Note 173 — Chapter III · THE FIRST WARS AND FIRST REFORMS OF THE FLORENTINE COMMUNE.144

We subjoin an extract from the pseudo Brunetto Latini, as it stands in the Gaddi Codex, with all its blunders. After giving an account of the revolution, the chronicler goes on to say: "Then in the year 1180 the Uberti gained the victory, and Messer Uberto degli Uberti and Messer Lamberto Lamberti were consul and rector of the city of Florence, together with their companions, and these formed the first consulate of the city, the which was brought about by violence, only afterwards they began to rule the city according to reason and justice, every one preserving his own position, so that it was decided by the citizen Consuls to summon powerful nobles of foreign birth to fill the post of Podestà, as will be shown to you in writing farther on." It is strange that the chronicler should ascribe the origin of the Consuls to so late a date. But, seeing that his list of these magistrates only begins at this point, it would seem that he really believed them to have no earlier origin. Nevertheless, shortly before, in writing of 1177, he had stated that the Uberti began to make war on the Consuls; hence it is clear that even in his opinion they had existed before the year 1180. Still, blunders and incongruities of this sort are frequently found even in Villani and other chroniclers of the same period.