Note 444 — Chapter VIII · THE ENACTMENTS OF JUSTICE.418
Linda Villari translation
Until this draft was published, we could only refer to posterior compilations, and had no means of ascertaining to what extent they differed from the law in its original form. Although Bonaini had failed to discover the original document of the law as approved, his publication of the first draft brings us very near to the real thing. And this is a point of no small importance, seeing that the laws of the Florentine Republic underwent such radical changes from one day to another, that a compilation, dated only two or three years after the original law, might be very different from it. For instance, Document A, published by Bonaini ("Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i. p. 72), contains a rider or addendum to the Ordinamenti passed on the 9th and 10th of April, 1293. This was inserted as part of the original law in the compilations edited by Fineschi and Giudici.
In the following bibliographical notices I shall be obliged, for the sake of greater clearness, to occasionally repeat or sum up previously related facts.
1. Of the various compilations of the enactments, that included among the printed statutes was the first to be published.
2. P. F. Vincenzo Fineschi published a second compilation in his "Memorie storiche, che possono servire alle vite degli uomini illustri di Santa Maria Novella," &c., Florence, 1790.
3. The third published compilation was given by Prof. P. E. Giudici in the appendix to his "Storia dei Municipi Italiani," Florence, Poligrafia italiana, 1853; reprinted in 3 vols., Florence, Le Monnier, 1864–66. The Italian compilation, divided in 118 rubrics, the last of which is mutilated, was published from a codex in the State Archives of Florence ("Statuti," No. 8). By some oversight the author chanced to omit the three concluding rubrics.
4. The last published compilation is that brought out by Bonaini in the "Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i, No. 1, 1855, of which we have already spoken, and shall have to mention again farther on.
5. Another compilation, to which previous allusion has been made (p. 89, note 92), is also deserving of notice. It is among the MSS. of the Florence Archives (ch. ii., dist. i., No. 1), and is still inedited. Padre Ildefonso published certain fragments of it, however, in vol. ix. of the "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," and Bonaini published an index of its rubrics, 134 in number.
6. In conclusion, we may mention the Miscellany or "Zibaldone," likewise referred to before, which in addition to many decrees issued between 1274 and 1465, some of which augment the force of the enactments, also includes a petition presented by the people of Florence in June, 1378—namely, the year in which the Revolt of the Ciompi occurred, imploring that the Enactments of Justice should be again enforced, the which request was granted. This codex is also a useful contribution to the history of the enactments.
Recently both Prof. Del Lungo (vide "Bullettino della Società Dantesca," Nos. 10, 11, of July, 1892) and Sig. G. Salvemini, undergraduate of the Instituto Superior, Florence (vide "Arch. Stor. It.," Series v., vol. x. 1892), have published the provision of July 6, 1295, introducing several modifications and mitigations in the enactments. Although this provision was already known to the world, by Prof. Del Lungo's previous careful examination of it in his work on "Dino Compagni" (vol i., 1078–80), Salvemini's clever commentary has gleaned fresh information from it. This provision includes all the modifications made in the enactments in 1295, and often gives fragments of the law as it previously stood, together with the changes then introduced. Hegel, having examined all the documents edited in his day, was the first to prove, on assured evidence, that the rough draft edited by Bonaini, although, as he thinks, omitting certain rubrics and comprising some disparities, mostly of form, contained the real gist of the original enactments. This in itself was an important result. Regarding the disparities noted by Hegel, and the missing rubrics, Salvemini was enabled, by studying the document of July 6, 1295, to make some novel remarks, to which we shall refer later on.