discords of Braccio da Montone and Sforza Attendolo, incessantly
plotting to carve duchies for themselves from provinces they had been
summoned by a master to subdue. At this period gold ruled the destinies
of Italy. The Despots, relying solely on their exchequer for their
power, were driven to extortion. Cities became bankrupt, pledged their
revenues, or sold themselves to the highest bidder.[1] Indescribable
misery oppressed the poorer classes and the peasants. A series of
obscure revolutions in the smaller despotic centers pointed to a
vehement plebeian reaction against a state of things that had become
unbearable. The lower classes of the burghers rose against the 'popolani
grassi,' and a new class of princes emerged at the close of the crisis.
Thus the plebs forced the Bentivogli on Bologna and the Medici on
Florence, and Baglioni on Perugia and the Petrucci on Siena.

[1] Perugia, for example, farmed out the tax upon her country
population for 12,000 florins, upon her baking-houses for 7,266,
upon her wine for 4,000, upon her lake for 5,200, upon contracts for
1,500. Two bankers accepted the Perugian loan at this price in 1388.

The emergence of the Condottieri at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, the anarchy they encouraged for their own aggrandizement, and
the financial distress which ensued upon the substitution of mercenary
for civic warfare, completed the democratization of the Italian cities,
and marked a new period in the history of despotism. From the date of
Francesco Sforza's entry into Milan as conqueror in 1450, the princes
became milder in their exercise of power and less ambitious. Having
begun by disarming their subjects, they now proceeded to lay down arms
themselves, employing small forces for the protection of their person
and the State, engaging more cautiously in foreign strife, and
substituting diplomacy, wherever it was possible, for warfare. Gold