t be regarded as two nations, contended for the
mastery.

With respect to the collective struggle of Florence against her foes,
which entered on its active phase early in the twelfth century, on the
death of Matilda in 1115, it may be said in brief that it was carried
on with a vigour and success, subject only to brief and few reverses,
during the whole period with which we are concerned. But this very
success in external enterprises emphasized and embittered the internal
factions. These had been serious from the first. The Uberti and other
ruling families resisted the growing influence of the people; and the
vicissitudes of the struggle may be traced at the end of the twelfth
and beginning of the thirteenth centuries in the alternation of the
various forms of the supreme magistracy. But it was part of the policy
of the victorious Florentines to compel the nobles they had reduced to
submission to live at least for a part of the year in the city; and
thus while the merchant people of Florence was increasing in wealth
and power, the nobles in the city were in their turn constantly
recruited by rich and turbulent members of their own caste, who were
ready to support them in their attempt to retain the government in
their hands. Thus the more successful Florence was in her external
undertakings the greater was the tension within.

The forces arrayed against each other gradually assumed a provisional
organization in ever-increasing independence of each other. The old
senate or council and the popular assembly of all the citizens were
transformed or sank into the background, and the Podesta, or foreign
magistrate appointed for a year, with his lesser and greater council
of citizens, was the supreme authority from 1207 onwards. This marked
a momentary triumph of the nobles. But the people asserted themselves
once again, and elected a Captain of the People, also a foreigner,
with a lesser and greater council of citizens, who did not dispute the
formal and representative supremacy of the Podesta, but was in reality
coordinate with him. On this the Podesta naturally became the head of
the nobles as the Captain was head of the people; and there rose that
spectacle, so strange to us but so familiar to mediaeval Italy, of two
bodies of citizens, each with its own constitution and magistracy,
encamped within the same walls. The Podesta was the head of the
"Commonwealth," and the Captain the head of the "People." There was,
it is tr