Walter accepted the offer without hesitation. He embarked for Naples,
in the spring of 1342, to put an army together.^129 By May, he had arrived
outside Lucca. Although he was unable to force the Pisans and their allies
to lift the siege, public outrage in Florence was directed not against him
but against those who had mismanaged the city’s affairs for so long. As a
result, by the end of the month Walter had been named as captain and
‘conservator’of the commune, to hold these powers for a year. Walter
quickly cemented his position by moving against several of the richest
and most powerful members of the elite. Giovanni de’Medici and
Guglielmo Altoviti were executed, and others were exiled. Unlike various
later killings, which severely weakened his position, these ones seem to
have been just what was needed, and put Walter in the driving seat. By
the time that a grand assembly took place, in Piazza Santa Croce on
8 September, discussions seem to have been revolving around the time
frame of Walter’s lordship (orsignoria), rather than the simple fact of its
existence. We are told, though, that it was the lower orders in society–
that is, thepopolo–who shouted down any remaining opposition:‘sia la
signoria del duca a vita, sia il duca nostro signore!’The events of the
next few weeks simply completed the‘revolution’that had already been
accomplished.^130
The best one-liner on all this is ascribed to the disillusioned, worldly-
wise king of France, Philip VI:‘le pèlerin est aubergé, mais il a mauvais
ostel’.^131 However, much fuller and sounder advice came from the
real power behind Walter’ssignoria: from Robert the Wise of Naples.
‘Neither wisdom, nor virtue...has made you lord of the Florentines, but
their great discord and the serious state [that they are in], whence you are
held even more dearly, considering the love that they have shown you,
believing themselves to rest in your arms.’The letter goes on to give
some quite precise recommendations. Walter should retain those people
who had previously ruled, and govern according to their counsel. He
should strengthen justice, law and order, and should ensure that all
authority was seen to emanate from the commune at large. Finally,
Walter is urged to restore the seat of government to the palace of the
priors (that is, to the Palazzo Vecchio), whilst he himself should live in
the palace of thepodestà,‘where our son...the duke of Calabria lived,
when he wassigniorin Florence’. Robert’s letter ends on a highly omin-
ous note:‘And if you do not do these things, it would not appear that
your well-being can last for a long time’.^132 The key point, which both
(^129) Various‘tall tales’about this period can be found in de Sassenay,Brienne, 199–200.
(^130) Ibid., 200–11. (^131) Cited inibid., 211.
(^132) Robert’s letter can be found in Villani,Nuova cronica, iii, book 13, ch. 4.
168 Hubris and Nemesis (c. 1311–1356)