Page "Giovanni Villani" Paragraph 13

However, the legal case against the company was reopened and resumed in October 1343, after the violent overthrow of Walter VI.

It is unclear how long Villani served his prison sentence for alleged misconduct during the economic disaster of 1346.

It is known that he was imprisoned in the Carceri delle Stinche.

After the overthrow of the Brienne regime and a subsequent but short-lived aristocratic signoria, the novi cives or new families — some even from the lesser guilds — rose up in late September 1343 and established a government that provided them with much greater representation in officialdom.

Villani and other chroniclers disdained these rustic non-aristocrats who suddenly rose to power, considering them brazen upstarts incapable of governance.

Villani's class was at a constitutional disadvantage, as twenty-one guilds representing twenty-one equal voices in government meant that the oligarchy of higher guildsmen was " helplessly outnumbered " as historian John M. Najemy states.

Yet by the 1350s the general attitude towards the novi cives had changed much, as even Villani's brother Matteo depicted them in a heroic light for being united in a coalition with the merchants and artisans to curb oligarchic power.

Villani was also a staunch supporter of what he deemed the liberties of the Church, while criticizing the new popular government of the novi cives since they protested against the many legal exemptions the Church enjoyed.

However, he did find civic pride in that the whole city — including the novi cives — had joined together in an uprising against Walter VI, whose sins of imposing tyranny were, to Villani, sufficient justification for the violence needed to overthrow him.