One of the most striking features of this warfare was that it came to nothing. So many rival interests were involved, so kaleidoscopic were the shiftings of the various leaders, so utterly lacking is any great central cause of contention, that it is sometimes almost impossible to say where one war ends and another begins. Each petty state is thinking of its own interests. And the only thing approaching a general principle of action is the fear on the part of each state that any other single state might gain too much influence over Italy as a whole. In other words the thought of maintaining a balance of power is in the mind of all such leaders as have no hope of making themselves supreme. As Florence at no time has a hope of becoming politically dominant, her efforts are always directed towards maintaining a balance of power, and where personalities do not enter into the matter, she tends in the main to champion the cause of the weaker party. But despite the interest which necessarily attaches to all these political jarrings, the really world-historical importance of Florentine history during this period has to do not with wars, but with the marvellous internal culture development. Already in the van of the Renaissance movement Florence holds her proud position securely throughout the fifteenth century, and is incontestably the culture centre of the world. This was the age of the Medici. It was then that Cosmo the Great and Lorenzo the Magnificent made their influence felt, and enjoyed practical dictatorship, though the form of government continued a democracy. The real source of Florentine influence was founded on the old familiar basis of commercial prosperity. We have seen how Florence in the previous century produced such men as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Giotto. The intellectual supremacy thus evidenced was maintained in the ensuing century, but the early part of that century has no names to show that are comparable to these in artistic greatness. The stamp of the times, at least of the first half of the fifteenth century, is industrial rather than artistic. This is the time when the gradually increasing commercial and industrial importance of Italy has culminated in unequivocal world supremacy. Venice and Florence are now the commercial centres of the world. In Florence various forms of craftsmanship have attained a degree of importance which will make them famous for all time. The guilds of woollen weavers, of cloth merchants, of silk weavers, and of money-changers have become institutions of world-wide influence. The money lenders of Florence are found plying their trade in every capital of Europe. Despite their extortions they are regarded everywhere as a necessary evil; and Florentine gold in this century exercises an influence almost as wide as the quondam influence of Roman arms. The Florentine money-changer holds almost unchallenged the position that the Jew occupied at a later day. Oddly enough, it may be noted that the