of the Italian
commonwealths are unintelligible, and the elaborate definitions of the
Florentine doctrinaires lose half their meaning. The internal
revolutions of the free cities were almost invariably caused by the
necessity of enlarging the Popolo, and extending its franchise to the
non-privileged inhabitants. Each effort after expansion provoked an
obstinate resistance from those families who held the rights of
burghership; and thus the technical terms _primo popolo_, _secondo
popolo_, _popolo grasso_, _popolo minuto_, frequently occurring in the
records of the Republics, indicate several stages in the progress from
oligarchy to democracy. The constitution of the city at this early
period was simple. At the head of its administration stood the Bishop,
with the Popolo of enfranchised burghers. The _Commune_ included the
Popolo, together with the non-qualified inhabitants, and was represented
by Consuls, varying in number according to the division of the town into
quarters.[4] Thus the Commune and the Popolo were originally separate
bodies; and this distinction has been perpetuated in the architecture of
those towns which still can show a Palazzo del Popolo apart from the
Palazzo del Commune. Since the affairs of the city had to be conducted
by discussion, we find Councils corresponding to the constituent
elements of the burgh. There is the _Parlamento_, in which the
inhabitants meet together to hear the decisions of the Bishop and the
Popolo, or to take measures in extreme cases that affect the city as a
whole; the _Gran Consiglio_, which is only open to duly qualified
members of the Popolo; and the _Credenza_, or privy council of specially
delegated burghers, who debate on matters demanding secrecy and
diplomacy. Such, generally speaking, and without regard to local
differences, was the internal constitution of an Italian city during the
supremacy of the Bishops.

[1] It is not necessary to raise antiquarian questions here relating
to the origin of the Italian Commune. Whether regarded as a survival
of the ancient Roman _municipium_ or as an offshoot from the Lombard
_guild_, it was a new birth of modern times, a new organism evolved
to express the functions of Italian as different from ancient Roman
or mediaeval Lombard life. The affection of the people for their past
induced them to use the nomenclature of Latin civility for the
officers and councils of the Commune. Thus a specious