_Popolo_ appears upon the scene. Interpreting the past by the present,
and importing the connotation gained by the word _people_ in the
revolutions of the last two centuries, students are apt to assume that
the Popolo of the Italian burghs included the whole population. In
reality it was at first a close aristocracy of influential families, to
whom the authority of the superseded Counts was transferred in
commission, and who held it by hereditary right.[3] Unless we firmly
grasp this fact, the subsequent vicissitudes of the Italian
commonwealths are unintelligible, and the elaborate definitions of the
Florentine doctrinaires lose half their meaning. The internal
revolutions of the free cities were almost invariably caused by the
necessity of enlarging the Popolo, and extending its franchise to the
non-privileged inhabitants. Each effort after expansion provoked an
obstinate resistance from those families who held the rights of
burghership; and thus the technical terms _primo popolo_, _secondo
popolo_, _popolo grasso_, _popolo minuto_, frequently occurring in the
records of the Republics, indicate several stages in the progress from
oligarchy to democracy. The constitution of the city at this early
period was simple. At the head of its administration stood the Bishop,
with the Popolo of enfranchised burghers. The _Commune_ included the
Popolo, together with the non-qualified inhabitants, and was represented
by Consuls, varying in number according to the division of the town into
quarters.[4] Thus the Commune and the Popolo were originally separate
bodies; and this distinction has been perpetuated in the architecture of
those towns which still can show a Palazzo del Popolo apart from the
Palazzo del Commune. Since the affairs of the city had to be conducted
by discussion, we find Councils corresponding to the constituent
elements of the burgh. There is the _Parlamento_, in which the
inhabitants meet together to hear the decisions of the Bishop and the
Popolo, or to take measures in extreme cases that affect the city as a