Signoria of Florence

The Signoria of Florence is presented as a civic authority to which serious accusations and questions of responsibility may be brought. The episodes associated with it do not describe its formal structure; instead, they show its reach through specific cases, and reveal how the outcome depends on the evidence officials pursue and the conduct of the magistrates who act in its name.

Civic Authority and the Search for Truth

In the case of Aldobrandino Palermini, Tedaldo Elisei returns to Florence disguised as a pilgrim and approaches a gentleman sitting with the Signoria. He argues that officials should uncover the truth so that the innocent are not punished and the guilty do not escape. He then offers to identify the actual killers before midnight, directly challenging the assumption that Aldobrandino murdered Tedaldo.

Aldobrandino’s Release

The gentleman gives Tedaldo a hearing and, acting on his information, has two innkeeper brothers and their servant arrested. They confess to killing Tedaldo, explaining that they had mistaken him for a man who had attempted to force one brother’s wife. Once the case is clarified, the Signoria judges that it has sufficient information and discharges Aldobrandino. A few days later, the murderers are beheaded at the place of the crime. The episode presents civic justice as a process that can correct a grave error when new testimony redirects the investigation.

Andrevuola Before the Authorities

A different case brings Andrevuola before the Signoria with the dead body of her secret husband, Gabriotto. Officers discover her and her maid carrying him toward his home; Andrevuola does not flee, but agrees to explain what happened and insists that no one touch her or remove anything from the body. The Provost, rather than the Signoria as a collective body, conducts the inquiry. Physicians find that Gabriotto died when an imposthume near his heart burst, not through poisoning or violence. The distinction matters: the civic authority frames the setting of the proceeding, while the account assigns the investigation and Andrevuola’s subsequent confrontation with attempted abuse to the Provost.

Narrative Significance and Limits

These episodes give the Signoria a consequential but selectively drawn role. In Aldobrandino’s case, its proceedings reverse a wrongful accusation and lead to the punishment of the confessed killers; in Andrevuola’s, her appearance before it establishes the public setting for an inquiry that exposes the Provost’s personal misconduct. The stories therefore distinguish the authority of the civic institution from the conduct of particular officeholders, and show how access to justice depends on truthful investigation as well as on the decisions made by those empowered to act.