54 Ch. 2 • The Renaissance
A Florentine council in session.
Seville, but not Venice and Naples, each of which then had at least
100,000 inhabitants.
Wealthy merchants, the grandiy governed Florence with the support of
merchants, lawyers, and craftsmen of more modest means. Organized into
seven major guilds, the merchants and manufacturers, particularly the
cloth merchants, kept the fourteen lesser guilds (whose members included
artisans and shopkeepers) in a subordinate position. The guilds elected the
nine members of government, the Signoriay which administered the city.
The Signoria proposed laws and conducted foreign affairs. Its members led
the processions through the narrow streets during the various religious
holidays. Two assemblies, the Council of the People and the Council of the
Commune, served as a legislature. Citizens wealthy enough to pay taxes
elected the 600 to 700 members of these councils, which met as needed to
approve the decisions of the Signoria.
During the fifteenth century, the business of government went on in the
palaces of the wealthiest citizens of Florence. The elite feared that the poor
would revolt as they had in 1378 in the uprising known as the Ciompi, or
“the wooden shoes,” so named because many of the laborers could only
afford such footwear. Suffering from economic hardship and aided by dis
gruntled members of the lower guilds, the cloth workers had risen up in a