After sixty years of Medici dominance, the Florentines were suddenly faced with the task of reinventing their government and political order. Events had moved so quickly and unexpectedly that no one was prepared. An explosion of talk, debate, writing, and ultimately theorizing about politics began in those chaotic days at the end of 1494 and continued for two generations. During the Medici years, Florentines had largely stopped writing chronicles and reflecting publicly on politics; historiography was dominated by humanist chancellors who shied away from contemporary events, and with few exceptions political discourse had been limited to praise of the Medici. After about 1480, pratiche ceased even to be convened. At the end of 1494 all this changed with dramatic suddenness and amid profound uncertainty and widely divergent views about the future of the republic. There was to be no easy recovery of pre-Medici politics, no consensus about change, and the loss of moorings opened the way for significant departures from tradition.
Debates commenced as soon as the French departed, and initially the ottimati were in control. On November 30 a large pratica recommended calling a parlamento, which assembled on December 2 and confirmed the abolition of the Cento and Seventy, authorized the Signoria and colleges to appoint twenty accoppiatori, and entrusted the latter with electing the Signoria a mano for the next year, to avoid, so it was said, the possibility that sortition might put Mediceans in office as happened in 1434. A new scrutiny was scheduled for the following November, when it would be decided whether or not to destroy the existing pouches.543 Among the Twenty were three ottimati who played a role in banishing Piero but who had also been central figures of the regime: Bernardo Rucellai, Francesco Valori, and Piero Capponi. At least ten were among the Seventy in 1489, and Cerretani remarked that most of them were among Lorenzo’s “primi ministri.” Five of the newly appointed Ten of Liberty and Peace on military and foreign affairs had similarly been on the Seventy, including Paolantonio Soderini and Piero Guicciardini.544
Protests erupted immediately over the preservation of such substantial continuity with the Medici regime. According to Parenti, a group went to the palace to complain that the parlamento had not been held “popularmente,” since so much power had been given to just twenty men. Others insisted that the proposed list of accoppiatori should have been submitted to the “people” for approval. All “good citizens” felt aggrieved over having taken up arms for liberty only to see the “principali” intent on preserving the “stato of the same persons who had previously governed, except for the elimination of a few chiefs.” They believed they had been tricked in particular by Guidantonio Vespucci, who promised to present to the people a draft of a new constitution that had not materialized. “Many came to the conclusion,” says Parenti, “that the leading citizens did not want to subject themselves to the wishes of the people and that they intended to retain lo stato.” So deep, according to Parenti, was the mistrust between the ottimati who engineered the parlamento and the “popolo” who expected a very different kind of political reform that there was danger of bloodshed and “civile guerra.”545 546 Even Cerretani, who did not share Parenti’s “popular” perspective, said that because the Twenty assumed they could take possession of the reggimento of the city and “non vivere a popolo,” the “whole city came to hate them in just a few days.”11 Precisely what was intended by those who wanted the city to “vivere a popolo” or be governed “popolarmente” was not yet clear. Also criticizing the election of the Twenty was a faction of ottimati “who wanted to live popolarmente,” particularly Paolantonio Soderini who, supported by the “popolo,” denounced the election’s “dishonorable procedures.” On the other side, Parenti identifies Piero Capponi and Francesco Valori as “enemies of the popolo.” Yet Capponi and Valori were fierce rivals, each with a faction of followers and supporters, each eager to satisfy his own ambition and please his friends and relatives with offices. Parenti thus identifies factional antagonisms within the elite and an emerging conflict between elite and popolo, the latter initially led by ottimati who favored broader government.
Into these multiplying divisions Savonarola injected his charismatic preaching.547 Until this point he had avoided overtly political themes, but his success in negotiations with Charles pulled him into the debate. On November 16, a week after Piero’s departure, he alluded to the controversies, commenting rather ambiguously that “many would like to administer the government [stato] who cannot because they are not suited to it. Many are able and do not want to. . . . In the former regime many wanted to who were not able, and many were able and wanted to who should not have.” On December 7, amidst protests over the Twenty, he reminded the Florentines of their narrow escape from danger and advised that if they wished to “renew” their city and bring about a “new government” they had to find new “ways of living” and pass a law preventing anyone from making himself “capo,” an obvious reference to the Medici, possibly also to the Twenty. If citizens prayed and attended (his) sermons, God would give them the grace to find a “good form for this new reggimento of yours, either as the Venetians do, or as God will best inspire you to do,” since, he added, rejecting a famous comment by Cosimo de’ Medici, “it is not true, as crazy and evil men say, that states cannot be ruled with ‘paternostri,’ which is a dictum of tyrants and not of true princes.” Florentines should seek out good and humble men, those who usually shy away from government, and make them take their part in governing. They should reduce taxes, especially the gabelles, and eliminate the “feste” with which some foolish people say the popolo should be kept entertained, which is “true in tyrannies, not in free, republican cities [citta libere e civili].” Over the next week Savonarola occasionally hinted at the swirling political controversies: “If you want to innovate beyond your old ways, it is necessary for you to think well about the modalities of your innovations and your new reggimento.” He reached back to the political language of the old popolo when he reminded his listeners that “Florence is an universita; and whenever a multitude or universita of persons must direct themselves toward an end and a common good for all, there must be some capo who introduces and sets them on the right road.” Evidently, there was one kind of capo to avoid and another to embrace. Addressing the “popolo,” he urged them not to grumble or complain and to trust that he had taken and would continue to take “your side.”548 Savonarola gave his most important political sermon on December 14.549 According to Landucci, he wanted it attended by men, not women, and by the government. With “all the officials of Florence present,” Savonarola proclaimed his view that Florence needed a well-regulated government of the many; otherwise, it would suffer constant dissension, factional divisions, and exiles. He urged moral and social reform: laws against all forms of immorality, including sodomy, poetry, gambling, taverns, and excessive luxury in women’s dress; more equitable distribution of taxes; modest dowries; and repudiation of all would-be tyrants. On constitutional matters he stated boldly, referring to the parlamento, that the “form you have begun cannot stand unless you reorganize it. I believe there is no better form than that of the Venetians and that you should take them as your example, leaving out however certain things that are not appropriate and do not serve your needs, such as the doge.” This was Savonarola’s second reference to Venice, but he was still tantalizingly unclear about exactly what he meant, since Venice could be seen either as a broadly-based republic, given its large council, or as a tightly controlled oligarchy, given the concentration of power among several dozen families in the Senate.
He made two specific recommendations: first, “in order to encourage everyone to conduct himself virtuously, the guildsmen [artefici] should in some way be made eligible”; and second, major offices should be filled by election and minor ones by sortition. These recommendations gestured in different directions. Landucci expressed the popolo’s preference for sortition in looking forward to the moment when the “pouches would be closed and extraction by lot resumed, just as we once lived a comune,” adding that the city should “always be content with sortition.”15 Savonarola thus simultaneously embraced the popolo’s desire for an expansion of the office-holding class and the ottimati’s preference for controlled elections: an inconsistency that was at least consistent with his exhortations to reconciliation between supporters of the “old government” and the “new one.”
Savonarola also proposed a controversial procedure for debating constitutional reform: “You have in your city sixteen standardbearers of the companies (as you call them), who embrace the whole city and all its citizens. Let all citizens meet, each one in his gonfalone, and let them discuss and examine what seems to them the best form to adopt for your government. Each gonfalone will submit the plan that its citizens will recommend, and thus there will be sixteen plans. Then let all the standardbearers assemble, and let them select those four among the plans that they judge to be the best and most stable and take them to the Signoria. . . . The Signoria will select one of the four plans. And you should believe without doubt that the reform selected in this way will be from God.” A city-wide system of grass-roots consultation evidently frightened the elite. Parenti, who gives an accurate summary of the sermon of December 14, says that, although the “popolo liked” the plan, it was not in fact adopted. Instead, the Signoria proposed that five drafts for constitutional reform be solicited from existing governmental committees: the Signoria itself, their advisory colleges (acting jointly), the Twenty, the Ten, and the captains of the Guelf Party. All five plans were to be debated, presumably by these same bodies, “in the palace, with brother Girolamo present,” until one was selected. Savonarola was apparently unhappy with the change: according to Parenti, he became “heated” on the subject and told a large crowd that God’s will absolutely required that Florence be governed “a popolo, and not tyrannically” and that damnation, death, and loss of worldly goods awaited anyone who contradicted divine will. Savonarola’s reaction frightened some people and caused a further change that was, if anything, still more removed from his original recommendation: two men were selected from each of the five committees to propose the specifics of the reform. Behind the controversy over procedure lay the question of whether executive offices would be filled by sortition or election. Parenti implies that reforms emerging from a
15
Landucci, Diario, pp. 92, 89.
Broad consultation of citizens would have restored sortition, whereas a tightly controlled debate was more likely to approve election: “And in truth the matter was of the greatest importance, and much of the popolo resented this method of election, fearing that, if election were adopted, they would be left out. The friends of the former regime, who were numerous, were certain that they would be excluded from offices whenever a large multitude had the chance to vote on them.”550
Savonarola’s reiterated exhortation to imitate Venice made his intentions no clearer: “As I said before, I believe that the form of the Venetian government is a very good one, and you should not think it shameful to learn from others, because their form was given to them by God, and since they adopted it they have never had civil conflicts.” But Parenti says the idea came, not from Savonarola himself, but from some ottimati who, seeing the popolo’s unhappiness, wanted to offer something to soften their anger, and that Savonarola agreed to help placate the popolo by telling them he would always be on their side and their defender against the power of the “grandi.” His promises that the Florentines would reap abundance and power if they obeyed God’s commands, says Parenti, were “an excellent way of holding back the popolo, who realized that they had been duped by the primati [the ottimati] and were in no mood to be patient.” He thus attributes to Savonarola the same wish to “brake” the popolo that he says motivated the ottimati who, “seeing the roaring of the people, and fearing that [their anger] might at some point be turned against them, thought about how they could strengthen and stabilize the government.” Fearing that the popolo was “leaning toward revolution [mutazione],” some decided to favor an “almost Venetian-style reform” of election “carried out by all the citizens of the reggimento, at their pleasure.” They judged this the best way “to put all citizens on an equal basis,” which would remove the danger of revolution and prevent the ottimati from losing control of government. “But because there was disagreement among them, those who favored this solution came to an agreement with brother Girolamo and persuaded him that this was the best way. He had acquired great authority with the popolo, and whatever he said was bound to be approved by them. He thus spoke on this matter from the pulpit.”551 In Parenti’s interpretation, the ottimati were willing to expand the number of those participating in elections provided that the old system of scrutinies and sortition was replaced by one in which smaller groups would nominate a limited number of candidates who would then be voted on in a larger assembly.
Despite this tactical alliance with the group around Paolantonio Soderini, Savonarola seems to have injected elements of his own, particularly concerning the inclusion of “guildsmen” and grass-roots consultations in all gonfaloni. Many ottimati soon regretted having entrusted their political fortunes to the power of his sermons, seeing his independence and immense authority with the popolo as dangerous. “With brother Girolamo loudly proclaiming so many things from the pulpit, and apparently having taken upon himself the protection of our popolo,” says Parenti, “those in authority were displeased. They lamented, although in secret, being subject to [his] power. It was one thing to govern a convent, they said, quite another to govern a city. . . . They considered it a great obstacle that the friar had acquired so much authority over the city, but they were in a situation where they could not contradict him.”552 Ottimati had approached him and sought his cooperation because of his influence with the popolo, but his political preaching only increased that influence. Whether he was following or leading an emerging popular view of political reform, Savonarola certainly had a major part in turning what began as a conservative replacement of the Medici regime with an oligarchy of former Mediceans into a revolutionary rearrangement that re-opened Florentine politics to the aspirations of a middle class reawakened from long dormancy.
Four of five drafts for constitutional reform commissioned by the Signoria have survived,553 two from members of the Twenty (Domenico Bonsi, who became a loyal supporter of Savonarola, and Piero Capponi, who opposed him) and two from anonymous authors. All four assumed that a large council was to come into being, although Capponi insisted on the simultaneous institution of a smaller council that would conduct important elections and also serve as a permanent pratica to which the Signoria could regularly turn for advice. Landucci says that “many plans were devised and there was great controversy among the citizens, such that every day there was talk of summoning a parlamento,” and, contrary to Parenti’s information, he reports that the sixteen standardbearers did indeed submit reform drafts, all delivered to the palace on December 19 amidst still great disagreement. On Sunday December 21 Savonarola “preached again on politics, amidst much agitation because the citizens could not agree: some wanted it boiled and others roasted, some were with the friar, and others against him; and had it not been for this friar, it would have come to bloodshed.”554 Remarkably, the Signoria managed to sift through the drafts and disagreements and the next day presented a detailed proposal for the creation of the Great Council. Parenti commented that “it passed so easily that you would have said there had never been any controversy at all.” Before submitting its proposal to the councils, the Signoria
Called a huge pratica of 200 citizens, to which many not invited also came, and had the proposal read aloud “in good order so that it was intelligible.” Without asking for reactions, it dismissed the meeting so that “the matter could be understood and mulled over before it was put to the councils.” It then reconvened the pratica and this time asked for opinions. Despite some opposition, most citizens spoke in favor.21 After ratification by the advisory colleges, the Council of the Popolo passed it by a vote of 229-35, and the next day the Council of the Commune approved it by 195-16.
In the prologue to the law of December 22-23, 1494, the Signoria announced its intention “to attend with all its ability and strength to the preservation of the liberty that was for so long nearly suppressed and has recently been recovered,” and to work for “the unity of citizens and all things that contribute to the public and general good, which consists in freely giving counsel, deliberating, and legislating in public and private matters, in the passage of excellent and well considered laws, and in that just distribution of honors and duties that characterizes a well-instituted republic.”22 Eligibility for the council extended to all citizens of legitimate birth whose names had ever been drawn for the Signoria or colleges, whether or not they assumed office (hence both those “seated” and those “seen”), or whose fathers, paternal grandfathers, or great-grandfathers had ever been “seated” or “seen.” To these were added everyone approved in the scrutiny of 1484 and the members of the Councils of the Popolo and Commune, which ceased to exist once the Great Council came into being. Periodic additions of citizens could be made by the council itself. Its powers included final approval of all legislation and the election of the advisory colleges and other executive committees, except for the Signoria which was to be selected for the next year by the Twenty and thereafter “as the council will decide.” Still undecided therefore was this most controversial question, and perhaps only for this reason was agreement possible for the law’s passage. But the Twenty were so unpopular that they resigned in June 1495 and yielded the election of the Signoria to the council.23 Also instituted was a Council of Eighty, selected every six months from candidates nominated by the advisory colleges and forty members drawn by lot from the Great Council, which voted on each nominee. Together with the Signoria, colleges, and Ten, the Eighty shared the authority to elect ambassadors and military commissioners and hire military forces. Legislation proposed by the Signoria had first to be approved by the Eighty and then by the Great Council. And, as Piero Capponi had recommended, the smaller council did indeed function as a permanent pratica, convened weekly by the Signoria.
21
22
Parenti, Storia, p. 161.
Cadoni, Provvisioni, pp. 33-60 (40). Ibid., pp. 150-60.
Pre-1494 electoral practices made it inevitable that the regulations governing eligibility for the Great Council, which could be inherited from as far back as one’s great-grandfather, would produce a very large membership. Before 1434, all name-tickets had to have been drawn from one scrutiny’s pouches before extractions moved on to those of the next scrutiny. Therefore, nearly every citizen approved in pre-1434 scrutinies was at least “seen” (veduto), if not “seated” (seduto). After 1434, accoppiatori limited the number of name-tickets in the pouches, and in the regime’s first six years the veduti for the Signoria were sharply reduced. But because political advantages and a degree of prestige attached to having one’s name at least drawn for major offices, the Medici found it useful to increase the numbers of veduti whose names were carefully recorded by the election secretaries.555 Evidently the authors of the law instituting the council did not count the names beforehand, for they stipulated only that, if membership exceeded 1,500, the council would be divided into three sections for successive six-month terms and into halves if it did not reach that number. Domenico Bonsi assumed that a division in two would suffice, but Piero Capponi correctly guessed that the full membership would be larger: “It seems to me,” he wrote in his draft, “that messer Domenico deceives himself considerably concerning the size of the council; they will be such a multitude that I believe it will be necessary to divide them into four councils.”556 When the lists were completed on January 14, 1495, the results were an unpleasant surprise for the elite. Parenti estimates that 3,600 Florentines qualified for the Great Council. Even after citizens in tax arrears were eliminated, nearly 3,000 still qualified and each third of the council had almost 1,000 members. Many ottimati, “recognizing that [the council] was not to their advantage, tried to block it; they delayed the building of the council’s hall, denounced the regulations, and, with the Signoria almost unanimously on their side, tried almost everything to abolish the reform.” But they were unable to “resist the will of the popolo,” says Parenti, and the preaching of “brother Girolamo was in large part the reason for this.”557 Guicciardini too emphasizes elite resistance to the council, chiefly by Bernardo Rucellai and Piero Capponi who remained hostile to Savonarola and the new constitution, but initially also by Francesco Valori (who later became Savonarola’s chief supporter). Until their resignation in June 1495, the Twenty were “hated by the popolo” because they elected priors hostile to the council.558 Fear of an aristocratic coup pervaded these early months.
How much changed with the new constitution? Because at first election rather than sortition was used to select government committees in the council, Parenti’s first reaction was that this system “was devised for no other reason than to return the government to the nobility,” which “seemed finally determined to reassert its strength after a long hiatus.” Even after the termination of the Twenty, the Signoria continued to be selected by election until 1499. Because the council consisted of descendents of the many veduti from the previous century, it could be seen as not having substantially changed the composition of the ruling class.559 To be sure, council membership did not extend to the working classes previously excluded from the pouches. But what happened was revolutionary enough. Under the Medici regime, select committees handpicked officeholders from this large pool of eligible citizens, whereas under the 1494 reform 3,000 citizens simultaneously constituted a governing body endowed with real power over finances, taxes, and elections. And once the council’s division into thirds was abolished (legislated in August 1495 and effective the following January),560 every eligible citizen had the right to attend every meeting and vote on every piece of legislation and in every election. Never before had even a remotely similar number of citizens shared in real powers of government. Although the council’s initial roster has not survived (hence the various estimates of its numbers), complete lists exist for 1496, when the council had 3,452 members,561 and 1508, when its total of 3,575 included 3,005 major guildsmen (from 516 families) and 570 minor guilds-men.562 The quorum for the unified council was at first 1,000, later reduced to 600 because of many absences, both voluntary and owing to tax arrears.563 But it was not unusual for meetings to be attended by 800 or 1,000 members. And between 1495 and 1499 the council became larger, more open, and less amenable to elite interests and manipulation.
Because no hall in the palace of the priors could accommodate such numbers, in May 1495 the council appointed building commissioners (operai) to find a suitable meeting place. They quickly decided (encouraged by Savonarola, says Landucci) to build a new hall (the “sala grande”) as an addition to the palace on its east (or back) side. Landucci followed the rapid progress of its construction: foundations in place by the end of July; roof vaulting by mid-August;
And roof beams in December. By February 1496, although finished flooring and benches were still lacking, the council held its first meeting in the new room, and, according to Parenti, 1,753 members attended. Two inscriptions were placed in the hall. One, in Latin, solemnly announced that “This council is from God, and woe to him who tries to undo it.”564 The other, in Tuscan, warned, with reference to the now banned parlamenti so often used by the Medici, that “he who wants to convene a parlamento wants to take control of government away from the popolo.” Contemporaries from the aristocratic Guicciardini to citizens of the popolo like Landucci and Parenti had no hesitation in referring to the council and the governments that emerged from it as “popolare,” which, in the lexicon of Florentine politics, still referred to tHe popolo.
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