Four times in 130 years the Florentine popolo instituted governments that briefly reined in the elite but had lasting effects on its political strategies and collective identity. The fifteenth-century elite, although perhaps more firmly in control than preceding elite regimes, was profoundly transformed. Popular challenges forced the elite to redefine the legitimacy of its claim to power and pressured it into gradually accepting, albeit in modified form, much of the popolo’s vision of government. The four principal popular governments were the “primo popolo” of 1250-60, which removed elite Guelfs and Ghibellines from government and limited their ability to dominate politics and the inner city; the “second” popolo (as Villani called it), which promulgated the 1293 Ordinances of Justice, subjected a large group of elite families to magnate status, and barred them from major political offices; and the governments of 1343-8 and 1378-82, whose radical fiscal and economic policies will be considered in due course. Popular governments came to power in times of crisis in elite governance (factional violence, costly wars, bankruptcies, or huge government indebtedness) that caused the non-elite major guildsmen to abandon cooperation with the elite and form alliances with the minor guildsmen, with whom they implemented controversial reforms that punished the elite and reduced its power. Popular governments became progressively more radical, partly because fiscal and foreign policy crises became more acute, but also because each of these governments expanded the social base of the popolo, either by bringing more of the guild federation to a share of real power or by acceding to the demands of artisans, and ultimately workers, for guilds of their own and a place in communal politics. Although the elite adjusted to each threat and always managed to regain control, it emerged on each occasion significantly transformed in its political methods and style and even its collective identity.
World History
