Anziani or "ancients," but Buono Uomini or "good men." They also formed
a council of eighty citizens, which they called the Credenza. Besides
these, from each sixth, thirty citizens were chosen, who, with the
Credenza and the twelve Buono Uomini, were called the General Council.
They also appointed another council of one hundred and twenty citizens,
elected from the people and the nobility, to which all those things
were finally referred that had undergone the consideration of the other
councils, and which distributed the offices of the republic. Having
formed this government, they strengthened the Guelphic party by
appointing its friends to the principal offices of state, and a variety
of other measures, that they might be enabled to defend themselves
against the Ghibellines, whose property they divided into three parts,
one of which was applied to the public use, another to the Capitani, and
the third was assigned to the Guelphs, in satisfaction of the injuries
they had received. The pope, too, in order to keep Tuscany in the
Guelphic interest, made Charles imperial vicar over the province.
While the Florentines, by virtue of the new government, preserved their
influence at home by laws, and abroad with arms, the pope died, and
after a dispute, which continued two years, Gregory X. was elected,
being then in Syria, where he had long lived; but not having witnessed
the working of parties, he did not estimate them in the manner his
predecessors had done, and passing through Florence on his way to
France, he thought it would be the office of a good pastor to unite the
city, and so far succeeded that the Florentines consented to receive the
Syndics of the Ghibellines in Florence to consider the terms of their
recall. They effected an agreement, but the Ghibellines without were so
terrified that they did not venture to return. The pope laid the whole
blame upon the city, and being enraged excommunicated her, in which
state of contumacy she remained as long as the pontiff lived; but was
reblessed by his successor Innocent V.