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Economics and politics are two sides of the same coin. This was particularly the case in the Renaissance, when the coin was a florin. Economic trends and conditions in Florence determined its political structure, which in turn affected the economy. In this way, fiscal crisis slowly worked its way throughout the body of the Florentine state until it became the central organ of the city's life. This relationship will dominate the rest of the discussion of structural change and fiscal crisis in Florence. The financial innovations that contributed so much to the growth of Florence and the wealth of the Florentines evolved into a set of institutions that removed the incentives that had led to economic growth. Dry, paper finance had replaced the real productive investment, and the forces of the catasto and the Monte etched a conservative pattern on the economic life of Florence.

Francesco Guicciardini considered the regime of 1393–1434 the most stable and successful of Florence’s governments, chiefly because well-born men were in charge. Machiavelli disagreed, pointing to several defects, including the excessive influence of private citizens, the exclusion of the people, and rivalries within the ruling elite that sent many citizens into exile, especially the Alberti. Guicciardini regarded the balìa of 1393, controlled by Maso degli Albizzi, as the foundation of the regime’s stability, whereas Machiavelli underscores how, with the witting or unwitting connivance of Vieri de’ Medici, the balìa betrayed the guildsmen who appealed to Vieri to protect them from “destroyers of the common good.” By 1400, Machiavelli says, Florence was incapable of liberty, its alternatives reduced to “servitú” under the elite or “licenzia” under the popolo. Discussing the controversies over the Catasto in the 1420s, Machiavelli highlights Rinaldo degli Albizzi’s extreme plan to crush the popolo, which wanted higher taxes on the wealthy. He portrays Rinaldo as the epitome of the elite’s recklessness in fomenting war against Lucca. The Medici’s strategy of slandering their opponents exacerbated the hostility between the factions; although Rinaldo wanted Cosimo eliminated, he was instead banished (1433). Machiavelli devotes a crucial chapter (4.27) to the speech by Niccolò da Uzzano that explains how Cosimo’s “liberality” propelled men “flying to the principate” (“to tyranny” in the draft). Machiavelli shows Rinaldo willing to use force to expel the Signoria that repatriated Cosimo (1434), and, in exile, urging the duke of Milan to launch a war against Florence.

The chapter contains an analysis of the speech of Rinaldo degli Albizzi at an oligarchic rally at the church of Santo Stefano in 1426 and discusses the debates over a new tax, the catasto, in 1422–7, Florence’s unsuccessful war to subject Lucca, from 1429 on, the oligarchic coup of 1433, and the Medici coup of 1434. It argues that the catasto, a capital tax, was an antipopular oligarchic initiative, an attempt to force the more economically thriving to contribute more toward financing Florentine wars. The chapter includes an overview of Florentine debates over who should be eligible for government office. It describes the oligarchic coup (the parlamento of 1433) and arrest and exile of Cosimo de’ Medici, then the triumphant return of the Medici (the parlamento of 1434) and the establishment of the Medici regime.