354 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE courts, were erected in many Lombard cities, and some of them may still be seen to-day. At Padua, for example, the Palazzo delta Ragione, begun in n 72 and completed in 12 19, contains "the largest vaulted hall unsupported by pillars in the world." It is two hundred and seventy feet long, ninety feet in breadth, and seventy-eight feet high. Meanwhile the towns of Tuscany south of the Apennines had been pursuing a similar development. When Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, died in 11 15, she bequeathed her es- Rise of tates to the Church, but the emperor claimed towns in them as fiefs which should escheat to the Em- pire. The outcome was that neither pope nor emperor secured the cities, which set up communes with consuls similar to those of the Lombard towns. Within the towns, too, were much the same social classes and political parties, the nobles of the towers and the men of the gilds. But the Tuscan communes developed a little later than the Lombard ones. Chief among the medieval towns of Tuscany were Florence and its rivals, Pisa, Siena, and Lucca. About the year 1200 almost every commune in Lombardy or Tuscany made a remarkable change in its government. The podesta ^ e board of consuls which had hitherto directed the municipal affairs was now supplanted by a single official with supreme executive power who was an- nually elected, not from the citizens, but from some for- eign city. Indeed, he must neither bring his relations into the city nor acquire property there. The aim was to secure a trained soldier, impartial judge, and able leader who would have no personal interest in the rival political parties of the town and who would keep the peace between them. Like the governors appointed by Barbarossa after the Diet of Roncaglia this new official was given the name podesta. But he was now chosen by the town itself, and for but a year at a time, and was paid a salary varying in amount according to the satisfaction that he gave. A man who showed him- self a capable executive need never want for employment as a podesta by some one of the many cities. But this new office was a dangerous step in the direction of one-man rule.
