Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The MedIci and the Quattrocento " Tiranno 4 nome di uomn di mala rita, e pessimo fra tutti gii altri uomini, che per forza sopra tutti vuol reg- nare, massime quello che di cittadino e fatto tiranno."— Savonarola. "The Renaissance of the fifteenth century was in many things great, rather by what it designed or aspired to do, than by what it actually achieved."— Walter Pater. ATON gia Salvestro ma Salvalor mundi, " thou that with noble wisdom hast saved thy country." Thus in a sonnet does Franco Sacchetti hail Salvestro dei Medici, the originator of the greatness of his house. In 1378, while the hatred between the Parte Guelfa and the adherents of the Otto della Guerra—the livalry between the Palace of the Party and the Palace of the Signory—was at its height, the Captains of the Party conspired to seize upon the Palace of the Priors and take possession of the State. Their plans were frustrated by Salvestro dei Medici, a rich merchant and head of his ambitious and rising family, who was then Gonfaloniere of Justice. He proposed to restore the Ordinances against the magnates, and, when this petition was rejected by the Signoria and the Colleges,1 he 1 The " Colleges " were the twelve Buonuomini and the sixteen Gonfaloniers of the Companies. Measures proposed by the Signoria had to be carried in the Colleges before being submitted to the Council of the People, and afterwards to the Council of the Commune. appealed to the Council of the People. The result was a riot, followed by a long series of tumults throughout the city ; the Arti Minori came to the front in arms; and, finally, the bloody revolution known as the Tumult of the Ciompi burst over Florence. These Ciompi, the lowest class of artizans and all those who were not represented in the Arts, headed ...