The Ordinances of Justice

The Ordinances of Justice were passed on 15 January 1293 by Giano della Bella, maintaining the anti-magnate policy which in Florence, in 1282, had led to the creation of the Priorate of the Guilds. Reiterating the exclusion of nobles from public office, the Ordinances consisted of a series of provisions aiming at reorganizing the system of popular government. Upheld by the Gonfaloniere, the Standardbearer of justice, the Ordinances increased the number of Guilds from 15 to 21, distinguishing between the major and lesser Guilds. Only the major guilds participated in the election of the Priors and of the Gonfaloniere himself. When Giano della Bella was expelled from Florence in 1295 following the conflicts between the popolo grasso (literally, the “fat people”) and the popolo minuto (the “little people”), pressure from the Grandi was enough to induce the Commune to pass another law, the so-called Temperamenti. This new law attenuated somewhat the Ordinances of Justice, enabling non-Magnate nobles to hold public office once more, provided they had not been knights and had not had more than two knights in the family within the previous twenty years, and provided they were enrolled in one of the Guilds. Membership, however, did not necessarily imply practising the profession in an ongoing manner (continue artem non exercentes). This provision enabled Dante, who by 1295 was probably already enrolled in the Guild of Doctors and Apothecaries, to hold public office in Florence, marking the start of his political career.