Thefirst phase of the Hundred Years’War had significant repercus-
sions, stretching as far afield as Italy. The leading Florentine banking
corporations (that is, the companies of Bardi and Peruzzi) had lent more
than a millionflorins to Edward III in the early years of the conflict.
Whilst it is no longer believed that Edward’s default directly caused the
bankruptcies of these companies, the king of England’s mounting prob-
lems were an important sign that the banking network was seriously
overextended. There were additional issues much closer to home,
though: within Florence itself, where the corporations were effectively
acting as bankers to the city’s government. For its part, the commune
was struggling to recover from an enormously costly war against its rival,
Mastino della Scala, lord of Verona and Lucca. The situation was made
very much worse, not better, when the Florentine government made
peace with Mastino by purchasing Lucca from him for the sum of
250,000florins. Worried about such a significant shift in the local bal-
ance of power, the Pisans promptly besieged Lucca whilst a number of
other cities rallied round, apprehensive about the prospect of a Floren-
tine takeover.^125 By the summer of 1341,‘emergency powers’were, once
again, the rule of the day–and when even they failed, the Florentines
reached out to Walter of Brienne.^126
It is not difficult to comprehend why the commune went for Walter. In
the past, at moments of crisis, there had been a tendency to call upon the
city’s Angevin ally. Despite continuing efforts to interest King Robert
himself, it would seem that Walter was the best‘honorary member’of the
dynasty available.^127 More to the point, as we have seen, Walter had
served as Charles of Calabria’s forerunner in Florence in 1326. Although
Walter had ruled for only a short time, he had left an impressive amount
of goodwill behind him. It is also worth stressing that, despite the failures
of the Greek campaign, Walter was remembered as a great military
leader. Surely, it was intended that his main function would be to break
the encirclement of Lucca and restore the city to Florence. Of course, the
financial aspect remains crucially important. Perhaps John Najemy’s
most intriguing suggestion is that the companies asked Walter to assume
power in order to reassure their most important creditors–located, of
course, in the Angevin kingdom of Naples–that their credits would
receive preferential treatment.^128
(^125) For an admirably succinct summary of a very complex situation, see Louis Green’s
article inThe New Cambridge Medieval History, vi, ed. Michael Jones (Cambridge,
126 2000), 475–7.
127 See Najemy,A History of Florence, 132–5.
128 Green,‘Florence and the Republican Tradition’, 477.
Najemy,A History of Florence, 142.
A Florentine Tragedy 167