As Gonfaloniere di Giustizia he was the temporary standard-bearer of the Republic of Florence and custodian of the city's banner, which was displayed from the yardarm of a portable cross.

The most obvious signs of this prosperity and economic power were its striking of 3.5 gram gold florins and the presence of the city's large mercantile and financier companies right across Europe and Africa.

These companies' leaders demanded increasing involvement in the city's political life, claiming equal or greater dignity than the old noble families who held now unproductive rural land outside the town.

This state of affairs would last until at least 1347, when the English monarchy's bankruptcy due to its high military expenditure in the Hundred Years' War dragged even the Bardi and Peruzzi businesses (the latter alone owed around 600,000 guilders) into ruin.

[4] After the expulsion of Piero the Unfortunate in 1494 and during the brief rule of Girolamo Savonarola (executed in 1498), the Florentine families tried to reorganise the city government on the model of the old communal magistracies.