But it should not be thought that the Commune arose to champion the rights of man or in the name of national independence. Nothing of the kind. The Empire was still held to be the sole and universal fount of right. Almost to the close of the fifteenth century, in fact, all cities, whether Guelph or Ghibelline, foes or friends of the Empire, continued to indite their State papers in its name.[12] The revived republics always acknowledged its supremacy, and their own dependence, almost, one might say, as though in claiming a new and more general exemption, they only sought to be, as it were, their own dukes or counts. They combated the nobles and combated the Empire; but victory once assured, they recognised the authority of the emperor, and prayed him to sanction the privileges they had won. Nor was the destruction of the Empire at any time desired by the Popes; its protection was often indispensable to them, and they too recognised it as the legitimate heir of ancient Rome, and consequently as the only source of political and civil rights. Their purpose was to subject the temporal to the spiritual power. Therefore, during the rise of the Commune, theocracy and feudalism, Papacy and Empire, still subsisted together and always in conflict. The Commune had to struggle long against obstacles of all kinds; but it was destined to triumph, and to create the third estate and people by whom alone modern society could be evolved from the chaos of the Middle Ages. This constitutes the chief historical importance of the Italian Commune. [Illustration] CHAPTER I. _THE ORIGIN OF FLORENCE._ I. The origin of Florence is wrapped in great obscurity, and little light is to be derived from chroniclers, who either avoided the subject altogether or clouded it over with legends. Much has been written of late touching these chroniclers and on the value and varying credibility of their accounts. But in endeavouring to ascertain everything, and push research too subtly, long and learned disputes have sometimes arisen on particulars which can never, perhaps, be verified and are scarcely worth knowing, while more significant and easily investigated points have been left untouched. By this method some risk is incurred of building up from those writers a species of occult science for the sole benefit of the initiated, whereas all that is absolutely known of the origin of Florence may be expressed in a few words.