Machiavelli’sFlorentine Histories, written in the 1520s. It is typical that
the longest part of this particular section is a speech, put into the mouth
of‘a part of thesignori’, in praise of Florence and its tradition of liberty:
‘You are seeking to enslave a city which has always lived free...have you
considered how important this is in a city like this, and how vigorous is
the name of freedom, which no force can subdue, no time consume, and
no merit counterbalance?’^137 Moreover, Machiavelli makes it clear that
so many of the problems emanated from the simple fact that Walter
himself was a foreigner.‘As the fame of [his] new lordship spread, many
of French blood came to seek him out, and he gave them all positions as
his most trusted men, so that Florence, in a very short time, became
subject not only to the French, but [also] to their customs and their
dress...but, above all else, what displeased was the violence that he and
his men did, without any respect, to women’.^138 Indeed, the chronicler’s
character sketch of Walter presents us with an almost stereotypical tyrant:
[The duke] was avaricious and cruel, difficult in audiences, arrogant in replies;
he wanted the slavery and not the goodwill of men; and, for this, he desired to
be feared rather than loved. Nor was his person less hateful than his habits, for
he was small, dark, and had a long and sparse beard, so that, in every way, he
deserved to be hated...’^139
It is worth emphasizing, though, that there is a hard core of truth behind
the Florentine historiographical tradition. As the honeymoon period
slipped away and Walter became progressively more isolated, it can come
as no surprise that he felt the need to crack down hard on his opponents.
Indeed, by the time of the execution of Bettone Cigni da Campi in June
1343, it was the weakness, rather than the strength, of Walter’s rule that
was really in evidence.^140
What made the difference was not, perhaps, anything that Walter
actually did, but rather the death of King Robert the Wise, on 20 January
- This proved the start of a period of great tension within the
Neapolitan kingdom, which severely compromised its ability to project
its power further afield.^141 With the most important external prop
removed, it was not long before even those whom Walter had favoured
began to turn against him. Perhaps the most important example of this is
(^137) Niccolò Machiavelli,Florentine Histories, tr. L. F. Benfield and H. C. Mansfield
(Princeton, 1988), book 2, ch. 34.
(^138) Mildly adapted fromibid, book 2, ch. 36. By contrast, Villani comments that although
Walter was a Frenchman, he was nourished‘in Greece and Apulia, rather than in
139 France’(Nuovo cronica, iii, book 13, ch. 3).
141 Machiavelli,Florentine Histories, book 2, ch. 37.^140 De Sassenay,Brienne, 220.
For more on this, see below,178-80.
170 Hubris and Nemesis (c. 1311–1356)