Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/345

 F L O R E N C E 333 rovive majolica ware has recently been made by Signor Can- tigalli, whose manufactory is beyond the Porta Romana. Administration. Florence is governed by a prefect or representative of the chief government, who has a force of cirabineers (mounted police) at his disposal, besides guardie di sicurezza, partly paid by the municipality, although there is also a city police. The ancient office of gonfa lonier is replaced by that of syndic, who is president of the junta or municipal council. The city is divided into four electoral districts, and sends four deputies to par liament. Every male inhabitant above twenty-five years of age has the right of suffrage, although twenty-one is the usual age qualifying for official posts in Italy. Population. The population of Florence is very fluctu ating. In 1854 the inhabitants numbered 115,675, but during the short period when it was the capital of the new kingdom there was a large increase of Italians as well as foreigners ; this diminished as rapidly on the transference of the capital to Home. By the census taken December 31, 1871, the total population, foreigners included, amounted to 167,093. On December 23, 1876. the number had risen to 176,121. In 1871 there were 158,704 Italian Roman Catholics, 917 Italian Protestants, 2366 Jews, and 5106 of other sects. The Florentines are gentle and courteous in their manners, though retaining the republican feeling of equa lity, and are well disposed towards all who treat them with kindness and respect. They are justly proud of the traditions of their native city, but are hardly conscious that centuries of misgovernment have left them behind in the race of civilization. Though the advantages of a liberal education are now open to them, and they are remarkably rapid in acquisition, the more important moral training is still wanting, a defect which, with the absence of chiv alrous respect for women, renders men of all classes, as is too much the case also in other parts of Italy, tyrannical to their wives and children, as well as indifferent to the suf ferings of the lower animals, all alike being regarded as pro perty, over which they have an absolute control. From their nervous physical organization the Florentines are defective in manly courage, but peculiarly sensitive to the beautiful in art, and able to reproduce all that is delicate and refined in decoration. As, however, with the decline of the healthy vigour and simple lives of their ancestors they have lost much of their originality, modern sculpture and painting are in general feeble, and wanting in truth of expression and colour. Though indolent and incapable of great exertion, the lower orders are industrious, and though impetuous, they have displayed exemplary patience and moderation in times of adversity. Their greatest misfor tunes are the passion for gambling, with other vices remain ing from a corrupt state of society, and the extremes of superstition and scepticism, which belong to the state of transition, political and religious, of the present era in Italy (1 878). The large middle class, however, besides pro ducing men eminent in literature and science, is rising in social and political importance, and by their intelligence and domestic virtues may well redeem faults in their fellow citizens, which are to be regarded rather as the result of adverse circumstances, than as a constant factor in the character of the Florentine people. History. Florence was originally a small trading village belonging to the Etruscan city of Fiesole, whence mer chandise was sent down the Arno to Pisa, then a seaport. When colonized by the soldiers of Sulla, it gradually attained the dignity of a city, with the rank and privileges of a nmnicipium. The name Florentia may have been derived from Florinus, a Roman general, or from Fluentia, because situated at the confluence of the Arno and Mugnone, or from the profusion of flowers growing in the vicinity. In the reign of Tiberius Otvsnr the Florentines sent an embassy to Rome to deprecate a decree of the Roman senate, by which, in order to check the inundations caused by the number of tributary streams flowing into the Tiber, it had been proposed to turn the Chiano into the Arno. Christi anity was first introduced in 313 A.D., and the most cele brated of early Florentine bishops was Zanobius, who died in 417, and to whom various miracles are ascribed. During his lifetime an invading army of barbarians approached Florence, but were defeated and destroyed in the fastnesses near Fiesole by the Roman general Stilicho. The Floren tines, however, attributed the preservation of their city to the prayers of Zanobius. The victory was won in 405 on the 8th October, a day dedicated to a youthful saint, Repa- rata, who is said to have appeared in the midst of the battle, bearing in her hand a blood-red banner with the device of the white lily, which from that time became the badge of the city, whilst a new cathedral, built on the site of the old church of San Salvador, received her name. Florence had suffered the fate of other Italian cities at the hands of northern invaders, when Charlemagne, on his way to Rome, rebuilt its ualls. Commerce began to flourish in the 10th century, when as yet German nobles or their descendants, who held their castles in fief of the German emperors, dwelt beyond the city. The pope, because an Italian sovereign, was regarded as the representative of national independence, and when Tuscany fell to the inheritance of the Countess Matilda, the Florentines found in her a patriotic champion of their rights, as well as a staunch adherent of the reigning pope, Gregory VII. A second circle of walls was built as a protection against the im perialists, and Matilda obliged some of the powerful nobles in the neighourhood to yield their lands to the canons of Sta Reparata. She died in 1115, leaving a name so beloved by the Florentines that their female children were frequently christened Contessa, or Tessa, in remembrance of their benefactress. As the Florentines conquered and destroyed the castles of the robber chieftains who infested their neighbourhood, they obliged them to reside within their city an impolitic measure, which sowed the seeds of future discord and civic war. The romantic story of the Buondelmonti, whose assassination in 1215, for a breach of promise of marriage, occasioned a fierce outbreak of strife, is an instance of the many feuds that caused bloodshed in Florence during centuries. About 1240 the Paterini, a sect of Reformers, after the manner of the Albigenses in France, had gained consider ably in numbers and influence, especially among the im perialists, who about this time assumed the name of Ghibel- lines. Their adversaries, the Guelphic or papal party, called in Peter Martyr, a Dominican friar of Verona, to rouse the multitude for the destruction of this heresy. Two columns in Florence still mark the Kpots where the Paterini were massacred. A few years later the Guelphic Florentines sustained a severe defeat from Manfred, a natural son of the emperor Frederick II., at Monteaperti near Siena; and the Ghibellines, whom they had banished, re-entered Florence. The Ghibelline conquerors proposed to level the city with the groiind, but were deterred by the bold and determined opposition of one of their own party, Farinata degli Uberti, whose name has been immortalized by Dante. About this time a French pope, Clement IV., invited Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. of France, to take possession of Naples and drive the imperialists from Italy; and after the defeat and death of Manfred at Benevento, Charles complied with the request of the Florentine Guelphs, to assume the lordship of their city. In 12S2, however, the wealthier guilds of Florence established a form of government or signory of their own, consisting of members chosen among themselves with the