Florence

Who holds it

Name

Consuls of 1199 or the podestà Paganello da Porcari (not pinned)

Title

The commune

Confidence

low

Lord in 1200

The commune of Florence: its consuls, or the foreign podestà Paganello da Porcari attested for 1200 (which held office at first light is not pinned). Bishop Pietro (1190-1205) holds the cathedral and the bishop's palace.

How things stand that morning

Governed by its commune; at war with Semifonte; in the Tuscan League.

Charter

No imperial charter of liberties; the consuls governed in practice from the 1130s. Tuscany lay outside the Peace of Constance (1183), which settled the Lombard cities. Frederick I removed the Guidi county from Florence's jurisdiction in 1185; since Henry VI's death the city answers to no imperial officer. The Tuscan League pacts of 11 November 1197 were sworn by 135 councillors and the citizens sixth by sixth.

Council

Consuls (a large college), councillors, and the assembly of citizens; consuls of the merchants (from the 1180s); a consul of the knights first named in 1201. No communal palace yet: the consuls meet in churches and in private houses.

Communities

The cathedral clergy of Santa Reparata and the Baptistery of San Giovanni; the Vallombrosan and Benedictine houses (San Miniato, the Badia); a Jewish community is not attested this early (not pinned).

Fairs and markets

Weekly markets in the Old Market (Mercato Vecchio) at the old Roman centre; the city's great feast is St John the Baptist's (24 June).

Militia

The host of knights and foot raised by the six sixths (sesti) of the city; a carroccio is attested only later.

Walls and castle

The second circle of walls, built in the 1170s, enclosing the old city and the Oltrarno with its suburbs; the Ponte Vecchio is the only bridge over the Arno (the Ponte alla Carraia is begun only in 1218); dozens of family towers; the bishop's palace by the Baptistery.

Trade and crafts

Finishing and dyeing of imported cloth and trade in it by the merchants' guild (the later Calimala), money-changing and lending, wool working, the Arno river trade toward Pisa, and the roads to Bologna, Rome and Pisa.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Institutions from Faini; the officers that morning not pinned.

Primary sources for Florence

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Pisa, by Bernardo Maragone, with continuation, Bernardo Maragone (1160s to 1175, continued to 1192). Pisa's official annals stop in 1175 and their continuation in 1192, so there is no Pisan narrative for 1200 itself. Read online