While the Pisans became habituated to trusting the government to a single person, the Florentines became still more attached to the most democratic forms of liberty. In 1282 they removed the _anziani_, whom they had at first set at the head of their government, to make room for the _priori delle arti_, whose name and office were preserved not only to the end of the republic, but even to our day. The corporation of trades, which they called the _arti_, were distinguished by the titles of major and minor. At first only three, afterwards six, major _arti_ were admitted into the government. The college, consisting of six _priori delle arti_, always assembled, and living together, during two months, in the public palace, formed the signoria, which represented the republic. Ten years later, the Florentines completed this signoria, by placing at its head the gonfalonier of justice, elected also for two months, from among the representatives of the arts, manufactures, and commerce. When he displayed the gonfalon, or standard of the state, the citizens were obliged to rise and assist in the execution of the law. The arrogance of the nobles, their quarrels, and the disturbance of the public peace by their frequent battles in the streets, had, in 1292, irritated the whole population against them. Giano della Bella, himself a noble, but sympathising in the passions and resentment of the people, proposed to bring them to order by summary justice, and to confide the execution of it to the gonfalonier whom he caused to be elected. The Guelfs had been so long at the head of the republic, that their noble families, whose wealth had immensely increased, placed themselves above all law. Giano determined that their nobility itself should be a title of exclusion, and a commencement of punishment; a rigorous edict, bearing the title of “ordinance of justice,” first designated thirty-seven Guelf families of Florence, whom it declared noble and great, and on this account excluded forever from the signoria; refusing them at the same time the privilege of renouncing their nobility, in order to place themselves on a footing with the other citizens. When these families troubled the public peace by battle or assassination, a summary information, or even common report, was sufficient to induce the gonfalonier to attack them at the head of the militia, raze their houses to the ground, and deliver their persons to the podesta, to be punished according to their crimes. If other families committed the same disorders, if they troubled the state by their private feuds and outrages, the signoria was authorised to ennoble them, as a punishment of their crimes, in order to subject them to the same summary justice. A similar organisation, under different names, was made at Siena, Pistoia, and Lucca. In all the republics of Tuscany, and in the greater number of those of Lombardy, the nobility by its turbulence was excluded from all the magistracies; and in more than one,