TANCRED OF HAUTEVILLE | +-------------------+ | | Robert Guiscard Roger I. Count of Apulia Count of Sicily | | Roger Roger II. | King of Sicily William | +-----------------+ | | William Constance = Henry VI. the Bad | William the Good Let the reader construct the family tree from the data in Villani, and compare it with the one given above. He will find that Villani, to begin with, makes Robert Guiscard a younger son of the Duke of Normandy, then makes his younger brother, Roger I., into his son (occasionally confounding him with Roger II.); and, finally, ignores William the Bad, and makes William the Good the brother of Constance. His details as to the pretender Tancred are equally inaccurate. These must suffice as specimens; but they are specimens not only of a special class of mistake, but of a style of work against which the reader must be constantly on his guard if he intends to make use of any detailed dates or relations, or even if he wishes to make sure that the Pope or other actor named in any connection is really the right one. So, too, even well within historical times, Villani is prone to the epic simplification of events. His account of the negociations of Farinata with Manfred, and of the battle of Montaperti for instance, represents the Florentine legend or tradition rather than the history of the events. These events are conceived with the vividness, simplicity and picturesque preponderance of personality which make them easy to see, but impossible to reconstruct in a rationally convincing form. To enter into further detail under this head would be to transgress the limits we have set ourselves. Sec. 5. _The Rationale of the Revolutions of Florence._[2] [Footnote 2: The substance of this Sec. is entirely drawn from Prof. Villari's recent work on Early Florentine History. "I Primi due Secoli della Storia di Firenze, Ricerche di Pasquale Villari." 2 vols., Florence, 1893, 1894. Price 8 fr. English translation by Madame Villari. "The Two First Centuries of Florentine History." Fisher Unwin. Price 2_s._ 6_d._ This work should be carefully studied in its entirety by all who desire to understand the constitutional history of Florence. N.B.--Some of our readers may be glad of the information that the modern scholar is Pasquale Vill[)a]ri (with short [)a]), and the mediaeval chronicler Giovanni Vill[=a]ni (with a long [=a]).] The settled conviction of both Villani and Dante that a difference of race underlay the civil wars of Florence, rests upon a truth obscurely though powerfully felt by them.