small profit to themselves and to their country.  And, seeing that the fear of being held a flatterer should not prevent me from testifying to the truth, though this will turn to the highest fame and honor of my lords and patrons, I say that all Italy, nay the whole world, owes it solely to the judgment and the generosity of the Medici that Greek letters were not extinguished to the great injury of the human race, and that Latin literature was restored to the incalculable profit of all men.

    [1] For an explanation of Squittino and Squittinare, see
    Nardi, p. 593 above.

I am wholly of opinion opposed to that of some, who, because the Florentines are merchants, hold them for neither noble nor high-spirited, but for tame and low.[1] On the contrary, I have often wondered with myself how it could be that men who have been used from their childhood upwards for a paltry profit to carry bales of wool and baskets of silk like porters, and to stand like slaves all day and great part of the night at the loom, could summon, when and where was need, such greatness of soul, such high and haughty thoughts, that they have wit and heart to say and do those many noble things we know of them.  Pondering on the causes of which, I find none truer than this, that the Florentine climate, between the fine air of Arezzo and the thick air of Pisa, infuses into their breasts the temperament of which I spoke.