Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T18:27:15.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Florentine Reggimento in the Fifteenth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Dale Kent
Dale Kent*
Affiliation:
La Trobe University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Writing in 1466, in his biography of Bartolommeo Valori, an eminent Florentine statesman of the early fifteenth century, Luca della Robbia was moved to remark of his native city that ‘come ch'ella sempre fiorisse, ciò fu massimamente dall'anno 1390 fino all'anno 1433,’ and that this was less ‘per lo favore di buona fortuna, come per consiglio de’ buoni cittadini allora preposti al reggimento; la cui virtù si scoperse oltre a modo maravigliosa, e tale che essi non dovriano dirsi inferiori a quei più savi Romani così celebrati dall'antichità’; certainly anyone considering their deeds and achievements ‘gli conterà agevolmente fra i primi uomini del mondo’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , Winter 1975 , pp. 575 - 638
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I wish not only to thank my husband F. W. Kent, for particular suggestions and criticisms of fundamental importance, but also to acknowledge that the whole framework of my assumptions concerning the nature and structure of families has been built up largely in the wake of his concern with this subject and rests heavily upon his findings, and that my views of some other elements of the social structure, such as the emphasis on gonfalone and neighborhood relationships, arise partly out of shared interests and information jointly accumulated.

I am also particularly grateful to Professors Nicolai Rubinstein and Gene Brucker who read this article in manuscript and gave me the benefit of their criticism and advice.

I am indebted to the Joint Schools Research Grant Committee of La Trobe University, Melbourne, for grants for microfilm necessary to complete this study.

References

1 ‘Although she always flourished, she thrived most between 1390 and 1433,’ and this was less ‘by the aid of good fortune than through the counsel of the worthy citizens then at the head of the ruling group, whose abilities were marvellously demonstrated, to the extent that they need not be considered inferior to those wisest Romans celebrated from antiquity.’ Certainly anyone considering their deeds and achievements ‘would number them easily among the greatest men in the world.’ Luca di Simone della Robbia, ‘Vita di Bartolommeo di Niccolò di Taldo Valore Rustichelli,’ Archivio Storico Italiano, iv-i (1843), 239-283, esp. 239-240.

2 See Rubinstein, N., The Government of Florence under the Medici, 1434-94 (London, 1966), p. 144.Google Scholar

3 See esp. Paradiso, xvi, 82-135; Dino Compagni, Cronica, ed. I. del Lungo, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, new ed., vol. ix, pt. 2 (Città di Castello, 1907-1916), bk. I., ch. xxii; Villani, Giovanni, Cronica, ed. Dragomanni, F. G., 4 vols. (Firenze, 1844-1845), bk. iv, pp. 10–13 Google Scholar; Benedetto Dei, ‘Memorie Storiche,’ transcription in the Warburg Institute, London, of Cod. Mon. Ital 160, Royal Library, Munich; also Cronica (MSS. 119. Archivio di Stato, Florence), and ‘Memorie Curiosissime sopra Firenze e Fiorentini di mano di Benedetto Dei del 1480,’ Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence, II: II, 333. These contain numerous lists of groups such as the major families in Santo Spirito; some of them are merely untitled catalogues of names.

See also Piero Guicciardini's commentary on the scrutiny of 1484, published Rubinstein, , op. cit., pp. 318–325 Google Scholar, and F. Gilbert's reference, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth Century Florence (Princeton, 1965), p. 50, to a compilation by Ugolino Verino entitled De Illustratione Urbis Florentiae, written between 1480 and 1487, giving the names of those whom contemporaries considered to have been the great Florentine families.

The patrician custom of rehearsing the names of fellow incumbents of office may partly reflect a similar impulse; see the diaries of Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati, ed. G. Brucker, trans. J. Martines, under the title Two Memoirs of Renaissance Florence (New York, 1967), pp. 81, 133, 137.

4 Jones, P. J., ‘Florentine Families and Florentine Diaries in the Fourteenth Century,’ Papers of the British School at Rome, xxiv (1956) 183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 In this century see the prototype of such studies, Ottokar, N., Il Comune di Firenze alla fine del Dugento (Torino, 1962; first ed. 1926)Google Scholar; other notable recent examples are Brucker, G. A., Florentine Politics and Society, 1343-1378 (Princeton, 1962), ch. 1, pp. 27–35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Martines, L., The Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 1390-1460 (London, 1963), passim. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Two recent systematic studies of the ruling group are those of Molho, A., ‘Politics and the Ruling Class in Early Renaissance Florence,’ Nuova Rivista Storica, lii (1968), 401–420 Google Scholar, for the period 1382 to ca. 1420, and S. Berner, The Florentine Patriciate in the Transition from Republic to Principate 1530-1610 (unpublished doctoral thesis for the University of California, Berkeley, 1969). The approach of the present study is rather different from the former, but similar in aim to that of Berner who has tried ‘to posit a more precise methodological schema for the analysis of the patriciate than is commonly applied in Florentine studies’ (p. 2) for a later period.

Since this article was written, Gene Brucker has kindly allowed me to read in draft sections from his forthcoming book, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence, which is essentially concerned with the evolution in the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries away from government in the interest of corporate groups, and toward the rule of a political élite. Brucker's approach is similar to my own, but he goes far beyond the sort of statistical concerns which are the main focus of this article, not only to identify and describe the personnel of the ruling group of this period in a wide range of terms, but also to explore in detail their actions and perceptions. Where he has asked similar questions, many of his findings corroborate the conclusions outlined below, often with more explicit evidence.

7 Rubinstein, N., ‘Notes on the Word “Stato” in Florence before Machiavelli,’ Florilegium Historiale: Essays Presented to Wallace Klippert Ferguson (University of Toronto Press, 1971), pp. 314–326 Google Scholar, discusses the meanings of stato and observes (p. 324, n. 47) that the term reggimento also merits further exploration and definition.

8 Strictly speaking, the Signoria consisted of eight Priors and the Gonfalonier of Justice, but as contemporaries often refer generally to ‘the Priors’ meaning ‘the Signoria,’ for convenience the same custom will be adopted below.

9 The phrase is that of Martines, L., Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence (Princeton, 1968), p. 388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, presents a similar picture, P. 133.Google Scholar

10 Cavalcanti, Giovanni, Istorie Fiorentine, ed. Di Pino, G. (Milano, 1944), p. 47.Google Scholar

11 Il Zibaldone Quaresimale: Giovanni Rucellai ed il suo Zibaldone, 1, ed. A. Perosa (London, 1960), p. 49.

12 Magnates were members of the Omciales Defectuum, Conductae and Grasciae, Stinchae and Gabellae; for detailed information on Magnate office-holding see MSS. 440 (Libro de’ Magnati), Archivio di Stato, Florence. All subsequent archival references are to the A.S.F. unless otherwise stated.

13 Cavalcanti, , Istorie, p. 10.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., p. 15.

15 Ricordi, ed. V. Branca (Firenze, 1956), pp. 157-158.

16 The phrase used by Piero Guicciardini in his comment on the scrutiny of 1484, op. cit., p. 319, cf. the reference to the exile of citizens ‘sospetti a regimento,’ Carte Strozziane, 2a ser., 102, Nov.-Dec. 1434 (not foliated).

17 Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, Lettere di una gentildonna fiorentina, ed. C. Guasti (Firenze, 1877), P. 98.

18 Consulte e Practiche, 48, fols. 106-107.

19 Cavalcanti, , Istorie, p. 282.Google Scholar

20 C.S., 2a ser., 103, fols. 112v-113.

21 ‘Ricordanze di Guccio di Cino de’ Nobili,’ C.S., 2a ser., 59, c. 212.

22 Cavalcanti, , Istorie, p. 311.Google Scholar

23 Morelli, , Ricordi, p. 196 Google Scholar, see also p. 274: ‘Ne’ tuoi parentadi … tu t'appoggi a chi e nel reggimento’ and ‘tieni sempre con chi tiene e possiede il palagio e la signoria.’

24 Ricordi, ed. G. Folena, Miscellanea di Studi Offerta a A. Balduino e B. Bianchi (Padova, 1962), pp. 29-39, xxvii. Similarly, a major reason for the rejection and downfall of the Albizzan régime in September 1434 may well have been that it rebelled against the Signoria, the current representatives of the reggimento, ‘la qual chosa fare non si debba,’ as one citizen remarked. (C.S., 2a ser., 102, Sept.-Oct. 1434.)

25 Fabroni, A., Magni Cosmi Medicei Vita (Pisa, 1789), Monumenta, pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

26 C.P., 48, fol. 51, January 25, 1429 (1428, stile fiorentino), Lorenzo d'Antonio Ridolfi. The Florentine year began March 25th.

27 Ibid., Giovanni di Paolo Morelli.

28 Capitano del Popolo, 3175, fol. 121.

29 Atti del Podestà, 4423, fol. iv.

30 Cavalcanti, , op. cit., p. 47 Google Scholar, cf. p. 268, and Cosimo de’ Medici's reference in a letter of February 7, 1428 (1427, s.f.), to ‘[gli] uomini antichi a regimenti’ (Medici avanti il Principato, II, 22).

31 Cavalcanti, p. 268.

32 Pitti, Buonaccorso, Cronica, ed. della Lega, A. B. (Bologna, 1905), p. 135.Google Scholar

33 Lettere, pp. 3, 11.

34 Ibid., p. 395.

35 Morelli, , Rkordi, p. 161.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., p. 226. Elsewhere he enjoined them to ensure that a prospective father-in-law ‘sia mercatante, sia ricco, sia antico a Firenze, sia guelfo, sia nello istato’ (p. 264).

37 Cited Martines, , The Social World, p. 45.Google Scholar His study is a detailed and systematic definition and application of these criteria to the social evaluation of the humanists and those associated with them. See also Brucker, , Florentine Politics and Society, p. 27.Google Scholar

38 The Social World, p. 47.

39 Ricordi, ed. G. Folena, xxvi.

40 Morelli, , Ricordi, p. 196.Google Scholar

41 Cronica, p. 135.

42 ‘Versi fatti da Niccolò da Uzzano,’ ed. G. Canestrini, A.S.I., IV-I (1843), 297-300.

43 Ibid., p. 297, cf. p. 299, the encouragement to ‘rampognar la gente ch'è mal nata. These and the following verses may be rendered:

Lovers from old of the good and beautiful lady,
Exalted through your own expenditure,
So that the whole world talks of her …
You will be pushed forth from your council chamber
By new men, in fact your debtors …
You are so wise and so powerful,
That by following in the footsteps of your ancestors
You can bring back good government …
In such a way that the new men,
Who want to give extra name-tickets in the purses
to every common man,
Will be tumbled back down the ladder.
In order to ensure a well-filled purse,
You should obtain a mandate from the parliament
To nominate candidates of your own to the scrutiny.

44 Ibid., p. 298.

45 Cavalcanti, , Istorie, pp. 46–54.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., pp. 47-48.

47 Ibid., p. 51.

48 Ibid., p. 48.

49 Guicciardini, , in Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, p. 320.Google Scholar

50 Ottokar, , Il Comune di Firenze. See esp. p. 47 Google Scholar, for his reference to the fourteenth-century observation that the Priors were always ‘i più cardinali uomini, dei più notabili ed antichi cittadini.’

51 Molho, , op. cit., p. 408 Google Scholar, although his conclusion is that those who became Priors in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries still constituted ‘the clearest expression of a political elite.’ See also Martines, , Lawyers and Statecraft, p. 389 Google Scholar, cf. p. 123, for the opinion that ‘emphasis on the oligarchy has made for the most realistic and satisfactory analyses.’

52 For example, when the magistracy of the Ufficiali del Catasto was set up in 1427, eligibility for the new position was made to depend on eligibility for the Priorate. See Karmin, O., La legge del Catasto fiorentino del 1427 (Firenze, 1906), p. 12.Google Scholar See also Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, p. 57 Google Scholar, and the fact that certainly in the period 1429-1434, eligibles for the Priorate seem to have had a virtual monopoly of the major magistracies (below, pp. 594-596). Brucker, The Civic World, ch. 5, i, observes the close correlation in 1382 between membership of the Council of the People and qualification for the Signoria.

53 On the divieto see Rubinstein, , op. cit., p. 84 Google Scholar, and below, note 77. The names of citizens who were in arrears with their taxes were placed on a list called the specchio and were disqualified from holding office until they paid their debts to the state. This procedure often prevented citizens who were drawn for office from actually assuming it. (Rubinstein, p. 64, n. 4.)

54 Dati, , op. cit., p. 125 Google Scholar, spoke of his resolve not to seek any aid in future in having his name included in the purses, and some evidence remains concerning the attempts of particular groups to ensure that the names of their amici were put into these purses. See my forthcoming book, The Rise of the Medici: Faction in Florence, 1426-1434 (Clarendon Press), pt. n, ch. 3.

55 Rubinstein, , Government of Florence, p. 5 Google Scholar, and chs. 1-3, passim.

56 Ibid., esp. p. 233.

57 See Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, pp. 5–7 Google Scholar. Professor Rubinstein first directed my attention to the scrutiny of 1433 as a possible basis for the exploration of the ruling group; his study of the government of Florence under the Medici provides a model for the use of these complex documents, and demonstrates their value as sources for illuminating a variety of questions concerning government and the governing group.

58 Cf. below, note 75.

59 See the list of members published by Rubinstein, pp. 244-253. It includes more than 200 citizens, in addition to those representing the major offices, but only fifty-four of its members were such implacable opponents of the Medici as to merit exile when the family was reinstated in 1434, and thirteen were in fact amici of the Medici party. See The Rise of the Medici (note 54), pt. n, ch. 5.

60 Istorie, p. 297. It should be pointed out that this was the effect, not only of the scrutiny of 1433, but of the decision to combine the new horse for that scrutiny with old horse dating from as early as 1391; cf., ibid., p. 297, and Rubinstein, , op. cit., p. 7.Google Scholar

61 Neri Capponi described them as ‘quasi tutti sospetti a quello reggimento che imborsati gli avea,’ Commentarii di Neri di Gino Capponi di cose seguite in Italia dal 1419 al 1456, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, xviii (Milano, 1731), col. 1182.

62 Rubinstein, , Government of Florence, p. 9.Google Scholar Those affected in 1433 numbered only eleven —eight Medici (Baliè, 24, fols. 10v, 23), two of the Pucci (ibid., fol. 54v), described by Cosimo as ‘miei principali amici’ (Ricordi, published Fabroni, op. cit., Monumenta, p. 100); and the following February, Agnolo Acciauoli (Cap. Pop. Lib. Inquis., 3184, fol. 21); he, according to Cosimo, ‘fu confinato per certe novelle aveva scritto a Puccio e a noi’ (Ricordi, loc. cit.).

63 See Table 1. The lists are to be found in Tratte, 46 and 47, and in a later copy, MSS. 555, on which the final figures in the table are based, except for the veduti of Ruote whom the copyist has omitted. Apart from this, there were no notable discrepancies between the original and later versions.

64 About half of the minori qualified in 1433 had no proper surnames; some had pluralized patronymics indistinguishable from dozens of other similar ones. The aristocratic complaint that ‘eglino non sanno quasi chi essi si sieno’ ( Cavalcanti, , op. cit., p. 8 Google Scholar) thus appears particularly apposite. Notably only fourteen members of the major guilds who qualified in the scrutiny of 1433 found themselves in this lamentable position, and they too have been excluded from our reggimento, along with one majority-holder whose surname is indistinguishable. Molho's figures on the citizens who appeared in the lists of Priors between 1410 and 1419, and the number of families which they represented, reflect the effect of treating maggiori and minori together, even though the operation of the divieto prevented members of large maggiori houses from actually assuming offices in numbers proportionate to those qualified. He found that while 318 persons from 214 families represented the major guilds in the Signoria in that period, the 115 minori proirs came from no less than 108 families; almost every man had to be regarded as a family in himself. In fact the minori were not even a numerically significant sector of the eligibles for the Priorate; less than 16% of majorities were obtained by minori, and less than 20% of minori nominees were successful, compared with almost 38% of maggiori.

65 This is in fact the effect of Martines’ analysis of humanist marriages in chapter 5 of The Social World. Many historians would agree, however, with the principles concerning families and society of which his practice is an extension: that the family was the basic social unit, and that ‘the family in fifteenth century Florence stands between the individual and society. It mediates and determines his relations with the world at large, for he confronts the social system conditioned by his family's position in society, and his place in public life is governed by the political place of his family’ (p. 50); cf. Brucker, , Renaissance Florence, pp. 91ff.Google Scholar

66 Goldthwaite, R. A., Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence: A Study of Four Families (Princeton, 1958)Google Scholar, has even suggested that by the fifteenth century ‘clans’ had split up so completely into nuclear families that the individual had become ‘detached and autonomous’ (p. 261); he emphasizes, in relation to politics and society, ‘the diverse interests of specific individuals who just happen to have the same name.’ These conclusions, however, are essentially the product of a generalization from evidence concerning economic relationships; he has taken little account of the sort of contemporary evidence relating to the social structure discussed in the opening pages of this study or of the legal and constitutional provisions which in practice regulated and determined the shape of Florentine political life. A detailed study of three prominent patrician consorterie by F. W. Kent, Family Worlds in Renaissance Florence, to be published by Princeton University Press in 1976, has shown on the basis of a wide variety of evidence that, although these lineages were divided into separate households, some of them were not nuclear, and all shared significant corporate ties and traditions. He comments on a widespread concern with the accurate definition of consorterie, arising from its relevance to their participation in politics, and concludes with reference to the evidence concerning these three families that, despite the complexity of this still largely unexplored problem, ‘it does suggest that traditional Florentine institutions still gave each of the three what might be called a political patrimony which they defended vigorously, despite external pressures and some internal tension and disputes.’ Cf. Brucker, The Civic World, ch. 5, i, on the importance of family tradition in determining political status.

67 Rubinstein, op. cit., passim, but see esp. the examples on pp. 4, 8-10, 47, 63-65, 107.

68 Only 22.47% of single persons represented families who gained the Priorate by 1342 (cf. 38.76% of the reggimento as a whole); 28.08% between 1343 and 1381 (cf. 29-53%); 28.08% between 1382 and 1434 (cf. 23.69%); and 5.61% after 1434, (cf. 2.46%). Nine had no surnames and therefore no such dates can be attached to them, and even among those with surnames, the percentage whose first Prior cannot be traced is unusually high—15.73% (cf. 5.53%);. often such families were late-established ones. Over one-third of ‘single majorities’ were also the sole nominees for their houses; most of the others came from families with only two or three members nominated. Where this is not the case, there is usually a fairly obvious explanation. For example, the Bardi, with twenty-one nominees, still had many magnate members, and a number of those made popolani two years before still had the ‘divieto de’ tre umci’ (M.A.P., IV, 192). The Ricci, with the same number of nominees, and the Medici, with seven nominations for a family which at that time numbered at least thirty households, were presumably examples of punitive electoral policy. See below, note 75.

69 For comment on these categories, see Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, pp. 37–39 Google Scholar, 56, 117. The practice of gonfaloni was not uniform; in those where the veduti were preceded by those in the Balla or currently holding one of the major offices comprising what was known as the Cerchio, these groups have, for the sake of comparison, been amalgamated with the veduti in the figures given in Table 1. Although members of these groups need not invariably have been veduti, it is safe to assume that most of them were; certainly, for the purposes of the scrutiny, they enjoyed the same practical advantage of being at the head of the lists.

70 Of the total of 4658 maggiori nominations 37.72% were successful.

71 The figures here are distorted by the fact that only seven gonfaloni list maggiori beneficiati separately; in the rest the beneficiati are included with the non-veduti. However, of the 1029 beneficiati specifically listed, 230, or 22.35%, gained majorities; in the same gonfaloni, there were 452 nominees neither veduti nor beneficiati, and of these only six obtained majorities.

72 In the absence of any practical alternative, the Priorista Mariani has been used as a basic guide in the identification of families. However, some discrepancies between his dates and those given by other Prioriste suggest a margin of inaccuracy. Moreover, although he makes helpful use of history and heraldry to distinguish between families of the same name, his conclusions appear to be based on assumptions which are usually, but not invariably correct—for example, that the same family does net contain members of both major and minor guilds and that families were confined to a single gonfalone (see below, pp. 613-620). Cases which present particular problems are discussed in the footnotes appended to Table 2, which lists the families identified in the scrutiny of 1433.

73 Pampaloni, G., ‘Fermenti di riforme democratiche nella Firenze medicea del Quattrocento,’ A.S.I., cxix (1961), 48–49 Google Scholar, explains how, in the course of a discussion with Girolamo Machiavelli in Genoa concerning the possibility of reconstituting the Florentine ruling class after the Venetian manner, Dei listed the 150 Florentine families who should comprise it. However, he admitted that in fact at that time there were another 150 houses who ‘avevano reggimento,’ and who would have to return to the ranks and no longer enjoy ‘nè ufficio nè beneficio.’ Between the first group whose names Dei jotted down from memory (MSS. 119, ‘Cronica,’ fols. 69vff.) and the 325 taken from the scrutiny of 1433 there is a fairly close correspondence. About 160 families appear in both. Dei in fact lists 224 names, including a dozen or so mentioned more than once; of those who are not named but appear in the scrutiny of 1433, a dozen or so were magnates before 1434 and the remainder included some newer families like the Dei themselves who did not join the reggimento until after that date. Scions of older Florentine families twenty-five years earlier might perhaps have disputed Dei's choice of leading houses and there are some omissions which would have surprised them, e.g., of the Anselmi, Arrigucci, Beccanugi, Bartolini-Scodellari, Benci, Corbinelli and Dello Scelto.

74 See, for example, particularly the gonfalone of Lion D'oro.

75 Nominations in gonfaloni other than those in which they also obtained majorities have been credited to a family if the general evidence suggests a connection; these calculations are therefore approximate. It is difficult, if not impossible, to attempt to assess the degree of political discrimination expressed in the scrutiny results. Families like the Alberti, Rinuccini, and Ricci were obviously still paying for their past political policies in a general exclusion from office. However, as far as discrimination against Medician partisans is concerned, although it is possible to identify these fairly precisely for the period before 1434 (see The Rise of the Medici, pt. 1, ch. 1), their treatment in the scrutiny of 1433 varies considerably. Among the solidly Medician families of this period, while the 2/8 Tomabuoni majorities, the 4/15 Serristori, and the one majority for each of the Masi and Cocchi-Donati, with twelve and thirteen nominations respectively, might well be seen as inappropriately few, the Martelli with five majorities for nine nominations, especially as these were essentially from the same household, were quite well represented, and so were those most vocal of Medici partisans, the Ginori, with 10/13.

76 Cf. Guicciardini, Piero, op. cit., p. 319 Google Scholar, who spoke of those ‘huomini di buone case’ who in 1484 ‘hanno meno favore o per essere di famiglia, o per essere gran numero in casa, come Altoviti, etc. chè di 120 che di loro ne va a partito, non credone rimanga nel priorato il quarto.’

77 For a fourteenth-century example of the practical effects of this legislation on a large family, see Brucker, , Florentine Politics and Society, pp. 67–68 Google Scholar; in general see Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, esp. p. 84.Google Scholar

78 Neighbors are linked with relatives and friends in a veritable trilogy of Florentine social bonds. Examples range in time from Donato Velluti's references in the later fourteenth century to ‘nostro vicino, amico, e parente,’ or another who was ‘a noi congiunto d'amore, parentado, e vicinanza’ (La Cronica domestica di Messer Donato Velluti, ed. I. del Lungo and G. Volpi [Firenze, 1914], pp. 12, 22), through Morelli's picture in the early fifteenth century of the unfortunate ward as ‘pelato da’ parenti, dagli amici, da vicini’ (Ricordi, op. cit., p. 232), to Giovanni Rucellai's declaration in 1457 of the great happiness and benefit which he had derived ‘d'essere in gratia et in benivolentia de' consorti et de' parenti et de' vicini et del resto degl'uomini del tuo gonfalone’ (Il Zibaldone, p. 9). Morelli (p. 263), also advised his sons to seek their in-laws first in their own gonfalone, or if not, at least in the same quarter, and ‘ingegnati d'acquistare uno amico o piu nel tuo gonfalone’ (p. 253). Gino Capponi (Ricordi, xxv) advised his to ‘Ritenetevi co’ vostri vicini e co’ vostri parenti innanzi ad ogni cosa.’

79 A notable exception is Gene Brucker. See first his Renaissance Florence (New York, 1969), pp. 23-25, and more particularly his most recent work, The Civic World, ch. 1, i. Records survive of meetings of the gonfalone which reveal its continuing importance into the fifteenth century as a focus for popular representation, and its practical role in financial affairs at the local level, particularly in the processes of taxation, the relief of assessments, and the employment of revenues. See the forthcoming study of the gonfalone of Lion Rosso by F. W. and D. V. Kent.

80 This figure must be regarded as approximate, given the difficulty of certainly identifying all those with majorities as belonging to a single family, and especially in view of Mariani's assumption that families may be partly defined in terms of their membership of a single gonfalone. Only those who have been identified by Mariani on the basis of their arms and genealogy, or whose surnames are well known and unique have been included in this group. Of these twenty-one, most had the greater number of their majorities in one gonfalone and only one or two in the others—e.g., the Da Verazzano had 11 in Ruote and 1 in Scala, the Da Filicaia 16 in Chiavi and 3 in Ruote, and the Albizzi 21 in Chiavi and 1 in Ruote. A few, however, were more evenly spread—the Biliotti had 13 in Nicchio and 8 in Ferza, the Corsi 9 in Lion Nero and 4 in Bue, and the Pitti 7 in Ferza and 6 in Nicchio. Although the Strozzi had 23 majorities in Lion Rosso, their 11 in Lion Bianco and 6 in Unicorno still constituted a substantial representation in the latter gonfaloni, and a larger one than many families had in their “home” gonfalone. (There were a number of other families who had nominations in more than one gonfalone, but were successful in obtaining majorities in only one.)

81 Twelve of the twenty-one had their majorities in different gonfaloni of the same quarter; six of these were in Santo Spirito. Four more were divided between Chiavi and Ruote, which were not in the same quarter, but appear to have been physically adjacent, as far as can be seen from a tentative eighteenth-century reconstruction (Acquisti e Doni, 326), the accuracy of which is supported by information given in Catasto reports. As far as I know, the gonfaloni borders in this period have never been precisely delineated, and appear to have shifted marginally from time to time. For a detailed study of the residence patterns of families, and of the importance of the neighborhood or gonfalone as a focus of family political activity and patronage see F. W. Kent, Family Worlds, passim.

82 Martines, , The Social World, p. 47.Google Scholar

83 Cavalcanti, , op. cit., p. 47.Google Scholar

84 See, for example, the exchange, Strozzi, , Lettere, pp. 441–452.Google Scholar

85 See particularly Brucker, , Florentine Politics and Society, esp. pp. 20–21 Google Scholar, and also Becker, M., ‘An Essay on the “Novi Cives” and Florentine Politics, 1343-1382.’ Mediaeval Studies, xxiv (1962), 35–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

86 For example, Piero Guicciardini's division of the reggimento into five layers seems, from the examples he gives, to recognize first the extreme antiquity of families like the Bardi and the Ricci, and subsequently to differentiate between the ‘founding generation’ who gained the Priorate in the first twenty years before the end of the thirteenth century, then the fourteenth-century families, then those of the early fifteenth century, and finally those still striving for real social recognition in his own time (op. cit., pp. 322-323).

87 The figures below are based on information from the Priorista Mariani, op. cit. There were eighteen families whose first Priorate could not be dated with any certainty from Mariani.

88 The figures given by Molho, , ‘Politics and the Ruling Class,’ op. cit., pp. 414–415 Google Scholar, show a rather different pattern in the total number of new entries into this office during this period, which might suggest that many of those who entered the reggimento during the ‘boom’ period of the 80s' and 90's did not long retain their places there. Cf. below, pp. 616-620.

89 Of course, newcomers to the Priorate were not necessarily gente nuova; there are a number of examples like those of the Tosinghi, consorti of the Visdomini, who first became Priors in 1395, the Gianfigliazzi (1381), who had to wait almost a century after the institution of the office, presumably because they had been magnates for much of the intervening period, and the Ricasoli, one of the most ancient clans associated with the city, who gained their first Prior finally in 1468.

90 For a fuller discussion of the complexity of this question of social mobility, see below, pp. 615-618.

91 ‘Communes and Despots: The City State in Late Medieval Italy,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., xv (1965), 75. S. Berner, op. cit., ch. 1, sees wealth as the essential element in defining the Florentine ruling class of the early sixteenth century. The related question of the occupation of the ruling families is one requiring a major study, and perhaps best approached via the guilds. The general impression gained from the scrutiny lists, where guild membership was often mentioned, is that in the reggimento of 1433, lanaiuoli were predominant, followed by cambiatori, and a significant number also of ritagliatori, setaiuoli, and speziali.

92 Martines, , The Social World, pp. 365–378.Google Scholar

93 Possibly as many as a couple of dozen; some of these were also widows. The Statutes of 1415 (Statuta Populi et Communis Florentiae, 3 vols. [Friburgi, 1778-1783], 1, 444-446) list the magnates at that time, while the Deliberazioni dei Signori e Collegi, Speziali, 25, fols. 210v-214v, name all those made popolani by the sweeping legislation of the Balia of 1434 which effectively destroyed the traditional magnate class (see The Rise of the Medici, pt. 11, ch. 5). Although these two lists suggest that most members of most of the houses mentioned below were magnates in this period, it is rather difficult to establish the personal status of some individual members of magnate clans at any particular point in the intervening years without exhaustive examination of legislation by which, like some of the Bardi in 1431, magnates were made popolani.

94 Twenty altogether, but of these only fifteen belonged to families not otherwise represented in the scrutiny.

95 I know of no systematic comparison of assessments in 1427 and 1433, but from a general familiarity with the reports of several hundred leading citizens no extensive changes are immediately obvious, apart from a few notable individual cases and the general lowering of assessments, presumably due to an increasing ability and determination to conceal assets.

96 For the activity of these families in the fourteenth century see Brucker, , Florentine Politics and Society, e.g., pp. 125 Google Scholar, 364; cf. Table 4.

97 Goldthwaite, , op. cit., pp. 157–158.Google Scholar In fact they did on occasion appear in the reggimento—e.g., in 1444 and 1449 (Tratte, 15).

98 It is almost impossible to ascertain precisely when most of these first became established in Florence, or when their families first received the Priorate, if at all.

99 See, for example, the Rinuccini, who were nos. 8, 9, and 10 in Santa Croce with assets of 14-15,000 florins, and the Portinari, eleventh in San Giovanni with 18,174 florins. Of course the failure to gain a majority in the scrutiny of 1433 did not necessarily mean that citizens had no representation at all in the borse from which officials were drawn; some may have had polizze from the earlier scrutinies which were combined with those of 1433; however, their chances of gaining office were bound to be substantially reduced by the failure to obtain majorities in 1433.

100 The problem appears to have been particularly pressing about this time. A series of Consulte were held between 1429 and 1430 to discuss the divisions within the city and their causes, and the means of establishing and maintaining citizen unity. In 1429 a new magistracy, known as the Conservatori delle Leggi, was created to combat factionalism; the task of these officials was to prevent members of partisan groups from assuming any of the important communal offices. At the same time, a Iuramentum was drawn up to be signed by as many Florentine citizens as possible; it contained a promise to set aside in future ‘passioni di parte o di sette.’ C.P., 48, fols. 54v–58v, 60v. Whether or not these two phenomena are connected, there is no doubt that, as Brucker has pointed out, unofficial pressure groups and personal patronage were an integral and important feature of Florentine politics and society. See Renaissance Florence, pp. 97-101; also Brucker, , ‘The Structure of Patrician Society in Renaissance Florence,’ Colloquium: A Journal of Historical and Social Thought, no. 1 (April 1964), pp. 2–11 Google Scholar; The Civic World, esp. ch. 1, §. i; v, §. iv.

101 Brucker, , Renaissance Florence, p. 170 Google Scholar; cf. below, Section v.

102 Ibid., p. 90.

103 As Martines observes (p. 351), these include most of the more distinguished families of the ruling class, though the list of leading taxpayers for 1427 cannot be considered to ‘constitute nearly the whole of the city's effective political class’ in the light of the evidence presented above. Brucker, The Civic World, ch. v, ii, also observes of the preceding decades that the correlation between wealth and political status was low, but higher for clans than for households.

104 Cf. ibid., pp. 79-80.

105 The Anselmi gained the Priorate in 1283, had fourteen majorities in the scrutiny of 1433, and one leading advisor to the government in the Consulte e Pratiche in the preceeding four or five years. The Dall'Antella held the office in the first year of the Priorate's institution, filled eleven major magistracies between 1429 and 1434, and had two members who frequently attended the Consulte. The Dietisalvi became Priors in 1291, had eight majorities in 1433, half a dozen leading offices, and one outstanding advisor in the Consulte.

106 Filippo di M . Biagio Guasconi was not particularly wealthy with assets of only 6,387 florins in 1427, but members of his family held a dozen leading positions in government between 1429 and 1434, had eight members called to the Consulte, four of them being frequent speakers. The opposite relation between wealth and political influence obtained in other cases; the Bardi, for instance, had one majority in 1433 but no less than thirteen households among the leading taxpayers.

107 See The Social World, pp. 51-52, on the Corbinelli and Martelli; pp. 79-81 and p. 80 for the example of Messer Rinaldo Gianfigliazzi, whose political stature was unequaled, not only by any of his consorti, but by any other citizen of his quarter of Santa Maria Novella. In 1403, however, he paid only the 107th highest levy in a total of 1492, while his politically obscure kinsman Tommaso di M. Roberto Gianfigliazzi was the quarter's fifth highest taxpayer.

108 Armstrong, E., Lorenzo de’ Medici (London, 1896), p. 13.Google Scholar

109 See, for example, the studies of leading statesmen like those of Bencini, I. M., ‘Note e appunti tratti da documenti sulla vita politica di Neri Capponi,’ Rivista delle biblioteche e degli archivi, xx (1909), pp. 15–31, 33-56Google Scholar; A. Dainelli, ‘Niccolò da Uzzano nella vita politica di suoi tempi,’ A.S.I., 7th ser., xvii (1932), 35-86; Rado, A., Maso degli Albizzi e il partito oligarchico in Firenze dal 1382 al 1393 (Firenze, 1924)Google Scholar; and in general Martines, The Social World, ch. iv.

110 Molho, ‘Politics and the Ruling Class,’ p. 407.

111 Tratte, 93, fols. 14-106.

112 These figures on the proportion of offices which went to members of the reggimento are very slightly distorted by the fact that in the few cases where someone died or was for other reasons replaced in office, both the original incumbent and the replacement have been credited with holding the post. The magistracies included in this count were the Died di Balia (MSS. 271, Giovanni Cambi, Istorie, in Delizie degli erudili toscani, ed. Ildefonso di San Luigi, xx - xxiii [Firenze, 1785-1786], p. 181; and Pellegrini, F. C., Sulla repubblica fiorentina a tempo di Cosimo il vecchio [Pisa, 1830]Google Scholar, Documenti, xix, exxxii, clxxx, ccxvi); the Conservatori delle Leggi (Tratte, 80, fols. 416-17); the Died della Libertà (ibid., fols. 34v-36v); the Otto di Guardia (10-14); the Uffidali del Monte (393); the Uffidali del Catasto (409-409v); the Uffidali del Mare (390-390v); the Sci di Mercanzia (Mercanzie, 129, not foliated); and the Uffidali del Banco (1430-1432 only, Camera del Comune, Provveditori e Ufticiali del Banco, published by Molho, A., Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance, 1400-1433 [Harvard, 1971], Appendix F).Google Scholar

113 Florentine Politics and Society, p. 76. As he also observes, their influence ‘was not seriously circumscribed by the limitations of office holding’ (p. 71).

114 C.P., 49, fol. 132.

115 Cavalcanti, , op. cit., p. 40.Google Scholar

116 See Brucker's observations quoted above, and also his reference, p. 71, to the richiesti as ‘a leadership élite,’ and most particularly The Civic World, which is firmly based upon this assumption; esp. ch. v, ii, iii. According to Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, p. 133 Google Scholar, the uomini principals of the regime who formed the inner circle of the uomini del reggimento were ‘regular members of the Pratiche.’ See also pp. 174-175; cf. F. Gilbert, Machiavelli and Cuicciardini, pt. 1, ch. 1, section iii.

117 C. P., 49, fol. 25, April 21, 1430 (Dino di M. Guccio).

118 The number of those who actually spoke was not often more than twenty or so in addition to official members, but occasionally as many as fifty made some brief comment.

119 These figures are of course approximate; here again surnames were frequently disregarded, and although most speakers who appeared with any frequency have probably been correctly identified, there are bound to be a number of errors and omissions. This sort of head-counting is also a fairly crude indicator of political prominence; it does not allow for the long absences from Florence of many citizens on private or government business, nor the nature and quality of their contributions to discussions.

120 See Table 2. In the case of several families with the same name, all have been included in this total; it is likely that each had at least one representative in the Consulte and in many cases (e.g. those of the Ridolfi, Arrighi, and Bencivenni) we know this to be so. The correlation between the two groups in terms of purely political status and achievement is extremely high. Only fifty-nine families with majorities were represented neither in the Consulte nor in the major magistracies in this period; another eight appeared in the Consulte but not in offices, and a further twenty-nine held offices but did not attend the Consulte.

121 There were a number of magnate households among the leading taxpayers (of whom the Bardi and Cavalcanti were the most prominent), and there is evidence that in this period they were still regarded as a potential political force. When in the late 1420's and early 30's the conservative element in the ruling patriciate needed reinforcement, they are reputed to have proposed ‘di munerarli e metterli nel reggimento’ (Cavalcanti, Istorie, p. 288), on the grounds that the concerns of the magnates were closely coincident with their own. The preliminary provisions in favor of the magnates passed by the Balia of 1433 may perhaps be seen as evidence of this intention (Balle, 24, fols. 36-36v). However, none of the magnates who appeared in the Consulte were among the more frequent or more influential participants.

122 In these respects, those omitted were generally fairly representative of the reggimento.

123 Cavalcanti, , Istorie, p. 20.Google Scholar

124 Capponi, , Ricordi, iv.Google Scholar

125 Cavalcanti, , Istorie, pp. 39, 175Google Scholar, of Niccolò da Uzzano, Versi, p. 298.

126 Cavalcanti, Trattato, in Istorie, II, p. 515; cf., ibid., pp. 47 and 178, in which he refers to ‘il cerchio del reggimento.’

127 See his description of the meeting in Santo Stefano in 1426 (ibid., esp. p. 47), discussed above, p. 583.

128 Ibid., pp. 19-20.

129 C.P., 49, fol. 189, August 20, 1431 (Bartolomeo di Verano Peruzzi).

130 Ibid., 50, fol. 123, February 17, 1434 (1433 s.f.) (Lodovico di Cece).

131 Ibid., fol. 185v, August 15, 1434 (Piero di Brancaccio Rucellai).

132 Ibid., 48, fol. 115, December 1, 1429 (Ridolfo Peruzzi).

133 They were: M. Agnolo di Iacopo Acciaiuoli; Luca di M. Maso degli Albizzi; M. Rinaldo di M. Maso degli Albizzi; Niccolò di Ugo Alessandri; Cristofano di Guerrante Bagnesi; Mariotto di M. Niccolò Baldovinetti; Niccolò di M. Donato Barbadori; Iacopo di Piero Baroncelli; M. Piero di Lionardo Beccanugi; Giovanni di Giovanni Bellacci; Niccolò di Giovanni Bellacci; Stefano di Salvi di Filippo Bencivenni; Niccolò di Andrea del Benino; Sandro di Giovanni Biliotti; Piero di M. Guido Bonciani; Felice di Michele Brancacci; Francesco di Giovanni Bucelli; Giovanni di Mico di Recco Capponi; Neri di Gino Capponi; Filippo di Giovanni Carducci; Antonio di Ghezzo Delia Casa; Giovanni di Tommaso Corbinelli; Goro di Stagio Dati; M. Giuliano di Niccolaio Davanzati; Nerone di Nigi Dietisalvi; M. Carlo di Francesco Federighi; Ser Paolo di Ser Lando Fortini; M. Galileo di Giovanni Galilei; Giovanni di M. Rinaldo Gianfigliazzi; Astore di Niccolò Gianni; Andrea di Niccolò Giugni; Giovanni di Domcnico Giugni; Niccolò di Domenico Giugni; M. Giovanni d iM. Luigi Guicciardini; Piero di M. Luigi Guicciardini; Lorenzo di Piero Lenzi; Francesco di Francesco di Pierozzo della Luna; Duccio di Taddeo Mancini; Lippozzo di Cipriano Mangioni; Giuliano di Tommaso di Guccio Martini; Averardo di Francesco de’ Medici; Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici; Giovanni di Andrea Minerbetti; Giovanni di Paolo Morelli; Simone di Mariotto Orlandini; Agnolo di Filippo di Giovanni Pandolfini; Andrea di Guglielmo Pazzi; Bartolomeo di Verano Peruzzi; Ridolfo di Bonifazio Peruzzi; Antonio di M. Niccolò da Rabatta; Bartolomeo di Iacopo Ridolfi; M. Lorenzo di Antonio Ridolfi; Schiatta di Uberto Ridolfi; Andrea di Vieri Rondinelli; Paolo di Vanni Rucellai; Alamanno di M. Iacopo Salviati; Matteo di Nuccio Solosmei; M. Palla di Nofri degli Strozzi; M. Palla di M. Palla degli Strozzi; Giovanni di Lorenzo di M. Ugo della Stufa; M. Guglielmo di Francesco Tanagli; Francesco di M. Simone Tornabuoni; Niccolò di Giovanni da Uzzano; Niccolò di Bartolomeo Valori. Most of these would certainly have been instantly recognized by contemporaries as among the leaders of the ruling group, but undoubtedly this arbitrary method of selection must have omitted some of equal or greater importance than those included.

134 A few of this group, however, did come from quite small families—e.g., the Dati, Beccanugi, and Valori.

135 The Tornabuoni did not gain the Priorate until 1445, but they had been part of the magnate clan of the Tornaquinci until 1393. The only other family which had to wait for a Prior until after 1400 was the Da Rabatta (1409).

136 The families concerned were the Medici, Albizzi, Bellaci, Capponi, Guicciardini, Peruzzi, Strozzi, and Ridolfi of Ferza who each contributed two members, while the Giugni had the singular honour of providing three. Many of these were also the families with most nominees, which provides some indication of the number of their politically eligible members—the smallest were the Bellacci, Guicciardini, and Ridolfi (di Borgo), with to, 11 and 18 nominees, respectively, in 1433. All the rest had 20 or more, except the Medici, then universally disqualified from holding office, with the exception of one branch, and whose 21 representatives in the next extant scrutiny of 1440 (Tratte, 1150), are some indication of their meaningful size.

137 The Galilei, the Pazzi, and the Tanagli.

138 The Rise of the Medici, Pt. 1, Ch. 1.

139 Dainelli, , op. cit., p. 35.Google Scholar

140 For example, neither Niccolò di Giovanni Bellaci nor his sons appear in the scrutiny of 1433 and his appearances in the Consulte, previously very frequent, cease suddenly after June 16, 1431. Niccolò di Andrea del Benino disappeared from the Consulte at about the same time, and was not even nominated in 1433 although his son was veduto with a majority.

141 This may have been a scribal error.

142 Ca. 500 of ca. 1500. Presumably these generally large families would have been among those most affected by the divicto.

143 C.P., 49, fol. 170, July 3, 1431 (Antonio degli Albizzi). Cf. the reference, January 18, 1430 (1429 s.f.), to a ‘consilium requisitorum hominum regiminis et valentium’ (ibid., fol. 2).

144 Ibid., 48, fol. 51v , January 25, 1429 (1428 s.f), Marco di Goro Strozzi. Cf, ibid., 49, fols. 198-198v, November 26, 1431: ‘Si ricorda alia Signoria che presto si facci pratica di piccolo numero e de’ piu intendenti cittadini ci sono.’ Loyalty to the current regime was also a key factor; just as Morelli believed that one should always align oneself ‘con chi dene e possiede il palagio e la signoria’ (p. 274) and Gino Capponi advised his sons to do the same in order to maintain their position in the city (xxvii), so citizens richiesti to the Consulte must be ‘accetto al Palagio’ (Cavalcanti, p. 10), ‘riputati e fedi al vostro reggimento’ (C.P., 50, fol. 185v). During the abrupt changes of régime in 1433 and 1434, similar abrupt changes can be traced in the membership of meetings of richiesti (Kent, The Rise of the Medici, pt. 11, ch. 5). Cf. Brucker, The Civic World, ch. 5, ii, on the relevance of personal qualities to membership of the elite.

145 They were M. Piero di Lionardo Beccanugi, M. Giuliano di Niccolò Davanzati, M. Carlo di Francesco Federighi, M. Guglielmo di Francesco Tanaglia, M. Lorenzo di Antonio Ridolfi. Cf. Lawyers and Statecraft, pp. 206-207.

146 The powers of these officials were extensive in this period; see Molho, A., Florentine Public Finances, pp. 185–187.Google Scholar

147 Members of the ‘inner circle’ provided altogether thirty-one of fifty-four maggiori representatives in this period.

148 These included the Manetti, Rinuccini, and Parenti families, and outstanding individuals like Banco di Sandro and Domenico di Tano, both coltriciai.

149 Cosimo de’ Medici was the commune's chief creditor, for 155, 887 florins, and Andrea de’ Pazzi came second with 55,524. See Molho, Florentine Public Finances, ch. 6, and Appendix E. He also publishes the full list of Ufficiali del Banco in Appendix F. Of the twenty-three vacancies in this period held by members of the inner reggimento, four went to Andrea de’ Pazzi, and two each to Filippo di Giovanni Carducci, Cosimo de’ Medici, and Giovanni di Andrea Minerbetti.

150 See the tables published by Martines, op. cit., The wealthiest were Niccolò Barbadori (24,438 florins), Iacopo Baroncelli (17,883), Ser Paolo Fortini (19,874), Niccolò and Giovanni di Domenico Giugni (20,807), Giovanni Guicciardini (18,595), Francesco della Luna (34,987), Averardo de’ Medici (15,097), Agnolo Pandolfini (27,706), Andrea Pazzi (31,000), Ridolfo Peruzzi (20,542), Palla Strozzi (101,422), Francesco Tornabuoni (46,320), Niccolò da Uzzano (46,402), and Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose fortune was then in their father's name (79,492).

151 As calculated by Fiumi, E., ‘Fioritura e decadenza dell'economia fiorentina,’ A.S.I., cxv (1957), 385–439 Google Scholar; cxvi (1958), 443-510; cxvii (1959), 427-502; see esp. cxvi, 466.

152 The approximate numbers of the ruling group are usually simply set against population estimates, with allowance for dependents. For example, A. Molho, ‘Politics and the Ruling Class,’ p. 405, multiplies the approximate number of nominees to the scrutiny of 1391 by three for dependents to conclude that 13,500 or 27% of the taxpaying population of ca. 50,000 at that time can be considered part of the ‘political class’; cf. Hicks, D., ‘The Sienese State in the Renaissance,’ From the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation, ed. Carter, C. H. (New York, 1965), pp. 75–94 Google Scholar, esp. p. 90. Hicks uses a multiplier often for ‘wives, children, dependents and retainers’ to arrive at the number of ‘constituents.’ Perhaps until more information about the precise structure of upper-class Florentine households has been published and interpreted, these sorts of calculations should be considered tentative and their value uncertain.

153 Herlihy, D., ‘Vieillir à Florence au Quattrocento,’ Annales-Econotnies-Sociétés- Civilisations, xxiv (1969), 1338-1352, esp. pp. 1350–1352.Google Scholar

154 Versi, op. cit., p. 299.

155 Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, p. 219 Google Scholar, esp. note 6.

156 The sources of this information are the Catasto reports of these citizens, supplemented by the Registro d'Approvazioni d'Età (Tratte, 42), compiled in response to the law of 1429 which laid down that all veduti had to inform the Consuls of their ages in order to facilitate enforcement of the regulations concerning minimum ages for leading ‘ magistracies (see Rubinstein, , op. cit., p. 117 Google Scholar, note 6). Of the ten concerning whom precise information is unavailable, four were certainly at least forty years of age.

157 Gilbert, , Machiavelli and Guicciardini, p. 20 Google Scholar, made a similar point some time ago without the help of such precise information. Owing to the practice of infant scrutiny not all eligibles were within the age range specified for office-holders; if drawn they would of course have been divieto. However, the comparatively close correspondence in our groups between eligibility for the Tre Maggiori, membership of the Consulte, and actual office-holding suggests that the proportion of under-age eligibles was not very high.

158 There are a number of other groups which might be examined in the same way, as a means of further defining the ruling group; the list, for example, of those who held polizze for the office of Gonfalonier of Justice, the most prestigious position in government, in 1428 (Tratte, 61, fols. 82-86v), shows that altogether 212 citizens from 137 families were then qualified for this office, and that of these 137, all but two had majorityholders in the scrutiny of 1433. Only five of them did not appear either among holders of major office between 1429 and 1434 or in the lists of those richiesti to the Consulte in this period; one appeared in the Consulte but held no offices and five held office but were not among those summoned to advise the Signoria. Four of the 212 listed had no surnames, and cannot therefore be identified with certainty.

159 The most eloquent proponent of this view is Lauro Martines. In The Social World, pp. 4-5, he speaks of a ‘relentless contraction of the oligarchy,’ a reduction of ‘the great political families … in importance, power and number’ which he links with Eugenio Garin's thesis concerning the destruction of the civic and political spirit in an oligarchy deprived of its liberty under the Medician Caesars (L'Umanesimo Italiano [Bari, 1958], pp. 94-95). The evidence presented below in no way confutes Martines’ central argument that ‘during the middle decades of the Quattrocento, the Florentine ruling families were gradually giving up the substance of power for its forms’ (op. cit., p. 286), although Rubinstein has drawn attention in his article on ‘Florentine Constitutionalism and Medici Ascendancy in the Fifteenth Century,’ in Florentine Studies, ed. N. Rubinstein (London, 1968), pp. 442-462, to Bruni's view that political equality consisted partly in ‘the hope of attaining public office and of rising to higher status’ (pp. 451-452). However, my findings would certainly contradict his associated statements about the actual size and numbers of the Florentine ruling group in the fifteenth century, which are generally based on limited and impressionistic evidence. In The Social World, p. 49, he argues that ‘from 1382 onward, periodic reforms gradually reduced the number of ruling houses; while new families were occasionally taken into the oligarchy, many more of the older type were expelled from government or banished from Florence.’ The example he gives is that ‘after Cosimo de’ Medici's triumphant repatriation, dozens of old families were politically liquidated’; in fact of a total of fifty-eight families involved in the proscriptions of 1434, only twenty-one failed to regain the Priorate under the Medician régimes of subsequent years (The Rise of the Medici, pt. II, ch. 5). My figures on the dates on which families in the reggimento of 1433 first gained the Priorate, and Table 4 below would suggest that the statements that most leading Quattrocento families originated in the thirteenth century and gained the Priorate in the early fourteenth (pp. 54, 78) and that new citizens no longer entered the main circuit of political office after about 1400 (p. 29) may reflect important general tendencies but are by no means literally true.

Concerning the actual size of the reggimento in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Martines speaks of a ‘decline’ at the end of the fourteenth, ‘temporarily arrested in the opening decades of the fifteenth century’ (Lawyers and Statecraft, p. 389), and argues that the numbers materially decreased as the century progressed (pp. 389-390). His estimates of the size of the ruling group in this period are based on scrutiny counts in the late fourteenth century (p. 388), but rely for the later period of ‘decline’ on contemporary guesses (p. 206) or miscellaneous lists like the Iuramentum of 1429 (p. 389; cf. above, note 100) or the oath of 1466 (p. 390), which are not comparable either with each other or with the scrutinies in either purpose or nature. It seems to me important that these impressions should not become explanatory assumptions without more precise confirmation in a survey of comparable sources during the fifteenth century, toward which the following comparative data may provide a very limited beginning.

160 In fact, Rubinstein's study of the constitution has gone much of the way toward answering this question, and perhaps a study of political patronage in this period might go still further.

161 Unfortunately, the evidence of the scrutiny lists cannot take us beyond 1453, while many of the more important shifts in the seat of actual government occurred in the late 50's and after (Rubinstein, op. cit., pt. 1, ch. 5, and pts. II and III). Conversely, as far as numbers are concerned, the loss of electoral qualifications by citizens in the late 50's was balanced by an increase again in the 60's (p. 153).

162 Rubinstein, N., ‘Politics and Constitution in Florence at the End of the Fifteenth Century,’ in Italian Renaissance Studies, ed. Jacob, E. F. (London, 1960), pp. 148–183 Google Scholar, esp. p. 176. The increasing emphasis on the classification of veduti and beneficiati as privileged members of the ruling group, which dated from the opening years of the Quattrocento ( Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, esp. pp. 37, 115-121Google Scholar) and culminated in the provisions for the creation of the Consiglio Maggiore, may be seen as the expression of a desire to define, and subsequently to fixate, its boundaries. Insofar as they eventually came to do just that, these categories in some ways operated to restrict the reggimento; as Rubinstein observes, the smaller number of citizens drawn for office due to the strict control of the purses by accoppiatori after 1434 limited the growth of this privileged body of veduti (op. cit., p. 37). Conversely, care was taken to avoid offence to the ruling group by the practice of inserting names into the purses for the specific purpose of having them ‘seen,’ and thus included in the privileged group (pp. 38-39), so that, by the end of the century, it in fact included many more than the total number of eligibles in any surviving scrutiny of the preceding century.

163 The growth which we shall observe was indeed the continuation of a trend which can be traced back at least to the scrutiny of 1343, when approximately 300 out of 3000 nominees obtained majorities; although that for 1382 is the earliest extant list, according to Brucker ‘the number of eligibles increased regularly with each scrutiny held after 1348’ (Florentine Politics and Society, pp. 66-67, 90)- Although lists for three of the four quarters in 1444 and 1448-1449 survive, that for 1453 with only two quarters has been chosen as the last extant scrutiny for this period.

164 Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, pp. 4, 53.Google Scholar

165 The list is published in Delizie degli eruditi toscani, 24 vols. (Firenze, 1784), xvi, 125-260.

166 See Tables 1 and 3, and also Stradario Storico e Amministrativo della Città e del Comune di Firenze (Firenze, 1913), p. xxx. The populations of the quarters were then: Santo Spirito, 13,935; Santa Croce, 8,869; Santa Maria Novella, 10,964; San Giovanni, 25,255.

167 Tratte, 397. The slight discrepancies between these and Molho's figures (‘Politics and the Ruling Class,’ p. 405) are probably due to the latter's being based on initial scribal totals, which did not take account of subsequent additions of names squeezed in at the head or foot of each page and the cancelation of other names later found to have been entered more than once; these scarcely affect the count of majorities but do make some difference to nominations.

168 I.e., there would have been ca. 556 majorities for all sixteen gonfaloni in 1382.

169 As Morelli, , op. cit., p. 323 Google Scholar, points out, after the Ciompi revolt ‘montarono in istato gli artefici e ressono quarantadue mesi’; the number of obscure families who appear there but have dropped out by 1391 (see below, Table 4) would suggest that, despite the change of régime, the scrutiny of 1382 still reflected something of this upheaval.

170 Ibid., p. 336.

171 MSS. 555 (not foliated).

172 Ibid.

173 Tratte, 1150.

174 Tratte, 49, 15. This scrutiny was notably less liberal than that of 1440 in qualifying new citizens ( Rubinstein, , The Government of Florence, p. 59 Google Scholar).

175 Tratte, 61, fols. 66-80v; 49. The criticism was made of this scrutiny that in fact it admitted to the purses ‘molta gente nuova e mai usata al regimento’ ( Rubinstein, , op. cit., p. 61 Google Scholar).

176 This is a rather difficult calculation to make; one can only guess at the size of Santa Croce in relation to the other quarters on the basis of their previous relative size. Although the censimento of a century later shows the population of Santa Croce to have been significantly smaller than that of the other quarters, the number of major guildsmen from that quarter made eligible for office was higher than any other in 1382, smaller than any other in 1391, third in 1411, highest again in 1433, lowest in 1444, and a little lower than Santa Maria Novella, the only other extant quarter, in 1453. In none of these scrutinies, however, was there any great discrepancy between the numbers of eligibles qualified in each of the four quarters; they might indeed have been maintained intentionally at a roughly similar level. Thus it seems reasonable to assume that the numbers qualified in Santa Croce in 1444 were generally equal to those in the other quarters.

177 Tratte, 1151, fols. 387-399v, 408v, 420v; 61, fols. 136-142v, 66-86v.

178 Of course it should be borne in mind that while the size of the ruling group increased in this period, so too did the population, which is estimated to have reached ca. 70,000 by 1500. See Gilbert, , Machiavelli and Guicciardini, p. 20.Google Scholar

179 For example, only about two dozen maggiori families of over 300 in the reggimento of 1433 had less majorities then than they had had in 1411.

180 The proportion of nominees from the major guilds who were successful in obtaining majorities went from 14.45% in 1382 to 11.67% m 1391, then rose to 22.60% in 1411 and again to 37.93% in 1433. The corresponding figures for minori, however, were 48.93%, 8.22%, 13.65%, and 19.28%. These proportions cannot be calculated after 1433.

181 In 1382 minori constituted 35.23% of the reggimento; in 1391, 20.97%; in 1411, 17.30%; in 1433, 15.69%; in 1440 in the gonfalone of San Giovanni, 19.09%; in 1444 in Santo Spirito, San Giovanni, and Santa Maria Novella, 19.46%; in 1448-1449 in Santo Spirito and Santa Maria Novella, 18.60%; and in 1453 in Santa Maria Novella, 16.06%.

182 Cf. Rubinstein's observation (The Government of Florence, pp. 62-63) that newly qualified citizens were usually from families already represented in the reggimento.

183 See Table 3.

184 Cf. Molho, ‘Politics and the Ruling Class,’ pp. 411-413.

185 ‘… in another gains something better, according to its ability, or its wealth, and in a short time … they ascend from the lowest level and proceed to the next, always rising, and in their place are succeeded by even newer men to fill up the lowest ranks, and thus continually new men come on, whence necessarily … on the other hand, some old ones must be driven out; and so it goes’ (The Government of Florence, p. 323).

186 Ibid., esp. pp. 62-63.

187 E.g., ibid., pp. 85-86. Most of the points which follow have already been made by Rubinstein, ch. 3, with greater precision, but this evidence may suggest the outlines, however sketchily, of a picture of the development over a longer and more varied period.

188 See Table 4. The patterns in Santa Maria Novella are generally common to the other quarters, for which precise figures have not been prepared, although they have been investigated in the same terms. The overall uniformity between quarters is particularly obvious in the degree of continuity in the composition of the reggimento over this period and the disproportionate share of majorities which went to a few preponderant families in each gonfalone.

189 Ca. twenty of these families appeared in more than one gonfalone and, of these, the Strozzi, Franceschi, and Da Sommaia each appeared in three.

190 The Albizzi and Morelli are obvious examples; it is impossible to be precise of course about the number of such families, especially over such a long period of time.

191 69.11% in 1391; 72-05% in 1411; 75-32% in 1433; 64.19% in 1444; 75.23% in 1448-1449; and 88.50% in 1453. These figures may indicate a greater consolidation toward the end of this period, but they are undoubtedly partly the result of the last few scrutinies being so close together compared with the earlier ones.

192 These figures are rather inflated by the inclusion of the twenty families in more than one gonfalone and the half dozen who belonged primarily to another quarter, but to subtract them would give a false picture of the distribution in any one year within each gonfalone.

193 Not all gonfaloni or all scrutinies were equally dominated by a handful of powerful families; in 1382 in the gonfalone of Unicorno 18 families had only one majority, and the remaining 8 commanded between them no more than 22 out of the 40 majorities for the whole gonfalone. However, in the other gonfaloni, as elsewhere in Florence throughout most of this period, a handful of families gained a disproportionate share of majorities, and the gonfalone of Vipera provides a typical example of the persistence of this trend. While the five leading families in 1382 obtained 21 of 30 majorities, the five leading families of 1453 had 91 of the 119 in the gonfalone for that year. Cf. Rubinstein, , op. cit., p. 8 Google Scholar, and p. 63 with particular reference to the quarter of San Giovanni. As he points out, the distribution of polizze was also relevant and confirms the general point. The fact that these outstanding families were thus the chief beneficiaries of the dramatic increase in the total number of majorities may perhaps be related to the tendency which we observed in the reggimento of 1433 for families to have their electoral base in a single gonfalone. This is also apparent in Santa Maria Novella over a longer period of time; between 1382 and 1453 only 20 families gained majorities in more than one gonfalone of that quarter, and comparatively few seem to have been represented in other quarters. A few families however, obtained all their majorities in one gonfalone, but had unsuccessful nominees in others (e.g., in 1433, the Altoviti in Lion Nero and the Mazzinghi in Vaio and Santo Spirito).

194 For example the Altoviti and the Acciaiuoli were the two most prominent families in Vipera in 1382 with 5 and 6 respectively of the total of 30 majorities; by 1453 the Altoviti were the leading family in the gonfalone and had increased their majorities to 29, while the Acciaiuoli still ranked third with 15 out of a total of 119 majorities.

195 For instance, while 14 Unicorno families of 1382 were represented in the scrutiny of 1453, not all of them continued to enjoy the same proportion of the total majorities or even to rank among the leading families of the gonfalone. “While the majorities gained by the Bartoli family had risen from one in 1382 to the top score of 27 in 1453, the Ardinghelli who had led the list of 1382 with 5 majorities had only a single majority in the scrutiny of 1453. Other families like the Spini had increased the absolute number of their majorities from 4 in 1382 to 7 in 1453, but in proportion to the general increase had lost ground. The Gucci who had been prominent in 1382 had by 1453 disappeared altogether. Of those families with half a dozen majorities or more in 1453, 7 had appeared after 1382, 5 in 1411, one in 1433, and one in 1440.

196 E.g., the Mangioni, Bordoni, della Luna, and Strozzi. The evidence would strongly suggest that many of those who dropped out of the reggimento did so because they became unacceptable to the leaders of the current régime. Presumably at least some of the 31 families with majorities in 1382 who did not appear again in scrutinies before 1453 were the victims of the determination of the newly entrenched oligarchy to reverse the trend toward the broadening of the base of the reggimento which had been the effect of the policies of the preceding régime. Notably, in the comparatively stable years between 1391 and 1411 only 11 families dropped out of the reggimento, and this number fell to 6 between 1411 and 1433. Of the 12 families represented in 1433, but absent in 1444, most were involved in anti-Medician activities between 1433 and 1434. (The Rise of the Medici, Chs. ii, iv.) This was also true of several others who dropped out between 1449 and 1453. Of course, ‘natural decline’—the rise and fall of families—was a favorite theme of Florentine literature from Dante onwards. The Castellani and Spini are two interesting examples of families who by 1453 had lost the position they enjoyed in the reggimento prior to 1434, partly, perhaps, because they had both been involved with the anti-Medician faction in 1433-1434 (ibid., Appendix iii), although both had been in a state of economic decline for some time previously. On the Castellani see Brucker, , Renaissance Florence, p. 24 Google Scholar, and for the Holmes, Spini, G., ‘How the Medici Became the Pope's Bankers,’ Florentine Studies, pp. 357–380; see esp. pp. 377-378.Google Scholar

197 E.g., the Del Bene who appeared for the first time in these lists in 1449 were of course an ancient and prestigious house who became Priors in 1283.

198 Cf. above, note 89.

199 Although the figures for Santa Maria Novella are in accord with those for the rest of the city in indicating a general decline in the representation of minori in the reggimento as the fifteenth century progresses, the number of families who enter the reggimento as minori and then graduate to the greater guilds—at least a dozen over these years, including the Della Badessa, Redditi, Franceschi, Bertaldi, and Canacci—illustrates one aspect of continuing social mobility in this period.

200 See Table 4; cf. Molho's figures (‘Politics and the Ruling Class,’ pp. 414-415, note 41) on the numbers of families represented by new occupants of the office.

201 Istorie, p. 311. ‘Benchè io dica nuovo reggimento, non si gridò però disusate voci, e non si trasformò nè qualita nè novero d'uomini, ma fecesi aggiunta di probata condizione d'uomini, i quali nel primo reggimento non avevano avuto luogo.’