Of course there were manifold murmurs at these extraordinary proceedings. The real evil, however, and cause of discontent was not only the high rate of taxation, but its arbitrary and partial distribution. When the partition of the burdens was made an arm of offence against which the citizens rose to defend themselves by violence it was necessary to find some other basis, if the State economy were to be preserved from ruin. The regulation of the _cadastre_ in 1427 had a twofold object in view, namely, first to raise the public income by putting together the property tax, the income tax, and the interest on the national debt (_paghe_ or _luoghi di monte_); secondly, to make the distribution of the imposts independent of personal and political opinions. This financial reform, which changed nothing in the nature of the tax, but only established a better partition of it, was not a new thing. At bottom it was but a complement of the _estimo_, and the expression _catasto_ for census, from _accatastare_, to pile together, was used in Florence a century earlier. That it was brought forward with a view to adjust more equally the incidence of taxation may be gathered from the preamble of the ordinance of May 22, 1427: ‘It is hard to express in speech or writing how much the citizens have suffered in their goods and their liberty by the inequality of the public burdens. They have been robbed and driven to desperation. How many, who would gladly have returned to their homes, have been kept back in doubt and uncertainty, exposed to all the ills that flow therefrom.’