of internal factions and dissensions, the city increased in wealth and prosperity; its commerce was largely extended; fugitives from Milan, flying from the Teutonic arms of Frederick Barbarossa, introduced the Art of Wool; Sienese gentlemen, led by Filippo Malavolti—a noble whom we dimly discern as a great figure in those far-off republican days—sailed to Syria in Pisan galleys and shared in the capture of Acre. Notwithstanding its traditional support of the imperial cause, it was in this century that Siena gave to the Church the “great Pope of the Lombard League”—Orlando Bandinelli, who during his long pontificate as Alexander III. (from 1159 to 1181) knew how to uphold the rights of Italy no less than the claims of the Papacy against the mightiest of the Kaisers. And, indeed, the Ghibellinism of the Sienese was always of a patriotic Italian type. In 1186 they closed their gates in the face of Barbarossa, believing that he meant to deprive them of their contado, and hurled back his son Henry discomfited from the Porta Camollia. At the close of the century, Siena began to have a Podestà as chief magistrate, like the other cities of Tuscany, who was probably at the outset an imperial nominee, and the consular government appears to have ceased by about 1212; while the people became associated into Arts or Guilds, somewhat resembling the more famous Florentine associations, whose representatives sat in the councils of the Republic and had their voice in the affairs of State.[1] Already the glorious Duomo, though needless to say not in its present form, had been consecrated by Pope Alexander, and the Dogana stood on the site of the present Palazzo Comunale, a sign of increasing commercial prosperity. A great part of the public authority was now in the hands of the Camarlingo and the four Provveditori di Biccherna, the officials who presided over the finances of the Republic. Though for a few years we still find the names of consuls, the Podestà was from 1199 onwards the chief officer of the State; we find in 1200 and in 1201 that Filippo Malavolti held this office, but after 1211 it was invariably assigned to a foreigner. In 1208 the oldest of the Sienese palaces, the Palazzo Tolomei, was built; although burned by the people on at least two occasions, it still retains not a little of its early mediaeval aspect.

Throughout the greater part of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Siena—usually more or less allied with Pisa, Pistoia and the Conti Guidi—was engaged in a series of wars with Florence, an intermittent struggle alternating with hollow, insincere treaties of peace. This was due to the antagonistic ideals of Guelf and Ghibelline, to the growing commercial rivalry between the two republics, each especially striving to get into the hands of its own merchants and noble bankers all the increasingly lucrative affairs of the Roman Curia, and, perhaps, more immediately to the fact that each was striving to extend its contado at the expense of the other. Poggibonsi, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Montalcino and Montepulciano—in which right was probably with Siena and might with Florence—were perpetual sources of contention, and the Sienese suffered severe defeats time after time. “Do not forget through eternity those that deny thee, that withdraw themselves from the homage they owe thee, that plot against thee and that bring shame to thee.” So runs the black book of the Commune, the Memoriale delle Offese, in which these things were recorded. “Be mindful of Montepulciano, that, though it be of thy contado, most proudly endeavours to withdraw itself therefrom.”[2] Grosseto was the first place of importance that, in 1224, fell permanently into the hands of the Sienese, a town previously swayed by the Counts Aldobrandeschi of Santa Fiora, those most potent nobles of the Sienese contado whose pride and whose imperialistic tendencies are recorded by Dante.

Within the city the factions raged furiously. The power of the nobles or gentiluomini was waning, even in Ghibelline Siena. It was laid to their charge that the wars with Florence had taken so unfavourable a turn, that the Florentines were ravaging the contado, had hurled donkeys into Siena with their catapults, and on one occasion had even penetrated into the city itself. By what appears to have been a comparatively peaceful revolution in 1233, the people obtained an increased share in the government; a supreme magistracy of Twenty-four was created, elected annually by the General

In Castel Vecchio,
the oldest part of Siena

Council, eight from each terzo of the city, half from each order.[3] But their rule became irksome to the more conservative section of the nobles, who formed a rival party and strove to oust the popolani from power. In 1240 it came to blood, to adopt the Dantesque phrase. The opponents of the new regime, headed by the Podestà, Manfredi da Sassuolo, rose in arms; the people, led by a certain Aldobrandino di Guido Cacciaconti, who is described as one of the “grandi del popolo di Siena,” and who was of an old feudal family, rallied round the Twenty-four. The battle began in three places in the city. There was fighting up and down the narrow streets; there was flaming of torches and clashing of weapons round the palaces and towers. The Palazzo Tolomei and the Palazzo Malavolti were burned, and after much devastation and bloodshed, when many had fallen on either side, the Twenty-four got the upper-hand, drove out a certain number of the nobles, and appointed Aldobrandino Podestà. He was a strong and prudent man, who put down disorder with a firm hand, and reconciled many of the leaders of either party. In the comparative tranquillity that followed, the streets and squares of Siena were paved for the first time. But the struggle with Florence proved disastrous. The Sienese were forced to make a disadvantageous peace, and, in 1255, there was an alliance concluded between the rival republics, in the epoch of Guelf predominance that followed the deaths of Frederick II. and King Conrad.

It was in this brief breathing space, of external peace and internal tranquillity, that a knight of Siena, Messer Folcacchiero de’ Folcacchieri, wrote what was once thought to be the earliest extant example of a regular canzone, describing his own hapless plight through love: Tutto lo mondo vive senza guerra: “All the world is living without war, yet I can find no peace.” The constitution at this time shows the usual bewildering number of separate councils that we find in mediaeval Italian republics. The four Provveditori di Biccherna with their Camarlingo still administered the revenues of the State, the executive was in the hands of the Podestà and Captain. Laws were discussed and approved in the General Council of the Campana, composed of “three hundred good Catholics, not