The Florentine Commune, Society and the Guelph Party in 1382—1393: the Price of the State’s Victory

Abstract

The article deals with the correlation and confrontation of three most important sociopolitical structures of the commune of Florence in 1382—1393: two of them — the Guelph Party and the craft guilds — embodied corporate interests, often implemented by dictatorial methods, which the state-republic sought to resist. The main stages of the struggle, marked by the approval of three electoral lists in 1382, 1391 and 1393, are also studied, allowing us to trace the decline of the Guelph party, which began from the moment of its triumph after the overthrow of the regime of the junior craft guilds, when the attempts of the Guelph party to assert its power over society and state failed though the ideas of Guelphism underlay the communal identity of the citizens of the republic. The price of the victory of the state was paid by the inevitable narrowing of the boundaries of Florentine democracy: the emergence of extraordinary authorities, the restriction of citizens’ access to electoral lists and the formation of tendencies of oligarchic rule.