First published in English in 1960 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd
This edition first published in 2020
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English Translation 1960 George Allen & Unwin Ltd
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ISBN: 978-0-367-25398-1 (Set)
ISBN: 978-0-429-29609-3 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-27243-2 (Volume 5) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-29574-4 (Volume 5) (ebk)
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( clockwise: Tribolo, Tasso, Vasari, Ammanati, Bandinelli and Cellini) Fresco by Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1960
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, 1956, no portion may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.
This Translation George Allen & Unwin Ltd 1960
Translated from
LA VIE QUOTIDIENNE A FLORENCE AU TEMPS DES MEDICIS
Librairie Hachette, Paris, 1959
PRINTED IN GREATBRITAIN
in 12 pt Fournier type by
T. & A. CONSTABLE LTD, EDINBURGH
Although Florence ruled over the territories surrounding her, she was not a State in the true sense of the term, but a City; and this alone profoundly modified the daily life of her inhabitants. Her boundaries were limited, but not the ideas she gave birth to. And because she was a city of intellect and also of passions, rich in every kind of possibility, the events of history echoed here more loudly than elsewhere.
Whereas in great States such events are so to speak diluted and usually affect only certain classes of the population, they were so much more powerfully concentrated in the case of Florence, in as much as the Florentines all more or less shared in public life, a kind of equality prevailing among them. The nobleman did not reside in his distant castle as in other States, but in the town; the peasant was also a citizen; and there was a perpetual two-way traffic between town and country.
It follows that Florence has been perpetually marked and moulded by history, that history is the very life of the City of the Flower, and cannot be separated from it. To neglect history would be to risk distorting our picture of the life of the place, an incomparable life, constantly in motion and with few parallels in the annals of mankind.
Chapter I
A City Divided Against Itself
Guelphs and Ghibellines The origins of Florence The medieval city Party strife The Tumulto dei Ciompi Condottieri and Caballeria
Two German lords, one named Guelf and the other Gibelin, were close friends, but one day when returning from the hunt they quarrelled about a bitch and became mortal enemies, so that the barons and lords of Germany were also divided, some siding with Guelf and others with Gibelin. Now, as the latter felt they were the weaker party, they appealed to the Emperor Henry I; their adversaries then appealed to Pope Honorius III, who was at odds with the Emperor; and that is why the Holy See is Guelph and Empire Ghibelline, and all because of a wretched bitch.
Now it came to pass in the year 1215 that this evil strife invaded Italy, and in the following manner. There dwelt in the house of the Buondelmonti in Florence a wealthy and valiant knight who had pledged his troth to a daughter of the Amidei. As he was passing the house of the Donati one day, a lady called to him and said:
Messer, I am astonished that you should have a leaning for one would be scarce fit to unloose your shoes. I had been reserving my daughter for you. I desire that you see her.
And she forthwith called the girl, whose name was Ciulla, fairer and more pleasant than any other maiden in Florence. Here, she said, is the bride I reserved for you.
Buondelmonte fell in love at first sight.
Madam, I am ready to do as you wish. And before leaving he chose Ciulla for wife and gave her his ring.
When they heard that Buondelmonte had taken a different wife, the Amidei and their friends swore to take vengeance. Each man was giving his opinion when one said: Cosa fatta fatta, which means that a dead man never makes war.
On Easter morning Buondelmonte was on his way back from breakfast on the far bank of the Arno. Wearing a white gown and mounted on a snow-white palfrey, he was at the lower end of the Ponte Vecchio by the statue of Mars which the Florentines used to worship when they were pagans and where fish is sold now, when a band of men rushed out, pulled him from his horse and killed him.
Florence was in an uproar, and this mans death led to a cleavage among the nobility: the Buondelmonti became leaders of the Guelphs and the Amidei of the Ghibellines. Next, the seeds of evil faction were sown all over Italy, and lords and peoples separated into two camps. Thus the Guelph and Ghibelline parties sprang up in Germany on account of a bitch and in Italy on account of a woman.
This classification was not destined to remain rigid. In the course of time and under the pressure of circumstances, it was to break down. Sometimes there were Guelphs who favoured the Emperors and Ghibellines who sided with the Pope.
T HIS narrative, which reads like a philosophical tale, we owe to a novelliere of the fourteenth century, Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, a man famous among his compatriots, who were naturally enthusiastic for a city so exceptional and passionately interested in its remote origins and in the dramas so numerous throughout its history. The story has at least the merit of explaining in a concise and artistic form the origin of the factions with which the life of Florence was so often to be rent.
