Page 116 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

116 from Italy to the Canary Islands

These conflicts between the people and the magnates were of some im-
portance in the wider picture of the Guelph and Ghibelline factions. But
rather than support an ideal, in favour therefore of the papacy or the em-
pire, the only objective of the people was to take the power which would
be prohibited precisely by the magnates with all their might.
The upper middle classes, i.e. the merchants, were the protagonists of
this struggle against the great landowners, against the great aristocratic
mercantile families. People’s associations were therefore formed, which
obtained acknowledgement of certain organisational and control functions
with regard to the mercantile and artisan classes. These controls were car-
ried out on production, on prices, salaries and apprenticeships; moreover,
these “control bodies” stepped in with the right to resolve disputes among
members of the corporations through arbitration.
The magnates continued to dominate the governing bodies, on the other
hand, thus guiding the political and administrative life of the Commune.
The people would subsequently be organised from a military point of
view, too, and would elect Captains of the People as representatives, a
figure which we have already been able to see in action with Boccanegra
in Genoa.
Two political organisations would therefore be formed, the Comune
maggiore and the Comune minore. The former would equate to the gov-
ernment of the podestà, whereas the latter would organise the people of the
Arts. However, it would be the People’s Council in which the representa-
tives of the Arts would be assembled, which would become the supreme
representative body for the Commune. In this way all the powers would be
transferred from the podestà to the Captain of the People.
This request for power did not concern one city more than others but
th
was characteristic of all the Communes in Italy in the 13 century. This
rising of the people – even if it concerned the rich population – resulted in
a loss of privileges of aristocracy and the clergy, and therefore a continu-
ous struggle by these classes to hinder this change they called “fatti nuovi”
(“the new facts”).
The democratization of the Commune gave the upper middle class the
chance to steer city politics according to its interests and therefore to ena-
ble riches to be concentrated and to support a growth policy.
That brings us to the Signoria – for Genoa we had spoken about the
magistrature of the Captain of the People as a yet imperfect Signoria –
which would in fact limit all those conquests of the artisans and the small