ut merely assembled within the palace, omitting all
ceremony.

This Signory, considering nothing more advisable in the beginning of
their magistracy than to restore peace, caused a relinquishment of arms;
ordered the shops to be opened, and the strangers who had been called to
their aid, to return to their homes. They appointed guards in many parts
of the city, so that if the admonished would only have remained quiet,
order would soon have been re-established. But they were not satisfied
to wait three years for the recovery of their honours; so that to
gratify them the Arts again met, and demanded of the Signory, that for
the benefit and quiet of the city, they would ordain that no citizens
should at any time, whether Signor, Colleague, Capitano di Parte, or
Consul of any art whatever, be admonished as a Ghibelline; and further,
that new ballots of the Guelphic party should be made, and the old ones
burned. These demands were at once acceded to, not only by the Signors,
but by all the Councils; and thus it was hoped the tumults newly excited
would be settled.

But since men are not satisfied with recovering what is their own, but
wish to possess the property of others and to revenge themselves,
those who were in hopes of benefiting by these disorders persuaded the
artificers that they would never be safe, if several of their enemies
were not expelled from the city or destroyed. This terrible doctrine
coming to the knowledge of the Signory, they caused the magistrates
of the Arts and their Syndics to be brought before them, and Luigi
Guicciardini, the Gonfalonier, addressed them in the following words:
"If these Signors, and I with them, had not long been acquainted with
the fate of this city, that as soon as external wars have ceased
the internal commence, we should have been more surprised, and our
displeasure would have been greater. But as evils to which we are
accustomed are less annoying, we have endured past disturbances
patiently, they having arisen for the most part without our fault; and
we hoped that, like former troubles, they would soon have an end, after
the many and great concessions we had made at your suggestion. But
finding that you are yet unsettled, that you contemplate the commission
of new crimes against your fellow-citizens, and are desirous of making
new exiles, our displeasure increases in proportion to your misconduct.
And certainly, could we have believed that during our magistracy the
city w