ability. In other words, the proper
political conditions had been formed for unscrupulous adventurers.
Florence had become a democracy without social organisation, which
might fall a prey to oligarchs or despots. What remained of deeply
rooted feuds or factions--animosities against the Grandi, hatred for
the Ghibellines, jealousy of labour and capital--offered so many
points of leverage for stirring the passions of the people and for
covering personal ambition with a cloak of public zeal. The time was
come for the Albizzi to attempt an oligarchy, and for the Medici to
begin the enslavement of the State.

V

The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness to the
attacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was in its origin
not a political but an industrial organisation--a simple group of
guilds invested with the sovereign authority. Its two most powerful
engines, the Gonfalonier of Justice and the Guelf College, had been
formed, not with a view to the preservation of the government, but
with the purpose of quelling the nobles and excluding a detested
faction. It had no permanent head, like the Doge of Venice; no fixed
senate like the Venetian Grand Council; its chief magistrates, the
Signory, were elected for short periods of two months, and their mode
of election was open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosen
by lot, they were really selected from lists drawn up by the factions
in power from time to time. These factions contrived to exclude the
names of all but their adherents from the bags, or _borse_, in which
the burghers eligible for election had to be inscribed. Furthermore,
it was not possible for this shifting Signory to conduct affairs
requiring sustained effort and secret deliberation; therefore recourse
was being continually had to dictatorial Commissions. The people,
summoned in parliament upon the Great Square, were asked to confer
plenipotentiary authority upon a committee called _Balia_, who
proceeded to do what they chose in the State, and who retained power
after the emergency for which they were created passed away. The same
instability in the supreme magistracy led to the appointment of
special commissioners for war, and special councils, or _Pratiche_,
for the management of each department. Such supplementary commissions
not only proved the weakness of the central authority, but they were
always liable to be made the instruments of party warfare. The Guelf
College w