Sybilla Oritur

In 1304, after a failed arbitration attempt between competing aristocratic factions by the Cardinal of Prato, Florence was ravaged by a fire. Contemporary witnesses later estimated between 1700 and 1900 buildings burned. The gruesome details are recounted in two contemporary chronicles, Giovanni Villani’s Nuova Cronica and Dino Compagni’s Cronica, and two subsequent histories, Leonardo Bruni’s Historiae Florentini populi and Machiavelli’s Florentine History.

The last years of the thirteenth and the first years of the fourteenth century witnessed a resurgence of the elite factional division and violence which characterized much of the history of Florence. There were three distinct groups of citizens in medieval Florence: the Grandi (often translated as Elite), the Popolo and the workers. Other than in the brief aftermath of the Ciompi Revolt in 1378, the latter were completely disenfranchised from the political sphere – not even members of the guilds. The lines between the Grandi and the Popolo are more difficult to distinguish. Before the tumultous thirteenth century, the Grandi had been comprised mainly of a military elite, however, in the aftermath of the Guelf-Ghibelline hostilities, these families largely petered out. By the opening years of the fourteenth century, both Grandi and Popolo owned substantial portions of land in the countryside and participated in international trade (John M. Najemy, “The Dialogue of Power in Florentine Politics,” in City-States in Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy ed. Molho, Ranflaub & Emlen (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 276-8). To further complicate matters, within the Popolo were both rich merchants and bankers, Popolo Grasso, and artisans and shopkeepers, Popolo Minuto. While these two governing groups contended for political power, the Grandi were further afflicted by conflict among themselves which often led to the rise of a Popolo government that sought to contain their violence (see John M. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200-1575 (Malden, Oxford & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), especially 1-88).

In 1293, a Popolo government had gained the upper-hand in this ongoing conflict and enacted the Ordinances of Justice, among other measures, in order to control the Grandi families known for being particularly unruly and violent. A list of powerful and prominent families was published and those whose names were included on the list were excluding from the highest of executive offices, forced to pay a bond for good behaviour, held responsible for the transgressions of their relatives and often faced a higher penalty for breaking the law. Although modified in later years, these statutes stayed on the books and profoundly affected the Florentine political sphere (Gene A. Brucker, Renaissance Florence (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969), 133).

However, in 1295 the powerful magnate Corso Donati succeeded in discrediting Giano della Bella and his Popolo government that had enacted the Ordinances of Justice. When he was officially banished in March, the exile of their charismatic leader substantially weakened the Popolo government and the Grandi gradually regained the upper-hand in the power struggle (Najemy, A History of Florence, 89). During the same time period, the Grandi split into two distinct groups, Black and White Guelfs, vying for power, prestige and Popolo supporters. It appears almost as impossible to determine why a family joined one or the other of the factions as it does to identify the reasons for allying to the Guelf and Ghibelline parties of the early thirteenth century. However, the conflict between the Black and White Guelfs and the Popolo quickly escalated to violence and the May Day celebrations in 1300 brought open confrontation in the street.

The Popolo government, still nominally in charge, exiled leaders from both magnate groups, yet from exile they continued their challenge. Cardinal Nicholas of Prato undertook negotiations which resulted in the return of the banished to the city (For a discussion of Papal involvement in the Florentine conflicts, see George Holmes, Florence, Rome and the Origins of the Renaissance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), especially 182-5). On June 8, 1304, the White Guelf leaders left the city fearful of Black Guelf violence. The Cardinal followed suit the next day after he too was threatened. It had become clear that the White and Black Guelfs could not be reconciled. Violence broke out again the very next day, June 10, – as did the devestating fire chronicled by both Dino Compagni and Giovanni Villani.

Najemy describes Compagni’s account of the years from 1301 to 1304 as having an “air of ineluctable disaster” (Najemy, A History of Florence, 92). A successful merchant repeatedly elected as consul for the Por Santa Maria guild and a key participant in many of the events he recounts, such as the establishment of the priorate, application of the Ordinances of Justice and revision of the statutes, Compagni “knew at first hand the failure of the commune to restrain the fomenters of factional violence and the futility of all efforts at reconciliation…. through bitter experience” (Daniel E. Bornstein, “Introduction,” Dino Compagni’s Chronicle of Florence (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), xx-xxi). An important member of the Popolo, it is not surprising that Compagni is condemnatory of the factionalism rampant among the Grandi who challenged the guilds’ attempts to govern Florence.

The Cronica’s account of the Fire is explicit with respect to the cause of the devestation. In the opening section, Compagni tells his readers that fighting broke out amongst “gente che avea più animo a vendetta che a pace” (Dino Compagni, Cronica ed. Davide Cappi (Roma: Istituto Storico Italiano, 2000), 3:8, 39). Men more concerned with factional divisions than the prosperity of the city are responsible for the disaster. After recounting the horrors of the fire and the claims that “più che 1900 magioni” were consumed by the flames, Compagni again returns to his accusations towards the Grandi families. To counter any claims that the fire might have been accidental, he writes:

Acciò che di tal malificio si sappi il vero e per che cagione fu fatto detto fuoco e dove, i capi di parte nera, a fine di cacciare i Cavalcanti de quel luogo, i quali temeano perché erano ricchi e potenti, ordinarono il detto fuoco a Ognissanti; e era composto per modo che, quando ne cadea in terra, lasciava uno colore azurro (3:8, 42).

The description of the blue flames argues forcefully that the destruction of the city was not an inadvertent mishap, but arson.

Compagni tells his readers, without doubt, who set the first of the fire. Neri Abati, the prior of San Piero Scheraggio was bought by the leaders of the Black Guelfs and turned enemy against his own kinsmen setting fire to a house in Or San Michele. The arsonist is described in undeniably negative terms: “uomo reo e dissoluto” (3:8, 46). However, the destruction was not the work of but one man. Compagni also describes Corso Donati, the leading magnate of the Black Guelf Party, walking through the streets with a torch in hand in order to set fire to the Cavalcanti homes (3:8, 47). Others quickly followed suite and, although the Cavalcanti are portrayed as unwilling to reciprocate in face of such devestation, they are not unresponsible for their own tragic demise and the fire that ravaged the city. The reader would remember from the preceding chapter that the Calvalcanti rejected the Cardinal’s suggestion of reconciliation (3:7, 36). These Grandi, more concerned with honour and vengeance, bring about misery both through their deliberate actions and their unwillingness to negotiate.

The fire of 1304 was accompanied by substantial looting of people’s homes and stores. Compagni describes the horror of losing one’s possessions in two manners. Firstly, he recounts how fear of the thieves and disorder was so great that people were unwilling to defend their goods: “I ladri publicamente si metteano nel fuoco a rubare e portarsene ciò che poteano avere: e niente era lo detto. E chi vedea portarne il suo, non osava domandarlo, perché la terra in ogni cosa era maldisposta” (3:8, 43). But even those citizens with the good chance and foresight to remove their possessions to another area of the city were afflicted. The fire spread so far it appears to have been escapable (3:8, 45). Compagni recounts estimates of roughly 1900 destroyed buildings (3:8, 42). Both the fire itself and the accompanying loss of order were responsible for propagating the devestation.

To make matters worse, as if the looting and large-scale destruction were not enough, those in a position to alleviate the misery stood idly by. The podestà, the one government official supposedly outside of the factional strife as a foreigner, took a contingent of armed men and his family beyond the fire’s path to the Mercato Nuovo and not only refused help and protection to the fleeing, but also furthered the overall chaos by his presence: “Guardavano il fuoco, e stavansi a cavallo, e davano impedimento per lo imbrogìo faceano, ché impedivano i fanti e gli andatori” (3:8, 49). The violence of factionalism overcame even those measures designed explicitly to prevent it.

Compagni’s chronicle did not receive the fame within his lifetime that his contemporary’s, Giovanni Villani, did. Relatively unknown and unpublished because of its harsh criticism of the ruling groups of Florence in the fourteenth-century, it nonetheless demonstrates how one member of the Popolo interpreted the fire of 1304 as the direct result of factionalism among the Grandi (Bornstein, xxii. For a summary of the reception of Compagni’s work see Girolamo Arnaldi, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 27 (1982), 646-7). Like Compagni, Giovanni Villani, a member of the Calimala (wool-finishers) guild from 1300 and born into a well-respected family of the Popolo Grassi, also had considerable domestic and diplomatic political experience. He was appointed by the Florentine government to help relieve the Great Famine from 1329 to 1330 and was a prior in 1316 and 1317 (Christopher Kleinhenz, Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2004), 1144-7). His condemnation of the Grandi involved in the outbreak of the fire of 1304 echoes Compagni’s in many ways.

The Nuova Cronica provides substantially more detail with respect to the political maneuverings which resulted in a renewed fighting in the streets between the Black and White Guelfs. Unlike Compagni, Villani attributes the outbreak of fire to divine justice: “Come piacque a Dio, o per fuggire maggiore male, o permise per pulire i peccati de’Fiorentini” (Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica Vol. 2. Ed. Giuseppe Porta (Parma: Ugo Guanda Editore: 1991), 9:71, 42-3). Nevertheless, the blaze was intentional as Neri Abati, again described as a dissolute man turned traitor against his kinsmen, set the first fires in Or San Michele (9:71, 44-8). Although not indicting the passion for vengeance among the Grandi as responsible for the devestation, it is nonetheless the factional strife which permitted Neri Abati to light the flames which destroyed the city.

Villani describes substantially less of the details of the events during the actual fire than Compagni, but his account of the ruined aftermath is both more graphic and more poignant. Villani lists for just under twenty lines of text the many family palaces destroyed (9:71, 52-71). He bemoans that the best of Florence was consumed for the affected areas were filled with stores, merchandise, treasure and other precious things employing a particularly compelling metaphor: “Arse tutto il modollo, e tuorlo, e cari luoghi della città di Firenze” (9:71, 61-62). Villani is at pains to inform his reader not just that 1700 buildings burned, but what type of buildings they were – palaces, towers and homes. As with Compagni’s account, there is no escaping the misery even if one escaped the flames for “quella che non ardea, isgombrandosi, era rubata da’malandrini” (9:71, 64-5) Although less political than the Cronica, the Nuova Cronica paints a more vivid, emotional portayal of events which affected all Florentines. Although fifty years had passed since the fire ravaged the city, its memory is still present in even later works by Leonardo Bruni and Niccolo Machiavelli.

Completed by 1442 when it was presented to the city fathers, Bruni’s Historiae Florentini populi retells the events leading up to and during the fire of 1304. Neri degli Abati is again a malicious creature directly quoted as saying: “Fax et malleoli afferantur….Iam ego hos cum domibus propriis extorres agam” (Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People Vol. 1 ed. trans. James Hankins (London & Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001), 4:87). Bruni compares the fire’s spread to an invading army’s advance and informs the reader that he, like many others at the time, believes the conflagration was encouraged by the citizens hoping to drive out the other faction:

Medicatum fuisse ignem vulgo creditum est. Nec equidem ab re susceptam credulitatem existamarim, cernens etiam nunc admirabilem ac prope stupendam illius vim in parietes etiam ipsos ac lapides, quod reliquiae monstrant, saeventiem (4:87).

The force of the inferno was still present over a hundred fifty years later on the walls for Bruni to point out to all of Florence. Machiavelli’s Florentine History describes the fire in similar terms. While the readers are informed that many believed that fire was accidental, Machiavelli provides a detailed account of the motivations for Neri Abati to light the first flames. Furthermore, it was not a desire for peace that ended the simultaneous fighting, but a satiety of evil-doing (Niccolo Machiavelli, The Florentine History Vol. 1 trans. Ninian Hill Thomson (London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1906) 2:3, 21). A disaster still present in the collective memory over two hundred years later through both its physical remains and historical literature, could serve as a powerful literary troupe, particularly for an author, like Boccaccio, concerned with condemning immorality and tyranny in the De Casibus Virorum Illustrium.

The coverage of the fire of 1304 in more current historiography does not reflect its apparent importance for those who wrote its first accounts. For example, Ferdinand Schevill’s once canonical History of Florence : from the founding of the city through the Renaissance provides no mention at all of the events. Both the chronical accounts and the Renaissance histories of the city emphasize how the fire was a direct result of factionalism and violence among the Grandi class. A better understanding of the political and social history of late medieval Florence both informs and is informed by the literature produced within that same society.

(The above is a much abridged version of a paper i submitted for my medieval social history class entitled “The Great Fire of 1304 and Collective Memory in Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium).