monwealth. This body, like a
little State within the State, proved formidable to the republic
itself through the unlimited and undefined sway it exercised over
burghers whom it chose to tax with treason. In course of time it
became the oligarchical element within the Florentine democracy, and
threatened to change the free constitution of the city into a
government conducted by a few powerful families.

There is no need to dwell in detail on the internal difficulties of
Florence during the first half of the fourteenth century. Two main
circumstances, however, require to be briefly noticed. These are (i)
the contest of the Blacks and Whites, so famous through the part
played in it by Dante; and (ii) the tyranny of the Duke[1] of Athens,
Walter de Brienne. The feuds of the Blacks and Whites broke up the
city into factions, and produced such anarchy that at last it was
found necessary to place the republic under the protection of foreign
potentates. Charles of Valois was first chosen, and after him the Duke
of Athens, who took up his residence in the city. Entrusted with
dictatorial authority, he used his power to form a military despotism.
Though his reign of violence lasted rather less than a year, it bore
important fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to support himself upon the
favour of the common people, gave political power to the Lesser Arts
at the expense of the Greater, and confused the old State-system by
enlarging the democracy. The net result of these events for Florence
was, first, that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife,
involving exiles and proscriptions; and, secondly, that it lost its
primitive social hierarchy of classes.

IV

After the Guelfs had conquered the Ghibellines, and the people had
absorbed the Grandi in their guilds, the next chapter in the troubled
history of Florence was the division of the Popolo against itself.
Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict between labour and
capital. The members of the Lesser Arts, craftsmen who plied trades
subordinate to those of the Greater Arts, rose up against their social
and political superiors, demanding a larger share in the government, a
more equal distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges that
should place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy merchants.
It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke out into
rebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for this revolt. First
of all, the republic