Others, styled Frateschi or Piagnoni, clung to the ideas of liberty which were associated with the high morality and impassioned creed of Savonarola.
These were really the backbone of the nation, the class which might have saved the state if salvation had been possible.

Another section, steeped in the study of ancient authors and imbued with memories of Roman patriotism, thought it still possible to secure the freedom of the state by liberal institutions.

These men we may call the Doctrinaires.

Their panacea was the establishment of a mixed form of government, such as that which Giannotti so learnedly illustrated.

To these parties must be added the red republicans, or Arrabbiati--a name originally reserved for the worst adherents of the Medici, but now applied to fanatics of Jacobin complexion--and the Libertines, who only cared for such a form of government as should permit them to indulge their passions.
Amid this medley of interests there resulted, as a matter of fact, two policies at the moment when the affairs of Florence, threatened by Pope and Emperor in combination, and deserted by France and the rest of Italy, grew desperate.