subsequently conferred upon the official summoned to maintain an equal
balance between the burghers and the nobles. He was invariably a
foreigner, elected for one year, intrusted with summary jurisdiction in
all matters of dispute, exercising the power of life and death, and
disposing of the municipal militia. The old constitution of the Commune
remained to control this dictator and to guard the independence of the
city. All the Councils continued to act, and the Consuls were fortified
by the formation of a College of Ancients or Priors. The Podestà was
created with the express purpose of effecting a synthesis between two
rival sections of the burgh. He was never regarded as other than an
alien to the city, adopted as a temporary mediator and controller of
incompatible elements. The lordship of the burgh still resided with the
Consuls, who from this time forward began to lose their individuality in
the College of the _Signoria_--called _Priori_, _Anziani_, or _Rettori_,
as the case might be in various districts.

The Italian republics had reached this stage when Frederick II. united
the Empire and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It was a crisis of the
utmost moment for Italian independence. Master of the South, Frederick
sought to reconquer the lost prerogatives of the Empire in Lombardy and
Tuscany; nor is it improbable that he might have succeeded in uniting
Italy beneath his sway but for the violent animosity of the Church. The
warfare of extermination carried on by the Popes against the house of
Hohenstauffen was no proof of their partiality for the cause of freedom.
They dreaded the reality of a kingdom that should base itself on Italy
and be the rival of their own authority. Therefore they espoused the
cause of the free burghs against Frederick, and when the North was
devastated by his Vicars, they preached a crusade against Ezzelino da
Romano. In the convulsions that shook Italy from North to South the
parties of Guelf and Ghibelline took shape, and acquired an ineradicable