The Rule of the Nine in Siena
Between 1285 and 1355, writes Judith Hook, the turbulent Sienese enjoyed a period of unaccustomed peace.
Even by the standards of communal Italy, the medieval city-state of Siena enjoyed an unenviable reputation for the instability of its government. Proverbially seen as ungovernable, Siena was a faction-ridden city, whose ruling regimes rose and fell at increasingly frequent intervals. To this general picture of instability, however, one exception has always been recognized.
This was the regime of the ‘Nine Governors and Defenders of the Commune and People of Siena’ who ruled from 1285, when they first seized power, until the descent of the Emperor-Elect, Charles IV, of Luxemburg into Italy in 1355. Almost three generations of Sienese citizens, therefore, enjoyed the benefits of the stable, prosperous and peaceful rule brought to their city by the Nine. To create such a sixty-year period of stable rule was, within the context of Sienese politics, a remarkable achievement.
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