Just as the great burghs of Lombardy attained municipal independence somewhat earlier than those of Tuscany, so the historic sense developed itself in the valley of the Po at a period when the valley of the Arno had no chronicler.

Sire Raul and Ottone Morena, the annalists of Milan, Fra Salimbene, the sagacious and comprehensive historian of Parma, Rolandino, to whom we owe the chronicle of Ezzelino and the tragedy of the Trevisan Marches, have no rivals south of the Apennines in the thirteenth century.

Even the Chronicle of the Malespini family, written in the vulgar tongue from the beginning of the world to the year 1281, which occupies 146 volumes of Muratori's Collection, and which used to be the pride of Tuscan antiquarians, has recently been shown to be in all probability a compilation based upon the Annals of Villani.[1] This makes the clear emergence of a scientific sense for history in the year 1300 at Florence all the more remarkable.

In order to estimate the high quality of the work achieved by the Villani it is only necessary to turn the pages of some early chronicles of sister cities which still breathe the spirit of unintelligent mediaeval industry, before the method of history had been critically apprehended.

The naivete of these records may be appreciated by the following extracts.