Note 105 — Chapter II · THE ORIGIN OF THE FLORENTINE COMMUNE.82

The chronicler designates the chief families as anteriores, possibly because they were the first to settle in Venice; he represents them as a supreme and governing class, and in the list he gives of them mentions what trades they carried on. "Cerbani de Cerbia venerunt, anteriores fuerunt de omni artificio ingeniosi. Signati (variant: Cugnati) Tribuni Ianni appellati sunt, anteriores fuerunt, mirabilia artificia facere sciebant caliditate ingenii. Aberorlini ... anteriores fuerunt; non aliud operabantur nisi negocia, sed advari et increduli." And so on regarding other families exercising from generation to generation the same trade, commerce, or liberal profession. As to the guilds or ministeria, we find many expressions affording hints of their embryo organisation. "Hetolus autem appellatus est, quia ipse erat princeps de his qui ministerii erant retinendis." They were sadlers, cattle-herds, &c. Many more of these families are named in the list given in the Chronicle, and all seems to denote the continuation of a state of things that had existed during the lower Empire.