Category: Fleming

While the Ciompi were clashing with the Grassi, Archbishop Giovanni Visconti’s nephew, Bernabò Visconti (who had allied himself by marriage to Mastino II della Scala of Verona), was constructing a powerful base in Central Italy by conquering papal territory on the Tuscan border. 

The Guelph elite might have regained power permanently had the various families been able to work together in harmony, but the Donati, Adimari, and Tosinghi were constantly at odds. 

Florence had always been close to Rome, and her relationship with the Papacy would be encouraged by the war which broke out between Florence and Ghibelline Pisa and then with Ghibelline Siena.

I am going forward on the assumption that everyone has received his copy of Living Lanugage.

What we do know is the Florence was settled by Romans in the late Republic but was never as important as nearby Fiesole, much less Lucca or Pisa

Machiavelli had to walk a thin and twisting line, balancing his love of republican liberty with the practical realities of an Italy engulfed in strife between the regional powers and the periodic invasions of Barbarians.

The history of Florence, as rich in deeds of violence as in creative works of imagination, affords serious people much food for thought, not all of it of the pleasant sort that encourages optimism about human nature