Meanwhile political reforms were uninterruptedly carried on, and among them the notable measure passed in 1289, reducing the Podestà's term of office from twelve to six months.[331] The post was then conferred on Rosso Gabrielli of Gubbio, a city supplying many Podestàs and Captains of the people not only to Florence, but to all parts of Italy. At that period Romagna, Umbria, and the Marches seemed to be a nursery of these dignitaries, the inhabitants of those provinces being not only well trained to arms, as is proved by the horde of captains and soldiers of adventure they sent forth, but also well versed in the legal lore of the neighbouring university of Bologna. This reduction to six months of the Podestà's tenure of office was not long maintained, but had been decreed for the same motives as the change of Signory every two months. The power of a magistrate authorised to administer justice, in command of the army and invariably escorted by a body of armed followers in his private pay, might be easily transformed into a formidable despotism, as several Italian republics had already found to their cost. Hence it was endeavoured to avert this danger from Florence by changing the magistrates so frequently as to allow no time for hatching plots against the Commonwealth, or forming a party whose adherence could be counted on for any length of time. But political and social changes of a very different and far graver kind were now brewing among the citizens of Florence. Signs of a new and radical transformation were becoming daily more pronounced; hence the greater need of assuring peace in order to withstand the inevitable and imminent shock of coming revolutions. The presence of the Angevins in Florence, the example set by their nobles, and their continual creation of new knights, had swelled the arrogance of the leading Guelphs to a boundless extent. These patricians were now known by the name of _grandi_, and in imitation of the French nobility assumed manners ill-suited to a republican state, trying to rule everything and all men according to their will. A serious riot took place in 1287, because one of these chieftains, named Totto Mazzinghi, being condemned to death by the Podestà for murder and other crimes, Messer Corco Donati, one of the leading nobles of Florence, attempted to rescue him by force on the way to the scaffold. Thereupon the Podestà, resenting such open violation of the law, caused the alarm bell to be rung. The people flocked to the place of execution sword in hand, some mounted, some on foot, to the cry of "_Giustizia, Giustizia!_" and the sentence was then carried out with the uttermost rigour of the law. The condemned Mazzinghi was dragged through the streets before being hung; the promoters of the revolt against the magistrates were heavily fined, and order was re-established in the city. But these disturbances were indicative of deeper evils to come, and Florentine statesmen were full of anxiety.