able for the others; and two bearing witness to
public fame and report should be held to prove such crimes; and the
public accounts should be revised. And these laws they called the
Ordinances of Justice. And to the intent they might be maintained and
put into execution, it was decreed that beyond the number of six
Priors which governed the city, there should be a gonfalonier of
justice appointed by the several sesti in succession, changing every
two months, as do the Priors. And when the bells were set tolling, the
people were to rally to the church of San Piero Scheraggio and give
out the banner of justice, which before was not the custom. And they
decreed that not one of the Priors should be of the noble houses
called magnates; for before this good and true merchants had often
been made Priors, albeit they chanced to be of some great and noble
house. And the ensign and standard of the said Popolo was decreed to
be a white field with a red cross; and there were chosen 1000
citizens, divided according to the sesti, with certain standard-bearers
for each region, with fifty footmen to each standard, which were to be
armed, each one with hauberk and shield marked with the cross; and
they were to assemble at every tumult or summons of the gonfalonier,
at the house or at the palace of the Priors, to do execution against
the magnates; and afterwards the number of the chosen footmen
increased to 2,000, and then to 4,000. And a like order of men-at-arms
for the people, with the said ensign, was enrolled in each country and
district of Florence, and they were called the Leagues of the People.
And the first of the said gonfaloniers was one Baldo de' Ruffoli of
the Porte del Duomo; and in his time the standard sallied forth with
armed men to destroy the goods of a family named Galli of Porta S.
Marie, by reason of a murder which one of them had committed in the
kingdom of France on the person of a popolano. This new decree of the
people, and change in the State was of much importance to the city of
Florence, and had afterwards many and divers consequences both ill and
good to our commonwealth, as hereafter in due time we shall make
mention. And in this new thing and beginning of the Popolo, the
popolani would have been hindered by the power of the magnates but
that in those times the said magnates of Florence were in greater
broils and discords among themselves than ever before since the Guelfs
returned to Florence; and there was