Note 250 — Chapter IV · STATE OF PARTIES—CONSTITUTION OF THE FIRST POPULAR GOVERNMENT AND OF THE GREATER GUILDS IN FLORENCE.234

Machiavelli, "Storie," bk. ii. On this point it may be well to repeat our former remarks, to the effect that Machiavelli is often as inaccurate in his definition of facts as profound in his intuition of their character and tendency. After the first book of his "Storie," giving a general introduction to the Middle Ages, he begins to narrate the history of Florence in the second book. He was the first writer, after L. Aretino, to put aside nearly all the fabulous tales of the chroniclers touching the origins of Florence, and start from well-authenticated facts. For although he, too, believes that Florence was destroyed by Totila and rebuilt by Charlemagne, and even credits the destruction of Fiesole by the Florentines in 1010, it is easy to condone these blunders, remembering how many other legendary tales were rejected by him, and how much time elapsed before some germ of historic truth could be gleaned from the less incredible traditions to which he adhered. But why did Machiavelli pass over almost at one bound the interval between 1010 and 1215 without saying anything of the first and second Florentine constitutions, or alluding to the numerous deeds of war and political revolutions occurring during that period? Regarding these events, he might have derived information from the chroniclers. But he clings to the theory that the Buondelmonti tragedy was the primary cause and origin of all internecine strife in Florence, although the evidence of contemporary chroniclers and his own historical acumen might have saved him from this error. Continuing with the same strangely unaccountable negligence, he skips another period—from 1215 to 1250—saying that then at last Guelphs and Ghibellines came to an agreement, and "deemed the moment come to establish free institutions," almost as though this were the first time that the Florentines had contemplated organising a free government. Yet we have seen that Florentine liberties were assured, and the first constitution founded in 1115; that the constitution of 1250 was the third, not the first, and established by the Guelph popolani, to the hurt of the Ghibelline nobles, instead of being formed, as Machiavelli states, by the united efforts of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Nor is this the last of his blunders, for Machiavelli goes on to say: "Likewise to remove causes of enmity arising from judgments delivered, they [the Florentines] decreed the establishment of two foreign judges, with the respective titles of Captain and Podestà, authorised to administer justice to the citizens in all cases, whether civil or criminal." In this manner he converts the two chief political authorities into ordinary judges, places both on the same level, and fails to remark that, although the Captain was a newly created functionary, the Podestà had been in existence for more than half a century. He also states that the carroccio was instituted in 1250, to give prestige, or maestà, to the army, although the Florentines had adopted the use of the carroccio long before this date. He shows equal negligence in his account of the organisation of the army, and without drawing any distinction between the forces of the Commune and those of the people, although this point is fully elucidated by the chroniclers. Villani, for instance, tells us: "Inasmuch as we have treated of the gonfalons and banners of the people," it is fitting to make mention of those "of the knights and the army proper" (guerra). Nevertheless, whenever Machiavelli pauses to consider the general character of Florentine revolutions, and particularly of those subsequent to 1250, his definitions excel those of any other writer.