In the twentieth chapter of The Prince, Machiavelli famously observed: ‘Our ancestors and those who were considered wise used to claim that it was necessary to hold Pistoia with factions and Pisa with fortresses, and consequently nurtured differences in several subject cities in order to keep hold of them more securely.’ What this assertion masks is a fundamental difference in the manner by which these so-called parte were managed during the course of the fifteenth century, for almost continuously between 1376 and 1457 Pistoia's offices were equally divided by statute between the societies of San Paolo and San Giovanni. The purpose was to secure civic peace through the equitable distribution of honours as enshrined in legislation. With the establishment of Medicean hegemony in Florence, however, the dissolution of the statutory ‘parte’ in Pistoia meant that communal peace was dependent on the impartiality of the Medici and their agents in their role as patron/arbitrators between competing elements within the Pistoiese elite. An examination of the Pistoiese case sheds interesting light on the changing nature of power brokerage within and between both Pistoiese and Florentine elites during the course of the Quattrocento.

RECONFIGURING THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

In 1376 Florentine ambassadors annulled the Pistoiese's own civic reforms in an attempt to pacify the city, and mandated four commissioners to carry out a new reform to last six years, doubling the number of bags for the major civic offices from four bags per office, one per quarter, to eight.